Is the high sparrow a villain? (GOT)

[Colibri]

@Snarky_Kong

I don’t think you just get to declare this. It’s the most common religion, but it’s not a state religion. Two of the seven kingdoms don’t follow the Seven at all. There’s no indication that booze or prostitution are illegal and many indications that they aren’t. Prostitution in particular is taxed indicating it’s within the legal framework of the seven kingdoms.

For all intents and purposes the Faith of the Seven is an established religion in King’s Landing, which is where the Sparrows’ activities mostly take place, even if other religions aren’t persecuted. Important civil events (like Ned’s execution and royal weddings and funerals) take place at the Sept of Baelor, and previous kings are buried there. Most noble houses in the south have septas as part of the household. The Faith of the Seven is established as much as the Church of England was in the UK or Catholocism was in many European countries in medieval times.

But even if it was the rule, it’s still evil for bands of thugs to enforce it themselves by smashing people with clubs.

I’m not denying that that’s evil, nor that the High Sparrow is a villain to some degree. What I’m discussing is how evil they are compared to the status quo.

The Sparrows smash people with clubs who violate their moral laws. The nobility employ thugs (uniformed as soldiers) to arbitrarily murder completely innocent people who inconvenience or offend them.

The Sparrows torture people to extract confessions or as punishment for crimes. The nobility torture people to extract information, but they also torture, flay or burn alive, throw to the dogs, mutilate, or rape people just for their personal amusement.

The Sparrows help and feed the poor. The nobility mostly care nothing for the poor, but in fact tax them into poverty to support their extravagant lifestyle, including feasts, tournaments, and weddings.

The Sparrows treat everyone as equals. The nobility, at least many of them, treat commoners as hunks of meat to be exploited until they are no longer useful. They have virtually complete impunity for murdering or raping them for any reason at all.

@MaxTheVool

Think of him a bit like some of the sincere members of the Russian Revolution before Stalin took over and turned their idealistic communism into effectively a dictatorship. They were (most of us would say) misguided to think that communism would ever work, but if they were sincere, were they truly villains?

This is a comparison that I might make, but more like Castro’s Cuba. For the vast majority of people, the Castro regime was vastly preferable to Batista’s Cuba or Duvalier’s Haiti. Now of course today Cuba suffers in comparison to liberal democracies, but we are talking about a world in which almost all other countries are comparable to Duvalier’s Haiti. The Sparrows might be oppressive, but I don’t think they are nearly as oppressive as the system they are combating, and certainly not for 95% of the people.

[DigitalC]

You are comparing individual actions without considering how narrow or broad those actions would be.

[Colibri]

@DigitalC

I guess turning into a zombie horde would probably be worse, but as far as human rulers were concerned their abuse would be far more widespread as it is grounded on wanting to force their religion on absolutely every one instead of petty noble power trips.

There’s no evidence that they require everyone to believe in or adhere to their religion, only that they don’t permit activities that are against its rules. Fifty years ago many places in the US required businesses to close on Sundays, a direct influence of Christianity. Prostitution is illegal in most of the US, and polygamy in all of it, which is largely due to the influence of Christianity. People are required to use money with “In God We Trust” on it. Some Muslim countries prohibit the sale of alcohol and enforce other restrictions based on Islam, although they don’t require everyone to convert.

[Colibri]

@DigitalC

You are comparing individual actions without considering how narrow or broad those actions would be.

The individual actions I cited by the nobility were pretty widespread. Most of the noble characters engaged in some of them at one time or another. And of course the nobility imposed taxation on everyone and enjoyed impunity from any offenses against commoners.