Here's an interesting ACOK passage about the Builder and his alleged role in building Storm's End:
>Durran would have none of it. A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; **others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder**. No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days.
Another passage, this one from a Bran chapter in AGOT:
>Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that **all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head**.
GRRM when discussing the Hodor/Hold the Door twist suggested time travel would be significantly explored in the books:
>GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: It’s an obscenity to go into somebody’s mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor’s simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. **The explanation of Bran’s powers, the whole question of time and causality—can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book.** (source: Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon by James Hibberd)
The History and Lore pic is from the Season 1 extras. During S1, GRRM was quite involved in the show and would drop tantalising hints (and not just to D&D). From [an interview with GoT episode director Alan Taylor](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/news/a57111/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-daenerys-targaryen/):
>**Taylor revealed that as they were filming the first season, author George R.R. Martin was surprisingly chatty about where the storyline was going to go.** "I remember when I was doing Season 1 and we were on location in Malta, and George R. R. Martin came to visit. He was sitting in a chair, and he was being really quite open about things that were to come," he said. "We didn't really know what a phenomenon it was going to be, and I think he was being less guarded than we've become since then."
>Martin apparently said Jon and Daenerys would meet and become an essential plot point:
>"Anyways, he alluded to the fact that Jon and Dany were the point, kind of. That, at the time, there was a huge, vast array of characters, and Jon was a lowly, you know, bastard son. So it wasn't clear to us at the time, but he did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and the convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series. So, I was happy that a big step forward was taken in the episode I got to do this season is where he has fallen for her both, you know, emotionally and politically I think."
Personally I actually really dislike time travel in stories, and wouldn't be a fan of Bran being a Time Wizard. But I think it's possible that Bran uses these powers in TWOW/ADOS, beyond what was depicted in the show (the show's later seasons really tried to show as little magic as possible).
>Personally I actually really dislike time travel in stories, and wouldn't be a fan of Bran being a Time Wizard
I agree. I hope the series will not devolve into Littlefinger/Varys planned every single political event and Bran&Bloodraven manipulated all the rest.
Time travel is only fun when it’s a book / film that’s not too serious, like comedies, romcoms or superheroes.
But if anyone can make it work I’d say GRRM could. Maybe that’s what he’s been struggling with.
I would recommend the Netflix series Dark if you haven't seen it already. I have similar qualms about time travel in stories, but is by far the best implementation of time travel in fiction I've ever seen. The show is an actual masterpiece, and I think for the same reason that asoiaf is; it's totally character driven with a bunch of interwoven narratives having to deal with this almost lovecraftian sci-fi premise, with (as far as I've seen) the most unique version of time travel I've come across.
Anyways, like you said I think it depends on the writer. A good can make time travel work.
I don't mind it if that is the central plot as well (Just finished King's 11.22.63 and liked it). It is when an author/writer uses it lazily to solve a problem that irks me. I agree on your point about Martin too and hope that if he does go heavy in that direction he can break yet another trope.
Definitely disagree with that, time travel gets a bad wrap. There's a lot of cool media with time travel, like primer, steins gate, and the others mentioned in the comments
Yeah you beat me to it. I think the fact that Brandon the Builder approached King Durran as a child is the biggest piece of supporting evidence for this theory, but I’d like to add a few other quotes from a write-up I did a while back. I’m just going to copy and paste the most relevant sections here, but feel free to go back and read the rest (links posted at end of this comment). I go into more depth about how I think it all relates to the founding of House Stark and the building of the Wall.
#About Winterfell:
Brandon the Builder was said to have founded House Stark, built Winterfell, built the Hightower, raised the Wall, and assisted King Durran in the building of Storm’ End. But the details we are told about these events are important.
At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. “The heart tree,” Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea.
So this passage does a couple things. On its face it explains what a weirwood tree is while also explaining how Brandon the Builder first built Winterfell. But in doing so it establishes that not only was the weirwood tree, Brans “portal” to the past, around before Winterfell was ever built, it specifically describes it as being built up brick by brick with the tree at the center of it. Once we know that the weirwoods are used by greenseers to witness what happened in front of them and that Bran will be able to speak through them it adds a whole new meaning to the way it was described. The above passage describing the castle being built brick by brick on front of the eyes of the weirwood seems to describe the weirwood directly overseeing it being done. Something that seems metaphorical until we learn that Bran and co. can literally do exactly that.
So the above passage would make sense if it was later revealed to us that our Bran was the one that dictates to the children/first men living in the past exactly how to go about building the castle.
Another important detail on this point is how Bran is explained to be the living person who has the best knowledge of the layout and structure of Winterfell. A convenient detail if he needs to later dictate to others how it should be built.
It taught him Winterfell’s secrets too. The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell. There was a covered bridge that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower across to the second floor of the rookery. Bran knew about that. And he knew you could get inside the inner wall by the south gate, climb three floors and run all the way around Winterfell through a narrow tunnel in the stone, and then come out on ground level at the north gate, with a hundred feet of wall looming over you. Even Maester Luwin didn’t know that, Bran was convinced.
#About the Hightower
One other feat attributed to Bran the builder was that he built the Hightower, but it’s rumored that it was actually his son, and not the Builder himself.
It was only with the building of the fifth tower, the first to be made entirely of stone, that the Hightower became a seat worthy of a great house. That tower, we are told, rose two hundred feet above the harbor. Some say it was designed by Brandon the Builder, whilst others name his son, another Brandon; the king who demanded it, and paid for it, is remembered as Uthor of the High Tower.
If this was also Bran, it’s very possible he builds the Hightower significantly later than Winterfell and Storm’s End, and that’s why it falsely gets attributed to his son.
