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[Spoilers?] Bran and the NK


Katleesi

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While listening to a podcast, someone mentioned a better military strategy would have been  (among MANY other things, such as have ANY military and/or reconnaissance strategy at all) to have Bran do air reconnaissance. "YES", I screamed, "YES" into the radio of my car.... 

It got me thinking about a couple theories some people are floating: 1. That Bran is the NK and 2. The NK lured them up there to catch a dragon. If Bran is the NK and the NK intended to lure them there in order to capture a dragon, then Bran's single reconnaissance warg alerting Jon Snow to the progress of the army of the dead toward the wall makes a lot more sense- right?

I mean, if Bran can take the time out of his busy day writing fan fiction based on Panic! At the Disco videos, to warg up beyond the wall to see the Army of the Undead approaching, why on earth did he NOT accompany/warg with Jon and the moronic 7 on their quest and act as crow-connaissance?  But he doesn't help them. His message acts as bait to lure them up there...

Thoughts? 

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Well I was re-reading ADWD and Melisandre does see 'Bran' and the 'Three-Eyed-Raven'  as The Great Other.

Of course this assumes that her vision is of Bran/Raven AND that they are servants of the great other.

 

I put those name in quotes as she sees  a “wooden face, corpse white with a thousand red eyes, accompanied by a boy with a wolf's face".

 

SO not out of the realm of possibility, but considering that the NK attacked Bran...maybe not.

Then again, maybe Bran is now under NK control. after the 'bad touch'... 

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This is very interesting. I personally thought for a moment after watching the ep that it did in fact feel like it was a setup for the NK to get a dragon. I'm still not convinced Bran is the NK or trapped in the NK, but you make valid points OP. Looking forward to other peoples opinion re this. 

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Bran is spending all day trying to make sense of a flood of visions of past, present, and future from all over the world. He has no idea what time it is or what's going on around him most of the time. That's why he can only occasionally just barely manage to hold a brief conversation with someone, and seems like he's repeating lines he remembers from having watched that conservation in the past rather than actually reacting.

So, what makes you think he could get his act together enough to be of use in a military campaign? "Hey, Bran, are there any masses of the dead nearby?" "Let's see what I can see. According to this raven I'm warging a few years in the past, a white walker passed two feet to the right where you're standing, in the middle of this compound where the Children are setting up their defenses against the First Men. Wait, is this conversation from before we lost the war, or from after, when I was among the scattered survivors who fled to Sothyros? Oh, wait, you're dead then. But you're also dead now. And you look different than you did tomorrow, Bran the Breaker."

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3 hours ago, madscientist596 said:

Well I was re-reading ADWD and Melisandre does see 'Bran' and the 'Three-Eyed-Raven'  as The Great Other.

Melisandre seems to think anyone who's not a servant of R'hllor is a champion of the Great Other. Doesn't she also say that the Old Gods and the Seven are servants of the Great Other?

That seems to be central to her religion. Which isn't too surprising, since GRRM based R'hllorism pretty heavily on Zoroastrianism.

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1 hour ago, falcotron said:

Bran is spending all day trying to make sense of a flood of visions of past, present, and future from all over the world. He has no idea what time it is or what's going on around him most of the time. That's why he can only occasionally just barely manage to hold a brief conversation with someone, and seems like he's repeating lines he remembers from having watched that conservation in the past rather than actually reacting.

So, what makes you think he could get his act together enough to be of use in a military campaign? "Hey, Bran, are there any masses of the dead nearby?" "Let's see what I can see. According to this raven I'm warging a few years in the past, a white walker passed two feet to the right where you're standing, in the middle of this compound where the Children are setting up their defenses against the First Men. Wait, is this conversation from before we lost the war, or from after, when I was among the scattered survivors who fled to Sothyros? Oh, wait, you're dead then. But you're also dead now. And you look different than you did tomorrow, Bran the Breaker."

Good point, but if he had enough wherewithal to do a recon of NOTW with ravens and then tell Sansa to get a raven to Jon about it all then why the hell couldn't he get his shit together enough to try and figure out what the NK's strategy is? I'm still not convinced Bran is the NK or that the NK can see through Bran Harry Potter style, but both of those theories do explain several things in S7E6, like how Jon's band o' brothers survived the army of the dead long enough for the dragon's to appear. 

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2 hours ago, PetyrPunkinhead said:

Good point, but if he had enough wherewithal to do a recon of NOTW with ravens and then tell Sansa to get a raven to Jon about it all then why the hell couldn't he get his shit together enough to try and figure out what the NK's strategy is? I'm still not convinced Bran is the NK or that the NK can see through Bran Harry Potter style, but both of those theories do explain several things in S7E6, like how Jon's band o' brothers survived the army of the dead long enough for the dragon's to appear. 

Going by the interview D&D and Isaac gave right after the Bran reunion, it sounds like Bran can very rarely get his shit together; most of the time, he can barely even talk to people. And, meanwhile, he's constantly accessing some interesting piece of information, but he has no control over what piece of information it's going to be, so it's rarely going to be anything useful, which only makes it harder to focus when he does want to be helpful.

It's possible they were lying to mislead the audience so they could drop the big Bran=NK secret later or something, but that doesn't seem at all likely to me. I think even if Bran=NK (which I don't actually think is that likely either, but it's not impossible), his "Bran self" is rarely focused on anything useful.

