Turns out this essay was completley wrong. But I had a lot of fun doing it anyways. I also had a fun talk with the actor via twitter, which hopefully someday I’ll remember to put the pictures up for.

This article talks about and contains SPOILERS, for Game of Thrones: Season 6, Episode 7: The Broken Man. Long and picture heavy…

Most of us were left baffled by the end of the episode “The Broken Man”. Not by the violence, but as to the implication of who caused the violence.

/u/AndrewPKing posted this- https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/4mv309/spoilers_everything_confirmed_book_character/

https://twitter.com/johanneshaukur/status/739914205101490176

The actor confirms his character is in fact Lem Lemoncloak.

At first the idea was that these random men were just random robbers was acceptable. What freaked a lot of people including me out, was they were BWoB. BWoB would NOT have slaughtered defenseless people.

This tweet was also responded to

Hiram V ‏@hvazquez4 · 20h20 hours ago

@johanneshaukur @WatchersOTWall @RickyChamp1 And murdering innocent people?

Jóhannes Haukur ‏@johanneshaukur · 20h20 hours ago Iceland

@hvazquez4 @WatchersOTWall @RickyChamp1 Who is to say who’s innocent or not? Assuming we did what you think we did…

This brings up an interesting concept= misdirection.

Now, he is responding to us without giving a real response. Who says who is able to judge another? Who is innocent? Who is not?

For us book fans this is a scary concept, the BWoB is a group FOR the people, trying to do the right thing. Turning them into killers would be a huge problem. It flat our turns everything around. We also know we will be seeing Thoros of Myr again. I don’t think LSH is showing up. Maybe they did make part of the Brotherhood evil, maybe they did not.

I also suggested in another topic on Reddit- Groups pick up followers. Followers can do bad things. If these followers are not called out/properly punished they will continue. They will then find others like them and continue on. So its possible we may be seeing a very different Brotherhood. Especially if Beric is dead, which would make sense.

Kavos ‏@KavosYT · 21h21 hours ago

@johanneshaukur give us a little clue, was the fact you hung the septic significant? Maybe Lady stoneheart?



Jóhannes Haukur

‏@johanneshaukur

@KavosYT only time will tell.

I personally don’t see Lady Stone Heart showing up, I just don’t. But some interesting observations were made, nothing was stolen. People were killed, the food and resources just tossed about. But after it being mentioned and a re-watch, something was taken.

So lets try to break down what info we have:

Groups active in Riverrun;

Brotherhood Without Banners

House Tully/Blackfish’s men

House Frey

House Mallister

House Blackwood

Common Folk

Lannister Army

If we remember the Harrenhal incident- followers loyal to Roose Bolton

Walder Frey and his sons in “Blood of my Blood”.

“The Mallisters have risen up against us, and the Blackwoods, The Brotherhood Without Banners is rallying the commoners against us, raiding our supply trains and camps!”

Side 1

Lannister Army

Bolton Army Remains (Possibly)

Freys

Side 2

Brotherhood Without Banners

House Tully/Blackfish’s Men

House Blackwood

House Mallister

Common Folk

We’re just tossing the common folk into the second group because they want to avoid war. They’re the ones The Mountain and co were causing all the problems to.

Now, this specific attack, has some very odd things about it.

When a group is raiding and pillaging, they tend to pillage. There is no pillaging here. Food which is a huge resource is simply scattered everywhere, so is what looks like wool? or feathers? Utensils, bowls, clothing etc. All here. Ax left where it killed the blacksmith.

Why? This makes no sense to a group who is running around taking resources like BWoB, especially because they help the people.

I don’t have a picture, but the Septon- Ray I believe they named him for the show. He is wearing a pendant of the 7 pointed star. When the Hound finds him hanging, its not there anymore. Who would want to take it? Leave all the other resources?

Looking for clues

Looking around I noticed something odd. The fetching on the arrows. I wondered if this was something consistent with the area that GOT uses, and I did some research.

The ones we end up seeing are

The first arrow is a either deep blue/green/black and white. The second is white.

This arrow appears fully black, though it could have more to do with the shadows.

Another white/black (I’m just going to call them white/black or white/blue).

So I started doing some digging. What colors have we already seen?

Narrowing down by color

The first response is obviously to think Brotherhood Without Banners and to lament. But I remember our friend Anguy; the official archer of the BWoB. Turns out, Anguy’s arrows are VERY specific.

Anguy’s arrows are black with red. Very distinctive. We also know that they would scramble to collect as many arrows back as possible. This hopefully means that BWoB is in the clear. Or at least the ones we like are.

