Bran Stark possesses rapidly developing, near god-like abilities derived from the Old Gods, primarily skin-changing and green-seeing, which allow him to interact with animals, human minds, and the past through the weirwood network, raising profound questions about time, causality, and morality.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
How powerful is Bran? What powers does
he actually have? And how powerful will
he become? Let's take a look. Hi
everyone, this is Robert. Welcome to
InDeepge Geek. If you like theories,
background, history, and lore about A
Song of Ice and Fire, The Lord of the
Rings, and The Witcher, this is the
place for you. Welcome. In the books,
Bran has already developed an impressive
array of abilities. And in the TV show,
he gained even more. He started with
some strange magical dreams. Then seemed
to be able to take control of Summer,
his direwolf. Then he seemed to be able
to do that to Hodor. Then he could see
visions of the past and present and even
interact with them through weirwood
trees. On the show, he moved beyond that
to being able to seemingly go anywhere
at any time without being seen or take
control of animals bodies and learn
secrets about everyone. In short, he
appeared to have near god-like abilities
through the power of the old gods, which
is an impressive set of abilities to say
the least. But will he get there in the
books, too? Is there a limit to what he
will be able to do? First of all, it's
important to note that Bran's powers,
though impressive, are not unique to
him. If you dig through the lore in the
world of ice and fire, you will find
many others who can do what he does.
What is unique or nearly unique is how
he can do all of them with such strength
and at such a young age. In the books,
he is still only perhaps 10 years old at
the end of A Dance with Dragons. He has
not even reached puberty, has only just
started his training, and he is already
one of the most powerful people in the
world. So, let's break down his
abilities. What can he do? Let's start
with skin changing or walking. This is
the ability to enter the mind of an
animal and control its actions. Wargging
is technically only used to refer to
those who do it to wolves or dogs. In
the world of ice and fire, this talent
is surprisingly common among those of
First Men heritage, although not all of
those who have the talent develop it in
any meaningful way. Blood Raven says
that perhaps one in a thousand can,
though he may have been speaking
rhetorically. In the books, we read of
at least a dozen different people who
can do this in some way, ranging from
the Stark children, who all seem to have
some kind of link to their direwolf, up
to Vamir Sixkins, a wildling, who, as
his name implies, can inhabit the bodies
of six different animals in addition to
his own body. There's his mentor, Hagon,
there's Blood Raven, of course, Oral
with his eagle, Boro with his boar, and
so on. Not common, but also not exactly
rare. All of the Stark children have the
ability, and although some are showing
lots of promise, Arya now seems to be
able to skin change into cats as well,
for example. And Rickon's bond to Shaggy
Dog is also strong, theirs appears
mostly subconscious, often happening in
dreams and the like. Bran can
consciously go into summer, seemingly at
will, as well as now Hodor, and he is
being trained to be even stronger. Blood
Raven shows him how to skin change into
a raven. And he spends large periods of
time inside Summer. As we read, slipping
into Summer's skin had become as easy
for him as slipping on a pair of
breaches once had been before his back
was broken. Changing his own skin for a
raven's night black feathers had been
harder, but not as hard as he had
feared. Not with these ravens. Before
long, he was flying around the cavern,
weaving through the long stone teeth
that hung down from the ceiling, even
flapping out over the abyss and swooping
down into its cold black depths. Skin
changing is easy for Bran. And of
course, Bran has gone even further by
taking over a human's mind and
controlling their body for extended
periods of time. We see Vamir try to do
this in the prologue to A Dance with
Dragons. So he clearly thinks it's
something that's possible for others,
but Vamir was too weak at the time to go
through with it. His intended host
fought back. Hodor, on the other hand,
is described as retreating, scared into
a corner of his mind when Bran takes
over. We see Bran try to justify to
himself what he is doing. He knows it's
me, he says to himself, as if that is
enough reason. Make no mistake, this is
not consensual. Hodor did not want Bran
to push him away and do whatever he
wanted with his body. When Vimeir tries
it himself, he knows that it is
considered an abomination. The reader is
left to make their own moral judgment
about what is happening. But this is
dark stuff indeed. In fact, it is
noticeable that Bran has so far broken
two of the three cardinal rules of skin
changes. Taking control of another human
being and as Summer, eating dead human
bodies. and he shows no remorse or even
an awareness that he is doing something
that others might not agree with. We'll
come back to that because we should
probably also note that the Stark
children's direwolves are connected as
pack in some way. They can sense each
other's presence or absence and through
wolf dreams at the very least see
through each other's eyes at times. Bran
has access to that too. So that's skin
changing. But that is not the extent of
Bran's powers because his powers take
their next big step forward after he
arrives at the three-eyed crow's cave.
