Bran Stark

"My dreams are different."

- Bran

Brandon "Bran" Stark is a character on HBO's Game of Thrones. He débuts in the first episode of the first season. He is portrayed by starring cast star Isaac Hempstead-Wright.

Early Life
Bran is the fourth child and second son of Lady Catelyn and Lord Eddard Stark. Eddard is the head of House Stark and Lord Paramount of the North. The North is one of the constituent regions of the Seven Kingdoms and House Stark is one of the Great Houses of the realm. House Stark rules the region from their seat of Winterfell and Eddard also holds the title Lord of Winterfell. He is also the Warden of the North to King Robert Baratheon.

Bran was born and raised at Winterfell. He has an older brother Robb, and a younger brother Rickon. He has two older sisters, Sansa and Arya. He also has a bastard half-brother, Jon Snow. He is 10 years old at the start of the series. He was named for Eddard's elder brother, Brandon, who was slain by the Mad King. He is only called "Brandon" by his mother when he has done something wrong. He dreams of being a knight of the Kingsguard and one day becoming a bannerman for his brother, Robb. His favorite hobby is climbing the walls of Winterfell and using its old rooftops and passageways to get around.

Paralysed
Bran is being trained by his father, brothers and the castle's staff in leadership and combat. Bran is considered old enough to see some of the uglier side of life, and his father takes him to see a deserter from the Night's Watch being executed. The Starks find a litter of direwolf pups and Eddard reluctantly agrees to let his children adopt them because they are the symbol of their house. Bran eventually settles on naming his direwolf Summer. King Robert Baratheon's party arrives at Winterfell, and Eddard agrees to act as the Hand of the King and accompany Robert back to King's Landing, and to take Bran, Sansa and Arya with him. During Robert's visit Bran goes exploring. While climbing a decrepit tower, he catches the king's wife, Queen Cersei, and her twin brother, Jaime, engaged in sexual intercourse. To keep his silence, Jaime pushes him out of the tower window.

Bran survives the fall, but is left comatose, forcing Eddard to leave him in Winterfell. While he is unconscious an assassin attempts to kill him. Catelyn struggles with the man until Summer arrives and rips out the would-be assassin's throat. Summer then stands guard at the end of Bran's bed. Bran awakens with no memory of what happened some weeks later, at the same moment as his father is forced to kill Sansa's direwolf, Lady.

After Catelyn leaves for King's Landing, Old Nan sits by Bran’s bedside to watch him. She suggests the story of Duncan the Tall and Bran replies that he hates her stories —he prefers the scary ones. She retorts that he is a "sweet summer child" who knows nothing about fear, and tells him that fear is for the winter and for the Long Night, a winter season thousand of years ago that lasted a generation, in which those who didn't freeze to death had to face the White Walkers, who ventured south for the first time and swept through Westeros. They are interrupted by Robb, and Bran asks him if it is true he will never walk again. Sadly, Robb says yes. Bran says that he would rather be dead, to Robb's distress.

The Dreams
Bran begins to have a recurring dream in which a three-eyed raven flies into the crypts of Winterfell. He is awoken to meet with Tyrion Lannister, who has stopped at Winterfell on his way home. Out of his regard for Jon Snow, Tyrion has designed a special saddle that will allow Bran to ride despite his injuries.

Bran takes a lesson on the sigils and mottos of the Great Houses from Maester Luwin, who is confident that Tyrion's saddle will work. Luwin also suggests that Bran could learn to use a shortbow from horseback, in the manner of the Dothraki. Bran bitterly refutes Luwin's assertion that his mother will return home soon.

Bran tries out his new saddle on a ride in the godswood and is thrilled to find that it works. While riding is attacked by wildlings led by Stiv. Robb and Theon Greyjoy defend Bran, killing Stiv and the other wildlings apart from Osha, who surrenders. Robert dies after being injured while hunting.

Eddard challenges the legitimacy of Robert's heir, Joffrey, with evidence of Cersei's infidelity and is arrested. Bran says farewell to Robb when he leads the Stark armies to war in response. He also tries unsuccessfully to reassure Rickon that Robb will return. He prays in the godswood for their safe return, and is joined by Osha (now a servant of Winterfell), who tells him that Robb's army is marching the wrong way and the true threat lies to the north, Beyond the Wall.

