Bran Time Paradox Theory

[Marcus Agrippa]

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/22/11722146/game-of-thrones-season-6-recap-hodor-dies-bran-time-travel

 

Read the bottom bit, if this is true, the book and the show have gone full caedus. Nobody wants full caedus. I hate time travel

[Castigear]

On 5/11/2016 at 3:17 PM, Castigear said:

"The ink is dry." I don't think the 3ER meant that Bran cannot affect time, rather that he cannot change what already was written. Ned always heard something. Anything Bran will do to try and affect the past was already part of history, IMO.

It would be interesting to see Bran be the catalyst of some things we have already seen, like Aegon's voices. Perhaps he ends up being the reason Hodor's mind breaks (trying to warg through time maybe?). If he tries to meddle too much, he could be the cause of a lot of the misery that has befallen Westeros. But change history? I don't think it'll work that way. 

Called it. Last night pretty much confirms the self-consistency principle. Anything that Bran will ever do to affect the past, has already happened in the past. Hodor's mind was already broken, even though Bran hadn't gone back to do it yet. That mean's he cannot change history one bit no matter how much he tries.

[kimim]

2 hours ago, Marcus Agrippa said:

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/22/11722146/game-of-thrones-season-6-recap-hodor-dies-bran-time-travel

 

Read the bottom bit, if this is true, the book and the show have gone full caedus. Nobody wants full caedus. I hate time travel

It was a potential in both the novels and the show; most obvious example, before Hodor, is Bran going back in time and communicating with Jon via weirnet, right before Jon goes to the wildlings.

And yeah, at that point, what isn't possible? Bran can be Bran the Builder. He can go back in time and keep himself from falling, keep dad from accepting Robert's offer, etc.

 

Quote

Called it. Last night pretty much confirms the self-consistency principle. Anything that Bran will ever do to affect the past, has already happened in the past. Hodor's mind was already broken, even though Bran hadn't gone back to do it yet. That mean's he cannot change history one bit no matter how much he tries.

 

This is interesting, but then you have to wonder why Bran did not return and prevent himself from falling, prevent dad from going to King's Landing. Bran CAN do these things; it's not as if everyone he communicates with falls down in a fit. Jon did not.

[Marcus Agrippa]

1 minute ago, kimim said:

It was a potential in both the novels and the show; most obvious example, before Hodor, is Bran going back in time and communicating with Jon via weirnet, right before Jon goes to the wildlings.

And yeah, at that point, what isn't possible? Bran can be Bran the Builder. He can go back in time and keep himself from falling, keep dad from accepting Robert's offer, etc.

It's getting frustrating. I gotta be honest I respect martin, but this is starting to feel like Harry Potter 2.0 (in terms of the last two books being bad) if the show has any truth to it. I am hoping the show is just adding this stuff because Martin has something more complex in mind, but time travel can ruin things for a lot of reason, it becomes "why didn't he do this" or why didn't he stop this or something else. It becomes a ever revolving door that leads to infinite amount of arguments.

[kimim]

Just now, Marcus Agrippa said:

It's getting frustrating. I gotta be honest I respect martin, but this is starting to feel like Harry Potter 2.0 (in terms of the last two books being bad) if the show has any truth to it. I am hoping the show is just adding this stuff because Martin has something more complex in mind, but time travel can ruin things for a lot of reason, it becomes "why didn't he do this" or why didn't he stop this or something else. It becomes a ever revolving door that leads to infinite amount of arguments.

Hodor is show only so far, but Bran going into the past and communicating with Jon is also in the novels, so the potential is there. If I were crippled, living in a world that was about to face a zombie apocalypse, I would go back in time and protect myself and the ones I love, and no amount of "rules forbid it!!!!!!!" would prevent me.

I've been worried about Bran's powers for a while. He's TOO powerful, and that opens up the possibility of all kinds of unsatisfying endings, maybe not "it was all a dream," but almost.

