Game of Thrones comes back with a less action packed, but critical episode as alliances are beginning to form, pieces are moving on the board, and old enemies and allies resurface.  Here is our recap of Game of Thrones 6×7: The Broken Man.

Sansa, Jon Snow, and Lady Mormont

Probably one of the most entertaining and memorable parts of this episode was the interaction that Sansa and Jon Snow have with Lady Mormont of Bear Island, a young girl of ten.

The performance of Bella Ramsey as she portrays Lyanna Mormont is stellar.  Sansa and Jon Snow enter the conversation thinking they have the upper hand and they will easily be able to sway a ten-year-old girl who already showed allegiance to the Stark name.  We first hear of her from the letter Stannis Baratheon got from her after he demanded allegiance, and she replied that “bear island knows no king, but the King of the North, whose name is Stark.”  So it is suffice to say that Sansa and Jon think the Mormonts are a shoe in for an allegiance.  Lyanna Mormont quickly squashes that illusion when she smartly puts them both in their place, and really grills them as to why she should risk the safety of her people for a war she doesn’t consider her own.  She is quick witted and brutally honest, and a true Northerner as she is both loyal and stoic, but stubborn as well. Check out the scene below:

Once again, the child actors (or actress in this case) of Game of Thrones have been really impressive.  That aside, Lady Mormont finally agrees to make an alliance with the Starks, but not because of anything that Sansa or Jon said.  It is the stark truth that Ser Davos speaks of that convinces her, and that is there is a bigger war and problem coming that makes the squabbling houses pale in comparison.  Because of Ser Davos, Bear island will give them 62 men, but, as Lyanna Mormont states, 62 of her men are well worth hundreds of other Northerners.

Sansa went into that particular negotiation a little too self assured that she would easily get an alliance, and found it harder to do.  Their next stop is with the Glovers who flat out refuse to join their alliance because the Boltons helped them retake their lands from the Greyjoys, and they are afraid to be flayed alive by the Boltons.  He also points out that Jon is not officially a Stark and neither is Sansa as she is still, technically, married to Ramsay Bolton.  We thought it was interesting that a little girl of ten had more stones and honor than some of these men who are almost more than quadruple her age.

Sansa and Jon start to realize that gaining allies that are willing to fight alongside the North’s age old enemies, the Wildlings, is going to be harder than they originally thought especially after all the things that happened with the Red Wedding and with the Greyjoys.  Just as Ser Davos predicted, unless  there are more houses taking the Stark’s side many houses are dubious to join them to protect their own self interest.

In the case of gaining alliances, we think Sansa should really step up and do more of the talking more like Lyanna Mormont.  She assumed that the smaller houses would just easily fall in line and rally to her name, but she actually has to put in more effort to win those alliances.  It clearly can not be Jon Snow who does it all especially if people are rallying to the Stark name and not Snow.

One interesting thing we did see Sansa do in this episode is send a letter in secret with a Direwolf seal on it.  Now where that letter is going we are not sure yet, but we think she may have sent it to Littlefinger and get the knights of the Vail on her side.  Some people theorize that she may have sent it to the Umbers or the Karstarks.  We think she sent it to Littlefinger because, despite hating him, she has a complicated history with him and blood ties to the Vail as her cousin Robin is now in charge of the Knights of the Vail and Littlefinger was practically going to give her that army in the first place.  Maybe she is stowing her pride and willing to open up that line of communication again after seeing the abysmal results of trying to get the North to rally to her name.  We guess we will have to wait to see next week what happens.

The Hound

Our favorite hound returns as a penitent soul who is trying to build a new life and find some redemption.  When last seen, Sandor Clegane was being killed by Brienne or so we thought.  As it turns out, he was saved by a man, who goes by the name of Brother Ray, who was once soldier with a dark past.  Brother Ray changed when he joined the ranks of the Sparrows, and he is trying to rebuild a new and peaceful life and community with fellow reformed criminals.  He found the Hound half dead and managed to save him.

The Hound is skeptical of this peaceful little community, but decides to be a part of it.  For the Hound this is a chance to start over and become someone new and different.  Though he is so skeptical, he is ready to try it out.  And everything seems to be going fine.  Sandor seems to fit in, but everything changes when men from the Brotherhood come across their little community.  We can clearly see, as can the Hound, the danger the Brotherhood and any other group that will try to take advantage of this peaceful community put his new home in, but Brother Ray convinces him to give peace a try.

Sadly, this new existence for the Hound does not last.  The Hound, while chopping wood, hears a disturbance and rushes back to the community to find all the members slaughtered and their peaceful leader, Brother Ray, hanged.  The Hound realizes that he can not escape the violence around him, and his part in the episode ends when he takes up a nearby ax.  Some people claim that Sandor is the broken man that the episode is named after, and that very well may be true as he was trying to start over.  In any case, we are definitely excited to see what is next for the Hound.  Where will he go? We presume that he will go after the Brotherhood, and only the next few episodes will tell us what will happen to him.

Theon and Yara

There is only a small part for Theon and Yara which takes place in a brothel far enough out of Euron Greyjoy’s reach at the moment.  Theon does not feel comfortable in the brothel and is quite skittish around people in general.  After what he has gone through that is not really surprising.  Yara is not having any of it, and decides to give Theon tough love as a way to bring her old brother back.  She demands that he drink like an iron born.  She tells him that she needs him by her side for what she plans to do next, but she doesn’t want this spineless, broken Theon, but her brother she remembered.  Basically she tells him to either get his crap together and help her or cut his wrists and end it all.