Bran tells Osha of his dreams featuring the Three-eyed raven as he rides on her shoulders, saying that he saw his father in the crypts. Osha is skeptical. Bran taunts her about her fear of the catacombs and eventually she agrees to take him down to the crypt. Bran recites the names of his deceased relatives as they pass them. They approach the place where Eddard was in Bran’s dream. There, they are startled by Shaggydog and Rickon. Rickon has also dreamt of their father in that spot. Osha and Bran go back to the surface and Osha attempts to soothe Bran’s worries about his father. As they exit the crypts, they cross paths with Maester Luwin who reveals that Eddard has been executed for treason.

Bran continues to experience strange dreams as he is tutored in ruling Winterfell by Maester Luwin. He dreams that he is Summer as the direwolf roams the Godswood and sees his reflection in the pond there. He has Osha accompany him out to look in the pond himself and is reassured that his waking reflection is his own. He again dreams that he is the wolf. This time Summer enters his bedchamber and he sees himself awakening through the wolf's eyes. He discusses the dream with Maester Luwin who reassures him that magic has been absent from the world for centuries.

Bran dreams of the Three-eyed raven again and seeks advice from Osha. She questions him further and he reveals another dream about the sea flooding Winterfell and drowning Winterfell and its people, including Ser Rodrik Cassel. She does not offer any explanation. Ser Rodrik brings news that Torrhen's Square has been besieged and Bran orders him to take the remaining garrison to relieve the siege.

Loss of Winterfell
Bran is awoken by Theon Greyjoy, who tells him that he has seized Winterfell. Theon tells Bran that he should yield the castle to protect his people. Bran reluctantly complies with a public announcement. Rodrik is captured on his return from Torrhen's Square. He insults Theon, calling him a traitor to Eddard Stark, and spits at him. Theon is pressured to execute him by his men. Theon ignores Bran's pleas and carries out a botched execution. Osha tells Bran that his dream came true; the Iron Islands (represented as the sea in the dream) have come to Winterfell. Bran escapes with Osha's help. They are accompanied by his brother Rickon, their direwolves and Hodor.

They flee as far as a nearby farm. Theon tracks them with hounds but loses their scent at the farm. He returns to Winterfell with two charred corpses, displaying them publicly and claiming that they are Bran and Rickon. The escapees actually doubled back, using a stream to mask their scent and are hiding under Theon's nose in the crypts of Winterfell. Bran overhears Luwin telling Osha that the bodies must be Jack and Billy, the two orphan boys that he had previously assigned to assist a shepherd.

They remain in hiding as Winterfell is besieged by an army of Northmen. The Ironborn flee and the Starks emerge from the crypts to find that their home has been sacked and abandoned. They find Luwin dying in the Godswood and he urges them to go north to find Jon Snow at Castle Black. Bran makes a tearful farewell to his mentor and they follow his last piece of counsel.

Bran is on the road to Castle Black, along with his brother Rickon, Osha, Hodor and the direwolves, Summer and Shaggydog, in order to seek shelter with his half-brother, Jon Snow. Bran continues to dream about chasing the Three-eyed Raven, but encounters in his dream a strange boy, whom he later meets while awake. This is when he meets Jojen Reed and his sister, Meera. Jojen possesses "the sight", the rare gift of seeing the past and present through his dreams, and is able to speak with Bran through their dreams. Jojen also saw the Three-eyed raven, who is apparently responsible for bringing the sight to them, and tells Bran he is a 'Warg', someone who can control the minds of animals. Osha is distrustful of the siblings.

Finding out about his Abilities
Bran Stark is having a shared greensight dream with Jojen Reed. They are walking through the woods and see the three-eyed raven again. Jojen advises Bran that he must follow the raven, and when he is confused, Jojen points out that he must follow it by climbing a tree. Bran begins to climb the tree that the raven has landed in but he soon becomes terrified, remembering the fall that crippled him when he was climbing a tower at Winterfell. He sees a vivid dream-memory of his mother Catelyn, repeating her warning in which she made him promise never to climb again - a promise which he broke, and thus indirectly led to the fall which crippled him. Bran is so terrified of the memory of Catelyn yelling at him that he falls off the tree. Bran and Jojen wake in their camp in the woods, disappointed that he could not follow the three-eyed raven.