[Marcus Agrippa]

1 minute ago, kimim said:

Hodor is show only so far, but Bran going into the past and communicating with Jon is also in the novels, so the potential is there. If I were crippled, living in a world that was about to face a zombie apocalypse, I would go back in time and protect myself and the ones I love, and no amount of "rules forbid it!!!!!!!" would prevent me.

I've been worried about Bran's powers for a while. He's TOO powerful, and that opens up the possibility of all kinds of unsatisfying endings, maybe not "it was all a dream," but almost.

Pretty much this, I'lll have to look up whole Jon communicates with bran, for some reason I thought blood raven was communicating with Jon this whole time in various ways.

[kimim]

1 minute ago, Marcus Agrippa said:

Pretty much this, I'lll have to look up whole Jon communicates with bran, for some reason I thought blood raven was communicating with Jon this whole time in various ways.

It's in Clash:

“Jon?”

The call came from behind him, softer than a whisper, but strong too. Can a shout be silent? He turned his head, searching for his brother, for a glimpse of a lean grey shape moving beneath the trees, but there was nothing, only…

A weirwood.

It seemed to sprout from solid rock, its pale roots twisting up from a myriad of fissures and hairline cracks. The tree was slender compared to other weirwoods he had seen, no more than a sapling, yet it was growing as he watched, its limbs thickening as they reached for the sky. Wary, he circled the smooth white trunk until he came to the face. Red eyes looked at him. Fierce eyes they were, yet glad to see him. The weirwood had his brother’s face. Had his brother always had three eyes?

“Not always,” came the silent shout. “Not before the crow.”

He sniffed at the bark, smelled wolf and tree and boy, but behind that there were other scents, the rich brown smell of warm earth and the hard grey smell of stone and something else, something terrible. Death, he knew. He was smelling death. He cringed back, his hair bristling, and bared his fangs.

Don't be afraid, I like it in the dark. No one can see you, but you can see them. But first you have to open your eyes. See? Like this. And the tree reached down and touched him.

[Consigliere]

God, I hate time travel in stories. Even if done remotely well, the temporal paradoxes that are inevitably created become very distracting and negatively impacts my viewing/reading experience.

19 minutes ago, kimim said:

It was a potential in both the novels and the show; most obvious example, before Hodor, is Bran going back in time and communicating with Jon via weirnet, right before Jon goes to the wildlings.

And yeah, at that point, what isn't possible? Bran can be Bran the Builder. He can go back in time and keep himself from falling, keep dad from accepting Robert's offer, etc.

There is also The Bridge of Dream bit. That's a pretty old sci-fi element indicating that the timeline has been altered. Prior to this episode, I did not buy the altered timeline explanation (mainly because I felt that intoducing time travel into the story would lead to a clusterfuck) but now...who knows?

[Morgana Lannister]

On 5/11/2016 at 9:17 PM, Castigear said:

"The ink is dry." I don't think the 3ER meant that Bran cannot affect time, rather that he cannot change what already was written. Ned always heard something. Anything Bran will do to try and affect the past was already part of history, IMO.

It would be interesting to see Bran be the catalyst of some things we have already seen, like Aegon's voices. Perhaps he ends up being the reason Hodor's mind breaks (trying to warg through time maybe?). If he tries to meddle too much, he could be the cause of a lot of the misery that has befallen Westeros. But change history? I don't think it'll work that way. 

lol *spoiler alert for episode 5 season 6*  I guess you got your wish! (sorry, not necessarily wish but prediction lol).  Not entirely sure how this will pan out in the books but my personal impression is that, although the show alters things especially in terms of omitting characters from the books and giving the plots to more prominent ones (say Sansa instead of Jeyne Poole etc), the overall ending cannot be 180 degrees in book and show...  Now this is a very major point we are considering here with huge implications; it would indeed create an alternative reality if one character were able to influence the "future" hence "me thinks" is either true in both (books and show) or neither; could be wrong of course.  Also I might have misinterpreted the Bran scenes in the last episode but to me... well he did cause a dramatic event... or several lol albeit kind of passively and inadvertently.  My sincere apologies I read this completely the wrong way (the episode) though...