There he is fed a rather gruesome paste
and starts his training as a green seer.
And this is what elevates him from a
simple magic user to something much more
other level. But let's start with
looking quickly at what green seers are
or were historically because they were
initially the wise elders, magic users,
and leaders of the children of the
forest. not humans. They had green
dreams, dreams that are true in some
sense, like Jojan gets, could wag into
animals, and could see through the eyes
carved in weirwood trees. You can add to
this a whole host of other powers
recorded by legend, turning trees into
warriors, casting the hammer of the
waters, a spell that broke the
landbridge between Westeros and Essos,
and so on. These may or may not be true.
We can perhaps look at that in other
videos, but let's here look at the
relationship between the weirwood trees
and green seers because that is where
Bran's powers are now expanding most
swiftly. The key starting point here is
that the weirwood trees across Westeros
seem to all be connected, probably
physically underground through a massive
interconnected root system, but
definitely magically. So if you access
one, you can see out of the eyes of
another. Although that's probably
oversimplifying it. The way it is
described, it is actually more like
Bran, after he'd had his abilities
unlocked by that weirwood paste, seems
to skin change into the tree network
itself, inhabiting it. "Take a listen to
this." "Close your eyes," said the
three-eyed crow. "Slip your skin, as you
do when you join with Summer, but this
time go into the roots instead. Follow
them up through the earth to the trees
upon the hill, and tell me what you see."
see."
Ran closed his eyes and slipped free of
his skin. Into the roots, he thought,
into the weirwood, become the tree. For
an instant he could see the cavern in
its black mantle, could hear the river
rushing by below. Then, all at once, he
was back home again.
He was seeing out through the Winterfell
weirwood. The second time he does it, he
doesn't even seem to need to be touching
the tree. He just slips into the network
without even really trying. And he sees
again through the Winterfell weirwood,
but in the past again. Blood Raven has
to explain what's going on. Time is
different for a tree than for a man. Sun
and soil and water. These are the things
a weirwood understands. Not days and
years and centuries. For men, time is a
river. We are trapped in its flow,
hurtling from past to present, always in
the same direction. The lives of trees
are different. They root and grow and
die in one place. And that river does
not move them. The oak is the acorn. The
acorn is the oak. And the weirwood. A
thousand human years are a moment to a
weirwood. And through such gates you and
I may gaze into the past.
So looking through the eyes of a
weirwood tree is not just a matter of
looking out somewhere else at the same
time. You can look out somewhere else at
a different time. Bran does this through
the weirwood at Winterfell, accessing
its memories years, centuries, and
probably even millennia earlier. This
all happens very quickly for Bran,
probably even quicker than Blood Raven
expected. He tries to get him to see
through the eyes of the weirwood tree he
is directly under, but Bran instead
heads straight to seeing out of a
completely different tree years in the
past. He is a natural. We should pause
for a moment to acknowledge quite how
rare all this is. Blood Raven says that
only one man in a thousand is born a
skin changer and only one skin changer
in a thousand is born a green seer,
which is rare enough already. But for
humans to be taken in and trained by the
children of the forest to develop their
skills to the maximum, as appears to
have happened to Blood Raven and now
Bran, and for Bran to develop his skills
so swiftly. This is supposed to be
impressive and everything we see of the
children suggests this is a last gasp
hope for them. They are almost extinct
with no more green sears of their own
left. Using or teaming up with humans
who have those abilities is their last
hope. But again, we are venturing into
areas for other videos because Blood
Raven hints to Bran that the power at
his disposal may be even greater than
what we've seen him display. He says
that the singers carved eyes into their
heart trees to awaken them and those are
the first eyes a new green seer learns
to use. But in time you will see well
beyond the trees themselves.
