The idea of Bran saving Ned and/or Robb?

[LadyAlisande]

I think what happened with Hodor plus the realizations in the Bloodraven "download" of information scare Bran out of trying to change the past. He is going to suddenly grow up quickly and become a sadder, wiser Bran, who takes the role of a passive observer and recorder of history. His role will be to reveal the truth about history to other characters.

And maybe in the end he will go back in time 8000 years and "become" Bran the Builder, building Winterfell and the Wall and beginning the Stark line. I think that would be a really happy ending, especially considering Hodor's sacrifice.

But GRRM doesn't like happy endings, so, probably not, I guess.

[Nerevanin]

4 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

I know exactly what you mean -- but that is the nature of time paradoxes (and why time travel exists only in fiction). There is only one Bran. And when Willas experiences Bran in the past, Willas is experiencing Bran time traveling to a point prior to Bran's birth. But Bran did not know Hodor his entire life because Bran does not know he will travel back in time until Bran travels back in time. But because Bran does travel back in time, the one and only timeline includes Bran traveling back in time -- even though Bran is not aware of it until he travel back in Bran's own "present" but the traveling back still happened in the past and affected the past in the one and only timeline that includes that past.

I know it is quite "head trippy" but this sort of time travel works that way.

Thanks for reply, I'm starting to understand what you mean. But just to be sure, I'll sleep on it. So thanks for the explanation and good night.

[UnmaskedLurker]

5 minutes ago, LadyAlisande said:

I think what happened with Hodor plus the realizations in the Bloodraven "download" of information scare Bran out of trying to change the past. He is going to suddenly grow up quickly and become a sadder, wiser Bran, who takes the role of a passive observer and recorder of history. His role will be to reveal the truth about history to other characters.

And maybe in the end he will go back in time 8000 years and "become" Bran the Builder, building Winterfell and the Wall and beginning the Stark line. I think that would be a really happy ending, especially considering Hodor's sacrifice.

But GRRM doesn't like happy endings, so, probably not, I guess.

I have seen people assert this possibility but I am not sure I understand it. So far, all we have seen Bran do in the past is shout at Ned and be heard and warg/skinchange into Hodor. We have no evidence that Bran can become "corporeal" in the past. So how exactly is he going to "become" Bran the Builder? Will he permanently "warg/skinchange" into the original Bran the Builder? What do people really mean by this theory?

[Ser Matt Dayne]

Even if he could do it I wouldn't like to see Bran save Ned and Robb, as it would kind of make Jon's journey redundant.

 

[Masha]

1 hour ago, Ser Matt Dayne said:

Even if he could do it I wouldn't like to see Bran save Ned and Robb, as it would kind of make Jon's journey redundant.

 

I can also see a scenario where Mel failed to raise Jon from the dead and then in those couple of minutes after she stopped, Bran interfered and did something

[Forlong the Fat]

1 hour ago, Nerevanin said:

So... You think that Bran created Hodor who started to exist before Bran's birth. Bran knew him all his life. But when he had the vision he realized that it was he who created Hodor. And the question is: are the Bran who created Hodor and the one who realizes it, the same person? Because if they are two different Bran's from different part of a never ending time loop, I'd get it. But if they are the same Bran from one timeline (considering that if there is only 1 timeline, there are no more Brans than 1), I fail to imagine how he could create Hodor before having the vision and we know Hodor did exist before Bran had the vision. You know what I mean? Probably not, I know I am terrible at this...

He did create Hodor before he was born by traveling back in time to do it.  The vision of time travel is perfectly logical:  you can't change the present/future by altering the past because whatever alteration you would make you already did make.  

What Bran learned is that his actions may interact with the past, but they can't change the present.  That's because the present already accounts for Bran's actions in the past.

Now this view makes free will paradoxical, or maybe impossible--Bran seems to have had no choice in what he did with respect to Hodor because his actions were necessary conditions to events that already occurred.  But you can't really muck about in time without paradoxes.

[Forlong the Fat]

1 hour ago, Ser Matt Dayne said:

Even if he could do it I wouldn't like to see Bran save Ned and Robb, as it would kind of make Jon's journey redundant.

 

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the Hodor incident provides absolute proof he couldn't do something like save Ned.

Hodor was Hodor all along, and the time-bending reasons for it only became apparent (to Bran anyway) when the warging incident happened.  If Bran had the power to change events, Hodor would have been Wyllis up until the warging incident, then would have been changed to Hodor after.  This tells us that Bran's actions in the past are already accounted for in the present timeline.