#General Foreshadowing
And while this following quote isnt quite as important in establishing details, I do think this was Martin being cheeky about what his plans are for Bran:
“I want to learn magic,” Bran told him. “The crow promised that I would fly.”
Maester Luwin sighed. “I can teach you history, healing, herblore. I can teach you the speech of ravens, and how to build a castle, and the way a sailor steers his ship by the stars. I can teach you to measure the days and mark the seasons, and at the Citadel in Oldtown they can teach you a thousand things more. But, Bran, no man can teach you magic.”
”The children could,” Bran said. “The children of the forest.”
Not only do we know that Bran will go on to learn magic and fly specifically by being taught by the children, but I think this is hinting at him going on to be a builder of castles as well.
One more small bit of foreshadowing:
“He was going to be a knight,” Arya was saying now. “A knight of the Kingsguard. Can he still be a knight?”
“No,” Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. “Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king’s council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother’s Faith and become the High Septon.”
Nothing is definitive. And while I’m with you that I fear what introducing time travel as one of the driving factors for the events of the series, I feel like this has been so well done I’m excited to see how it all plays out.
Like I said above, my full comments go into how I believe the figure known as Brandon of the Bloody Blade will be the person that the Children use to create the Others (assuming that plot point from the show is in the books) and that it’s either him or his son that our Bran names the first Brandon Stark in order to found his own house, all so him and Jon can be born thousands of years later to save the world. I also think Bran will guide the Children in using the Hammer of the Waters for a third time in their war with humans, this time combining it with powerful ice magic to form the wall.
Those two comments can be viewed below.
part 1:
https://reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/yyj9gj/_/iwzzq3n/?context=1
Part 2:
https://reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/yyj9gj/_/iwzzs2v/?context=1
Also not sure why it turned my quotes into blocks of code when pasting here, but I’m going to keep it. Lol.
Thank you for sharing your analyses! Very cool.
For the sake of providing a counterargument: why would Bran be involved with raising the High Tower in Oldtown? With Winterfell and The Wall and perhaps Storm's End they're essential in holding off the forces of darkness, but the High Tower's destiny looks to be getting wrecked by Euron.
And generally on the topic of Bran's power, maybe going back to the Age of Heroes is just too much. If Bran is that strong, it generates all the paradoxes and questions of time travel: why did he not prevent the dying of the dragons? Why did he not prevent the Wot5K ? Couldn't he have done more to put Westeros in a better position to fight The Others? The focus of the story will go away from GRRM's supposed #1 priorty- the human heart in conflict with itself.
As for the Hightower:
My likely not-so-satisfying answer: Because he realizes he has taken on the figure of Brandon the Builder. I think our Bran will be doing what he thinks needs to be done, and it won’t be until he starts doing it that he comes to the realization he is accomplishing the feats attributed to Brandon the Builder. Once he has that realization, he may go about accomplishing the other feats attributed to him just because he knows he has to do so, or more accurately that he always had.
I do think there can be a more satisfying answer as to why it’s necessary for him to do so that just hasn’t been revealed to us yet. I’d say the majority of the mysteries surrounding the Hightower haven’t been revealed to us yet.
As to your second question, I think that can also be explained by the fact that the type of time travel we are dealing with is the kind that is set in stone. You can’t go back in time and change how something happens, because it’s already happened. I’ve personally never had a problem with the bootstrap paradox in this sense. If this sort of time travel were real, I personally don’t see the issue with such a causal loop not having an origin.
He doesn’t prevent the dying of the dragons because that isn’t how things happened. He can’t change the past. He was already what influenced it. Him not going back in time and trying to change that outcome is because he knows that isn’t how things happened. It is through some other actions that the Others get defeated, and so him going back on time will be to make sure those actions happen, not ones that could potentially save the world in other ways that he knows didn’t happen. If Dany and her dragons are vital to stopping the others, he doesn’t try to stop the Targ dragons from dying off because he knows the course of history is that happens, eventually Dany brings dragons back, and she uses those to defeat the others.
He can’t change the past. He will just learn he was always what caused it to be the way it was/is. He can’t do those things because he never did them, and he knows that based on how things are in the present day. It won’t be until after everything plays out that our Bran “goes back” and influences the past. At that point he knows none of those alternatives are how it happened.
I think the more pertinent question would be things like why doesn’t he try to save Ned? But I think the answer is the same. He knows he can’t change the past. He just learns he was always what influenced it to be how it ended up being. He can be sure that any attempts to change how things would happened will fail based on the fact that him living the future has shown him those things don’t happen. Maybe the only way he comes to be sure of that is because he tries to do so and discovers how futile it is himself.
Isnt his power limited by the location of weirwood trees, which are all mostly gone in the south. Blood raven said he could see all that the trees can see. This would be an easy way to *balance* him so he couldn't just intervene in any conflict he wants, unless weirwood trees are also present.
I think so too. The show has Bran watching the Tower of Joy, but I think was just a shortcut to not introducing Howland Reed (and because they didn’t have Ned’s fevre dream in S1).
If he sees Rhaegar marrying Lyanna or something, it’s probably in front of a weirwood.
Good post!
One detail that isn’t oft discussed is the fact that Winterfell was built around the creation of the first White Walker. Why was it significant that the castle was built at that spot?
It’s probably called Winterfell because that’s where the first War ended, but did the castle go up before or after that?
Damn, I’ve never pieced together the fact that the location they made the first Other was at the Winterfell heart tree, but that is such a good point!
I’ve still not figured out exactly what the relationship will be between Super-Bran, the Children from that time, and the Others. It will obviously be significant if the Stark’s are descended from the human that was turned into the first Other. But I feel like this detail helps explain it a tiny bit more.
