Game of Thrones season 7 saw Bran Stark settle into his new role as the Three-Eyed Raven. Part of that meant that he was now comparatively cold and emotionless towards those he loves, a boy changed. Some fans have taken things to the next level, and theorized that the Bran who left that cave north of the Wall wasn’t Bran at all, but someone else. The theory goes that the Bran we see in season 7 is actually…the Night King.
The basic theory posits that Bran got stuck in the body of the man who would become the Night King when going back in time one too many times. Quoth the original Three-Eyed Raven: “It is beautiful beneath the sea, but if you stay too long, you’ll drown.”
Bonkers, right? Pretty much, but the theory is popular enough to inspire a lot of discussion among fans. Nerdist even asked star Isaac Hempstead Wright about it yesterday. Wright, opining that the theory seems overcomplicated and “fanciful,” basically shoot it down.“It just doesn’t feel like Game of Thrones,” he said. “It feels a little bit too Hollywood.”
However, Hempstead Wright is better disposed to a similar, less complicated theory: that the Bran we saw in season 7 is actually the old Three-Eyed Raven, the one played by Max von Sydow in season 6, taking possession of Bran’s body. “It seems a little bit more plausible [than the Night King theory] and it doesn’t have so many insane ramifications for the story line” he said. “That would be quite a neat little thing that would sum up that whole circular arc.”
We’ve already see Bran mess with time and create one paradox, so it would be quite nice to give his entire story a paradox. That would justify how he can meddle with time, because he exists in a closed loop, a sort of non-linear existence.
That does seem a bit more plausible than Bran being the Night King. It’s also not the first time Hempstead Wright has brought up the theory. Hempstead Wright has thought the theory through as well, and considers the time-traveling incident that created Hodor’s damaged mind to be a precedent.
Is there any truth to any of this? We have a long wait to discover the truth, which could end up being as boring as Bran just being…Bran.
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