[princess_snow]

3 hours ago, Fez said:

Yeah, that's the way I see things too. The story that we know thus far won't be changing, its just that we may find that Bran was the hidden catalyst behind some of those events.

I actually do kind of like the idea that Bran caused Aerys to go mad. Although between Duskendale and the history of madness the Targs already had, it doesn't seem necessary at all. Would definitely be a neat thing though, so long as it doesn't happen too often. If Bran is secretly responsible for every major event in Westerosi history, this story quickly becomes a comedy instead.

Totally agree with everything here. 

59 minutes ago, Forlong the Fat said:

He did create Hodor before he was born by traveling back in time to do it.  The vision of time travel is perfectly logical:  you can't change the present/future by altering the past because whatever alteration you would make you already did make.  

What Bran learned is that his actions may interact with the past, but they can't change the present.  That's because the present already accounts for Bran's actions in the past.

Now this view makes free will paradoxical, or maybe impossible--Bran seems to have had no choice in what he did with respect to Hodor because his actions were necessary conditions to events that already occurred.  But you can't really muck about in time without paradoxes.

Great explanation ! Exactly re the bolded. 

[stark man boy]

Maybe bran is the one that sent the wolves??? They were clearly warnings (i.e. stag killed the mother dire wolf), grey wind trying to warn rob prior to RW?

[a dragon is still a dragon]

the past is already written the ink is dry - it is known

i would hate for this to turn in to a turning back time and events book or tv series that would suck!

[UnmaskedLurker]

1 hour ago, a dragon is still a dragon said:

the past is already written the ink is dry - it is known

i would hate for this to turn in to a turning back time and events book or tv series that would suck!

I think it is clear that your fears will not happen. Based on how time travel has been handled, clearly this version of time travel is the single timeline version. So any time travel that ever will happen into the past has already affected the one and only past and had its effects on the one and only present. Based on Hodor always having been Hodor from the time he was turned by Bran going back in time shows that there never was an "alternative universe" in which Hodor remained Walder/Wylllis but then retroactively he became Hodor when Bran went back in time. Rather, there is one time continuum, and Bran went back in time and affected Hodor even before Bran was born, and that action is done and cannot be changed.

So any events we have seen (deaths, etc.), have happened and cannot change. If Bran going back in time could change it, it already would have been changed and never would have happened at all.

[wizards8507]

2 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

I think it is clear that your fears will not happen. Based on how time travel has been handled, clearly this version of time travel is the single timeline version. So any time travel that ever will happen into the past has already affected the one and only past and had its effects on the one and only present. Based on Hodor always having been Hodor from the time he was turned by Bran going back in time shows that there never was an "alternative universe" in which Hodor remained Walder/Wylllis but then retroactively he became Hodor when Bran went back in time. Rather, there is one time continuum, and Bran went back in time and affected Hodor even before Bran was born, and that action is done and cannot be changed.

So any events we have seen (deaths, etc.), have happened and cannot change. If Bran going back in time could change it, it already would have been changed and never would have happened at all.

Exactly.  At most, we might learn that Bran played a role in history that was previously unknown to the audience, but that would just be a reveal of existing history, not the creation of new history.

ETA: What I'll be interested to see is if Bran (as a character) understands these rules.  It seems like Bloodraven did, but did he have enough time to convey that message to Bran?

[UnmaskedLurker]

8 minutes ago, wizards8507 said:

Exactly.  At most, we might learn that Bran played a role in history that was previously unknown to the audience, but that would just be a reveal of existing history, not the creation of new history.

ETA: What I'll be interested to see is if Bran (as a character) understands these rules.  It seems like Bloodraven did, but did he have enough time to convey that message to Bran?

Bran must understand these rules as he commented that Hodor could speak when he was boy. Bran knows that Hodor has been Hodor ever since then -- so the only way this could be true is if Bran's going back always affected Hodor. So maybe Bran is too dense to understand this point, but I doubt it.

By the way, 3ER on the show is not Bloodraven -- he said he had been waiting for Bran for 1,000 years and Bloodraven definitely is not that old. In the books it will be Bloodraven, but I think the show did not want to add that complication as most of that backstory of the Targs will never be addressed on the show the way it is in the books.

[wizards8507]

6 minutes ago, UnmaskedLurker said:

By the way, 3ER on the show is not Bloodraven -- he said he had been waiting for Bran for 1,000 years and Bloodraven definitely is not that old. In the books it will be Bloodraven, but I think the show did not want to add that complication as most of that backstory of the Targs will never be addressed on the show the way it is in the books.