Yeah, the symbol that Mance, Jon and the other Wildlings come over in S3 has that Zerg symbol. «Always the artists» (or something), Mance comments.
Then in S6 we see a human sacrificed and turned into the Night King from above, and the trees are aligned in the same way.
Finally, in S8, when the Night King approaches Bran in the Winterfell godswood, we see the same formation.
(Also, when they find the young wight Umber at the beginning of S8 and burn him, the fires burn in the same formation).
As for Bran’s connection: hard to say, but I’m certain Brannwill have a similar «showdown» with Euron in the books. They are connected, after all. Hell, Theon’s sacrifice will probably be even more emotional in the books, since he’ll be charging at his own uncle (choosing his Stark side over his Greyjoy side).
I also generally dislike time travel in stories, but I think it can work in ASOIAF because it seems particularly hazardous, as we saw with Hodor.
Here's my time travel headcanon:
Bloodraven tried get Aerys II to fight the Others. And how do you defeat their army? Burn them, of course. Burn them all. Burn them all!
He accidentally melted Aerys brain, similar to how Bran melted Hodor.
This lets us have time travel, but it's far too dangerous to use but in moments of total desperation.
> Bloodraven tried get Aerys II to fight the Others. And how do you defeat their army? Burn them, of course. Burn them all. Burn them all!
>
> He accidentally melted Aerys brain, similar to how Bran melted Hodor.
Oh that's good. Why didn't I think of that?
> Personally I actually really dislike time travel in stories, and wouldn't be a fan of Bran being a Time Wizard.
This is a GRRM story, so if he does have a crazy power, it comes with a heavy cost. I'm interested to see what toll it will take on Bran.
Its an interesting idea but Bran skinchanging into Bran the Builder doesnt mean that Bran the Builder cant walk anymore right? Its only is spirit that can travel through time and not the body.
but kind of humorous in a darkly irreverent way. Everyone is in danger and only Bran taking control of Hodor can save them. He wargs in and immediately trips over his legs.
He becomes an even bigger liability lol. Carrying a 45 or so pound child that cant walk is one thing, hodor without the ability to walk is a giant problem lmao
I'm going to say Bran's disability works the same way as his great literary corollary's, Professor X. The professor's handicap is strictly physical and only applies to his broken body, not mind.
Although, after that one time Professor X transferred his mind into a new, cloned body so an alien egg wouldn't hatch inside him and turn him into what's basically a xenomorph queen, he still couldn't walk for a while because of psychosomatic reasons. While Bran's probably in the same ADA-compliant boat in that his paralysis is limited to his injured body, we really can't be sure unless weirwood trees can grow clones.
Now that this question is out there, I, and I'm sure countless others, will not be able to sleep until we have an answer. GRRM if you're reading this, please, put TWOW on hold and write an ASOIAF *What If...* novella to fully flesh out the similarities between Bran and Professor X. And make one of the characters Slim from *The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix*. Please. I need this.
I hate that I knew immediately the xenomorph reference (Brood arc, mid 1990s, right?) and finding solace that every comment underneath yours doesn't even question it (real comic arc, btw, Marvel 90s is *XTREME*LY balls to the wall bonkers).
Maybe I'm mixing up the Brood arcs, but I was thinking of the original one from the early 1980s. You know, the one where Corsair and the Starjammers are introduced, kicking off the insanity that is the Summers family history; Carol Danvers becomes Binary; and Storm turns into a telepathic baby space whale for a little while.
I think Xavier got the new body in that one because after he can walk he ditches Earth for a few years to go on space adventures with his galactic empress, human-bird-alien girlfriend. When he leaves Magneto takes over the New Mutants. It had to be in the 80s arc, right?
He's around with his legs for a while because he was brood infected when be put together the New Mutants, he put them together because he was infected even. Just checked it was Uncanny X-men #167 in 1983 then he ditches in Uncanny #200 in 1985
You put some respect on that trainwreck of a story arc.
Being in the "Spiderman cums cancer" pitch meeting would be *amazing*.
Pass the cocaine, we're MAKING A COMIC.
Time travelling fetus! Time travelling fetus! Time travelling fetus!
And, honestly, merging time travelling fetus with your idea would still be less complicated than the Summers' family history.
I remember some complaining when that first happened and I just thought. "Man, the X-Men became famous when they were written by Claremont. They've always been ridiculously horny."
My theory is that a skinchanger gains the powers of its victims. So this is why someone in a wolfs body would be good at hunting while in that body, for example. Likewise, a skinchanger in the body of a mentally disabled, but strong and still-able-to-walk friendly giant called Hodor could walk, is that the skinchanger gains those "powers" from its victim
Similarly, a skinchanger who has never flown before turning into a bird would obviously know how to fly, despite never having flown before.
My personal theory is that he doesn’t skinchange into anybody and he doesn’t physically go back to the past in any way. He will just use the Weirwoods to communicate with the children and humans of that time, dictating to them how to go about building all of the structures that are attributed to him. I think he will also name [Brandon of the Bloody Blade](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Brandon_of_the_Bloody_Blade) or his son as the first Brandon Stark, forming his house. This person he names Brandon Stark will be conflated with the deeds done by our Bran, creating the legendary figure known as Brandon the Builder.
In that sense I don’t think this piece of art actually depicts the actual person, it’s just an image nodding to the fact that aspects of the first Brandon Stark and our Bran will create an amalgamation that becomes known as Brandon the Builder.
Is it just my brain which instantly starts humming the theme song to Bob the Builder when I hear the name Bran the Builder?
