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Why Do People Dislike Bran?


Caesar Targaryen

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I was having a conversation with my cousin and his friend about ASoIaF recently and when the topic of Bran came up, my they both expressed their dislike for him, which is something that I've noticed a lot of fans also feel.



Now, Bran is not one of my favorite characters necessarily, but the animosity towards him baffles me. Where and how did this originate, and what character qualities makes him so contemptible?


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Bran is one of my favorite characters, but I can understand people feeling he is either too bland or too childish.

He is pouty in his early chapters and he cries a lot. When there are characters braving battlefields and political snake pits, a watery-eyed disabled child might not be that attractive in comparison.

Also, it is possible your friends are jerks and also probably communists who hate freedom.

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I honestly don't get it either, people say it's because his chapters are boring. Poppycock I say, his chapters are the most riveting pieces of literature ever made. Everything in ASoIaF is filler passing the time until the next Bran chapter. Reading Bran's chapters is without a doubt the single greatest experience of my entire life. Every second of it makes me feel like I am literally in heaven, like I'm on the finest drugs ever concocted by man, it is pure bliss, I cried for months on end after I read his chapters because I knew that I had already experienced the greatest thing possible, and everything else would just fall woefully short in comparison. I honestly think that if every world leader read a Bran chapter, there would be world peace, who would even contemplate harming another human being, or any life form for that matter, after reading a Bran chapter?

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I honestly don't get it either, people say it's because his chapters are boring. Poppycock I say, his chapters are the most riveting pieces of literature ever made. Everything in ASoIaF is filler passing the time until the next Bran chapter. Reading Bran's chapters is without a doubt the single greatest experience of my entire life. Every second of it makes me feel like I am literally in heaven, like I'm on the finest drugs ever concocted by man, it is pure bliss, I cried for months on end after I read his chapters because I knew that I had already experienced the greatest thing possible, and everything else would just fall woefully short in comparison. I honestly think that if every world leader read a Bran chapter, there would be world peace, who would even contemplate harming another human being, or any life form for that matter, after reading a Bran chapter?

Hodor.

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It's kind of lacking development compared to Jon or Dany or Tyrion.

You mean the character who has stayed in one general area and didn't get jack done for the last two books (this is coming from a Daenerys fan)? :P

I think the big appeal of Bran's story for me is that it is that it's very unique in that we have a disabled main character. That opens up a whole new realm of storytelling possibilities and it's been very interesting to see the mystical side of the world through his eyes.

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I really love Bran (and as a promotion: check out the Bran Re-Read Project!) and I think people who think he's boring or dislike him have been waiting for something HUGE to happen but it's been a very slow burn. I actually think that book 6 and 7 is going to be pretty exciting and epic for Bran. His last POV in ADWD proves that what is going to happen going forward will, IMO, have a lot of answers.


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Because his chapters stalled from the ending of aCoK to the cave of the CotF. Also, they're boring as moss.

Like, Bloodraven saw the future and saw how incredibly dull Bran was going to be, so he said," Fuck that, I'm gonna have to fix that too", and he went into the cave to inject some energy into that storyline

Honestly, for someone who's crippled Bran does a disturbing amount of walking. And walking. And waking.

And it's even worse in the show. He spent roughly 90% of season 3 under the same three, so much that I thought they were rushing his storyline and he was growing roots already

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I haven't seen anyone really dislike Bran at all, as everyone's said it's mostly just the chapters. The two things that always bugged me about him is he never seemed to listen to Jojen (who knew a lot more than him) about how his own body will be neglected if he keeps living in Summer all the time. I also don't like how he doesn't show much respect or gratitude to Hodor. Hodor literally carries him through his mission, but Bran just uses him as legs and muscles when he feels like fighting and walking.



With Bran's chapters, I feel a bit taken away from the world when he has entirely mythical/magic chapters, but then when it's back in the real world traveling North it does get a bit boring. The happy medium chapters of real world/magic for me are selective Dany chapters, but especially Tyrion's trip down the Royne.


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I like Bran and I like his chapters. I also recognise that he's the plot that will be incredibly important for the defeat of the others and the revelation of many many secrets and mysteries in ASOIAF.



But let's admit it. His chapters are nothing but an endless "are we there yet?". The fact that he even thinks about it, but does not speak it aloud parallels pretty much what we think about this poor kid's storyline. We're already in book 5 and he has JUST reached to the 3ER.



Of course, that's not different from the other Stark kids, although they have been involved in more entertaining situations. Arya has also just reached Braavos in AFFC but she has been developing and meeting interesting people in the previous books. Sansa has also been involved in the plot (even indirectly) of Storms and Feast. Bran is just heading North with snow and snow and snow and snow...


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I haven't seen anyone really dislike Bran at all, as everyone's said it's mostly just the chapters. The two things that always bugged me about him is he never seemed to listen to Jojen (who knew a lot more than him) about how his own body will be neglected if he keeps living in Summer all the time. I also don't like how he doesn't show much respect or gratitude to Hodor. Hodor literally carries him through his mission, but Bran just uses him as legs and muscles when he feels like fighting and walking.

With Bran's chapters, I feel a bit taken away from the world when he has entirely mythical/magic chapters, but then when it's back in the real world traveling North it does get a bit boring. The happy medium chapters of real world/magic for me are selective Dany chapters, but especially Tyrion's trip down the Royne.

Bran is not one of the characters I'm most invested in, but I like him much better than Jojen, who just seems like a really unrealistic character with his wise Yoda shtick. Meera is OK, but not terribly complex. Those two often seem like one-dimensional walking mouthpieces of wisdom, especially Jojen. Bran, on the other hand, is a much more realistic child character - he's not some self-sacrificing ideal wise child, he is a sweet, good-natured boy but also a boy who loves physical activity and enjoys exciting stories, who dreamed of being a knight and has a lust for life - for climbing and running and being active, and who therefore hates his disability and the way it confines him, so he's enjoying the ways he can go around it through warging; I completely understand why he enjoys warging Summer so much. His direwolf moments are some of the most interesting parts of his chapter. It's also interesting how Summer, or Bran!Summer, is a really alpha direwolf, subduing other wolves and even asserting dominance over Varamyr!One Eye - it seems like this is Summer's influence, but maybe it's awakening something in Bran he wasn't fully aware of. It will be pretty interesting to see how immense power and desire to escape the confines of his body may manifest itself in Bran in the future, with him being a good person but also a child with incomplete understanding and knowledge of the ethics of warging. I think Bran is definitely the most interesting character in his merry little band. (Still, Bloodraven is far more interesting.)

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People hate Bran because it's hard to root for both Bran and Jon and most people have decided to be team Jon. After all, only one of them is likely to be the key to defeating the Others. Just a reminder:



1. Bran has the first non-Prologue chapter in the series


2. Bran is the one Bloodraven has chosen to fight the Others



Both of these could have been Jon. The first chapter could have been Jon's, it wasn't. If Jon is a Targ and that actually matters, it should matter to Brynden Rivers. Bloodraven has limited his interactions with Jon to Mormont's raven and issues surrounding the Night's Watch. It's Bran that he's chosen to be his protege. But hey, I'm a little biased. Look at my username and signature.


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I can understand how people think Bran's chapters are boring, I'd even lean that way myself. It's pretty hard to actually dislike the character though. He's been through a lot and I find him quite sympathetic. I think BearQueen hit it right on the head. A lot of build up to very little payout so far. Hopefully that will change in the upcoming novels(one day!).


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