Are we sure about that?  Didn't he say he had been watching Bran with "a thousand eyes, and one" in Season 4?  Bloodraven is show-canon.  He was mentioned as one of the bastards of Aegon IV in Season 1, Episode 6.

[UnmaskedLurker]

2 minutes ago, wizards8507 said:

Are we sure about that?  Didn't he say he had been watching Bran with "a thousand eyes, and one" in Season 4?  Bloodraven is show-canon.  He was mentioned as one of the bastards of Aegon IV in Season 1, Episode 6.

Well, it seems pretty clear that 3ER is dead on the show, so I am not sure how it could ever be revealed that he was Bloodraven. Whatever was said in Season 4, in THIS season 3ER said that he had been waiting for 1,000 years. That comment makes it impossible for 3ER to be Bloodraven, unless he was greatly exaggerating. But given that the show seems to have killed him off without him ever revealing that he is Bloodraven, I think it is pretty safe to conclude that the 1,000 years comment was genuine and show-3ER is not Bloodraven. And show-3ER had both eyes, while Bloodraven lost an eye in battle, so the comment from season 4 might seem to be a reference to having only one eye -- but we saw 3ER on the show with both eyes, so the season 4 comment was only metaphorical.

[Les Météores D]

He didn't and won't save them. Ever. Because if that's the case then we would've already seen the result. That's the purpose of Hodor's fate explained to us.

Now, what's fun to do is speculating about what he did change and the consequences it had on the past or the present. I wonder if Bloodraven also screwed-up at some point (hopefully he did and hopefully it's about Summerhall... ok wishful thinking here...)

[SerJeremiahLouistark]

The only thing Bran can do is ensure the future happens like it's supposed to or die himself.  

[Xcorpyo001]

Yeah, I think that he already did al the changes he can make. And the reality he is experiencing now is the end result. I guess he visited different Targ rulers and tried to tell them that “The WW are real and coming south of the Wall. They control wights. Those can be killed with fire. The WW are killed with dragonglass and valyrian steel, maybe some wildfire. Also, you should use the 3 dragons. Oh, and Rhaegar, please stay away from my aunt Lyanna.” But the end message was scrambled. Some understood the parts about dragons, or the part about wildfire, and died trying to hatch new ones, or become dragons. The Mad King only heard ‘killed them with fire’, while Rhaegar only heard ‘WW..real..3..dragons…Lyanna’. And the rest is history.

[Forlong the Fat]

1 hour ago, Xcorpyo001 said:

Yeah, I think that he already did al the changes he can make. And the reality he is experiencing now is the end result. I guess he visited different Targ rulers and tried to tell them that “The WW are real and coming south of the Wall. They control wights. Those can be killed with fire. The WW are killed with dragonglass and valyrian steel, maybe some wildfire. Also, you should use the 3 dragons. Oh, and Rhaegar, please stay away from my aunt Lyanna.” But the end message was scrambled. Some understood the parts about dragons, or the part about wildfire, and died trying to hatch new ones, or become dragons. The Mad King only heard ‘killed them with fire’, while Rhaegar only heard ‘WW..real..3..dragons…Lyanna’. And the rest is history.

 

This brings up a fascinating possibility: Bran or Bloodraven are the source of all prophesies that have been important in the story so far.  They've been using the prophesies to move the important pieces where they need to be.  They talked to Melisandre through the fire to move Stannis to the Wall, where he was needed.  They gave Dany a vision in the House of Undying to convince her, eventually, to fight Others.

They spoke in prophesies (for example, in the language of the followers of Red Ralloo) because people would listen to what they told them that way.  They would not have believed some random voice out of a tree.

[Xcorpyo001]

1 minute ago, Forlong the Fat said:

This brings up a fascinating possibility: Bran or Bloodraven are the source of all prophesies that have been important in the story so far.  They've been using the prophesies to move the important pieces where they need to be.  They talked to Melisandre through the fire to move Stannis to the Wall, where he was needed.  They gave Dany a vision in the House of Undying to convince her, eventually, to fight Others.

They spoke in prophesies (for example, in the language of the followers of Red Ralloo) because people would listen to what they told them that way.  They would not have believed some random voice out of a tree.

 

Yup, it was probably one of them that gave that Targ seer her prophetic dreams that made her family move from Valyria before the Doom, making sure some dragons(or eggs) and dragonriders survive long enough to face the WW during the next Long Night. The possibilities are endless.