Game of Thrones is full of characters that give us chills. There are of course the white walkers and their king or the sadistic Ramsay Bolton, but also the villain Joffrey and of course Daenerys Targaryen. But the scariest character of all doesn’t even appear in the series: Patchface.
Patchface creates a highly unpleasant atmosphere in the Game of Thrones books, but is absent from the HBO series
Patchface (or in German: “Flickenfratz”) is the court jester of Stannis Baratheon
and lives with the grumpy ruler and his daughter Sharin at Drachenstein Castle. The name comes from the fact that Patchface’s entire face is tattooed with red and green squares and looks like a patched-up, colorful chessboard.
What makes him so scary? Firstly, there was the fact that Patchface was actually an educated, smart boy who could crack jokes in four different languages. After he was the only survivor in a shipwreck (in which over 100 people died) and only washed ashore after three days, he was no longer the same. No one could explain what happened in those two days in the water and how Patchface even survived it all.
Since He only speaks in incomprehensible poems and sings cryptic puzzle songswhich mostly revolve around the world under the sea. The enslaved boy was actually supposed to be put out of his misery at first, but was then spared. Now he spends a lot of time with Stannis’ grayscale-suffering daughter, who seems to have taken Patchface to her heart.
What’s particularly mysterious about his enigmatic singsong is that it’s partly comfortable are prophecieswhich become reality later in the books. For example, his rhymes can be interpreted as saying that Patchface predicted the Red Wedding and also the murder of Jeoffrey (via: Alt Shift X). Where he is supposed to have such knowledge remains unclear.
Many theories surround the irritating character. Even Melisandre is afraid of him and he seems to be connected to the religion surrounding the Drowned God – although he actually lives on the wrong side of Westeros. Some fans even believe that Patchface really drowned in the shipwreck but was somehow brought back.