6x07 The Broken Man

We don't know who's pulling the strings that tie the different corners of Westeros together. It may be the old gods, it may be The Seven, it may be the Drowned God, or it may be the Lord of Light. Septon Ray suggests they may all be different names for the same thing. But whoever it is, they have left a number of the creatures who traverse the show's map in a weakened state; they have taken away their strength, sapped them of their power and position; they have left them, in a word, "broken."

No two characters in "Broken Man" exemplify the title of the episode more than Sandor "The Hound" Clegane and Theon Greyjoy. Though the rest of the episode is filled with individuals and institutions that have been broken in one way or another, Game of Thrones draws a more direct parallel between these two men who have sinned and suffered a great deal, and wonder why they're still around to wonder why.

The Hound--who makes a surprise and pleasant return here with an unusual-for-the-show cold open appearance--was left for dead by one of the few people who cared about him. When Septon Ray found him, he'd believed the massive man to be already gone, not meant to last the night, let alone make a recovery. Theon was repeatedly tortured by Ramsay, destroyed as the High Sparrow puts it, in both body and mind. Given the degradation he'd suffered; his battered complicity in the failure of Yara's rescue attempt, and the cruelty of his captor, he had no reason to expect to gain any semblance of his life back.

But, against all odds, each of them did. Each of them had a second chance to go on. And each questions what to make of that fact in the face of its improbability. Theon says that if there were truly justice in this world, he'd have been burned to death and displayed on the ramparts at Winterfell. For his part, The Hound questions the Septon why, if there's some higher power meting out justice in this world, why hasn't he been punished? Septon Ray responds with an interesting suggestion -- maybe he has.

The Hound and Theon have each done terrible things, things that gnaw at them even in their most peaceful moments, things that make them wonder why they're still allowed to walk the earth. But maybe it's because, as the Septon seems to suggest, there's more for them to do, some good that can be reclaimed from the wreckage of their lives and deeds.

"Broken Man" contrasts the two of them in where they hear this sort of advice, and the tone the speaker takes in delivering the message, but leads them to the same place. The Hound is in an edenic setting surrounded by lush greenery and guided by a pious man who knows the spoils of war and vows not to fight again. Theon is in a den of sin, surrounded by flesh for sale and prodded by his battle-tested sister who is as inclined to fight once more as she is to indulge.

Despite those differences, Septon Ray and Yara bring their companions to a decidedly similar point. As the High Sparrow also noted, there are men of the cloth who know chapter and verse but not meaning, and unwashed masses who know higher truths. The same meaningful sentiments can emerge from two vastly different locations and speakers, and Septon Ray and Yara speak with one voice. They say to The Hound and to Theon that they may have done awful things, that they may have earned the punishments they've suffered, but they are still here, and regardless of whether there's A Reason for that, they have the chance to forge a new life in the aftermath of that, to make amends and be a force for something else as they make the most of what's left of their lives. Whatever the reason, they still live and breathe, and they can either sit there wondering why, or they can take that chance, try to do better, and endeavor to go on and become something more than mere broken men.

Those mirrored sequences are not perfect. The scenes of The Hound in the Riverlands are something of a rushed parable meant to reintroduce the character without giving the audience enough time to understand and invest in his new life or mentor before they're both gone and meant to motivate his revenge. And while it may be accurate to the kind of gruffness we've seen from the Iron Islanders so far, Yara's insensitivity to Theon's trauma is a bit off-putting. But both sequences explore, like much of the episode, what it is to be broken, and how hard it can be to find the path toward being repaired.

The show draws another parallel between two characters with different approaches to the same circumstances. Both Margaery and Cersei were imprisoned by The Sparrows, both were effectively stripped of their rank and the power and privilege to which they had become accustomed, and both found ways out of their captivity.

Both women were just as broken, left to sip water spilled on the stone floor of their prison cells and beaten by the stern fanatics who watched over them. Cersei endured the walk of shame, found herself left to the ridicule of the people to get back to the safety of what she'd known. But as Olenna Tyrell points out, she has still lost everything. Her son is under the influence of her captor; her brother and lover is gone; the rest of her family abandoned her; she is no longer the queen, and the rest of the powerbrokers in King's Landing despise her, short of the mute brute who follows her around the castle and the Dr. Frankenstein who created him.