Now this is quite a harsh way to treat a brother who has been so brutalized that he can even be around people without flinching, but in Yara’s case it fits their way of life and thinking.  And she is right in a strange way.  Theon does need to get out from under Ramsay’s shadow and his past.  If he can do it and work with Yara they will make an excellent team.

In this episode, Yara tells Theon that she plans on taking their ships and sailing to Meereen to start up talks with Daenerys in a possible alliance.  We think this is an excellent idea and something that Daenerys may really be receptive to as we think she will be more receptive to making alliances with women instead of patriarchal, domineering men like Euron who want to use her for power.

We think this scene really shakes something loose in Theon as he realizes that he has to get his spine back, and we see a spark of the old Theon slowly coming back.  The title of this episode is more a more suitable reference to Theon, who truly is a broken man that is starting to come back to life.  Over the next coming episodes, this sibling bond and the reawakening of the old Theon will be interesting to watch.

Margaery and Kings Landing

Margaery is saying and doing everything exactly right in the eyes of the Sparrows.  She’s dressing more conservatively, she’s quoting from their scripture, and even the High Sparrow tells her that she can not keep forsaking Tommen’s bed.  To them, it seems as if Margaery has drank the coolaid and is a new and reformed Queen though we can still see that the High Sparrow doesn’t fully trust her as he is still having her followed around by a Septa.

This episode we get to see a glimmer of the old and wiley Margaery peek out.  In her conversation with the High Sparrow, where he tells her that she must go back and do her duty to the realm and Tommen by producing an heir, he also tells her that his next target for repentance is her grandmother, the Queen of Thorns herself.

Margaery quickly sets up a afternoon brunch with her grandmother where they are followed and listened in on by a nearby Septa.  Margaery is playing the role of the penitent queen quite superbly which frustrates Lady Olenna who wants her granddaughter and grandson far from King’s Landing.  In the end of their conversation, Margaery tells her grandmother to go back to the Reach, and smuggles a small note with a rose on it.  We see, as does the Queen of Thorns, that the old Margaery is still there.  We do not know what was in the note or what it signifies, but it does get Lady Olenna on her way out of Kings Landing as she takes Margaery’s advice.  It will be interesting to see what was in that note.

Jaime Lannister and the Blackfish

Jaime Lannister arrives to Riverrun with his army to find the Freys and a poorly constructed siege.  He notices how easily it was for his large army to slip up on the Freys.  The Freys, instead of building decent trenches for a siege, have constructed a gallows just outside the castle and are threatening to kill Edmure Tully if the Blackfish does not give up Rivverrun to them.  They threaten to cut Edmure’s throat, but the Blackfish calls their bluff when he tells them to go ahead and do it and they don’t.

Jaime sees all of this as well as their piss poor organization.  He immediately takes control of the situation and starts ordering items of siege craft to be constructed and trenches dug. He also sets up a meeting with Blackfish in order to get a peaceful resolution of the situation.

The meeting between Blackfish and Jaime is very interesting and tense.  Jaime tries to lay out reasons and incentives, like saving the lives of all of Blackfishes’s men, in order to end the siege.  Blackfish has absolutely no intention of giving up the castle and tells Jaime this.  The only reason he entertained the idea of meeting up with Jaime in the first place was to get the measure of Jaime, and says that he was “disappointed”.

We think it was interesting that the two characters who both have negative nicknames and reputation are going head to head.  In our opinion, we think Blackfish is in the right as it is his home that he is protecting and the Lannisters nor the Freys have the right to Riverrun.  It looks like the siege of Riverrun and the fate of Edmure Tully is about to get under way.

Arya

Probably one of the most distressing parts of this episode happens to Arya, and why we have put this one last. Arya is still on the run from the House of Black and White.  She knows she has to get out of Braavos.  She spots a Westerosi captain of a ship and cleverly convinces him to give her good accommodations on his ship as well as sail the next morning.

We think that Arya is quite clever in this until she is caught unawares by the Waif who took the face and form of an old woman to get close to Arya.  Arya let her guard done and was brutally stabbed in the stomach.  She manages to get away from the waif by jumping into the river.  We last see Arya terrified as she stumbles through the crowd looking for help or safe harbor.  With the faceless ones after her, especially one that hates her as much as the waif does, Arya may have found herself in a bad situation.  We hope she finds help soon (Lady Crane maybe).

This part was shocking and terrifying as no one wants to see Arya hurt and definitely not in the near death category.  Since anything can go on Game of Thrones when it comes to character deaths, this makes us nervous about Arya’s fate.  We do think that it would be bad plot building if she were to die in this way after all she went through on Braavos.  What was the point of her going there if she was going to be killed off that easily?  We think that Starks are hardy and can’t be killed that easily, and we hope we are right in this regard.

Notable Moments

-With Daenerys and the Greyjoys on the way to Meereen, we wonder what will happen with Tyrion and the remaining two dragons.  It is about time we see what is going on in Meereen.

-What will happen to Rickon once Ramsay hears of Sansa’s attempt to rally an army?  It’s a little terrifying to contemplate.

-Where is Bran, Meera and Benjen going?  Castle Black and then on to where?  We would really love to see Bran reunited with his family.

-And then there is Brienne who is traveling to the Riverlands to secure the Blackfishes’s army for Sansa which he can not really give her right now if there is a siege.