Bran is the Night King

Jordan Lieberman
Aug 25, 2017 · 6 min read

Okay, Bran is the Night King theory, here goes nothing:

An important thing to note is that my knowledge of the books doesn’t help much with this theory. The scenes that sparked this theory take place at a time that is beyond the final moments of the most recently released book (A Dance with Dragons, 2011).

Let’s break down the main points of evidence into categories: Bran’s warging ability, cues from lines/closed captioning, visual cues.

Disclaimer: In the books, a skinchanger is someone who can occupy the mind of another being and a warg is someone who is bound to a wolf. The show uses the term warg loosely, so I will do the same in this explanation.

Bran’s warging ability: This is where some book knowledge helps. We know Bran can warg. That’s old news. What we learned last season is that not only can Bran warg, but Bran can warg WHILE IN A VISION TO THE PAST. That’s what happened in the tragic Hodor scene. Bran is in a vision to the past, and wargs into Hodor, drastically altering his mental state to set Hodor on a predetermined path.

So the two important things to remember:

  1. Bran can warg into people/influence things while in his visions
  2. Things are predetermined.

The theory claims that Bran, even as all-knowing as he is, believes that since he has influenced things in the past as he did with Hodor, that he can influence other things in the past.

So, what are some other things he may have influenced?

The Mad King heard voices in his head: “Burn them all! Burn them all!” Maybe Bran was planting that seed in his mind to prepare him for the White Walkers and things somehow got out of hand, leaving the poor Mad King to go insane with that phrase stuck in his head.

Let’s go back even further now.

What if Bran warged into the famous Bran the Builder to build The Wall to protect against the Others?

Now even further.

What if Bran decides he wants to stop this entire thing before it even started? Best place to go would be the source — the man that was turned into a White Walker by the Children of the Forest.

Aside: Here’s an important note on warging from the books. It is well known amongst wargs that there is a serious danger while warging; that you stay too long in the other person/creature’s mind that you actually forget you’re warging and you start to feel like you are that person/creature. This almost happens to Bran with his direwolf. Luckily, Jojen is still with him to force him out of those visions. It is also used by wargs, if done in time, to “avoid” death by warging into another person/creature as their own body is killed. This essentially forces them into a permanent warging of that other person/creature. As time goes on, you eventually “become” the person/creature you’ve perma-warged into. Remember when Jon Snow finally reveals he’s a double agent to the wildling group after they climb the wall, and he kills that one wildling dude that wanted Ygritte, telling him “you were right the whole time.”? When that guy dies, he does this; he perma-wargs into his eagle, comes down and attacks Jon’s face, then flies away, presumably living the rest of his days inside the eagle’s body.

If Bran warged into the guy as a way to stop the Children of the Forest, maybe things got out of hand; maybe he stays too long and forgets he’s in there; maybe the Children know he’s in there and have a way to prevent him from getting out; maybe if you just stay in a vision-to-the-past for too long you get trapped. Regardless, once they turn that man into a White Walker, anyone warged into there is effed just as much as that guy is. As time goes on, Bran forgets that he warged into there and he becomes the thing he is warged into, essentially trapping him in there forever. The final piece is a simple equation: (Children of the Forest magic) + (Bran’s Three-Eyed-Raven powers) = (TOTAL F***ING MADNESS) = The Night King.

In “Eastwatch”, there was a moment that further added to the Bran/Night King theory that involved warging. Bran is warging into a flock of ravens, scouting the army of the dead. The important part of that scene is when the Night King turns his head. The moment he sees the Ravens, you know he’s seeing Bran. Just in the way he looks, you can tell there’s some connection between him and Bran. And right at that instant, the ravens disperse and Bran comes out of the vision panting and concerned. The Night King forced Bran out of the ravens, jarring him as he was kicked out of his warg-session. This hints at a deep connection between Bran and the Night King.

Cues from lines/closed captioning: The old Three-Eyed-Raven: “It is beautiful benath the sea, stay too long and you drown.” This refers to getting stuck in a warg-session or vision to the past for so long that you forget you’re warging/having a vision.

Bran and Leaf talking after Bran witnesses Leaf creating the Night King:

Bran: “It was you. You made the White Walkers.”

Leaf: “We were at war. We were being slaughtered”…”We needed to defend ourselves.”

Bran: “From whom?”

Leaf: “From you. From men.”

The claim here is about the punctuation in that last part — that’s where the closed captioning comes in. If it were written “From you — from men.” then the “from men” part would just be clarifying the first clause. Since they’re separated by periods, they’re two separate statements. So the “From you.” means literally from Bran, and the “From men.” part means from humankind, which Bran really isn’t apart of anymore (a bit of a stretch, I know; remember this isn’t my theory, I’m just trying to add some clarity to someone else’s theory).

Visual cues: This is the one people love. You really need to watch the scene I’ve been referring to above — Bran in a vision seeing the Children creating the Night King scene — to see it. Look at Bran’s outfit while he’s in the vision. Now, compare that to the Night King’s outfit (most easily seen here). Eerily similar.

Back to the Night King creation scene. When the man in the vision — the one that’s about to become the Night King — sees Leaf walking towards him with the dragonglass dagger, he begins to writhe and tense up. It then cuts to Bran back in the cave in current time, showing him tensing up and grabbing the root more tightly. Then, once the deed is finally done and the man’s eyes are blue, and Bran pulls out of the vision to have the conversation I mentioned above, it shows Bran laying/sitting/leaning-against-the-cave-wall in a similar position to the man in the vision was tied to the tree. The theorist believes the writers/producers were dropping some hints.

The last point to wrap this up is the predetermined part that I claimed to be important above. You’re probably wondering: if Bran knows everything, why the hell would he go back to try to stop this if he knows how it’s going to end? Well, that’s the tragic part. Bran knows he’s failed in the past. What he probably doesn’t know is that he’s failed an infinite amount of times at attempting to change the past; that the timeline of the Night King being created and trying to destroy all humans is predetermined no matter what he tries to do; that every time he goes back, thinking he’s learned from the previous time he went back and failed, he fails yet again; that the cycle continues forever.

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