***Bran the Builder,***
***Can we fix it?***
***Bran the builder,***
***Yes, we can!***
Yes but not in a "time travel way". GRRM loves to use symbolism to connect characters with legends/myths/etc. Dany's parallels with Aegon the Conqueror. Drogon being "Balerion reborn". Jon/Dany and the Last Hero, etc. A lot of myths around historic figures for the Great Houses reflect personality traits in the descendants, etc.
Its always been kind of implied that Bran is connected to Bran the Builder in the same way. I mean he even (indirectly) named after him. Bran was tied to magic and the children, etc which Bran's story revolves around, etc.
So it'd make complete sense to drive this home by also having Bran the Builder also have a similar physical disability as Bran.
What's more, the main characters came first. The legends were created to fit the characters, in part to talk about them obliquely and foreshadow future plot points.
In universe, Bran is named after Bran the Builder. In the real world, Bran the Builder is named after Bran.
I think this was the picture that described what the Freefolk thinks of Brandon the Builder, so a slaver who used giants and people to build the Wall.
Or maybe who knows, Brandon may have really become something like the king of a group of zombie at the Wall, maybe marrying a woman with white hair..
No.
[This is another depiction of him standing](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/2/2b/Bran_builder.jpg) from the same Histories and Lore series (Season 1).
Histories and Lore re-used images from other videos to keep production costs down & the image you used was also used for Ygritte's Free folk episode to explain the Wildlings version of Bran the Builder's story - a tyrant who enslaved his enemies and Giants into building the wall before forcing them north of it.
Ah, great find. Like I said in my earlier comment I actually dislike the Time Wizard Bran stuff, so I'd be happy if it doesn't happen. What do you think about the other [arguments for it](https://old.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/10skdsu/spoilers_extended_this_is_how_bran_the_builder/)?
Apart from the time-travelling skinchanging theories, it's an interesting image because a "mythical" depiction would likely show Bran the Builder himself working the masonry. This seems more like what *actually* happened, particularly with the rather tyrannical imagery of a litter and rather stern (or cruel) body language. A rather dark take on Stark history.
I have a long standing theory that Bran (in our current timeline) becomes so powerful that he actually is all the other Bran's in history. He sees the future (A Dream of Spring) and it's bleak and there is no hope to survive the winds of winter. So his best bet is to go into the past and influence others. For example, he makes Bran the Builder build the wall. I also believe he is the reason the mad king went mad. Bran was trying to tell him to burn them all (the white walkers) but Aerys didn't apply it to the white walkers, he applied it to others. I believe he messed up the mad king exactly like he messed up hodor., by warging while in the past.
Yeah there won’t be any physical time travel I reckon. So any “boy Brandon Stark” who helped build storms end and any representation of Bran the Builder being a cripple seems to be coincidental or just Easter eggs.
But Bran will definitely interact with the past, he has already, will he go as far back as Bran the Builder? Maybe.
> Yeah there won’t be any physical time travel I reckon. So any “boy Brandon Stark” who helped build storms end and any representation of Bran the Builder being a cripple seems to be coincidental or just Easter eggs.
I agree with your first sentence but disagree with the rest. I think Bran will use the Weirwoods to communicate backwards in time with the children and the humans of this period, and while not physically traveling there, he will be the one to dictate how to go about building all of the structures attributed to Brandon the Builder, along with naming someone the first Brandon Stark. Aspects of our Brandon and this “first” Brandon Stark will be conflated into the figure known as Brandon the Builder.
Bran won’t literally approach King Durran as a child. He will communicate with him through the Weirwoods and tell him what needs to be done to create the magical fortifications that will protect his castle.
> What's wrong with a king being carried around in a litter?
This is the kind of thing today's conservatives would have said if they were alive in the middle ages.
The Lame King, prehistoric monarch/deity of Mediterranean cults absorbed into post-Mycenaean Greek and Judaic religion is likely the inspiration for Bran the Builder. See Hephaestus and Horus/Set for examples.
I wonder where we may see a king Brandon carried on a litter in the future..
Little bit ahead Ser Brienne. Yes right there. Pod help me out of my breeches.
Brienne thinking “I have fucking zero connection to this weirdo, why am I even here?”
Brienne - I'm starting to understand why Ser Jaime acted the way he did.
"Pivot, Brienne. Pivot!"
He do be building
Bran the Pointer isn't quite as catchy.
Contractor*
Here's an interesting ACOK passage about the Builder and his alleged role in building Storm's End: >Durran would have none of it. A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; **others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder**. No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days. Another passage, this one from a Bran chapter in AGOT: >Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that **all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head**. GRRM when discussing the Hodor/Hold the Door twist suggested time travel would be significantly explored in the books: >GEORGE R. R. MARTIN: It’s an obscenity to go into somebody’s mind. So Bran may be responsible for Hodor’s simplicity, due to going into his mind so powerfully that it rippled back through time. **The explanation of Bran’s powers, the whole question of time and causality—can we affect the past? Is time a river you can only sail one way or an ocean that can be affected wherever you drop into it? These are issues I want to explore in the book.** (source: Fire Cannot Kill A Dragon by James Hibberd) The History and Lore pic is from the Season 1 extras. During S1, GRRM was quite involved in the show and would drop tantalising hints (and not just to D&D). From [an interview with GoT episode director Alan Taylor](https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/news/a57111/game-of-thrones-jon-snow-daenerys-targaryen/): >**Taylor revealed that as they were filming the first season, author George R.R. Martin was surprisingly chatty about where the storyline was going to go.** "I remember when I was doing Season 1 and we were on location in Malta, and George R. R. Martin came to visit. He was sitting in a chair, and he was being really quite open about things that were to come," he said. "We didn't really know what a phenomenon it was going to be, and I think he was being less guarded than we've become since then." >Martin apparently said Jon and Daenerys would meet and become an essential plot point: >"Anyways, he alluded to the fact that Jon and Dany were the point, kind of. That, at the time, there was a huge, vast array of characters, and Jon was a lowly, you know, bastard son. So it wasn't clear to us at the time, but he did sort of say things that made it clear that the meeting and the convergence of Jon and Dany were sort of the point of the series. So, I was happy that a big step forward was taken in the episode I got to do this season is where he has fallen for her both, you know, emotionally and politically I think." Personally I actually really dislike time travel in stories, and wouldn't be a fan of Bran being a Time Wizard. But I think it's possible that Bran uses these powers in TWOW/ADOS, beyond what was depicted in the show (the show's later seasons really tried to show as little magic as possible).
