I Can't Possibly Be Wrong All the Time

If you don’t know who Bran Stark is, then you’re not familiar with HBO’s Game of Thrones, or the book series A Song of Ice and Fire that it’s based on. I won’t forbid you from reading my article (because it’s great, yo) but it’ll end up spoiling details of the plot. I recommend you binge-watch the show and come right back.

The most recent season of Game of Thrones marked the return of Bran Stark, the little lad who climbed too high, saw things he shouldn’t have seen, yet lived to tell the tale. Well, he would have told the tale, if he didn’t have traumatic amnesia.

Ever since Season Two, Bran’s story has been taking him further and further away from the show’s alleged center-of-focus: the Iron Throne. Bran had been moving north and north, up to the Wall, past that barrier between the civilized and the wild, past Craster’s keep, far into the lands of Always-Winter to a great weirwood and a cavernous hall of learning run by the Three Eyed Raven. And his house-elves.

During the span of Season Six, Bran began to reverse that journey, being carried south from the weirwood cave back to the Wall by his undead uncle Benjen.

(Well, nearly to the Wall. Benjen’s going to make Meera Reed drag Bran the last mile or so, I guess.)

Assuming Bran is escorted into Castle Black, safe and sound, he’ll be back where the action is. After all, there’s an undead army presumably tracking him, and he might find himself the King in the North if he wanted to press some claim.

But I assume Bran has more pressing things to worry about than getting fitted for a crown. Like the undead army that’s presumably tracking him.

I’m glad Bran will be able to have some influence on these events, even though it might seem that a crippled child would have limited agency. He has power, but his faithful wolf Summer is dead as well as the giant Hodor. Both were once useful for Bran to warg into when there was a need to fight.

When planted next to a weirwood tree, Bran can access some kind of memory of the trees, to see things that are past. This carries great risks, since on one of those time-jaunts Bran apparently crippled the mind of a stableboy named Wylis, and before that, he’d fallen prey to the Night’s King, who appears to be able to interact with those on astral plane journeys.

So what help will this boy provide in the war effort, just sitting around? Possibly a great deal.

Bran is the winged wolf. He will never walk again. But he will fly. (Or so he’s been told.)

The Wolf with Wings

I’ve previously talked about what weird things Bran might accomplish with his ability to control animals, and one of those topics speculated on if Bran might be able to control a dragon. Since there’s only three dragons that we know of, just how would Daenerys feel about this? And what negative opinions might Bran have about Daenerys Targaryen, and Targaryens in general?

Bran would see controlling a dragon as an obvious asset in warfare versus the Others. Fire is one way that the wights can be killed, and dragons enjoy burninating. But I’m not sure if Bran the child would think to ask Daenerys for assistance, if he had the opportunity to control a dragon without her say-so.

Bran never thought twice about Professor X’ing the loyal, lovely-natured Hodor into being a killing machine. And he’s not likely to initially be a Daenerys fan.

Bran’s knowledge of the Targaryens can probably summed up like this:

• A Targaryen abducted his Aunt Lyanna, which resulted in her death
• A Targaryen killed his uncle and grandfather, and put out the call for the death of his father
• Bran saw the Mad King in his full-on raving madness, in one of his tree-visions

News that a Targaryen is approaching Westeros, with monsters, will probably not be met with relief from the young warg.

It’s fair to bring up that Bran saw Lyanna’s last moments, where she handed over a baby to the youthful version of Ned Stark. So Bran might have pieced together the likely conclusion that Lyanna and Rhaegar were in love, and there was no abduction. And that Jon Snow is not his half-brother, but is actually his cousin.

But it’s possible that Bran might not have understood anything from the vision…

• “That’s weird, I wonder who that kid was? Dad never talked about that. Oh well.”
• “Poor Aunt Lyanna! What did Rhaegar do to her? No one explains anything to me.”
• “I wonder if I’ll ever find out who Jon’s mother is? I bet his mom was Ashara Dayne!”

So Bran stealing a dragon from Dany might appeal to him on two fronts: getting a weapon to fight up north, and depriving this evil and mad Targaryen conqueror of one of her military assets.

I’m not super-invested in this, but let’s keep it on the table. I think it might be interesting that while the Snow King in the North might be attempting diplomacy (look, we all know Jon and Dany are going to have some face time this season, that’s just science, yo) the Witch-King in the North will be causing problems.

