Bloodraven's last lesson: Win

[a bastard with a harp]

We are all speculating about whether Hodor sacrificed himself or if that was Bran controlling him. But it was answered in the episode itself, just at the beginning of the vision by Rickard Stark (Ned's father):

 

Quote

Remember that you are a Stark. Comport yourself with dignity at the Vale. And try to stay out of fights, but if you have to fight win.

What else could be so important on that vision that Bloodraven brought Bran there and not anywhere else ? The ultimate lesson he had to teach Bran was to win at any cost. No matter if he had to leave his master behind, sacrifice his loyal companion (R.I.P Summer) or even sacrifice a friend's life in order to achieve his goal: to win.

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

[GeorgeIAF]

5 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

We are all speculating about whether Hodor sacrificed himself or if that was Bran controlling him. But it was answered in the episode itself, just at the beginning of the vision by Rickard Stark (Ned's father):

 

What else could be so important on that vision that Bloodraven brought Bran there and not anywhere else ? The ultimate lesson he had to teach Bran was to win at any cost. No matter if he had to leave his master behind, sacrifice his loyal companion (R.I.P Summer) or even sacrifice a friend's life in order to achieve his goal: to win.

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

Interesting. I wondered too why they focused on Rickard and what he was saying to Ned. Good catch.

[HellasLEAF]

5 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

We are all speculating about whether Hodor sacrificed himself or if that was Bran controlling him. But it was answered in the episode itself, just at the beginning of the vision by Rickard Stark (Ned's father):

 

What else could be so important on that vision that Bloodraven brought Bran there and not anywhere else ? The ultimate lesson he had to teach Bran was to win at any cost. No matter if he had to leave his master behind, sacrifice his loyal companion (R.I.P Summer) or even sacrifice a friend's life in order to achieve his goal: to win.

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

This.  

[Ludvig Carlson]

My thought for bringing Bran to this very vision is that he has seen this vision many times, and it was not until he found Bran that he understood the vision, as this was the moment Hodor becomes Hodor, since all along, brans future ghost has been in that vision to connect Hodor to the presence and the future at the same time, which caused Hodor to become Hodor, as any of us would since its a pretty traumatic experience to be in two different ages at the same time. 

It got me thinking about Dumbledore, going back in his visions to find out about the Horocruxes and were they were, trying to discover as much of Voldemorts life as possible to see the truth. I think that is what BR has been doing for all these years, studying history, and he knew that know, because the NW was coming, it was time to go to this vision, in order for History to become presence in some way. 

[Muttering Ed]

7 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

We are all speculating about whether Hodor sacrificed himself or if that was Bran controlling him. But it was answered in the episode itself, just at the beginning of the vision by Rickard Stark (Ned's father):

What else could be so important on that vision that Bloodraven brought Bran there and not anywhere else ? The ultimate lesson he had to teach Bran was to win at any cost. No matter if he had to leave his master behind, sacrifice his loyal companion (R.I.P Summer) or even sacrifice a friend's life in order to achieve his goal: to win.

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

I like it. Good on ya.

[Aerys Blackfyre]

sounds fine to me

[Grayce Hornwood]

I wonder at this as well, and this seems a likely explanation. Good catch  

[WingedShadow]

10 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

We are all speculating about whether Hodor sacrificed himself or if that was Bran controlling him. But it was answered in the episode itself, just at the beginning of the vision by Rickard Stark (Ned's father):

 

What else could be so important on that vision that Bloodraven brought Bran there and not anywhere else ? The ultimate lesson he had to teach Bran was to win at any cost. No matter if he had to leave his master behind, sacrifice his loyal companion (R.I.P Summer) or even sacrifice a friend's life in order to achieve his goal: to win.

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

It's possible, but the real reason he took him there is because Bran needed to be there to create Hodor by bridging Wylis to present day Hodor and therefore destroying his mind.

 

While they were there, the Bloodraven was apparently uploading memories into Bran, important ones that he needed to experience. So it was a sort of "loading screen" while simultaneously being important to close a time loop

[Jon Snow Bengal]

There's talk of Bloodraven uploading himself to Bran. Maybe he needed Brans mind to be completely relaxed in a greenseer state to facilitate this process & watching the kids in the yard at Winterfell was useful in this respect. That and Hodor.

[Jon Snow Bengal]

6 hours ago, WingedShadow said:

It's possible, but the real reason he took him there is because Bran needed to be there to create Hodor by bridging Wylis to present day Hodor and therefore destroying his mind.

 

While they were there, the Bloodraven was apparently uploading memories into Bran, important ones that he needed to experience. So it was a sort of "loading screen" while simultaneously being important to close a time loop

This.

 

[Good Guy Garlan]

I like this. Bran inheriting Grandpa Rickard's (and Grandpa Hoster's) ruthlessness (though I guess Rickard was more ambitious than ruthless, but still). 

