"Brotherhood Without Banners"[3] is the eleventh short of the sixth season of Histories & Lore. It is the hundredth short of the series overall. It was released on November 15, 2016 in Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season. It was narrated by Paul Kaye as Thoros and written by Dave Hill.
Premise[]
Thoros of Myr details the origins of the Brotherhood Without Banners, a band of soldiers who became outlaws under the new king.[3]
Narration[]
Thoros: King Robert still lived, and Lord Eddard Stark had just survived an ambush by Jaime Lannister in King's Landing.
We were the king's men charged by the King's Hand to bring the king's justice to the false knight Gregor Clegane, who was raping and murdering the king's subjects in the Riverlands.
To be honest, I cared more about the king's cellars, but I joined Lord Beric for the adventure, and maybe a grateful milkmaid or two.
Ser Gregor isn't called the Mountain because of his subtlety, yet he took us by surprise at the Mummer's Ford. He'd hidden his men on both banks, and as we crossed, he fell upon us from the front and rear.
I saw a single blow from his sword take a man's arm off and kill the horse beneath him. Many of us, though, were simply ridden down and drowned. The survivors spotted my damn red cloak and rallied around me, and we cut our way free.
A hundred men we'd been that morning. By dark, only forty were left, and Lord Beric looked to make us thirty-nine by morning. I drew a foot of lance from his chest and poured boiling wine into the hole it left, but I knew there was no hope.
When his light failed, I shut his eyes, placed my hands on his cold chest, and mumbled a half-remembered blessing over his body because he was my commander and my friend, and I didn't know what else to do.
Then I felt his heart thud beneath his breast. His body shuddered as the fire of life rekindled inside it.
I used to joke that I became a red priest because the robes hid the wine stains, but the wine itself hid an unbelieving heart. When Beric's eyes opened, so did mine.
I fell to my knees and praised the one true god and begged forgiveness for my ways. I don't know if the Lord heard me, but when dawn came, Beric was still alive and stronger than he'd been.
He told us that our war hadn't ended at the Mummer's Ford, but begun and that every fallen brother would be avenged.
We were so few though that all we could do was harry the Lannisters' rear. Luckily, all they could do was kill Beric.
A Lannister mace shattered his helm and skull. A noose snapped his neck after he surrendered himself to save a beekeeper and his wife. The Mountain's dirk pierced his eye through his visor. After each time, I stood over his corpse and prayed to the Lord, and the Lord brought him back.
Then we heard that Robert was dead and Lord Eddard too. We'd been sent by the King's Hand to deal with outlaws, but now we were the outlaws, and Lord Tywin was the Hand of the King.
Some wanted to yield, but Beric wouldn't hear of it. We were still king's men, he said, and these were the king's people the lions were savaging. If we could not fight for Robert, we would fight for them until every man of us was dead.
We'd lost the king's banner at the Mummer's Ford, but then the countryside was awash with sigils and armies anyway. We became the Brotherhood Without Banners.
Beric led us in battle, and I led us in prayer, and the Lord of Light led us in everything.
When the heralds proclaimed the end of the War of the Five Kings, none of us thought of yielding. Our war wasn't over.
The generals had gone home, but the soldiers stayed. Either they had no homes to return to, or they'd gotten a taste for other people's. The Brotherhood was the people's only defense.
We became the brothers of murdered siblings, husbands of murdered wives, and fathers of murdered children, led by a murdered man.
Once we sought to bring the king's justice to the realm, now we bring the Lord's. Or at least we try.
