About the faceless men
It seems to me that the fandom often sees the FM as glorified mercenaries, but they are first and foremost a religious order. Of course they will have their interests, but I believe most of their contracts are accepted or not depending on how they relate to their theology.
Let me explain: let's look at the story of the Waif, regardless of whether it is the truth or not, it can tell us a lot about the type of payment that is requested by the order.
Her stepmother wants the Waif dead so that her child can inherit. So the stepmother goes to the FMs and they ask for her child as payment. She refuses. The Waif's father finds out what his wife has done and so he goes to the FMs. The father gives his daughter to HoBaW (along with money) in exchange for the death of his wife.
The reason his sacrifice is accepted and the stepmother's is not is that the exchange of life and death must be of equal value. They don't kill your stepdaughter if you're not willing to pay with your child's life. It is not a simple monetary exchange, it is a religious sacrifice. In this case a death in exchange for a life of service (valar morghulis, valar dohaeris).
The story of the second FM is similar. He wanted his master's death and paid for it by sacrificing his own life at the service of the Many-Faced-God.
Even the one between Jaqen and Arya is a balanced exchange, not mercenary: three lives for three lives.
Then there are cases in which we don't know what the sacrifice/payment required was, such as that of the insurance man.
There is also the case of Euron, which is not confirmed. The theory says that Euron gave a dragon egg for King Balon's death. This is a very high price: Mormont claims that the sale of Dany's eggs could make her a wealthy woman for the rest of her life. If this happened it means that the faceless men demanded one of the most precious things that Euron possessed as payment. Maybe even forcing him to change his plans if he intended to try to hatch the egg.
The only character who refers to FMs in monetary terms is Baelish. He argues that hiring a faceless man costs twice as much as an entire mercenary army, and that's the price for a merchant's death, who knows what they might ask for Daenerys Targaryen's life.
But this is not true, we know that there is no similar tariff, the 'price' is always different and must be negotiated with the FMs. And it seems that they always tend to ask for the maximum that the client is able to offer.
It may be that Baelish has a somewhat distorted idea of how FM works. He is the only Westrosi who seems to be familiar with them, probably because his family is from Braavos. But by now they have lived on the Westeros for more than three generations so it is possible that the cultural context surrounding the HoBaW is lost on Petyr.
Do you agree with this view or you are more on the expensive hitmen train? Are there any examples from the FM mission in the books that can tell us more about their philosophy?
Here are some cool lore videos that were made as special content for the show. They are only semi-canonical, but they are interesting, I recommend them:
The Facelessmen narrated by Tycho Nestoris
The Many-Faced-God narrated by Jaqen H'ghar