My second thought was Bloody Mummers, but after doing a bit of digging, I was reminded that they were omitted entirely from the show. In the books the man who took Jamie’s hand is Vargo Hoat. In the show, they combine this character and another into Locke. Locke is hired by Roose Bolton as a tracker. Thus avoiding the entire need for the Bloody Mummers. So the Bloody Mummers don’t exist in the show.

NEXT

House Tully?

The feathers here are solid brown. Not a match.

I poked around for Lannister and found these two examples

While Joff’s on the left has black feathers, its the only instance we see it. I could not find anymore Lannister arrows so tossed them out as well. Jamie wouldn’t be letting his men go off and kill random people anyways.

Getting desperate I did a search for all arrows. Nights Watch and Wildlings are white, but make no sense for the area. Toss them out. Then, I noticed something I had not before, that if this is consistent in the show, could provide very interesting.

Myranda at Winterfell has white arrows as well. I only spotted one instance of another black arrow, and have been unable to find another picture. Google seems to hate me today.

Robb Stark has a black arrow lodged in his chest. From the Red Wedding, meaning Frey’s. Possibly Bolton’s too, but more likely Frey’s.

Last I was very confused…but I think it does make sense. I could only find one good picture, but it’s very good quality. That strange blue/black and white arrow….

I know the picture has Stannis but in the show Stannis was on the loosing side against the Boltons. Most of his paid for men ran off etc. So sellswords in the Riverlands were a possibility, but I’m thinking no.

I don’t have arrows from Stannis to compare. But looking in with everyone’s most hated bastard (great job to the actor) we see these colors again, even a few that look solid black. Now this is the same fight, and I’m going to go with the idea that due to us seeing the loosing side, these arrows are more than likely from Bolton men.

Identifying: Feather Colors

From what I can tell, and could be wrong:

Red/Gold = Lannister

Brown- Tully

White = Most of the north

Solid White and Solid Green- Winterfell and House Stark

Black – Frey

Black with Red- Anguy / BWoB

White, White and Black/Dark Blue- Bolton

Combination-

what we see appears to be black, white and blue/white combo.

Conclusion

I could be wrong about this completely. But this makes sense to me once I did some youtube digging for clips. While the Bloody Mummers are removed, they are replaced by men loyal to Roose Bolton, left at Harrenhal. Locke got what was coming to him later. Bolton’s aligned with the Frey’s for the Red Wedding. They probably have men down there still, giving support to the Frey’s. The Bolton’s arrows, like Anguy’s; are very distinctive. White and Blue/Black.

We see these exact arrows in the remains of the Battle for Winterfell. It looks like the Riverlanders colors are black for Frey and dark brown for Tully, which makes sense. That sort of fowl are far more available than in the north. Those are not what seem to have been used.

IF it had been the Brotherhood, we know they are taking supplies. All of the supplies are left here. Food, arrows, clothing. They took one thing, the Septons gold pendant.

Now we know BWoB follow the Lord of Light, but at the same time, at least to me, Thoros seems to be very good at getting along with other groups. I don’t think he would care Septons of the Faith are wondering around.

People are getting things ready for oncoming winter, storing food etc. Whoever did this, more than likely has plenty of stores of food and things to survive, otherwise they would have taken it all. This is not a pillage, it’s a message. What could it be for?

“The Mallisters have risen up against us, and the Blackwoods, The Brotherhood Without Banners is rallying the commoners against us, raiding our supply trains and camps!”

Commoners, who possibly could have been seen having an interaction with the Brotherhood Without Banners, if say at a distance from a spy. They don’t know it was a tense interaction. They just saw an interaction.

The commoners are interacting with The Brotherhood. To keep from having an uprising they’re killed.

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As much as I really like my above idea, I still could be totally wrong…

casting reference from watchersonthewall.com

Bower: He is a powerless servant, numb to the horror he serves. He’s filming around one of the days that below “outlaw band” members are so he may be connected to them. He is required to have a Northern or Midland English accent and appears in one episode.

Lachlan: He’s the big leader of a group of renegades who have turned on the land that they swore to protect. They’re now extorting the poor and vulnerable. He appears in 2 episodes in season 6.

Flynn: He’s part of an outlaw band. The group is using religion to justify terrorizing and extorting what they need from the people of the countryside. He appears in 2 episodes in season 6. He appears to be part of Lachlan’s band.

Japeth: Another member of the outlaw band is this lieutenant. He’s a “rough-and-ready type” with a strong physical presence, also appearing two episodes

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Although I did just find this

“Lem’s nose heals poorly.[2] He continues to be a member of the brotherhood after Lady Stoneheart takes command.[7] He hunts north along the Green Fork in search of the Mad Dog of Saltpans, the leader of a savage sack of the town.[2] “

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Lem