[Meera of Tarth]

there are tons of subtle references of Bran communicating with many people, known and unkown in the books.

it was only time they showed that in the show.

 

[UselessOpinion]

Time travel is a big, ugly can of worms which has only been exacerbated by the fact that the show and the source material are written by different people. Although, I'm guessing the show writers are writing it based on what they know what GRRM has already set up.

One of the thing that irks me is that people keep saying Bran can't change the past. It would make sense if Bran hadn't already done things to alter the past. After 3ER says that the "ink is dry" and such, he seemed to have been taken aback that Bran got Ned to react in ToJ. This seems to suggest that the ink isn't as dry as he thought. This idea gets expanded even moreso when Bran and 3ER go to Winterfell on the day Ned leaves for the Eerie. Out of necessity Bran links Past Hodor with Current Hodor and has Past Hodor experience Current Hodors death, resulting in Wallace becoming Hodor.

That, however, is the show. The books have also contained segments wherein people are communicated with through unseen entities. In AGoT, after the execution of a Nights Watch ranger, Ned turns to the Godswood where he broods a bit and there he feels something through the weirwoods. At the wall, Mormonts Ravens seem to have been talking to Jon as well. There's also another scene where Jon sees a weirwood-Bran through Ghost and Theon also may have been communicated to.

What makes me wonder is: how can events develop and simultaneously have already been altered from the future? Are there infinite timelines? It seems kind of lazy to me, and almost deus-ex-machina'ish which Martin has repeatedly criticized Tolkien over. I really hope this portrayal in the show is just some cheap bastardization of Martins work and that he wouldn't cop out to something like that. It's too... Harry Pottery.

[Meera of Tarth]

8 minutes ago, UselessOpinion said:

Time travel is a big, ugly can of worms which has only been exacerbated by the fact that the show and the source material are written by different people. Although, I'm guessing the show writers are writing it based on what they know what GRRM has already set up.

One of the thing that irks me is that people keep saying Bran can't change the past. It would make sense if Bran hadn't already done things to alter the past. After 3ER says that the "ink is dry" and such, he seemed to have been taken aback that Bran got Ned to react in ToJ. This seems to suggest that the ink isn't as dry as he thought. This idea gets expanded even moreso when Bran and 3ER go to Winterfell on the day Ned leaves for the Eerie. Out of necessity Bran links Past Hodor with Current Hodor and has Past Hodor experience Current Hodors death, resulting in Wallace becoming Hodor.

That, however, is the show. The books have also contained segments wherein people are communicated with through unseen entities. In AGoT, after the execution of a Nights Watch ranger, Ned turns to the Godswood where he broods a bit and there he feels something through the weirwoods. At the wall, Mormonts Ravens seem to have been talking to Jon as well. There's also another scene where Jon sees a weirwood-Bran through Ghost and Theon also may have been communicated to.

What makes me wonder is: how can events develop and simultaneously have already been altered from the future? Are there infinite timelines? It seems kind of lazy to me, and almost deus-ex-machina'ish which Martin has repeatedly criticized Tolkien over. I really hope this portrayal in the show is just some cheap bastardization of Martins work and that he wouldn't cop out to something like that. It's too... Harry Pottery.

I've just posted in this thread, and I agree with you with some things. I copy part of my essay here.

 

 

HODOR the hero

I cried a lot in this episode. We lost Summer, not in the epic way I would imagine for him, but still, he sacrificed his life for his friend, Bran.

We lost Hodor in an emotional way that I have no words to describe.

6 hours ago, Tijgy said:

In the Bran Powers Growing Reread Thread we discuss a lot of meanings behind the words. Very interesting but the posts are always very long 

Does anyone understand who actually warged into who during last episode? I do not really understand what happened there really?

I've just seen the Inside The Episode and they don't give any information related to this. I read an article that implied there's some warging but I totally disagree with that.

From my point of view, It's Hodor who sacrifices, willingly (or does his best and doesn't know if we will survive), and not Bran. Present Hodor doesn't have the warging eyes at any moment. Furthermore, in the WF's vision, it's only young Hodor who has those eyes. Bran doesn't have them and he is actually watching Young Hodor becoming "Hodor" as we know it; and Bran has warging eyes only in the present; but these are the same eyes that they use when he is having a vision.

