Can We Talk About How Great Of A Season Bran Stark Just Had On Game Of Thrones?
No that’s not Robbie Fox. At least I don’t think it is.
*Spoilers obviously*
So the dust has settled on the seventh season of Game of Thrones. Charlie Wisco already did a great job recapping the episode and the season. But I just wanted to give a quick shout out to Bran Stark who delivered one of the sneakiest best seasons in Thrones history. Yes I know as recently as two weeks ago I was saying I wish he had died in the first episode of the series because he’s been a little bitch for so long. But that was before the amount of hate that came at Bran following the last few episodes. We had some of the most gentle souls at Barstool calling him out.
Some of the least gentle souls at Barstool got into the action.
And even people that make a living out of stunting on the ugly haters became ugly haters themselves because of Bran. Sad!
However I bought in on Bran Stark back when everyone was shitting on him because I saw opportunity and created the #Branwagon (which has left the station and cannot be boarded by snoozy Susies that missed it). I’m not smart enough to know how to invest in the stock market or things like Bitcoin. But I will rally behind a character that is getting hated on for no reason other than being a weirdo that does nothing. Jon Snow used to be a mopey bitch and those scenes at The Wall were about as fun as watching paint dry. But pretty soon Jon Snow became the clear hero of the show, no matter how fucking stupid he is as a military mind, and everyone that bought in on Jon early cashed in their chips. Bran’s biggest knock was that he was this L-7 weenie that just watched everything go on around him from his little tree. But you know who else probably just watched everything go on around him? No this isn’t a PFT line. I’m talking about George RR Martin. There is no way that GRRM was going to write a character like Bran Stark and not make him extremely important to the story. They are both smart, quiet weirdos that exist in their own little worlds. I will admit though that Bran sitting at Winterfell while Jon almost died and Dany lost a dragon was a rough look for the #Branwagon.
But the thing the haters forgot is that this is Game of Thrones. It’s chess, not checkers. If it was checkers, Ned Stark would be on the throne and the last 6 seasons would have been some weird show about peace reigning in Winterfell. On Thrones, people like Littlefinger exist and can rise to power with whispers and political moves. I’ve long thought Littlefinger was the most dangerous person on the show. While characters like the Lannisters and Dany had gold and dragons, Littlefinger grew up with nothing. Yet he was still on the big board in Vegas for ending up on the Iron Throne by being shady as fuck. He’s the real reason the War of the Five Kings popped off and he made it all the way to the Littlefinger In Charge of The Veil before his lies collapsed beneath him. Yes Sansa passed the sentence and Arya cut the throat. But Bran was the real MVP (Kevin Durant voice). He’s the one that turned those hearsay accusations into real proof by tapping into the Weirwood Wide Web and picking up the receipts of every shady move Littlefinger did. And thanks to this reddit thread, we learned that Bran was also apparently the one that had eyes on every one of Littlefinger’s moves at Winterfell this season.
[MAIN SPOILERS] My girlfriend predicted this episode’s plot twist because she was annoyed
She only revealed this to me today, but she said that almost every time Littlefinger was on screen in season 7, you could hear ravens/crows in the background making noise. She eventually put together that Bran was listening/watching everything Littlefinger was plotting and would finally be the one to pull the plug on him. And how did she pick this up? The noise they made pissed her off every scene with Littlefinger.
Edit: Since people are reacting way to wildly; this is only referring to Season 7 scenes. Don’t start going back to S1-6 for this.
Holy shit, Bran really is everywhere huh? That’s one of those things only the most tuned in fans can get. Thrones is the only thing that has my undivided attention in life. I turned the lights off once it comes on, put my phone on the other side of the room, and dial in. And even I didn’t catch this.
So if something that nuanced can actually be real, what about the theory that Bran was warging into Jon’s sword, which is made out of magical Valyrian steel? For those that don’t remember, someone noticed this in Episode 6:
And wouldn’t you know, it happened again in Episode 7:
I know people are going to say that it was reflections or a coincidence or whatever. But those people aren’t on the #Branwagon. In fact most of them were probably already run over by the #Branwagon and their bodies have been burned so they can’t come back as wights. But I am going to say it’s true because Bran is always watching Jon because he knows how important Jon is to this because Bran knows EVERYTHING. I don’t know what that beautiful little weirdo is capable of and neither do you. We just saw an ice dragon get brought to life, so the rule book is clearly out the window for what is and isn’t possible in that crazy little world. And if we are being honest, I also think there is a good chance Bran figured out a way to watch Jon bang Dany because Bran’s a teenager with hormones rifling through his body and incest porn is all the rage these days anyway.
To conclude, I am not saying that Bran Stark was the MVP of this season. Far from it. The Night King completed his march from the FROZEN TUNDRA OF THE LAND OF ALWAYS WINTER, sniped a dragon, turned said dragon into his own personal ice dragon, and murdered the fuck out of The Wall. But Bran definitely got a few MVP votes from the sabermetrics crowd that looked at the numbers behind the numbers. And for all these theories that Bran is the Night King means that Bran is technically the MVP anyway. Considering where he stood in everyone’s eyes before Sunday night, I consider all this a huuuuuuge win for us on the #Branwagon. Now him and Sam are in a room together with a bunch of important books from the Citadel and Bran is able to plug his brain into Westeros’ mainframe in order to learn more about the history of the world and how the White Walkers can be defeated. To bring it back to MVP talk, Sam is Mike D’Antoni and Bran is James Harden. And they may be about to cook up an all-time redemption season together, with Sam winning Coach of the Year and Bran putting in work like Harden did. If you had told me I would have written a 1200+ word blog about how great Bran Stark is a month ago, I would have probably punched you in the face. But here we are. Bran is going to be a key piece in The Great War and all of us on the #Branwagon thank him for it.
Until next season, CHOO CHOO MOTHERFUCKERS!!!
And for more Game of Thrones talk, check out the podcast I did with Charlie and Feits immediately following the finale on Sunday. We recapped the episode and also made predictions for next season.