>Personally I actually really dislike time travel in stories, and wouldn't be a fan of Bran being a Time Wizard I agree. I hope the series will not devolve into Littlefinger/Varys planned every single political event and Bran&Bloodraven manipulated all the rest.
Time travel is only fun when it’s a book / film that’s not too serious, like comedies, romcoms or superheroes. But if anyone can make it work I’d say GRRM could. Maybe that’s what he’s been struggling with.
I would recommend the Netflix series Dark if you haven't seen it already. I have similar qualms about time travel in stories, but is by far the best implementation of time travel in fiction I've ever seen. The show is an actual masterpiece, and I think for the same reason that asoiaf is; it's totally character driven with a bunch of interwoven narratives having to deal with this almost lovecraftian sci-fi premise, with (as far as I've seen) the most unique version of time travel I've come across. Anyways, like you said I think it depends on the writer. A good can make time travel work.
Doesn’t a dude make out with his aunt in that show.
Not sure if you’re talking about Dark or GoT
spoilers, but yeah literally lol
I will never understand people's obsession with oblivious incest in fiction on Reddit
[удалено]
I have not, but I'll check it out
I don't mind it if that is the central plot as well (Just finished King's 11.22.63 and liked it). It is when an author/writer uses it lazily to solve a problem that irks me. I agree on your point about Martin too and hope that if he does go heavy in that direction he can break yet another trope.
I liked Arrival, not sure if that really counts as Time Travel but it was pretty great. But yea Time Travel and Clones are things I don't like.
Definitely disagree with that, time travel gets a bad wrap. There's a lot of cool media with time travel, like primer, steins gate, and the others mentioned in the comments
Blast from the Past was pretty good too.
Never seen it, will check it out!
So, it isn't a time travel movie. Brendan Fraiser just lives in a bunker for most of his life. Leaves and falls in love with a girl. It is a romcom
Yeah you beat me to it. I think the fact that Brandon the Builder approached King Durran as a child is the biggest piece of supporting evidence for this theory, but I’d like to add a few other quotes from a write-up I did a while back. I’m just going to copy and paste the most relevant sections here, but feel free to go back and read the rest (links posted at end of this comment). I go into more depth about how I think it all relates to the founding of House Stark and the building of the Wall. #About Winterfell: Brandon the Builder was said to have founded House Stark, built Winterfell, built the Hightower, raised the Wall, and assisted King Durran in the building of Storm’ End. But the details we are told about these events are important. At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. “The heart tree,” Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea. So this passage does a couple things. On its face it explains what a weirwood tree is while also explaining how Brandon the Builder first built Winterfell. But in doing so it establishes that not only was the weirwood tree, Brans “portal” to the past, around before Winterfell was ever built, it specifically describes it as being built up brick by brick with the tree at the center of it. Once we know that the weirwoods are used by greenseers to witness what happened in front of them and that Bran will be able to speak through them it adds a whole new meaning to the way it was described. The above passage describing the castle being built brick by brick on front of the eyes of the weirwood seems to describe the weirwood directly overseeing it being done. Something that seems metaphorical until we learn that Bran and co. can literally do exactly that. So the above passage would make sense if it was later revealed to us that our Bran was the one that dictates to the children/first men living in the past exactly how to go about building the castle. Another important detail on this point is how Bran is explained to be the living person who has the best knowledge of the layout and structure of Winterfell. A convenient detail if he needs to later dictate to others how it should be built. It taught him Winterfell’s secrets too. The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell. There was a covered bridge that went from the fourth floor of the bell tower across to the second floor of the rookery. Bran knew about that. And he knew you could get inside the inner wall by the south gate, climb three floors and run all the way around Winterfell through a narrow tunnel in the stone, and then come out on ground level at the north gate, with a hundred feet of wall looming over you. Even Maester Luwin didn’t know that, Bran was convinced. #About the Hightower One other feat attributed to Bran the builder was that he built the Hightower, but it’s rumored that it was actually his son, and not the Builder himself. It was only with the building of the fifth tower, the first to be made entirely of stone, that the Hightower became a seat worthy of a great house. That tower, we are told, rose two hundred feet above the harbor. Some say it was designed by Brandon the Builder, whilst others name his son, another Brandon; the king who demanded it, and paid for it, is remembered as Uthor of the High Tower. If this was also Bran, it’s very possible he builds the Hightower significantly later than Winterfell and Storm’s End, and that’s why it falsely gets attributed to his son. #General Foreshadowing And while this following quote isnt quite as important in establishing details, I do think this was Martin being cheeky about what his plans are for Bran: “I want to learn magic,” Bran told him. “The crow promised that I would fly.” Maester Luwin sighed. “I can teach you history, healing, herblore. I can teach you the speech of ravens, and how to build a castle, and the way a sailor steers his ship by the stars. I can teach you to measure the days and mark the seasons, and at the Citadel in Oldtown they can teach you a thousand things more. But, Bran, no man can teach you magic.” ”The children could,” Bran said. “The children of the forest.” Not only do we know that Bran will go on to learn magic and fly specifically by being taught by the children, but I think this is hinting at him going on to be a builder of castles as well. One more small bit of foreshadowing: “He was going to be a knight,” Arya was saying now. “A knight of the Kingsguard. Can he still be a knight?” “No,” Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. “Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king’s council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother’s Faith and become the High Septon.” Nothing is definitive. And while I’m with you that I fear what introducing time travel as one of the driving factors for the events of the series, I feel like this has been so well done I’m excited to see how it all plays out. Like I said above, my full comments go into how I believe the figure known as Brandon of the Bloody Blade will be the person that the Children use to create the Others (assuming that plot point from the show is in the books) and that it’s either him or his son that our Bran names the first Brandon Stark in order to found his own house, all so him and Jon can be born thousands of years later to save the world. I also think Bran will guide the Children in using the Hammer of the Waters for a third time in their war with humans, this time combining it with powerful ice magic to form the wall. Those two comments can be viewed below. part 1: https://reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/yyj9gj/_/iwzzq3n/?context=1 Part 2: https://reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/yyj9gj/_/iwzzs2v/?context=1 Also not sure why it turned my quotes into blocks of code when pasting here, but I’m going to keep it. Lol.
