My Favorite Thing About Bran

When I first read this scene, I took up the reading that most others seem to: Bran is mourning Lady’s loss; it is a small plea for sympathy.

This is a really subtle moment in Bran’s spiritual growth; it’s not a plea for sympathy. Though he yet can’t put it into words, he’s realized something that his other siblings don’t even as of ADWD: the direwolf is more than just a symbol of power, it is a source of power.

Bran knows that Sansa didn’t write that letter of her own free will, and why: She has no one to protect her, because she has no direwolf, and to not have a direwolf at your side is to be powerless. A Stark is their direwolf, and vise versa:

This is my favorite thing about Bran. For someone who is so young and naive, he is deeply in tune to his siblings and thinks about them all the time:

Bran is such the embodiment of the utterly sincere and caring monarch, like Arthur and other fairytale kings. It begins with his siblings, but it grows to include everyone around him, including Hodor and the Reeds:

He is dutiful and proud to serve as a ruler:

And he’s good at it:

And as wise and spiritually aware as his training as lord and greenseer is making him, Bran is so fortunate that when he returns he will have sisters who have cunning and can lie because, this child has no guile:

Other examples: Bran describing sex as two people “lying on top of each other”; Bran wanting to joust with Hodor and on and on.

Bran is fit to rule because he does literally everything except play “The Game”. He does exactly the sorts of the things that kings should be doing but that in the narrative they always sideline: Robert prefers to hunt and drink; Robb’s reign is almost entirely waging war (at his audiences “he spoke the words so awkwardly that even Bran took note; it was a speech he had learned, not words from the heart”) and Renly preferred to watch tourneys and feast rather than deal with the affairs of his subjects. Bran’s chapters give us the purest example of a truly beneficent and attentive king (as opposed to a queen, Dany) who deals with the essentials of castle repairs, storing food, taxes and the needs of the peasants. He’s the only ruler who does this on page with any sincerity other than Dany.

So when Bran, his character and his arc are described as being about magic and not ruling, and that he is an exploration of the shaman-trope rather than fairytale king, I shake my head and think, “They….they skimmed Bran’s chapters, didn’t they?” 

Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman as Thor Odinson and Jane Foster/The Mighty Thor

Bran Stark: Born to Lead, Born to Rule

Bran Stark’s story is centered around the magical, but there is a significant aspect of his story that is often overlooked, ignored, or forgotten. From a very young age, eight to be exact, Bran has been in training as the Lord of Winterfell and the warden of the North. Bran’s training is one that has provided him with the experience needed to command, operate, and rule Winterfell, and it has cemented him as the Stark in Winterfell all the while solidifying his relationships with the Northern lords and houses. This crucial part of his story cannot be ignored, as he is the only Stark child, after Robb, to have the experience and background needed to rule over Winterfell and the North. As Ser Rodrik reminds him:

Just a few examples of the training Bran received as the acting Lord of Winterfell in listening, learning, speaking on matters important to Winterfell itself as well as the North as a whole:

Not to mention the many Northern lords Bran had to meet and have a dialogue with- Lord Wyman Manderly, Mors Umber, Tallharts, Glovers, etc. Just from the above quotes we can see that Bran had to deal with northern economy, defenses, climate changes, land rights, marriages, and more than that, he learned wise lessons from Maester Luwin on how a lord must treat his people, specifically those who cannot help themselves, the outcasts of society, people like Hodor.  

In a series wrought with deeper meanings and interpretations of even the most simplest of things, it is imperative that Bran’s name is discussed in connection with his role as a leader and ruler. There have been many Brandon Starks in the Stark ancestry, many of whom have been Kings in the North. To have a  Bran Stark, rather, Prince Bran Stark, who is the brother of the King in the North and his rightful heir is no mere coincidence nor insignificant fact. Unbeknownst to Robb, as well as all of the Northern lords, Bran is still alive, making him Robb’s true heir and for all intents and purposes: the King in the North.

Even more interesting is the fact that Brandon Stark is the name of the very man who built Winterfell and the Wall- Bran the builder. Curious that Winterfell has been burned and destroyed in recent times, and is in desperate need of reformation and reconstruction. Very curious that the rightful heir of Winterfell, Bran Stark, is named after the very man who built Winterfell in the first place. Just from his name and position alone, it is clear that Bran’s destiny is tied with Winterfell, whether it is rebuilding, ruling, or both, it is a destiny that he has not yet fulfilled. So long as Bran is alive he will always be Robb Stark’s rightful heir, and the true Lord of Winterfell. 