Daenerys: You’re convinced that I should treat with this “King in the North”? The Starks and Targaryens have unresolved bad blood between us.
Tyrion: Well, you did say that the various kingdoms could at least ask you about independence. And we might do well to have more allies and fewer foes.
Daenerys: Hmmm.
Tyrion: But to be honest, I wanted to see this for myself. To imagine the lad I left at the Wall is now a king. When I last saw Jon Snow, I’d just finished pissing off the edge of the world. True fact! He’s my eye-witness!

Daenerys: Hmmm?
Tyrion: The context is important for understanding …
Daenerys: I’m changing the subject. Has anyone seen Drogon?
Tyrion: Not for several days, no.
Daenerys: It’s not the first time he went off hunting for weeks. I do wish he’d check in occasionally. A mother never stops worrying.
Tyrion: The youth of today.
Daenerys: Ah, here’s your piss-watching friend now.
Jon Snow: Your grace.
Daenerys: Your grace.
Grey Worm: My queen! Drogon returned and set fire to our ships!
Daenerys: WHAT?
Grey Worm: Riding on his back was a boy. He kept shouting “Suck on this, Targaryens! House Stark! The North remembers!”
Tyrion: Err, Jon. You wouldn’t happen to know –
Jon Snow: I know nothing about this.
Daenerys: Nothing?
Jon Snow: Look, ask anybody.

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So, is there a reason whu Bran would bother to ride a captured dragon, rather than just inhabiting its mind while leaving his body in a coma, lying around somewhere?

I’ll admit that I just like the idea of Bran and the dragon together.

Tyrion designed a saddle for Bran, since the boys crippled legs would not be able to assist in either maintaining a stable ride or in being able to guide a horse along via spurs.

The same kind of saddle that Tyrion designed for Bran might lead to a dragon-saddle solution. (If Bran and Dany end up on good terms, she might get a better and more comfortable ride situation out of this as well.)

In battle, it might be best for Bran not to be physically on the dragon’s back but it would be useful to have a dragon steed take him from point to point. After all, we don’t know the range of his warging abilities so he’d always want to be somewhat near the dragon.

I’m kind of not paying too much attention to the fact that when Bran was in his direwolf Summer, he was really in Summer. His body was slack, his eyes had that funky “no one’s home” look. But there were moments when he had calmed Hodor with just a touch of his warging power. I think with practice and power growth, Bran might be able to be on the back of a dragon, guiding it but not investing his full consciousness in it.

I mean, the dragons of old did take direction without direct mind control.

The Dragon Has Three Heads

So Dany has three dragons. She can obviously ride a dragon, and Bran might be able to ride a dragon. Who’s going to be on the third dragon? Well, I’ve never insisted that every dragon needs a passenger. There’s much speculation, and of course Jon Snow is a Targaryen, so maybe he’ll be number three. (Look, I know all about rumored secret Targaryens, we don’t need to rehash that too much.)

In my perfect novel world, with Bran and Dany at odds because that’s dramatic, I’d want the third dragon to be somehow taken by a third party who is antagonistic to both the Stark cause and the Targaryen cause. But I doubt the show will be able to pull something like that off, there’s not much time. But it just seems like a fun and complicated situation.

(I’d be thrilled if Cersei was a dragon-rider. Seven Hells! For Cersei to maintain her bizarre but continuous upward trajectory of power, in spite of herself… I’d be pleasantly amazed.)

Okay, that’s enough conjecture. But I do expect something important from Bran. Too hardy to be killed by a fall, blessed by the Old Gods, tapping into power… it’d be a shame if his potential just fizzled out.

Anyone else expecting some cool surprises from the last male Stark? Let me know.

(No need to bring up any Bran-changing-the-timeline expectations, or that we’ll discover he drove Aerys mad, or any other Doctor Whodor nonsense. That’s right, I said it.)

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(Comments are always welcome. Super welcome! But if you want to talk spoilery Game of Thrones talk with me (also welcome) I’d invite you to visit my Safe Spoilers page on my backup blog. That way my non-book-reading friends won’t be shocked with foreknowledge.)

Images from HBO’s Game of Thrones (obviously.) Well most of them. Google provided me that beautiful artwork of Bran, and I’m not sure who created the original image. The pic of Aegon on top of Balerion the Dread by Jordi Gonzales (artwork from The World of Ice and Fire) was found online at the ASOIAF wiki: http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Balerion

I make no claim to the images, but some claims to the text. So there.

If you liked this article, thank you! I have all of my Game of Thrones related articles on my handy-dandy Game of Thrones page should you want to read more but don’t want to navigate around my site.

© Patrick Sponaugle 2017 Some Rights Reserved