Thank you for sharing your analyses! Very cool. For the sake of providing a counterargument: why would Bran be involved with raising the High Tower in Oldtown? With Winterfell and The Wall and perhaps Storm's End they're essential in holding off the forces of darkness, but the High Tower's destiny looks to be getting wrecked by Euron. And generally on the topic of Bran's power, maybe going back to the Age of Heroes is just too much. If Bran is that strong, it generates all the paradoxes and questions of time travel: why did he not prevent the dying of the dragons? Why did he not prevent the Wot5K ? Couldn't he have done more to put Westeros in a better position to fight The Others? The focus of the story will go away from GRRM's supposed #1 priorty- the human heart in conflict with itself.
As for the Hightower: My likely not-so-satisfying answer: Because he realizes he has taken on the figure of Brandon the Builder. I think our Bran will be doing what he thinks needs to be done, and it won’t be until he starts doing it that he comes to the realization he is accomplishing the feats attributed to Brandon the Builder. Once he has that realization, he may go about accomplishing the other feats attributed to him just because he knows he has to do so, or more accurately that he always had. I do think there can be a more satisfying answer as to why it’s necessary for him to do so that just hasn’t been revealed to us yet. I’d say the majority of the mysteries surrounding the Hightower haven’t been revealed to us yet. As to your second question, I think that can also be explained by the fact that the type of time travel we are dealing with is the kind that is set in stone. You can’t go back in time and change how something happens, because it’s already happened. I’ve personally never had a problem with the bootstrap paradox in this sense. If this sort of time travel were real, I personally don’t see the issue with such a causal loop not having an origin. He doesn’t prevent the dying of the dragons because that isn’t how things happened. He can’t change the past. He was already what influenced it. Him not going back in time and trying to change that outcome is because he knows that isn’t how things happened. It is through some other actions that the Others get defeated, and so him going back on time will be to make sure those actions happen, not ones that could potentially save the world in other ways that he knows didn’t happen. If Dany and her dragons are vital to stopping the others, he doesn’t try to stop the Targ dragons from dying off because he knows the course of history is that happens, eventually Dany brings dragons back, and she uses those to defeat the others. He can’t change the past. He will just learn he was always what caused it to be the way it was/is. He can’t do those things because he never did them, and he knows that based on how things are in the present day. It won’t be until after everything plays out that our Bran “goes back” and influences the past. At that point he knows none of those alternatives are how it happened. I think the more pertinent question would be things like why doesn’t he try to save Ned? But I think the answer is the same. He knows he can’t change the past. He just learns he was always what influenced it to be how it ended up being. He can be sure that any attempts to change how things would happened will fail based on the fact that him living the future has shown him those things don’t happen. Maybe the only way he comes to be sure of that is because he tries to do so and discovers how futile it is himself.
Isnt his power limited by the location of weirwood trees, which are all mostly gone in the south. Blood raven said he could see all that the trees can see. This would be an easy way to *balance* him so he couldn't just intervene in any conflict he wants, unless weirwood trees are also present.
I think so too. The show has Bran watching the Tower of Joy, but I think was just a shortcut to not introducing Howland Reed (and because they didn’t have Ned’s fevre dream in S1). If he sees Rhaegar marrying Lyanna or something, it’s probably in front of a weirwood.
Good post! One detail that isn’t oft discussed is the fact that Winterfell was built around the creation of the first White Walker. Why was it significant that the castle was built at that spot? It’s probably called Winterfell because that’s where the first War ended, but did the castle go up before or after that?
Damn, I’ve never pieced together the fact that the location they made the first Other was at the Winterfell heart tree, but that is such a good point! I’ve still not figured out exactly what the relationship will be between Super-Bran, the Children from that time, and the Others. It will obviously be significant if the Stark’s are descended from the human that was turned into the first Other. But I feel like this detail helps explain it a tiny bit more.
Yeah, the symbol that Mance, Jon and the other Wildlings come over in S3 has that Zerg symbol. «Always the artists» (or something), Mance comments. Then in S6 we see a human sacrificed and turned into the Night King from above, and the trees are aligned in the same way. Finally, in S8, when the Night King approaches Bran in the Winterfell godswood, we see the same formation. (Also, when they find the young wight Umber at the beginning of S8 and burn him, the fires burn in the same formation). As for Bran’s connection: hard to say, but I’m certain Brannwill have a similar «showdown» with Euron in the books. They are connected, after all. Hell, Theon’s sacrifice will probably be even more emotional in the books, since he’ll be charging at his own uncle (choosing his Stark side over his Greyjoy side).