Is this post real life? Or is it just fantasy?

Are there other people in the world who truly see Bran as the King in the North? 

Not to mentioned that the character is named and characterized after Bran the Blessed, and his mystical connection with the ‘true’ north basically epitomizes every ideological foundation of every kingship myth ever. Bran is in fact the only true king in a mystical sense in a world that insists on showcasing the demystification of kingship, with a (always fake) king in every corner.

Bran Stark and the Mythological Figure Brân the Blessed: Bran's Role as King, and Leader of the Fight Against the Others

In Welsh mythology, Brân the Blessed was a giant and King of Britain who appears in the Mabinogion- a collection of stories from medieval Welsh manuscripts. His welsh name, Bendigeidfran, literally translates to “Blessed Raven,” and the name Brân literally translates to crow. 

In the most significant tale of Brân the Blessed, rising tensions between King Brân and the Irish king Matholwch escalate to a full out battle when the Irish king attempts to attack Brân the Blessed and his party, which includes his half-brother Efnisien. The catalyst for the attacks is King Brân’s machinations of rescuing his sister, Branwen, from her abusive husband- the Irish king. Efnisien realizes that the Irish intend to revive the dead in a magic cauldron for the purpose of utilizing an undead army against Brân and his host. Efnisien sacrifices himself by hiding amongst the corpses the Irish intend to bring back from the dead, and destroys the source of the revival, the cauldron, from within.

Brân the Blessed is mortally wounded in the fight, and he instructs the seven remaining survivors of his party to cut off his head and return it to the Gwynfryn, the “White Hill”. It is thought that the White Hill is the location upon which the Tower of London stands, and as long as Brân remains there, Britain will be safe from invasion.

Now, GRRM places a great significance on certain names:

For example, the name Arya means noble, great, and truthful in sanskrit, which fits perfectly with what we know of Arya Stark. 

The tale of Brân the Blessed seems to fit soundly with the tale of Bran Stark. Bran is, without a doubt, the most connected character to the true, magical North. From the start, he has prophetic dreams of a three-eyed crow, and he is so greatly influenced by his dreams that he eventually sets out to find the source of them. In ADWD, Bran finally meets the source in the form of Lord Brynden Rivers, also known as Bloodraven. It seems there is a recurrent theme of Bran’s significant connections to ravens. Connections that stem from the meaning of his name, from Lord Bloodraven, and from Bran’s powerful skinchanging abilities- abilities that allow him to fly in the body of a raven.

As I’ve explained here, Prince Brandon Stark is the true heir of King Robb Stark, and as the King in the North has died, the Kingship of the North has passed to Prince Bran, making him a King in much the same vein as Brân the Blessed. While Bran is no giant, interestingly enough, he sits atop the shoulders of a man who is characterized as a literal giant amongst men- Hodor. He also skinchanges into Hodor; in utilizing Hodor’s body and controlling his mind, Bran makes himself a giant in the process. 

As we learn early on in the series, Westeros is under a foreign threat of invasion from an undead army. In a striking similarity to Brân the blessed’s half-brother, Efnisien, it is Bran Stark’s own half-brother, Jon Snow, who realizes this threat. Jon is actively fighting the undead that have arisen, whilst Bran is actively training to learn how to fight them through higher, magical means. Just the same as King Brân and his half-brother Efnisien, both Bran Stark and Jon Snow have paramount roles in protecting Westeros from the only true threat facing it- an invasion of the others. 

In yet another similarity between the two tales: King Brân and Efnisien attempt to rescue their sister from the cruel Irish king, just as Jon Snow declares war on the heinous Ramsay Bolton in an attempt to find and rescue his most beloved sister, Arya.

It is believed that King Brân’s head is the reason that Britain is safe from foreign invasion, and this seems to be indicative of the larger purpose of Bran’s storyline: a King who ensures the safety and protection of his country, his people, his home. We know that Bran is undergoing a very specific, highly complex, magical training and I believe that all signs point to Bran not only playing a central role in the fight against the others, but taking on the role of King for the security of his true home- Winterfell and the North. 

Source for the story of Brân the Blessed here.

Idea for this meta came from tumblr user theelliedoll and their excellent commentary on my other Bran meta. The commentary can be found here.

Let me ask you. You still having those nightmares? All the time. It means I remember. It means a part of me is still there. Which means a part of the Winter Soldier is still in me.

Blue and purple stood the White Mountains, rising into peaks of jet, tipped with glimmering snows, flushed with the rose of morning.

- Jon VII, ADWD

art credit

+ Sandor through Sansa’s POV chapters

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