I was sneaking up to some bandits when a courier found me, he initiated a conversation, which stopped my stealth mode and every bandit nearby attacked me.
LOL.
Leaving Winterhold, I spotted the band of revellers and that one chick who escaped the bandits at Mistwatch all just standing in front of a mine, staring at me. So, I walked up and waited. Nobody did anything. They just kept staring. Then I initiated conversation with the chick who apparently didn't remember that I had already spoken to her and sent her off to Whiterun long ago. She went through her speech and I pointed her to Winterhold. Then I tried to speak to the revellers (because they usually give me a beer) but apparently they weren't in the mood to party. So, I left them all there. It was a bit weird.
Stormcloak Courier ran past me in Blackreach

svcks for him. Maybe he was staying at a Stormcloak camp and some drunken Stormcloaks decided to play a prank on him and placed his body on one of the dwarven elevators that brings you into Blackreach and pulled the lever.
i found a farmer in blackreach yesterday

Was it that one that's always wandering around with his wife? Perhaps she finally left him when she realized he never intended to put their life back together but instead wanted to walk around Skryim aimlessly. This tipped him over the edge. He started drinking, began having fantasies that he was more stronger than Darth Vapor, then travelled deep into Blackreach with no weapons or armor.