Tensions rise at camp between Osha and Meera Reed before Bran diffuses the situation. Jojen Reed experiences a seizure while sleeping, and Meera explains they are caused by his visions. Jojen then tells Bran that in his vision he saw Jon Snow with the wildlings.

On their way to the Wall, Bran Stark's party makes camp. Osha remains distrustful of Meera and Jojen Reed and reacts with horror when they mention they intend to go beyond the Wall. Osha bluntly refuses to go, explaining that she lost her husband, who then rose from the dead and tried to kill her. She rages that none of them understand what lies beyond the Wall and that there is nothing left for men there. However, Bran agrees with Jojen, arguing that the raven has been waiting for him to find him since Bran fell from the tower.

After seeking shelter in a derelict windmill during a rainstorm, the group notices a band of wildlings chasing down a old man. The sounds of thunder terrify Hodor, who shouts out in panic. Fearing discovery, Jojen tells Bran to silence Hodor, who keeps panicking. Bran unintentionally uses his Warg powers to render Hodor unconscious. With the wildlings still outside, Jojen convinces Bran to Warg through Summer and Shaggydog outside, who then maul to death some of the wildlings. While in control of Summer and Shaggydog, Bran saw Jon Snow outside fighting the wildlings. After this, Bran insists that he must go beyond the Wall to find the raven. However, he wants Rickon to be safe, so he tells Osha to take his brother with her to the holdfast of Greatjon Umber, a loyal bannerman of the Starks. Bran bids a tearful Rickon farewell, who leaves with Osha and Shaggydog, while Bran continues northward with Hodor, Summer and the Reed siblings.

At last, they make it to the Wall and stay overnight in the Nightfort, an abandoned castle on the Wall that is rumored to be haunted. During the night, Jon Snow's fellow Night's Watch comrade Samwell Tarly, with Gilly and her child, emerge from a secret passageway. Samwell, noticing the gigantic Hodor and Summer, realizes who Bran is and offers to take them to Castle Black, but Jojen tells Sam that they are going beyond the Wall, as no force in the realm of Westeros could withstand the threat posed by the White Walkers. Sam reluctantly shows them the secret sally port and gives them the obsidian blades found north of the Wall, which he earlier used to slay a White Walker. That night, Bran, the Reeds, Hodor and Summer finally pass beyond the Wall.

Bran, Hodor, Jojen and Meera are north of the Wall and Bran is looking through Summer's eyes, now having the ability to look through him whenever he wants. They wake him up which angers Bran but they warn him that if he stays in the wolf too long, he will stay in him permanently and lose everything he has ever known. Summer finds a Heart tree and when Bran wargs with it and has a vision: another Heart tree on a hill, the Three-eyed raven, his father about to be executed, a flight of ravens, White walkers and wights, including a glimpse of the Night's King, the Iron Throne sitting empty with snow falling around it, himself falling from the tower, a dragon flying over King's Landing, and finally the same tree on a hill again, all while a strange voice tells him to find him "beneath the tree, North." Bran then tells the others that he knows where they have to go.

Later, Bran and his companions are resting near Craster's Keep. They hear the faint sounds of a baby's cries. Bran enters the mind of Summer to investigate where he finds Ghost, the direwolf of Jon Snow. However, before he can free Ghost, Summer is caught by a trap. At Meera's urgings, they go to rescue Summer and Ghost but are taken prisoner by Karl. While Hodor is being tormented by Rast and the other mutineers for pure amusement, Karl threatens to kill Jojen and Meera before Bran gives up his identity.

Bran and the others are being held imprisoned in a tent. Karl enters the tent and ties up Meera and prepares to rape and torture her. Jojen begs for mercy and offers to help them, saying he possesses the sight. Karl refuses and just before he cuts Meera, Jon Snow and members of the Night's Watch attack the keep. Locke, who really serves Roose Bolton, searches for Bran and finds him and attempts to escape the keep with Bran as he has also been tasked with finding and killing Rickon as well. However, Bran wargs into Hodor, who escapes his binds and catches up to Locke. He lifts Locke off the ground and breaks his neck. Bran can see Jon and tries to crawl over to him to get his attention. He is about to reach him when Jojen arrives and intervenes, telling him that Jon will not let him search for the Three-eyed raven if he goes with Jon back to Castle Black. Bran agrees and prepares to leave.

