Did Ned Stark confirm this crazy Bran fan theory in Episode Four?
THAT crazy Game Of Thrones fan theory about Bran Stark being Brandon the Builder was confirmed all the way back in episode four — by Ned Stark. Welcome to Part 4 of We Knew Nothing, Jon Snow.
DID Ned Stark actually confirm one of the craziest fan theories about Brandon Stark way back in the fourth episode of Game of Thrones?
Welcome to part four of our ongoing series, We Knew Nothing, Jon Snow – where we go back through the old episodes to find little clues and hints left for us by the showrunners.
Get ready, because there are some spoilers coming!
Episode Four, Cripples, Bastards And Broken Things, sees Ned chatting to daughter Arya about the future and what will happen to Bran now he has woken up.
“He could be lord of a holdfast … could build castles … be Brandon the Builder,” says Ned.
Now Brandon the Builder is a huge figure in Westeros history. Not only is he the first Stark and he built Winterfell but he also built The Wall, using giants to help.
There has been a persistent fan theory that Bran and Brandon the Builder are the same person. We know that Bran can not only warg into people but can affect the past as he views it – just like he did with poor Hodor.
Now, with just six episodes left, it seems unlikely that the show has the time to properly explore this. That probably rules out him driving the mad King mad or the wacky fan theory that Bran actually is the Night King. Especially as season seven was very light on Bran moments that could have set this up.
But obviously Bran is going to warg into the past to see how the White Walkers were defeated the first time. What if he not just sees how the Promised Prince defeats them in the Longest Night but influences the first Bran to build Winterfell and The Wall?
Or will Bran become the architect of the new world left behind after the Night King is defeated? Once he is gone, there seems no need for another Wall but Winterfell is surely going to fall, so we’ll need another one of those. As well as everything else.
The Night King is going to wreck much of Westeros. Even if Bran doesn’t fulfil all those theories, he could be the one to put things back together.
The rest of the episode also gives us some very interesting hints of what is to come.
We see Bran’s first vision of the Three-Eyed Raven, as well as meet Gendry, Bronn, The Mountain and our beloved Samwell Tarly. We even hear about Thoros of Myr and his flaming sword.
But we also get some lovely visions of things to come.
These include Summer the direwolf growling at Theon and then Tyrion foreshadowing Theon’s conflict and betrayal of the Starks. We also get Jaime chatting to Jory Cassel about Theon, where Jory says: “Theon? He’s a good lad.”
“I doubt it,” replied Jaime, rather prophetically.
There is also a fascinating conversation between Sansa and Septa Mordane about the Iron Throne, where the tutor explains how queens cannot take the throne and predicts: “Someday your husband will sit there and you will sit by his side”.
So, can a queen ever take the throne? Or will the throne itself be “thrown” away? And after all the business about Sansa marrying a king, will she? Obviously it can’t be Jon. Could it be Gendry? After all, while he has a friendship with Arya, she tells her father Ned in this very episode that marrying and being a lady: “No, that’s not me.”
That is also the line she give Nymeria in season seven, when the direwolf decides not to be her pet any more.
There is also plenty of Littlefinger business, including a prophetic chat with Ned.
“Lord Baelish, perhaps I was wrong to mistrust you.”
“Mistrusting me was the wisest thing you’ve done since you climbed off your horse.”
Ah, yes indeed!
But we also get to see him trying to work his “magic” on Sansa and Arya. The ones who will combine to kill him off, luckily.
We get to see plenty of Sam in this episode, which is fun, as well as hearing that Jon Snow doesn’t want to have sex for fear of creating another bastard. Well, by season seven that had gone out the window!
Ser Alliser does a nice line in sneering and admits he ate his own men to survive the winter, adding: “Come the winter, you will die like flies”.
Yup, definitely true.
Finally we get to see the evolution of Daenerys, as she realises brother Viserys is a weasel and “can never lead an army”.
Viserys tells her: “Now you have woken the dragon!”, meaning that she has got him angry. But actually it is the other way around. He has woken up her ambition and it is here that she starts her march to power.
There are also some interesting tidbits, including seeing that The Mountain’s heraldic device is an angry dog(!) and Cersei reminds Ned that she is deadly as he is.
Finally we meet Bronn and see Catelyn call up the bannermen of the family the Tullys to seize Tyrion, thinking he tried to kill Bran. That is firstly fascinating because of how much power the Tullys have and how they could tip the balance, even after the losses of the Riverlands fighting.
It is also sad, as the last one she calls upon is a Frey – the family that kills her and Robb.
Towering above all the other revelations in this episode though is the one about Bran. He will be a builder. But to what extent? We must wait to find out…