Appearances[]
Individuals[]
- Thoros of Myr
- Lord Beric Dondarrion
- Ser Gregor Clegane
- Anguy
- King Robert Baratheon (mentioned)
- Lord Eddard Stark (mentioned)
- Ser Jaime Lannister (mentioned)
- Lord Tywin Lannister (mentioned)
- Lord Raymun Darry (unnamed)
- Ser Amory Lorch (unnamed)
- Ser Burton Crakehall (unnamed)
Houses[]
- House Baratheon (banner)
- House Stark (banner)
- House Lannister
- House Baratheon of King's Landing (banner)
Locations[]
Events[]
Organizations[]
Miscellaneous[]
Cast[]
Behind the scenes[]
- The Brotherhood briefly mentioned Mummer's Ford by name back in Season 3 episode 4 "And Now His Watch Is Ended". Anguy recalled how Gregor and his Lannister soldiers were sacking the town: "At the Mummer's Ford girls of seven years were raped. And babes, still on their mother's breast were cut in two while their mothers watched!". The battle itself is never mentioned in the show, only very vaguely referred to by Beric in the following episode "Kissed by Fire" ("Second time I've been killed by a Clegane").
- In the novels, it is a member of the Brotherhood named Harwin (formerly a servant of the Starks) who tells about the battle. His story contains a detail which is not mentioned in the short: Tywin sent the Mountain to raid the Riverlands, not simply as a retaliatory act for Tyrion's kidnapping, but also in hope that Ned Stark would lead the force; Tywin planned an ambush, either to have Ned killed or take him hostage to trade for Tyrion. However, Ned's leg was broken in the bloody encounter with Jaime, so he could not lead the detachment himself, and assigned Beric instead.
- The short introduces an inconsistency regarding Beric Dondarrion's six deaths. In both the books and TV series, it is clearly said that Beric's first death was due to being run through by Gregor Clegane's lance, and his sixth death was his duel with Sandor Clegane which Arya witnessed. As for the intervening four deaths, in the books those occurred on separate occasions and caused by different people: the second was when his skull was smashed with a mace (by Burton Crakehall), the third was when he was hanged at the Rushing Falls (by Amory Lorch), the fourth was when Gregor Clegane stabbed him in the eye with a dagger, and the fifth - he was shot with an arrow. When Beric appeared in Season 3 of the TV series, however, the other four deaths he gave were slightly different: he was shot with an arrow in the back (as in the books), but instead of having his skull smashed in he got an axe driven into his side, he was knifed in the belly not the eye one time, and while he was hanged they condensed two events into one death by saying that the Lannisters couldn't decide whether to hang him or stab him in the eye that time, so they did both at once.
- It's possible that the live-action TV series changed the specific detail about having his skull caved in because afterwards in the novels it doesn't entirely heal back to how it was before, instead leaving his skull notably dented; this may have been difficult to portray with live-action prosthetics so they simply omitted it.
- This Histories & Lore short, however, forgot to keep track of the changes between books and TV series, and simply lists off Beric's injuries from the novels: his head caved in with a mace, stabbed through the eye by Gregor in battle, and captured and hanged as an entirely separate incident. See the subsection from Beric's article on "The Deaths of Dondarrion".
- The man that Gregor is seen killing by cutting his arm off was identified as Raymun Darry in the books. In the ensuing Riverlands campaign, Gregor sacked Castle Darry and killed Raymun's only son Lyman Darry, rendering House Darry extinct in the male line; the only survivors were two of Raymun's daughters, both married to Freys, so the Lannisters granted Darry and its lands to them.
- The core membership of the Brotherhood were the 40 survivors of the ambush at Mummer's Ford, however as they explained in Season 3, their numbers grew since then as they were joined by deserters from all sides in the war, along with commoners whose farms and villages were burned out in raids.
In the books[]
- The short is adapted from the following chapters of A Storm of Swords:
- Chapter 17, Arya III: A member of the Brotherhood relates to the Battle at the Mummer's Ford, including Beric's death and his subsequent resurrection.
- Chapter 39, Arya VII: A member of the Brotherhood describes how Beric died six times.
References[]
- ↑ Dan Selcke (July 18, 2016). Complete details on the Game of Thrones Season 6 DVD/Blu-ray boxset. Winter is Coming. Retrieved December 15, 2023.
- ↑ Histories & Lore: Season 6, Short 11: "Brotherhood Without Banners" (2016).
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Game of Thrones: The Complete Sixth Season (2016).
- ↑ Vanessa Cole (July 22, 2017). Game of Thrones writer Dave Hill gives a behind the scenes look at the creative process. Watchers on the Wall. Retrieved December 15, 2023.