My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 30

Thursday is theory day.

This is the thirtieth article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 30. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.

What happened to Tyrek Lannister? 

In case you don't remember Tyrek Lannister, he's the squire who gets lost during the riot in King's Landing never to be seen again. Tyrion, Cersei and Tywin all go through great pains to find him, and he's constantly mentioned throughout "A Clash of Kings" and "A Storm of Swords", but never found. Tyrion suspects he's dead, but there can be found no evidence one way or the other, and Tyrek isn't really important aside from being another dead son of Tygett's. But the rule of Checkov's gun applies, and someone so often mentioned seems to have some important role to play. Suspect number one of course is Varys, who would have the means at his disposal to get the boy and to keep him hidden for some sinister plan. What that plan could be, however, isn't exactly clear. It's always good to have a Lannister in reserve, I guess, but Tyrek's of no real importance. The same was thought about Jeyne Poole, of course, so perhaps Varys wants to have an heir to Casterly Rock loyal to "Aegon" in reserve? Might be, but seems a long shot. My guess would be that Tyrek is really dead and that this is a red herring.

Is Varys a warg?
I honestly don't know how such stuff comes up. Varys is from Essos, where warging - as in every land south of the Neck - isn't exactly something that's found very often. Second, wargs all seem bound to the North in some way, in character and mind, and Varys is neither. Third, if he was, it would render his whole character meaningless. For starters, he hates magic, so he'll hate wargs too. If he could practice some magic skills, why would he hate all magic and not differentiate between the demon worshipper he suffered from and others? Clearly, he isn't interested in semantics here. Second, on a narrative level, Varys' gruesome efficiency comes from the army of "little birds" he has, the mute children trained by Illyrio. This is a really evil act, and would be unnecessary if Varys could warg into the mice in the wall. But he can't, obviously, so he needs the little birds. One has to be careful with magic, because its power changes characters. The thing with Varys is that he really invests much in costumes and acts and the little birds, so it makes no sense for him to be a warg at all.

What's the relationship between Dany and the Faceless Men?

The answer to that question depends in large parts on the position you have on the Faceless Men. Are they opposed to magic, and do they have a long term goal? I would think that they are opposed to slavery, since they're set in Braavos, and therefore should be positively inclined towards Dany, but we don't really know what the agenda of these guys is and how they pick their targets. It seems likely that Jaqen H'qar's mission is to retrieve a book about how to kill dragons, and Jaqen is an agent of the House of Black and White, so I expect that they are at least very careful about Dany and, more likely, up to no good.

By the way, I'm through my supply of questions, so if you want to know anything, ask away. My quiver is empty for now.