I think this episode strongly suggests that Bran is connected to space and time and has the ability to subtetly change the past, something that is related to everything we have discussed from the WInds, that appears in the very first episode.

 

• -I think that there was another Bran in the past (not sure if it's the same Bran than now) that was responsible for many things that happened, including Hodor's issue. But I don't think THIS Bran was not responsible for what happened to Present Hodor. (By responsible I mean warging)

 

• -Another possibility is that Present Bran created, unwillingly, and due to his growing powers, a connection between time, thus creating the two Hodor's connection; but it must have happened previously in the past, due to another Bran. So, as BR said, The past is already written, and the ink is dry and Bran can't change the past or the future, because if he does that it's because it had to be done. There is a cylic timeline. That is linked to the fact that BR possibly didn't know the potential of Bran.

 

• -Nevertheless, I think that there is the possibility that parallel universes exist. That could made Bran the possibility to change a few things from different timelines, although if he doesn't do it correctly, it would provoke a snowball effect, and possibily destroy him.

 

[kimim]

1 hour ago, Consigliere said:

God, I hate time travel in stories. Even if done remotely well, the temporal paradoxes that are inevitably created become very distracting and negatively impacts my viewing/reading experience.

There is also The Bridge of Dream bit. That's a pretty old sci-fi element indicating that the timeline has been altered. Prior to this episode, I did not buy the altered timeline explanation (mainly because I felt that intoducing time travel into the story would lead to a clusterfuck) but now...who knows?

I forgot about the Bridge of Dreams. If the solution is "it's a dream time paradox," then GRRM can develop as many side plots as he wants, as the ending can be as quick as Bran the god changing conditions. The "bittersweet" would be wasted growth. All of these people grew, developed, suffered...and it meant nothing at all.

...I refuse to believe this, so will hope for the best.

[Desert Fox]

I think the show is basically laying out a theory of time travel that states it is possible to travel and impact what happens. However, there is only one stable timeline.  Whatever do you in the past was already done in your past timeline, and it was always done. This, like all versions of time travel, have paradoxes.

But this theory of time travel has the least impact on plot. Bran cannot change anything that has already happened. Bran cannot save the day. He can't defeat the others in the past. He cannot save his dad. He can't save himself from falling. The past is the past.

[Erudain]

Yes, I don't really like this time travel loop stuff....now all the sudden and with what they showed last night, all the characters are inside a deterministic universe where none of their action/desiciones really matter.....the future has already happened and It cannot happen in any other way.

To me at least, that's a big let down, in a series about "characters" (both books and TV) where every action had its consequences, now, suddenly, it doesn't matter, none of them had actual free will, Robb is not killed because of his actions, but because he's alaways killed in the timeline, Jon is not stabbed because his decission, but because the future has already happened.

I seriously hope the books don't go down that route....

[farm_ecology]

34 minutes ago, Erudain said:

Yes, I don't really like this time travel loop stuff....now all the sudden and with what they showed last night, all the characters are inside a deterministic universe where none of their action/desiciones really matter.....the future has already happened and It cannot happen in any other way.

To me at least, that's a big let down, in a series about "characters" (both books and TV) where every action had its consequences, now, suddenly, it doesn't matter, none of them had actual free will, Robb is not killed because of his actions, but because he's alaways killed in the timeline, Jon is not stabbed because his decission, but because the future has already happened.

I seriously hope the books don't go down that route....

This is kind of my thinking as well. While we already had talk about prophecies and such, the introduction of Time Travel just seems to really cheapen everything, and boils down to all these events just being "time stuff". Time travel can be done really well if the story allows it. The problem with stories like this is that you have massive events that could conceivably be changed, but can't because of the way time works, that the past is the past is the past. This kind of stuff gets extremely fuzzy, and the reasons why some actions can lead to self-perpetuating time loops and some can't are rarely clear. 