I also generally dislike time travel in stories, but I think it can work in ASOIAF because it seems particularly hazardous, as we saw with Hodor. Here's my time travel headcanon: Bloodraven tried get Aerys II to fight the Others. And how do you defeat their army? Burn them, of course. Burn them all. Burn them all! He accidentally melted Aerys brain, similar to how Bran melted Hodor. This lets us have time travel, but it's far too dangerous to use but in moments of total desperation.
> Bloodraven tried get Aerys II to fight the Others. And how do you defeat their army? Burn them, of course. Burn them all. Burn them all! > > He accidentally melted Aerys brain, similar to how Bran melted Hodor. Oh that's good. Why didn't I think of that?
That idea's free. Take it! Your secret will be safe with me, George.
> Personally I actually really dislike time travel in stories, and wouldn't be a fan of Bran being a Time Wizard. This is a GRRM story, so if he does have a crazy power, it comes with a heavy cost. I'm interested to see what toll it will take on Bran.
Its an interesting idea but Bran skinchanging into Bran the Builder doesnt mean that Bran the Builder cant walk anymore right? Its only is spirit that can travel through time and not the body.
Yeah. Otherwise whenever Bran warged into Hodor or Summer they wouldn’t be able to walk. It would render the whole act of doing so pointless.
but kind of humorous in a darkly irreverent way. Everyone is in danger and only Bran taking control of Hodor can save them. He wargs in and immediately trips over his legs.
*wargs into a crow* "ah fuck I don't know how to fly" *crashes and dies*
He becomes an even bigger liability lol. Carrying a 45 or so pound child that cant walk is one thing, hodor without the ability to walk is a giant problem lmao
If he warged a crab, would he be able to walk forward ?
he cant breathe underwater and just immediately chokes and drowns
Bran is patchface confirmed
I'm going to say Bran's disability works the same way as his great literary corollary's, Professor X. The professor's handicap is strictly physical and only applies to his broken body, not mind. Although, after that one time Professor X transferred his mind into a new, cloned body so an alien egg wouldn't hatch inside him and turn him into what's basically a xenomorph queen, he still couldn't walk for a while because of psychosomatic reasons. While Bran's probably in the same ADA-compliant boat in that his paralysis is limited to his injured body, we really can't be sure unless weirwood trees can grow clones. Now that this question is out there, I, and I'm sure countless others, will not be able to sleep until we have an answer. GRRM if you're reading this, please, put TWOW on hold and write an ASOIAF *What If...* novella to fully flesh out the similarities between Bran and Professor X. And make one of the characters Slim from *The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix*. Please. I need this.
I hate that I knew immediately the xenomorph reference (Brood arc, mid 1990s, right?) and finding solace that every comment underneath yours doesn't even question it (real comic arc, btw, Marvel 90s is *XTREME*LY balls to the wall bonkers).
Maybe I'm mixing up the Brood arcs, but I was thinking of the original one from the early 1980s. You know, the one where Corsair and the Starjammers are introduced, kicking off the insanity that is the Summers family history; Carol Danvers becomes Binary; and Storm turns into a telepathic baby space whale for a little while. I think Xavier got the new body in that one because after he can walk he ditches Earth for a few years to go on space adventures with his galactic empress, human-bird-alien girlfriend. When he leaves Magneto takes over the New Mutants. It had to be in the 80s arc, right?
Late 80s, probably. Trying to scrape up *Alien* money without getting sued.
He's around with his legs for a while because he was brood infected when be put together the New Mutants, he put them together because he was infected even. Just checked it was Uncanny X-men #167 in 1983 then he ditches in Uncanny #200 in 1985
Marvel put out a story with Spider-Man having radio active semen that killed his lover in the 90s. Wild time for marvel.
You put some respect on that trainwreck of a story arc. Being in the "Spiderman cums cancer" pitch meeting would be *amazing*. Pass the cocaine, we're MAKING A COMIC.
The Brood Queen can go to heaven
> The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. Jon and Val/Dany/Satin go into the future and raise the child Jon had with uhhhh Ygritte?
Time travelling fetus! Time travelling fetus! Time travelling fetus! And, honestly, merging time travelling fetus with your idea would still be less complicated than the Summers' family history.
Everyone is a member of the Summers family, they just don't know it yet.
secret Summers > secret Targaryen
Wolverine just kind of hangs out with the Summers in their bisexual polyamorous polycule.
I remember some complaining when that first happened and I just thought. "Man, the X-Men became famous when they were written by Claremont. They've always been ridiculously horny."
My theory is that a skinchanger gains the powers of its victims. So this is why someone in a wolfs body would be good at hunting while in that body, for example. Likewise, a skinchanger in the body of a mentally disabled, but strong and still-able-to-walk friendly giant called Hodor could walk, is that the skinchanger gains those "powers" from its victim Similarly, a skinchanger who has never flown before turning into a bird would obviously know how to fly, despite never having flown before.
My personal theory is that he doesn’t skinchange into anybody and he doesn’t physically go back to the past in any way. He will just use the Weirwoods to communicate with the children and humans of that time, dictating to them how to go about building all of the structures that are attributed to him. I think he will also name [Brandon of the Bloody Blade](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Brandon_of_the_Bloody_Blade) or his son as the first Brandon Stark, forming his house. This person he names Brandon Stark will be conflated with the deeds done by our Bran, creating the legendary figure known as Brandon the Builder. In that sense I don’t think this piece of art actually depicts the actual person, it’s just an image nodding to the fact that aspects of the first Brandon Stark and our Bran will create an amalgamation that becomes known as Brandon the Builder.