The Three-Eyed Raven
Bran and his group eventually reach the giant weirwood tree on the hill, but are attacked by a group of wights. Jojen is fatally stabbed and Meera attempts to save him, but Jojen tells her to leave him for dead. They are helped by a Child of the Forest, who leads them into a cave after burning Jojen's body. She explains that the wights cannot enter, as the magic that reanimates them has no power there. She then leads them deep into the cave to the three-eyed raven, who is revealed to not be a bird but a very old man whose body is fused to the roots of the weirwood tree. Meera begins to tell him that Jojen has died and before she can finish the raven says that Jojen knew what would happen the moment he left, and went anyway. When Meera asks how he knows that, the raven says that he has been watching them for all of their lives with a thousand eyes and one. The raven tells Bran that the hour is late, and Bran replies that he did not want anyone to die for him. The raven states that Jojen died so that Bran could find what he lost. Bran asks if the raven will help him walk again. The raven answers that Bran will never walk again, but he will fly.

Bran continues his training under the Three-eyed raven. He and the raven watch a vision of his late father Ned and his uncle Benjen Stark as young boys training in the grounds of Winterfell. Bran also witnesses his late aunt Lyanna Stark and Hodor. Through the vision, Bran learned that Hodor used to be a stable boy named Wylis before he became simple. While Bran longs to stay in the vision, he is pulled out by the Three-Eyed Raven, who warns him that he may become too enamored with the past to want to return to reality. Emerging from the cave, Bran encounters Meera Reed, who is still grieving over the loss of her brother Jojen Reed. Meera told Bran that she was having trouble coping with their apparent inaction to the coming war. In response, Bran reminded her that it is no longer safe anywhere outside.

In another vision, Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven view the events that unfolded at the Tower of Joy towards the end of Robert's Rebellion. Ned Stark rides to the Tower of Joy with five of his bannermen, one of them being Howland Reed, to find Lyanna Stark. The tower is guarded by two Kingsguard: Ser Arthur Dayne and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower. After the two refuse Ned's requests to learn his sister's fate, the eight men duel. While Gerold Hightower is killed early on, Arthur Dayne single-handedly defeats nearly all of Ned's retainers, and is about to kill Ned himself when Howland Reed unexpectedly stabs Arthur Dayne through the back of the neck, having been injured early on, but not killed. Bran is shocked that the stories he heard were not as honorable as the events that actually unfolded. As Ned runs into the tower to find Lyanna, Bran calls out to him. Ned stops to look around, but is confused because he cannot find the source of the voice. Before Bran can discover what is in the tower for himself, the Three-Eyed Raven brings both of them out of the past. While he acknowledges that the younger Ned had heard Bran, he also warns Bran not to interfere with the past.

In a vision of the past Bran witnesses Children of the Forest create the first White Walker. Once out of the vision and shocked at the revelation, Bran asks Leaf why they did it, and Leaf confesses it was to prevent the First Men from destroying more of their sacred trees and the extinction of their people during war. Bran, without the consent of the Raven, connects to the weirwood with greensight, and sees an army of wights and whitewalkers. The Night King, who is present, intercepts his vision by touching him. The Three-Eyed Raven informs Bran that the Night King now has knowledge of their location and the cave's magic won’t prevent the white walkers or wights from entering due to the mark placed on Bran’s arm. The Night King arrives with three other white walkers and an army of wights outside the cave, while Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven are in a vision of the past of his father’s departure from Winterfell to the Vale. Meera tries to awaken Bran, and wights dig into the cave and a whitewalker enters. Meera kills the whitewalker with a dragon glass tipped spear and several of The Children die fighting. The Three-Eyed Raven advises Bran to listen to Meera’s voice, pleading to warg into Hodor, which now echoes in their vision. Bran sees a young Wylis and wargs into him, resulting in Bran warging into present-day Hodor as well. Hodor, under Bran's control, assists them in their escape out the cave. Summer stays to defend them against the wights, and is stabbed to death. The Night King then enters the cave and kills The Three Eyed Raven, causing him to disintegrate in the vision with Bran. Leaf sacrifices herself to halt the wights advancing toward Meera, Bran, and Hodor. Hodor, still controlled by Bran, and creates their escape. Hodor, now himself, held the door to hold the wights from killing everyone, and was slowly being overwhelmed. Meera carries Bran’s unconscious body away into the Northern winter. Desperate and scared, she screams “Hold the Door”. Still in the vision of the past of Winterfell Bran sees young Wylis/Hodor collapse after his mind returns to his body. Young Wylis keeps screaming “hold the door” repeatedly until it slurs into “Hodor”: Bran’s possession of young Wylis in his vision of the past breaks young Wylis’s mind and he hears the echoes of Meera’s screams, which made his mind simple and only capable of repeating a form of the last words he heard before his death, "Hodor".