[Drz]

17 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

Or perhaps he was tricked by the TER to continue the loop, the endless cycle of war. After all, why else would the COTF + TER simply allow Bran to warg around the weird wood trees? The last lesson was to implement the lie: continue this war.

[TennisMenace]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I count only 3 WWs left. Now, we know how to kill them with that special steel, so why not just go find these 3 dudes, kill them, which in turn should result in the walking undead followers to go bye bye too?

[a bastard with a harp]

3 hours ago, Drz said:

Or perhaps he was tricked by the TER to continue the loop, the endless cycle of war. After all, why else would the COTF + TER simply allow Bran to warg around the weird wood trees? The last lesson was to implement the lie: continue this war.

I really don't believe that 3ER and CoTF are being truthful to Bran. They are hiding something from him, but I'm not really sure if their best interest is and endless war against the Others. But as far as we know everything is possible.

Do you have anything in special that makes you think that way ? I would like to read more about it.

 

1 hour ago, TennisMenace said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I count only 3 WWs left. Now, we know how to kill them with that special steel, so why not just go find these 3 dudes, kill them, which in turn should result in the walking undead followers to go bye bye too?

That was odd. When we have the scene of the Night King converting one of Craster's son into a WW we see 12 or 13 WW standing behind him. We know that Jon killed one at Hardhome and as far as the viewers know no other WW has been killed since. So I really don't know what may have happened to those WW that we saw on that scene. 

My best guess is that the show is simplifying things way too much. You can't simply make 10 WWs desapear and hope that nobody will care. 

[WingedShadow]

3 hours ago, TennisMenace said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I count only 3 WWs left. Now, we know how to kill them with that special steel, so why not just go find these 3 dudes, kill them, which in turn should result in the walking undead followers to go bye bye too?

No, there were just 3 accompanying the Night's King to the Tree. One was killed by Meera. Add that to the one Jon killed at Hardhome and the one killed by Sam, that leaves at least 96 White Walkers left not including the NK. There were 12 with him at that ceremony that turned Craster's last son they get delivered, assuming one of those is the one that delivered the baby to the location.

 

At Hardhome alone there were at least 4 other White Walkers excluding the NK, one of whom Jon killed. This is assuming that the ones seen as Jon and the others sail away are the same ones that were on horseback with NK previously. If not, there were 2 or 3 more there.

[rocksniffer]

23 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

We are all speculating about whether Hodor sacrificed himself or if that was Bran controlling him. But it was answered in the episode itself, just at the beginning of the vision by Rickard Stark (Ned's father):

 

What else could be so important on that vision that Bloodraven brought Bran there and not anywhere else ? The ultimate lesson he had to teach Bran was to win at any cost. No matter if he had to leave his master behind, sacrifice his loyal companion (R.I.P Summer) or even sacrifice a friend's life in order to achieve his goal: to win.

Bran is the last hero, the one who can stop the White Walkers and bring balance to the world once again. And for that to happen, he must win at any cost.

while i like this idea very much...i am inclined to believe he brought bran there because he knew he had to make hodor into hodor or the story would have died in the cripts under winterfell when no one would have been able to open the blocked door...

17 hours ago, Ludvig Carlson said:

My thought for bringing Bran to this very vision is that he has seen this vision many times, and it was not until he found Bran that he understood the vision, as this was the moment Hodor becomes Hodor, since all along, brans future ghost has been in that vision to connect Hodor to the presence and the future at the same time, which caused Hodor to become Hodor, as any of us would since its a pretty traumatic experience to be in two different ages at the same time. 

It got me thinking about Dumbledore, going back in his visions to find out about the Horocruxes and were they were, trying to discover as much of Voldemorts life as possible to see the truth. I think that is what BR has been doing for all these years, studying history, and he knew that know, because the NW was coming, it was time to go to this vision, in order for History to become presence in some way. 

well said...interesting comparison...i made a similar connection by sighting the difference in the pensieve and bran's travels because bran can clearly interact and effect change...

4 hours ago, TennisMenace said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I count only 3 WWs left. Now, we know how to kill them with that special steel, so why not just go find these 3 dudes, kill them, which in turn should result in the walking undead followers to go bye bye too?

i am sure there are many more than the 13 we saw at the christening ... craster has been giving every male child since he founded his keep with his first wives (there are 19 wives when he dies) and he is described in the wiki as being near the end of his life with gray hair turning white. i assume in all those years many sons have gone on to become baby walkers

i am wondering how it is that they grow up...or is there a squad of little walker babies ready to get all chucky on everyone

2 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

I really don't believe that 3ER and CoTF are being truthful to Bran. They are hiding something from him, but I'm not really sure if their best interest is and endless war against the Others. But as far as we know everything is possible.

Do you have anything in special that makes you think that way ? I would like to read more about it.