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3 hours ago, Rant and Rave said:

I believe NK and Bran are the same person for reason that people have already posted (here or other players). However, I don't believe Bran is aware of that fact yet.

 

 

I have read about this theory, too. There's something about it I guess. My first thought was that there will never be a happy reunion of the Stark kids in the books. For the show this means you can take the erratic acting of Arya and Bran as face value.

They don't sit together and tell their stories for a reason, and it will built up so far that they will turn against each other in season 8.

 

 

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14 hours ago, Mayor of Winterfell said:

I have read about this theory, too. There's something about it I guess. My first thought was that there will never be a happy reunion of the Stark kids in the books. For the show this means you can take the erratic acting of Arya and Bran as face value.

They don't sit together and tell their stories for a reason, and it will built up so far that they will turn against each other in season 8.

 

 

Yeah, to me, something about that theory which sounds correct. Bran having powers to only see the past is pretty irrelevant. I also think it'ts too predictable that Bran will be the person that is going to save the day; it's to convenient. I think they are the same person whether he knows it or not.

 

I think the stark children will have a reunion in the books too, but definitely not the same way. We know Jon will definitely leave the Night's watch to save whom he think is Arya. Sansa despite not having the same story line will probably end up taking control of the vale through an announcing after he wedding. She will also probably be the person who ends up saying Jon Snow during the battle of the Bastards. I'm not sure about Arya and Bran though. I don't think it will be the same as the books. It looks like the shoe progressed their story line (Arya killing the Freys within minutes, and Bran arriving in Winterfell quickly) because other story-lines like Aegon, Dorne were dropped. 

They probably will have a reunion much like the show. It has been 6+ years since these characters saw each other, I can understand them not being able to relate to one another as they used to. 

 

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First off, let me admit I hate the theory that Bran is the Night's King, as well as the theory that Jon has to kill Bran -- so I may be biased!  

The fact that the NK is able to sense, recognize and interact with Bran on the 'third-eye' plane/dimension doesn't necessarily imply they are the same person -- what it does suggest, however, is that they are both greenseers (for example, the last 3ER and Bran were able to see each other and communicate while walking around on their greenseeing 'trips' together).  I do think the NK is a Stark and Bran's ancestor, also named 'Brandon Stark.'  Our Bran's task is to 'mind-duel' him on the 'third-eye' plane, the virtual realm where greenseer wars take place -- aka 'the weirnet' -- in order to take possession of the wighted Viserion and the army of the dead (foreshadowed by the Night's King disrupting Bran's skinchanging bond with the flock of ravens).  This will involve Bran sacrificing himself in the process.  Bran is our Lightbringer.

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44 minutes ago, ravenous reader said:

I do think the NK is a Stark and Bran's ancestor, also named 'Brandon Stark.'

I don't think he's even that.

Night's King, the 13th Lord Commander of the Watch who tried to bring the Walkers back, can't be the same person as the Night King, the earlier man who Leaf transformed into the first Walker. And D&D seem committed to avoiding confusion over that issue by just never mentioning Night's King again. And making them both be Brandon Starks (we know Night's King was a Brandon Stark, or at least that Old Nan said so, and she's generally right) seems like an odd way to avoid that confusion.

But if they have changed their minds and decided to smush the two stories together or something, then I think you're right that, even though he is named Brandon Stark, he's still not our Bran. The other part of Old Nan's story is that the final showdown was between the King of Winter (with the King Beyond the Wall) and his younger brother, and Bran is not Jon's brother.

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I am not convinced of the Bran is the Night King theory.  However, it is intriguing and I can’t rule it out as being a possible major twist towards the end of the series.

One thought that I had when seeing the theory and also watching this latest episode… could there be some kind of connection between a skinchanger warging into another creature and the white walkers controlling the dead.  Bran can now warg into multiple ravens at one time.  Is it possible this power can go further though?  Specifically, what if it is possible to warg into other creatures and still maintain your own consciousness?  What if it’s possible to warg the dead?  Are the wights just warged into dead people, and hence when the white walker controlling them dies, the dead are no longer animated?   

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I have read about the Bran = the Night King theories lately, and they are really interesting and plausible. However, if he is the Night King, I don't think he is yet. I think that the whole thing seeming like bait to lure Jon and the others there was just idiotic writing, like many other things on the show these past three seasons. If it turns out that it was in fact a scheme by the Night King to get his hands on a dragon, then that is just a completely new level of horribly evil genius.

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On 8/25/2017 at 0:13 AM, ravenous reader said:

First off, let me admit I hate the theory that Bran is the Night's King, as well as the theory that Jon has to kill Bran -- so I may be biased!  

The fact that the NK is able to sense, recognize and interact with Bran on the 'third-eye' plane/dimension doesn't necessarily imply they are the same person -- what it does suggest, however, is that they are both greenseers (for example, the last 3ER and Bran were able to see each other and communicate while walking around on their greenseeing 'trips' together).  I do think the NK is a Stark and Bran's ancestor, also named 'Brandon Stark.'  Our Bran's task is to 'mind-duel' him on the 'third-eye' plane, the virtual realm where greenseer wars take place -- aka 'the weirnet' -- in order to take possession of the wighted Viserion and the army of the dead (foreshadowed by the Night's King disrupting Bran's skinchanging bond with the flock of ravens).  This will involve Bran sacrificing himself in the process.  Bran is our Lightbringer.

I absolutely hate the theory that Bran is the NK but this is much better.  I like this bit :D

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