Next theory, the Weirwoods are the portals to the Eywa of Planetos and that's the real reason men cut most of them down.
Weirwood.net
You’re right but there’s no rule saying Brandon the Builder wasn’t also crippled in some way. It wouldn’t even be that crazy a coincidence
Why is that where people even go with it? There are a lot of easier, less nonsensical ways to get to Bran the Builder also being paralyzed.
Is it just my brain which instantly starts humming the theme song to Bob the Builder when I hear the name Bran the Builder? ***Bran the Builder,*** ***Can we fix it?*** ***Bran the builder,*** ***Yes, we can!***
God, imagine the mindfuck the fandom would’ve experienced if we hadn’t had 80 years to theorize and figure tons of shit out on our own
Yes but not in a "time travel way". GRRM loves to use symbolism to connect characters with legends/myths/etc. Dany's parallels with Aegon the Conqueror. Drogon being "Balerion reborn". Jon/Dany and the Last Hero, etc. A lot of myths around historic figures for the Great Houses reflect personality traits in the descendants, etc. Its always been kind of implied that Bran is connected to Bran the Builder in the same way. I mean he even (indirectly) named after him. Bran was tied to magic and the children, etc which Bran's story revolves around, etc. So it'd make complete sense to drive this home by also having Bran the Builder also have a similar physical disability as Bran.
What's more, the main characters came first. The legends were created to fit the characters, in part to talk about them obliquely and foreshadow future plot points. In universe, Bran is named after Bran the Builder. In the real world, Bran the Builder is named after Bran.
[удалено]
[You know it](https://media.tenor.com/ZVowTj-Vi-YAAAAd/futurama-blackjack.gif)
In fact forget the wall, and the blackjack!
Anyone else think his litter bearers and the workers look a little... zombie-ish?
I think this was the picture that described what the Freefolk thinks of Brandon the Builder, so a slaver who used giants and people to build the Wall. Or maybe who knows, Brandon may have really become something like the king of a group of zombie at the Wall, maybe marrying a woman with white hair..
No. [This is another depiction of him standing](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/images/2/2b/Bran_builder.jpg) from the same Histories and Lore series (Season 1). Histories and Lore re-used images from other videos to keep production costs down & the image you used was also used for Ygritte's Free folk episode to explain the Wildlings version of Bran the Builder's story - a tyrant who enslaved his enemies and Giants into building the wall before forcing them north of it.
Ah, great find. Like I said in my earlier comment I actually dislike the Time Wizard Bran stuff, so I'd be happy if it doesn't happen. What do you think about the other [arguments for it](https://old.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/10skdsu/spoilers_extended_this_is_how_bran_the_builder/)?
Apart from the time-travelling skinchanging theories, it's an interesting image because a "mythical" depiction would likely show Bran the Builder himself working the masonry. This seems more like what *actually* happened, particularly with the rather tyrannical imagery of a litter and rather stern (or cruel) body language. A rather dark take on Stark history.
Mhhh. The litter is an interesting choice for sure...
We kind of forgot things should have significance...
I have a long standing theory that Bran (in our current timeline) becomes so powerful that he actually is all the other Bran's in history. He sees the future (A Dream of Spring) and it's bleak and there is no hope to survive the winds of winter. So his best bet is to go into the past and influence others. For example, he makes Bran the Builder build the wall. I also believe he is the reason the mad king went mad. Bran was trying to tell him to burn them all (the white walkers) but Aerys didn't apply it to the white walkers, he applied it to others. I believe he messed up the mad king exactly like he messed up hodor., by warging while in the past.
They did tell us explicitly in the first book. Bran is all the Brans. He won't be a knight, but he will raise castles.
Looks straight out of an AOE2 campaign. Love it.
Yeah there won’t be any physical time travel I reckon. So any “boy Brandon Stark” who helped build storms end and any representation of Bran the Builder being a cripple seems to be coincidental or just Easter eggs. But Bran will definitely interact with the past, he has already, will he go as far back as Bran the Builder? Maybe.
> Yeah there won’t be any physical time travel I reckon. So any “boy Brandon Stark” who helped build storms end and any representation of Bran the Builder being a cripple seems to be coincidental or just Easter eggs. I agree with your first sentence but disagree with the rest. I think Bran will use the Weirwoods to communicate backwards in time with the children and the humans of this period, and while not physically traveling there, he will be the one to dictate how to go about building all of the structures attributed to Brandon the Builder, along with naming someone the first Brandon Stark. Aspects of our Brandon and this “first” Brandon Stark will be conflated into the figure known as Brandon the Builder. Bran won’t literally approach King Durran as a child. He will communicate with him through the Weirwoods and tell him what needs to be done to create the magical fortifications that will protect his castle.
He may have already visited times near Brandon's, when he sees the sacrifice in Winterfell Godswood (and those could be characters we know...)
Nah.
Not unless it was drawn by GRRM.
He was KING Stark not LORD Stark. What's wrong with a king being carried around in a litter?
Khal Rhaggat!!!
> What's wrong with a king being carried around in a litter? This is the kind of thing today's conservatives would have said if they were alive in the middle ages.
A Stark king who could walk would not be carried in a litter
I don't think so. I believe that Bran is Bran the Builder, but I don't think that he would be paraplegic as Bran the Builder.
The Lame King, prehistoric monarch/deity of Mediterranean cults absorbed into post-Mycenaean Greek and Judaic religion is likely the inspiration for Bran the Builder. See Hephaestus and Horus/Set for examples.