 

That was odd. When we have the scene of the Night King converting one of Craster's son into a WW we see 12 or 13 WW standing behind him. We know that Jon killed one at Hardhome and as far as the viewers know no other WW has been killed since. So I really don't know what may have happened to those WW that we saw on that scene. 

My best guess is that the show is simplifying things way too much. You can't simply make 10 WWs desapear and hope that nobody will care. 

i do agree there is more to the whole greenseer situation than bran yet knows and perhaps there are things that are being hidden from him until the time is ripe...

[Drz]

8 hours ago, a bastard with a harp said:

I really don't believe that 3ER and CoTF are being truthful to Bran. They are hiding something from him, but I'm not really sure if their best interest is and endless war against the Others. But as far as we know everything is possible.

Well, using "endless war" was a wrong phrase. I meant that, instead of trying to reach for peace, it's all about total annihilation of the Others, but you never know if there could be that 1 White Walker who survives and would thousands of years after come back for revenge.

I'm hoping the show won't be about destroying and murdering the Others, but instead peace being made.

[NotSoSilentSister]

I think the point was to drive home the nature of a stable time loop. When Bran interferred with young Wyllis' body and broke Wyllis's mind, he did not change the past - he created it. That means that nothing Bran could ever do while in the past can change the course of events. He has always already done it and it has always already failed to prevent whatever he might want to prevent. I'm not sure Bran will immediately grasp this - lots of viewers who now speculate all problems in the series could be solved with time travel shenanigans apparently don't - but once he does, he's bound to be a more passive observer.

Bloodraven might have felt Bran needed to learn this lesson the hard way, for it to stick. He probably learnt it the hard way himself. I'm willing to bet good money that Bloodraven once had his own o-shit-poetic-irony moment; maybe when he tried to prevent the fall of Aerys through time travel, inadvertently causing Robert's Rebellion in the process. Just think about it: Bloodraven learns that Rheagar is plotting against Daddy. (There have been some hints in the books that Rheagar was up to something, politically.) Bloodraven also knows that there's going to be a zombie invasion, and the last thing the realm needs in such a situation is political instability. So he travels through time to whispher in Rheagar's ear that there will be bigger fish to fry than Aerys' questionable ruling and he needs to get his priorities straight, thus causing Rhaegar's obsession with the prophecy, which eventually leads him to kidnap Lyanna at the tourney he wanted to use to rally the Lords against Dad.

I think Bran will feel pretty guilty about the whole Hodor business. As well he should. He got very cavalier about instrumentalizing people with his warging. People have speculated for a long time that it would lead him down a dark path. But now that he has seen the full consequences of his actions (and maybe felt them too? Was he still warging Wyllis when Wyllis lost his mind?) he might do some soul-searching after all. Bran has been consistently reckless so far. If this ordeal can't teach him caution, nothing ever will.

(Of course, old Stark's words to his parting son "But if you fight, win"  seem to carry significance here. But I wouldn't conclude that Bloodraven is condoning that lesson. Especially since Bloodraven's own lesson about the futility of time travel shenanigans under closed time loop conditions rather undermines it. You might be willing to win at any cost, to fuck with all of space and time if necessary, and still accomplish jack shit. What Stark's command to win clearly communicates however is that the honorable Starks can be just as ruthless as the rest. That's another message Bloodraven seems to want to get across - see also him showing Bran the ugly truth about Ned's victory over Dayn. I really don't think Bloodraven intended Ned as a role model for Bran here. What did Ned's ruthlessness accomplish after all? It couldn't save Lyanna.)

I'm counting on a sadder but wiser Bran.

 

[ebourget]

On 5/24/2016 at 5:51 PM, TennisMenace said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I count only 3 WWs left. Now, we know how to kill them with that special steel, so why not just go find these 3 dudes, kill them, which in turn should result in the walking undead followers to go bye bye too?

Nah, he just seems to travel with 3 'generals' at any given time.  But we know there are more than this as they are introduced in the Craster baby taken to land of always winter scene as being at least 13, including the NK himself.    + miscellaneous number of baby others.

Edit: I should have read on and anticipated others had already corrected this haha, my bad.  Didnt meant to pile on.

[DrogonTargaryen]

On 5/24/2016 at 8:40 AM, WingedShadow said:

It's possible, but the real reason he took him there is because Bran needed to be there to create Hodor by bridging Wylis to present day Hodor and therefore destroying his mind.

 

While they were there, the Bloodraven was apparently uploading memories into Bran, important ones that he needed to experience. So it was a sort of "loading screen" while simultaneously being important to close a time loop

This is true, but from a narrative perspective Hodor could have been doing just about anything in this scene. It didn't have to be young Ned going off to the Vale. It could have been Hodor watching a young Robert Baratheon meet Lyanna for the first time. or watching another random sword fighting lesson. It could have been Hodor picking his nose while sitting on the privy. I mean, I suppose it has to be something of theoretical interest to Bran generally, but D&D (or GRRM) picked this particular scene for a reason.