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  ===Writing===
  Series veteran Bryan Cogman wrote the episode, his second of two episodes of the season.
  "The Broken Man" was written by Bryan Cogman. his second of two episodes for the season, the first being the previous episode, "Blood of My Blood". It also adapts the chapter "Jaime VI" from ''A Feast for Crows''. The title of the episode is in reference to a speech given by Septon Meribald, a character in the ''A Song of Ice and Fire'' series, who was also used to create the character of Ray. In an interview with ''Entertainment Weekly'', Cogman stated, "The speech itself didn't make it into the episode, but it inspired the character and some of his dialogue. So the title of the episode is a nod to that speech." He compared it to the second season episode "The Ghost of Harrenhal", whose title was also a reference to the books, but was not specifically stated in the episode. Ian McShane, who portrayed Ray, spoke about the writing in the episode in regards to his participation in the series, noting, "they wrote a two-page speech – so that's why they invited me. It’s a big soliloquy, like in ''Deadwood'', and they needed to get somebody who could do that. It was really well written."
  In the "Inside the Episode" featurette published by HBO shortly after the airing of "The Broken Man", series co-creators David Benioff and D. B. Weiss spoke about some of the thought process behind the motivations of the characters that were featured prominently in the episode. David Benioff began by speaking about Sandor "the Hound" Clegane, saying "I think suffering a near death experience probably changes anyone, and that certainly has changed Sandor Clegane. He's a more thoughtful person than he was when we last saw him, he's probably more aware of his vulnerabilities, he knows how close he came to dying, and he's really thinking about his past in a way that he never had before." Weiss continued, "The unfortunate, ugly reality of the kind of pacifism that Ray is preaching is often suicidal when you're in the middle of the kind of world that they're all in. Something sad about the fact that this person who tried desperately to walk away from what he was is being given no real choice but to go full throttle back in the direction of what he really is, which is a killer."
  Weiss additionally spoke about the introduction of Lyanna Mormont in the series, with Weiss saying, "We were excited about the prospect of the character because she's mentioned in passing in the previous season," referring to her letter to Stannis denying him men, and swearing fealty to House Stark. Weiss added, "The more we thought about it, Jon is going to come up against so many old guys with beards in the North that like 'What if she was a tougher audience?' It seemed like an inherently fun scene to watch, it also is terrifying because it's putting a lot of dramatic weight on the shoulders of somebody who needs to be very young." David Benioff concluded the featurette speaking about the Ironborn story, noting "Yara's not a therapist, in our kind of sense of the word, she's not there to tell him to 'buck up' and 'everything's going to be okay,' it's a pretty brutal kind of therapy, but that's who they are, I mean they're essentially a Viking people. There's not a lot of room for sort of soft, and gentle psychology. I think it's the kind of tough love Theon needed at this point, and when he finally raises his eyes, and looks into her eyes, we see a glimpse of the old Theon that had been lost for so long."
  In regards to the various stories throughout the episode, and the amount of time passing in each one of them, Cogman stated, "The timelines between the various storylines don’t necessarily line up within a given episode. For instance, the “Northern Tour” Jon and Sansa embark on would probably take a couple weeks, but Arya's storyline over the past few episodes only spans a few days. We realized a while ago that if we tied ourselves in knots trying to make all the “story days” line up between all the characters the momentum would suffer."
  The episode is only the fourth in the series with a cold open. The first three being the series premiere, "Winter Is Coming", the third season premiere "Valar Dohaeris", and the fourth season premiere, "Two Swords". Bryan Cogman stated that they felt it was necessary to utilize a pre-credits sequence due to the reintroduction of Rory McCann, saying "We figured it would make his reveal more impactful if the audience hadn't seen McCann's name in the opening credits first."