Warning: This post contains spoilers from season 6, episode 6 of Game of Thrones.
This week's Game of Thronesinvolved another complex and action-packed vision for Bran Stark -- a result of the death of the older Three-Eyed Raven who, according to show runner David Benioff during a post-episode interview, had to, "upload all this knowledge to Bran," before being killed by The Night King.
"Bran had to absorb the entire history of the world in imagery,” Benioff said, adding, Bran got just a "window into his purpose.”
But while Bran's greenseeing abilities let him absorb hundreds of years of Westerosi lore in seconds, viewers don't have the same powerful abilities. So we've broken down his vision to its most important themes to make predictions on what Bran has learned and has yet to understand.
The legend of Mad King Aerys II Targaryen (Dany's dad) has been alluded to since Season 1 when Ned Stark called out Jamie Lannister for being the "Kingslayer." But Bran's vision gave us the first look at Jamie's assassination of the king that earned him the infamous nickname.
Jaime:When I watched the Mad King die, I remember him laughing as your father burned. It felt like justice.
Ned:Is that what you tell yourself at night? You’re a servant of justice? That you were avenging my father when you drove your sword in Aerys Targaryen’s back?
Jaime:Tell me, if I stabbed the Mad King in the belly instead of the back, would you admire me more?
Ned:You served him well when serving was safe.
Jamie Lannister on the Iron Throne.Credit:
Jamie described the Mad King's obsession with the dangerous substance, which we see in the vision, to Brienne in season 3:
You all despise me. “Kingslayer. Oathbreaker. Man without honor.” You heard of wildfire? The Mad King was obsessed with it. He loved to watch people burn. They way their skin blackened and blistered and melted off their bones. He burned lords he didn’t like, he burned Hands who disobeyed him. He burned anyone who was against him. Before long half the country was against him. Aerys saw traitors everywhere, so he had his pyromancer place caches of wildfire all over the city. Beneath the Sept of Baelor and the slums of Fleabottom. House, stables, taverns. Even beneath the Red Keep itself.
Finally, the day of reckoning came. Robert Baratheon marched on the capitol after his victory at the Trident. But my father went first with the whole Lannister army at this back promising to defend the city against the rebels. I knew my father better than that. He’s never been one to pick the losing side. I told the Mad King as much. I urged him to surrender peacefully. But he didn’t listen to me. He didn’t listen to Varys who tried to warn him. But he did listen to Grand Maester Pycelle—the great sunken cunt. “You can trust the Lannisters,” he said. “The Lannisters have always been true friends of the crown.” So he opened the gates and my father sacked the city. Once again I came to the king begging him to surrender. He told me to bring him my father’s head. Then he turned to his pyromancer.
“Burn them all,” he said. “Burn them in their homes, burn them in their beds.”
First I killed the pyromancer and then, when the king turned to flee, I drove my sword into his back. “Burn them all,” he kept saying. “Burn them all.”
This part of the vision may offer fans some serious foreshadowing. There are apparently "caches of wildfire all over the city" but they were never used. Based on the green-hued explosions Bran sees, could it mean King's Landing is still set to go up in flames? Some book readers have speculated Cersei will turn to wildfire to defeat the High Sparrow and Faith Militant while others think it might be King Landing's only tool against Dany and her ever-growing army.
Tyrion previously used wildfire to help win the Battle of the Blackwater in Season 2, when Stannis attempted to take King's Landing.
Bran's vision included imagery of Daenerys’s rebirth by fire, Drogon in flight and a dragon flying over King's Landing -- a scene assumed to be the future, as opposed to when Dany's ancestors flew their winged-beasts over Westeros. The footage was all recycled (Bran saw most of it in Season 4 after touching a Weirwood tree) but the reuse of it could mean Bran finally understands how threatening Dany and her dragons are to the Seven Kingdoms -- after all, the juxtaposition of Dany's conquerer attitude against her father's all-consuming power can't have been coincidence.
Or perhaps it's the Three-Eyed Raven telling Bran the dragons are the key to stopping the White Walkers?
Most of what Bran learned about White Walkers was all old news to fans of the show: scenes from the epic Battle of Hardhome, White Walkers turning Craster's babies into ice, the Children of the Forest creating the first White Walkers, how the dead become wights and even Bran being marked by the Night's King (don't remind us).
The biggest theory in the Game of Thrones' fandomgot another clue, as Bran envisioned a young Ned Stark at the Tower of Joy seeking out his sister, followed by a scene of two bloody hands. Could that be Ned saying goodbye to a dying Lyanna?
Bran also caught glimpses of the murders of his other family members: Robb, Catelyn and Ned's beheading from Season 1.
There was also some bird imagery, because you know, Bran is theraven now.
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[H/T Vanity Fair]
TopicsGame Of Thrones
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