Broken men
Broken men, as defined by Septon Meribald, are wartime outlaws who often began as smallfolk conscripts, but fled service for a life of brigandry.[1]
When banners are called for war, friends follow friends, brothers follow brothers, and sons follow fathers. Armed with only the most rudimentary equipment (from a stolen kitchen knife to a sharpened hoe to a stick with a rock tied to the end), they fight a thankless battle against disease and armored knights, until one day they break. Sometimes they break in their first battle, sometimes in their hundredth. Watching their friends die, or perhaps entering the service of an unfamiliar lord when their original liege dies, the broken man runs away in the heat of battle or sneaks off in the dead of night. Having become accustomed to living off the land of the smallfolk where the war is being fought, it is a small adjustment for the broken man to begin stealing their daughters, or killing for what he likes. Often, without really knowing where he is or how to get back to his village, the broken man forgets all thought of home and simply becomes a bandit. Although bands of broken men are liable to form in any extended campaign, they tend not to survive the peace, as local lords ride home to bring peace to their lands.[1]
Contents
History
In the early reign of King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, robber knights and broken men often preyed upon the travelers who used the few roads in Westeros, an ill that the king was determined to correct.[2]
During the Dance of the Dragons civil war, broken men became abounded.[3] Ser Titus Peake, heir of Lord Unwin Peake, was knighted after the Battle of the Honeywine, but died only six days later in a meaningless skirmish with a band of broken men he stumbled upon whilst scouting.[4] During the siege of Longtable, the cookfires of broken men could be seen in the forest south of the Mander near Bitterbridge.[3] During Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen's flight from King's Landing to Duskendale, her camp was attacked one night by broken men. Though her knights drove away the attackers, they slew Ser Balon Byrch, Commander of the City Watch, and Ser Lyonel Bentley of the Queensguard.[5] King Aegon II Targaryen was unable to travel through the Reach to Red Lake to claim the dragon Silverwing, as the region was infested with traitors, rebels, and broken men.[6]
After the war, bands of outlaws and broken men haunted the roads and woods of the country.[7] A large number of outlaws, robber knights, and broken men occupied Harrenhal, led by the witch queen Alys Rivers, and preyed on the area, attacking travelers, fisherfolk, and farmers. In 132 AC, Ser Tyland Lannister, the Hand of the King, tasked Ser Regis Groves with reclaiming Harrenhal, but Regis was killed (allegedly by magic) and Alys's riders defeated the king's men in a bloody rout.[7]
Meribald may have become a broken man after his experiences during the War of the Ninepenny Kings, although he later repented and became a traveling septon.[1]
Recent events
A Storm of Swords
The innkeep at the inn of the Kneeling Man warns Jaime Lannister, Brienne Tarth, and Cleos Frey to stay clear of the kingsroad because of the wolves, lions, and broken men preying upon travelers.[8]
Sandor Clegane dismisses the brotherhood without banners as a sorry lot of outlaws and broken men.[9]
A Feast for Crows
Ser Harwyn Plumm clears Darry from the broken men that had taken residence in the castle.[10]
Septon Meribald warns Brienne of Tarth and her companions, Podrick Payne and Hyle Hunt, that villagers have seen three broken men around the dunes near Maidenpool, and that he would prefer not to fight them, but feed them and get them to confess their sins. Hyle disagrees, and says he prefers Lord Randyll Tarly's method of killing them. When Podrick asks Brienne if broken men are outlaws, Meribald explains how men break during war; that travelers should beware of broken men, but also pity them. His explanation leads Brienne and Hyle to understand that Meribald is a survivor of the same experience.[1]
In the aftermath of the Red Wedding and the raid on Saltpans, some broken men who stay at the inn at the Crossroads are hanged with salt in their mouths by the brotherhood without banners, despite believing they had been under the protection of guest right.[11][12]
Quotes
Meribald: We would do well to keep a watch tonight, my friends. The villagers say they've seen three broken men skulking round the dunes, west of the old watchtower.
Hyle: Only three? Three is honey to our swordswench. They're not like to trouble armed men.
Hyle: That's as good as inviting them to slit our throats as we sleep. Lord Randyll has better ways to deal with broken men—steel and hempen rope.[1]
Meribald: Unless they're starving. There is food in these marshes, but only for those with the eyes to find it, and these men are strangers here, survivors from some battle. If they should accost us, ser, I beg you, leave them to me.
Hyle: What will you do with them?
Meribald: Feed them. Ask them to confess their sins, so that I might forgive them. Invite them to come with us to the Quiet Isle.
More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know.
Then they get a taste of battle.
He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them... but he should pity them as well.[1]
For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe.
They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water.
If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world...
And the man breaks.
—Meribald, to Podrick Payne
Behind the Scenes
George R.R. Martin's favorite passage from ASOIAF is Septon Meribald's speech about war and broken men.[13][14]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.6 A Feast for Crows, Chapter 25, Brienne V.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, The Long Reign - Jaehaerys and Alysanne: Policy, Progeny, and Pain.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Triumphant.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, Under the Regents - War and Peace and Cattle Shows.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - Rhaenyra Overthrown.
- ↑ Fire & Blood, The Dying of the Dragons - The Short, Sad Reign of Aegon II.
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Fire & Blood, Under the Regents - The Hooded Hand.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 11, Jaime II.
- ↑ A Storm of Swords, Chapter 34, Arya VI.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 12, Cersei III.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 37, Brienne VII.
- ↑ A Feast for Crows, Chapter 42, Brienne VIII.
- ↑ So Spake Martin: ConCarolinas Q&A (June 1, 2014).
- ↑ ConCarolinas Q&A Transcript (archived)