Meera drags Bran through the woods beyond the wall, while he is still caught in visions about past and future events. They are chased by wights and just when they are about to kill them, a hooded person arrives and is able to kill all the wights, using a flaming chain. He urges Bran and Meera to come with him. Later, when they make camp, their rescuer reveals himself, and to Bran's surprise, it is his presumed to have been dead uncle, Benjen Stark. He explains that he was stabbed by a White Walker and left to die, but the Children of the Forest rescued and stopped him from becoming a Wight. He says that Bran must now be the new Three-eyed Raven, and that he shall be waiting for the White Walkers when they come to the realms of men.

Powers

 * Greensight: Also called simply "The Sight", is the ability to receive prophetic visions, starting off in the form of dreams.
 * Warging: Bran is a warg, a human who can send his consciousness into the mind of an animal, to see through its eyes and control its body as if it were his own. Jojen Reed states that this is a different, though related, ability to the Sight. Though he still needs training, Bran is inherently a very powerful warg, even able to enter the mind of another human (albeit a mentally handicapped one, Hodor), something the wargs among the wildlings are unable and unwilling to do. Bran has already become skilled at entering the mind of his direwolf Summer, in which he is a dangerous fighter, capable of dispatching several wildlings or wights.
 * Warging with a Heart tree, a Weirwood with a face carved in it by the Children of the Forest, allows Bran (when combined with his Greensight) to have vivid visions of past, present, and future events, including those far away from himself.

Etymology
In real life, "Bran" is the word for "raven/crow" in several Celtic languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton, etc.). Given that Westeros is loosely analogous to Britain, the First Men and their Old Gods are loosely analogous to the original Celtic inhabitants of Britain who worshiped druidic nature gods, but were later driven to the fringe of the island by invading peoples (i.e. the Andals are like the Anglo-Saxons). It is unknown if George R.R. Martin intentionally picked the name "Bran" knowing it is the Celtic word for "Crow", but it does neatly associate with Bran and his visions of the three-eyed crow.

Production Notes

 * Bran Stark does not appear in Season 5. As David Benioff explained, Bran simply caught up with his material from the most recent book, and his arrival at the cave of the three-eyed raven was a good stopping point, so it made more sense to just take a year off from his storyline to focus on other sub-plots which are also competing for time:
 * "The fact is, even though we’re making changes to the books and adapting as necessary, we’re trying to keep the various storylines the same [as the books] and trying to keep them roughly [chronologically] parallel. And [in Season 4] we caught up to the end of Bran's storyline [in George R.R. Martin’s most recent book, A Dance with Dragons] last year. So if we pushed him forward this season, then he's way ahead of where the other characters are...Like, it would be far less interesting, after The Empire Strikes Back to have an hour-long movie in between Empire and Return of the Jedi where Luke is training, it's so much cooler to cut from end of Empire to beginning of Return, where he's become the Jedi."

Behind the Scenes

 * On the Season 1 Blu-ray, Bran narrates Complete Guide to Westeros videos on "The Children of the Forest, the First Men, and the Andals", "The Age of Heroes", "The Old Gods and the New" and "House Stark". On the Season 3 Blu-ray, he narrates Histories & Lore video "Wargs and the Sight".