SYRIO: Do you pray to the gods?
ARYA: The old and the new.
There is only one god.
And his name is death.
GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: My impetus here is to keep the story more realistic.
If you go back to my model of the actual Middle Ages,
religion was enormously important.
SALLADHOR: I've been all over the world, my boy,
and everywhere I go, people tell me about the true gods.
They all think they found the right one.
D.B. WEISS: One of the things we love about George's world
is they're so well and fully realized.
There's not one old religion and one new religion.
Whether it's the Old Gods that Ned Stark worshipped,
or the Seven Gods that Catelyn Stark worshipped,
there are many religions.
When you go back into the history of the Seven Kingdoms, the history of Westeros,
you'll find the roots of the religions and how each one has come to be.
The Seven have never answered my prayers,
perhaps the Old Gods will.
Originally, Westeros was the domain of various non-human races,
the Children of the Forest,
and they worshipped the Old Gods.
The gods of the trees, the gods of the rocks and stones,
of the mountains, of the streams.
Who had no names. There were no churches or temples,
and there was no priesthood,
and the symbol of them was the Weirwood trees.
These white trees with red leaves and red sap,
so when you cut them with a knife, they would seem to bleed.
They became the center of the religion of the Old Gods.
Then, at a certain point, the First Men came to Westeros, the first human beings,
crossing from Essos.
The First Men accepted the gods of the Children of the Forest.
In the North, where the lords are still descended from the First Men,
the Old Gods are still worshipped.
The Starks follow the old religion.
MARTIN: In Winterfell, they have the godswood.
All these years and I still feel like an outsider when I come here.
You're not an outsider.
I wonder if the Old Gods agree.
It's your gods with all the rules.
The Starks keep the Old God.
They also have a little sept there for the Seven,
because Lady Catelyn having come up from the south
is a worshipper of the Seven.
For many centuries, it's been the dominant religion.
It was a religion that was brought over hundreds of years ago by the Andals.
The entire religion is built around the symbology of seven.
The symbol of it is the seven-pointed star.
Seven blessings on you, Your Grace.
The Seven gods are seen to be seven facets of the One God.
There are three male aspects,
the Father, the Warrior and the Smith.
There are three female aspects,
the Mother, the Maiden and the Crone.
And there's the seventh aspect, the Stranger, who is neither male nor female,
who represents the unknown, represents death.
Each of the seven aspects of the God
has certain things that they're, of course, in charge of.
You pray to the Mother for a healthy childbirth.
You pray to the Warrior if you want strength in battle.
PRIEST: May the Seven guide her and protect her on her journey.
May the Mother give her health.
May the crone give her wisdom.
They have both male and female priests, who are called the Septons or Septas.
They also have the equivalent of monks and friars, who are various orders.
One of the most prominent are the Silent Sisters
who take a vow of silence,
and are in charge of dealing with the bodies of the slain.
- What's dead may never die. - ...dead may never die.
On the Iron Islands, they follow their own gods.
The ironborn worship the Drowned God.
It's a tough place and it's a tough religion.
They're seafarers, and their god lives under the sea,
and they believe that's where their heaven is.
They don't fear dying at sea at all and they don't fear drowning.
They drown, they will be taken down to the halls of the Drowned God under the sea
where mermaids will wait on them, and they will feast and frolic for all time.
For worshippers of the Drowned God, holy water is sea water.
When you're young, almost as a baptismal rite,
they actually drown you, and then you're brought back to life.
Theon had that done to him when he was young,
just like his brothers did and his father and his father's father.
When he comes back to the islands, having been away for so long,
they're worried whether he's still an ironborn.
I think when Balon first sees his son, he doesn't trust Theon.
Does he honor our god
or has he been converted to these religions of the green lands?
My fears have come true,
the Starks have made you theirs.
My blood is salt and iron.
His father insists that he be blessed with seawater once again.
PRIEST: Theon of the House Greyjoy,
you would this day consecrate your faith to the Drowned God?
I would.
That baptism is being reinitiated into the faith of his forefathers.
PRIEST: Let Theon, your servant,
be born again from the sea as you were.
He's saying, "I'm not a Stark," and he's gone back to the Drowned God.
What is dead may never die.
The faith of the Lord Of Light
has been unable to get a foothold in Westeros, until recently.
She's a foreigner preaching her foreign religion.
The religion of the Lord of Light is Melisandre's faith.
For the night is dark and full of terrors.
Melisandre, this charismatic priestess from another country,
she has powers granted to her by some divine force.
She's been there for a while, and she's been trying to convert Stannis.
First, you must give yourself to the Lord of Light.
I've said the words.
It's very focused on prophecy
and on ecstatic visions that are received through communion with the flames.
I have seen the path to victory in the flames.
She believes Stannis to be a savior figure.
There's only one true god and that's the Lord of Light.
So all these other gods that the people of Westeros are worshipping,
the Drowned God on the Iron Islands, the Seven, the old Gods,
they're demons.
Therefore, in Melisandre's world view, they have to be destroyed.
It's a very black-and-white view of the universe,
which rubs many people the wrong way.
All you men were named in the light of the Seven!
Is this how you treat the gods of your fathers?
Part of accepting the faith of the Lord of Light is putting all other gods aside.
Ultimately, Stannis yields to Melisandre's entreaties
and puts the seven wooden likenesses of the gods and the faith to the fire.
So burning the idols is getting rid of the Seven
and paving the way for the new god.
And, of course, it's not just any god, it's a god of fire.
MARTIN: He is discarding the gods that he has worshipped since childhood
and accepting the Red God, and giving himself to the Lord of Light.
And in return, Melisandre sees that the Lord of Light gives him a token...
Your sword awaits you.
MARTIN: ...of his role as the prince that was promised by ancient prophecy,
and that's the sword, Lightbringer.
He's able to use the religion as a means to an end.
And, of course, that end is gaining the Iron Throne.
The Iron Throne is mine by right.
MEN: Lord, cast your light upon us!