If a device where this power exists but cannot be used, it's lazy and a cop-out of this new introduction.

If it is used, it's going to get hazy and leave multiple questions.

Looking at the Hodor thing, the genesis of it all makes no sense. Bran warged past-Hodor because the 3-eyed raven brought him back around the right time, but the only reason he was brought back was to fulfill the need to warg past-Hodor. So the only reason at all that Hodor is Hodor, is because he needed to be Hodor. It's completely lost all agency, it wasn't even as if Bran accidentally did it out of unfortunate circumstances, it was the 3-eyed Raven that engineered it. This stinks of a situation where a writer introduces time loop not because it happened in the character's past, but because it happened in the book's past, in that I mean that it is introuced purely because they have to resolve something in the book.

 

Edit: I've just seen a clip where D&D explain that the whole event at the cave was unexpected to the 3ER. This makes the whole think even more wishy washy and absurd.

[Meera of Tarth]

1 hour ago, kimim said:

I forgot about the Bridge of Dreams. If the solution is "it's a dream time paradox," then GRRM can develop as many side plots as he wants, as the ending can be as quick as Bran the god changing conditions. The "bittersweet" would be wasted growth. All of these people grew, developed, suffered...and it meant nothing at all.

...I refuse to believe this, so will hope for the best.

The bittersweet can be Bran not ending well because altering time may cause pain. I think that Bran (or a past Bran and the present Bran as well) unconsciously created a connection between the same person (Hodor) in two different times. 

[gorgotron]

I think OPs theory may play out without worrying too much about altering the past.  The past happened, those events are set, and present attempts to manipulate it result in ironic, unintended and/or devastating consequences.  Such was the case with Hodor's fate - you can easily see no major changes to the story if Wylis hadn't lost his mind in that past scene except for the tragedy of having his mind wiped for the rest of his life.  As a handicapped, but cognizant, beast of a man, Wylis would largely have fulfilled the same role he did as Hodor, he just would have been able to converse, develop relationships, marry, etc.  I think the Aerys burning Rickard and Brandon scene could play out similarly, and prove a catalyst for Bran's understanding that he shouldn't try to manipulate the past because doing so has grave consequences.  Here's how I think it could shake out, without too much tinfoil...

Once Bran crosses under the Wall at the Nightfort (with his mark from the Night's King) and breaks the spell preventing Others from crossing the Wall, he will reunite with Jon and Sansa as their cobbled together army marches on Winterfell.  They retake Winterfell from the Boltons after a devestating battle only to find Others and wights on their doorstep.  Bran is in the godswood, touching the tree to glimpse the past, watching the scene with Aerys, Rickard and Brandon unfold in KL.  In the present time, the Others and wights storm Winterfell and Jon is screaming "burn them all!" as he and the WF defenders set the pitch between WF's two walls alight.  The wights climb one wall and are roasted in the dead man's zone, consumed by fire, before being able to scale the inner wall.  This scream, 'burn them all' reverberates through time and takes root in Aerys mind much like 'hold the door' took root in Wyllis'.  Aerys goes mad and burns the Stark men as Bran watches on in horror and agony.

[Alternatively, Ramsey's army marches to Castle Black and wipes out the NW in a devastating battle, only to then be overrun and annihilated by the Others and wights.  Jon, Sansa, Bran, and company take a relatively unguarded WF and prepare for the arrival of the Others and wights.  As the soldiers prepare, Bran goes to the godswood, touching the tree to glimpse the past (etc and so on, same as above).]

[Salacious Crumb]

Perhaps D&D have the power the use the show to go back in time and change GRRM's ending?

[Richard Writhen]

That article clears it up quite a bit. The fact that he tried to use both abilities at the same time (and perhaps mistakenly so, as he is still learning) effectively wrecked Hodor's mind.

 

Bran was hearing Meera's statement "Hold the door!" as he warged into old Hodor but young Hodor's physical body was still too close to Bran's astral projection and thus he received sort of a surge because Bran was probably just attempting to warg into a Hodor in general, not specifically young or old.