Y’know, sitting down and working out all the loyalties of the characters in Skyrim for possible fic reveals a lot of things I haven’t seen online discussions of.
Such as that Thane Bryling of Solitude seems to be one of Ulfric’s sympathetic spies committing treason by relaying info back to the Stormcloaks. My evidence?
One, in the cut quest when Jarl Elisif is assassinated, she is replaced by Thane Erikur for the Imperials and by Thane Bryling if the Stormcloaks take over Solitude.
Two, Bryling’s employee, Sorli the Builder, replaces Jarl Idgrod Ravencrone as Jarl of Morthal if the Stormcloaks take over (really, a random mining forewoman ends up being jarl? Maybe because Bryling vouches for her...).
Three, in addition to being a thane resident of Solitude’s court, she is also the secret lover of the Steward of Solitude, Falk Firebeard, and that gives her access to a lot of info regular thanes wouldn’t get access to. Bryling is also afraid that Erikur (her Imperial counterpart) should find out about them and force Falk to resign as steward, which would cut Bryling off from that useful flow of information.
Four, in her own words: “Many condemn the Stormcloaks, but I refuse. There is honor in fighting for what you believe.” and “This godsforsaken war is dividing our people and destroying our land.” So she already believes the Stormcloaks to be in the right (or at least, honorable, after Ulfric killed her jarl and high king), the same Stormcloaks to started the war, but also wants the war to end because she believes that it is bad. Translated, that means that she wants the Stormcloaks to win ASAP and unite Skyrim under Ulfric’s rule. So she has the motivation to turn traitor against her jarl.
Yeah, while not completely conclusive, she seems to be one of the best candidates of being one of Ulfric’s informants unconnected to the Thalmor (there seems to be a few who had access to privileged information until Tullius showed up with his own commanders).
I’m also thinking that there were lots of story-lines cut in this game even beyond the known cut quests... Like this set-up is ripe for some political intrigue that would make the Speechcraft tree (and learning at the Bard’s College) relevant game mechanics as the Dragonborn is tasked with finding out leaks in the Solitude court...