I’ve been wondering about what fans like to call RW2.0: when the BWB led by Stoneheart infiltrates Riverrun controlled by the Freys and perpetrates slaughter to avenge the RW. Will it be a massacre and a fight like the original RW? Or...

The inspiration for the RW is the Black Dinner, when members of Clan Douglas were invited to dine with the King of Scotland. However they were presented with a black bull’s head, a symbol of death, before being taken captive, put before a mock trial, and summarily executed

The trial aspect of the Black Dinner is missing from the RW. Robb Stark is not even given a show trial. But the trial reminds me of the Brotherhood’s m.o., which is to give their captives a trial, before enacting their punishment.

Justice has disappeared from Westeros, if it ever truly existed for the common folk. So the BWB take it into their own hands. But the Brotherhood become more extreme over time, especially under the command of the ruthless and merciless and vengeful Lady Stoneheart.

Lannisters, Freys, and the like are pronounced guilty and executed, but so too are anyone with a tangential connection to them. Brienne and Pod, for example, are given to the gallows and only narrowly avoid that fate, for now.

“Some knights are dark and full of terror. War makes monsters of us all.” The road to hell is paved with good intentions. They are the broken men of Septon Meribald’s speech, whom we empathise with, but also fear.

So either way some of those that are only tangentially connected to the RW will probably be killed along with those more deserving, so to speak

Riverlords who had to side with the Lannisters due to hostages taken, Riverlords who we see from Jaime’s POV still hate the Lannisters and would happily turn on them given the chance. Maybe some of them will when the BWB arrive. But maybe some will be caught in the crossfire.

But what I’m wondering is, will the BWB carry out a trial of the attendees of Daven Lannister’s wedding to a Frey, like at the Black Dinner? Or will they cut out the middle man and give in to violence?

Either way I suspect, as I said, there will be innocent blood shed. If it’s a trial, it will be one like the Black Dinner, a mock trial with no true fairness.

George likes to frustrate our desire for catharsis. Theon, we feel, deserves justice for what he does at Winterfell, but he doesn’t get it, he gets a disproportionate response from someone so much worse. Cersei is guilty of all sorts but her punishment is a misogynist one.

No doubt the vengeance visited upon the Freys and Lannisters for the Red Wedding by the Brotherhood Without Banners will the same. It won’t be a fist pump moment without any darker side to it.