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My defense of Bran as King.


Paul Ell

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Ending Game of Thrones with Bran as King makes a lot of sense if you consider the thematic message the story ended with.

Bran being chosen King represented a break from the hereditary lineage system and the birth of a new way of selecting the King.  It also represented the beginnings of a parliamentary system in which the King is more a figurehead rather than a ruler with absolute power.

Bran says:
“I can never be Lord of Winterfell,” he responds. “I can never be Lord of anything. I’m the Three-Eyed Raven.”

He means that Bran Stark the eldest living son of Ned Stark and rightful heir to be King of the North can never be King. 
But Bran has ended his old identify as Bran Stark and with it his Stark lineage.  He is now the Three-Eyed Raven.

Tyrion's speech that got Bran chosen King never once mentioned Brans lineage as a reason Bran should be King. 

Bran is not using the Stark Wolf as his sigil.  He is using a Raven sigil.  This further illustrates Bran is not holding a hereditary family claim to power.

Bran can't have children and they chose him anyway.  This means the new non-lineage system of choosing King will continue after his death.

The show ended with the wheel being broken and a parlimentary  council choosing new Kings.  Also Bran is setting a precedent by taking a hands off approach to governing and letting the council handle it.  The beginnings of
figurehead royalty.

Brans name is now Bran The Broken.  Maybe the name is more than Bran having a broken body but also that he broke the wheel.

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When or if it happens in the books I hope it makes a lot more sense than this.  I'd hope Bran takes a far more active role in the downfall of the Nights King, a role that others understand and can actually see.

What he does in the show, act all mysterious and say he knows shit without ever really alluding to it, is not going to impress the Lords of the realm enough to make him King. Unless these ambitious, back stabbing Lords and Ladies have all of a sudden abandoned their ways.

Hopefully Bran shows a true demonstration of his powers to a much larger audience, this  would work, if he seems to be the most powerful person alive no one can compete with him for choice of king.

And that whole 'Bran the Broken' spiel is idiotic. New Kings of new dynasties don't advertise how weak they are. Contrary to popular belief the people of the middle ages understood PR. Calling the new King the 'broken' is going to kick off a multitude of rebellions. Making it a law that anyone can be king is going to kick of a multitude of rebellions. This just seems short-sighted.

 

I'm willing to believe that in two books GRRM can make it work, but I do genuinely have my doubts. As there are many, many other characters who make more sense.

My worry is that its all being done to have this weird history repeating itself motif with another Bran the Builder starting off another chain of events that will eventually lead, in thousands of years time, to another Others invasion. It sounds like BSG finale.

 

edit: and now I now hate myself a little as I'm complaining like the hardcore Stannis fans about an event not yet published not making sense before I've even read it. It seemed so amusing when they were losing their shit over this.  

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I seriously doubt Bran being King at the end.  I think D&D did this because they literally couldn't think of anything interesting to do with the character so they just shoved them into whatever roles they thought the audience would accept.

On ‎5‎/‎25‎/‎2019 at 8:17 AM, Paul Ell said:

Bran can't have children and they chose him anyway.  This means the new non-lineage system of choosing King will continue after his death.

The show ended with the wheel being broken and a parlimentary  council choosing new Kings.  Also Bran is setting a precedent by taking a hands off approach to governing and letting the council handle it.  The beginnings of
figurehead royalty.

Brans name is now Bran The Broken.  Maybe the name is more than Bran having a broken body but also that he broke the wheel.

Feudalism wasn't ended by parliaments relegating monarchs to figureheads.  It was ended by monarchs growing strong enough to crush the power of feudal lords and rule centralized states.  Which were eventually forced to cede power to representative governments.  

Dany could have "broken the wheel" by crushing the power of the feudal lords, establishing standing armies, and centralized bureaucracy, and a national bank.

Does anyone else think its funny they basically chose Leto II as God Emperor of Westeros?

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47 minutes ago, thehandwipes said:

I seriously doubt Bran being King at the end.  I think D&D did this because they literally couldn't think of anything interesting to do with the character so they just shoved them into whatever roles they thought the audience would accept.

Yeah.... no. This was GRRM's vision:

Then Hempstead-Wright revealed that Bran taking the crown was actually A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin’s plan since the beginning.

“[Creators] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] told me there were two things [author] George R.R. Martin had planned for Bran, and that was the Hodor revelation, and that he would be king. So that’s pretty special to be directly involved in something that is part of George’s vision. It was a really nice way to wrap it up.”

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/season-8-episode-6-finale-isaac-hempstead-wright-bran-interview

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20 minutes ago, D-Shiznit said:

 Yeah.... no. This was GRRM's vision:

 

In fairness his vision once was that Jaime would be King after killing everyone in the succession line.

We don't know when this revelation of Bran being king came about, was it in the original 2006 meetings between GRRM and the producers, in the year after AFFC was published, was it in the years after ADWD was published or a more recent revelation.

Reading the original outline of the trilogy Bran seems to take a more central part in the series, is this the outline that was revealed to the producers.

What we do know is that the books did change considerably in scope from the original outline to the published novel, nothing is yet set in stone.  (I'm definitely grasping at straws here :()

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20 minutes ago, D-Shiznit said:

Yeah.... no. This was GRRM's vision:

Then Hempstead-Wright revealed that Bran taking the crown was actually A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin’s plan since the beginning.

“[Creators] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] told me there were two things [author] George R.R. Martin had planned for Bran, and that was the Hodor revelation, and that he would be king. So that’s pretty special to be directly involved in something that is part of George’s vision. It was a really nice way to wrap it up.”

http://www.makinggameofthrones.com/production-diary/season-8-episode-6-finale-isaac-hempstead-wright-bran-interview

Jesus, Isaac.  Way to drop a spoiler.  But it doesn't matter, I don't consider anything in the show to confirm or refute the books.  King of the North, King of Winter, maybe.  God Emperor of the Weirwood net, sure.  But King of the Six Kingdoms, nonsense.

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53 minutes ago, thehandwipes said:

Jesus, Isaac.  Way to drop a spoiler.  But it doesn't matter, I don't consider anything in the show to confirm or refute the books.  King of the North, King of Winter, maybe.  God Emperor of the Weirwood net, sure.  But King of the Six Kingdoms, nonsense.

As of ADWD, Bran's already positioned as a big deal in the weirnet and he was Robb's publicly recognized heir before he thought he died, so Bran's been in line for KitN/KoW going back to ACOK. 

Whatever GRRM revealed about Bran being King, it wasn't something already known. 

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On 5/25/2019 at 6:17 AM, Paul Ell said:

Ending Game of Thrones with Bran as King makes a lot of sense if you consider the thematic message the story ended with.

Yes, it makes a lot of sense. You just have to look a little carefully at all the dominos Bran set up and then saw knocked down one by one that led to him being made king.

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