It is, as Lady Tyrell points out and Cersei acknowledges, a mess of her own making, but Cersei is not deterred. Her plan is to regain her position from without, to marshal her allies and, as she once tried to do with The Sparrow, use an outside force to topple the system that threatens to leave her removed from the power and influence that define her in her own mind, that she believes herself deserving of. She has been left bereft of all the advantages she once knew, made something broken as well, but plans to fix that with external, brute force.

Margaery, on the other hand, found her way out of that cell by working from within. Though she speaks as a true believer, the sigil she surreptitiously hands to her grandmother suggests that Margaery is simply doing what she does best -- playing the game to her advantage, taking the cards she's dealt, and turning them to a winning hand. She speaks with conviction when she tells the High Sparrow that she pitied the poor, but never really loved them, but perhaps she is doing what Tyrion described his sister as quite capable of -- using true feelings for false ends. While Cersei know stands poised to attack the Sparrow from the outside, Margaery aims to do so from within.

And some broken people just want to go home. When Arya's had enough of her Faceless companions, she books passage back to Westeros, but not before The Waif drives a blade into her torso and forces her to dive into the canal below for safety. As Arya wanders through the streets of Braavos, gripping her own viscera, each face that gazes upon her could be another assassin meant to take her life away. Arya now finds herself damaged, in need of help, but without any way of knowing if the person who comes to her aid will be just another individual meant to break her.

The Blackfish also makes a return appearance, and though his dry wit is great to hear once more, he too tries to defend his home despite the overwhelming odds against him. Like Cersei, he is a man who has lost a great deal. His family members have been butchered or captured; he's been on the run ginning up support in the years since The Red Wedding, and he's an old man without much left to live for. What he does have is this castle, the place where he was raised and the place where he's content to die, even if it means a drawn out siege with little hope of success and a high likelihood of casualties. Sometimes the broken men are the most dangerous, because they've already lost so much that losing a little more seems like only a mild concern.

But it's not only individuals who can be left in tatters after some horrific series of events -- it can be an entire family, and the people they were meant to look after and protect, who struggle to find their way forward. As Jon, Sansa, and Ser Davos make the rounds to assemble a fighting force to take back Winterfell and restore the Stark name, they too find that misfortune has visited more than a few of their sought allies and the path to mending their home and their names is more difficult than they might have imagined.

So they tell two different sides of the same story to two different groups. When Jon asks the Wildlings to join his fight, they initially bristle at the suggestion. They tell him their bargain was to help him fight the White Walkers, the threat from above, and that the internecine quarrels between the "Southerners" is not their concern. They've been decimated in the battle at The Wall and they don't need to lose any more of their number getting into a conflict they have no place in. But Jon and his cohort explain that it is in their interest, that as Lord Glover's expressed for their kind portends, the Wildlings will not be left alone to live in peace without someone sympathetic to their cause in charge of The North. This fight is theirs too, or at least it will be.

And Ser Davos tells the exact opposite to Lady Lyanna of House Mormont. Lady Lyanna (who is equal parts adorable and fierce, whose actress gives a magnificent performance for a girl her age, and who makes a tremendous impression in just a brief scene), wonders why after the various skirmishes across the land that have called for soldiers from all over the north to fight and die, she should commit her men to yet another battle when the Boltons can be expected to let House Mormont go on and recover undisturbed. Davos explains that even if the affairs of The North are in order for the time being, there is a scourge coming from above. The Dead are headed south, and when they come, only the Starks will be able to unite the North to fight them. That fight is theirs tool, or at least it will be.

But when that trio heads to the home of Lord Glover, they are rebuffed. The Glovers had to fight off the Iron Islanders on their own. Lord Glover himself watched his family taken away from him. He too became a broken man of a broken house. But when his family sought help from The Starks, from the house they had pledged to protect and which had pledged to protect them, Robb pressed on in his war and his bannerman back at home suffered. The Iron Islanders raided The Glovers with impunity, and it was the Boltons who helped them. That fight was House Stark's too, and when it came time to take up arms, they were off looking after their own.

But they're all still there. Each of the broken things visited by Game of Thrones in this episode persist, be they sinners piecing their lives back together, imprisoned women striking back against their captors, lost souls hoping for home, or noble families struggling to keep their place with the ashes of the last war still fresh on the one side and a looming threat slowly but surely making its way down on the other. The true "gods" of Westeros--writers like Bryan Cogman, showrunners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff, and creator George R.R. Martin--keep them all around, and bring them back from the edge of death for our amusement. But maybe they, like the gods their characters pray to, have a higher purpose in mind for their children as well.