So in time and given the speed at which
he is learning probably quite soon Bran
will be able to see things beyond the
range of actual physical weirwoods in
the present or the past. This is an
astonishing power. We don't know the
limits of this yet, but it sounds like
he could go anywhere in the history of
Westeros and see and hear what happened.
Bran will need to know what and when to
look for, but no information will be off
limits. Surely George R. Martin will use
this as a way to show us what happened
in some of the most pivotal moments of
the story. The turnney at Harrenhal say
the tragedy at Summerhal, the Tower of
Joy. Who knows where we may end up? But
that is not all because all the
indications are that Blood Raven is
either holding back in telling Bran some
of the power available to him or there
are things that are beyond Blood Raven
that probably won't be beyond Bran. In
Bran's first look through the Weirwood
network, he sees his father and calls
out in surprise Winterfell. Ned looks
around and calls out, "Who's there?" Ned
heard something. But when Bran tells
Blood Raven, he says that he heard a
whisper on the wind, a rustling amongst
the leaves. You cannot speak to him. Try
as you might, I know. I have my own
ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a
brother that I hated, a woman I desired.
Through the trees, I see them still, but
no word of mine has ever reached them.
The past remains the past. We can learn
from it, but we cannot change it. Which
seems pretty clear. But when you look
through the books with an eye to times
people may have heard Bran call out to
them from a weirwood tree, they appear
all over the place. For example, a
couple of times with Theon. Theon, a
voice seemed to whisper, his head
snapped up. Who said that? All he could
see were the trees and the fog that
covered them. The voice had been as
faint as rustling leaves, as cold as
hate. A god's voice or a ghost's.
And later, "Bran," the tree murmured.
"They know, the gods know. They saw what
I did. And for one strange moment, it
seemed as if it were Bran's face carved
into the pale trunk of the weirwood,
staring down at him with eyes red and
wise and sad."
And then Ned again. Father. Bran's voice
was a whisper in the wind, a rustle in
the leaves. Father, it's me. It's Bran.
Brandon. Eddard Stark lifted his head
and looked long at the weirwood,
frowning, but he did not speak. And
there are more examples, I can assure
you. Blood Raven tells Bran that the
people he talks to like that can only
hear the whistling on the wind or a
rustling among the leaves, which may
have been the case with Ned, but Theon
definitely heard his name and Bran's.
And in each of those occasions, Bran
changes things in the past, just small
things. His father turning and frowning,
Theon replying, but he does change
things. Blood Raven assures Bran that
the past remains the past. We can learn
from it, but we cannot change it. But
Bran demonstrabably can change things in
the past. Small things now, but probably
larger things when he actually knows
what he's doing. And if we're talking
about the past, then what of the future?
That whole speech by Blood Raven about
the Wirward Network experiencing time
differently to humans contains several
hints that we aren't just talking about
the past and present. To them, seasons
pass in the flutter of a moth's wing,
and past, present, and future are one.
He describes the future as a sea of
shadows, but not impermeable. And when
Bran asks him a question about the
future, he says that that he has not
seen, implying that he has seen other
things in the future. And why not? Other
magical types in this world see glimpses
of the future, including several
associated with old gods magic, like
Jojan Reed and the ghost of high heart.
So, the future also doesn't seem out of
bounds for Bran, though he probably
won't access it until the future rather
than now, if that makes sense. But to
build on all of that, what makes Bran
even more special is his apparent
ability to effortly combine these
abilities. He talks to Jon through a
weirwood tree while Jon is having a wolf
dream, for example. And perhaps the
culmination of all this is Hodor. George
R. Martin has confirmed that the Hodor
holds the door reveal will happen in the
books. Not exactly like we saw in the TV
show, but the principle of what Bran
does clearly seems to be the same.
Something like skin changing into Hodor
while instructing him to hold the door
while traveling to the past to change
Hodor's past and present and future at
the same time. I'm being vague here
because George R. Martin himself was
vague when asked about it in Fire Cannot
Kill a Dragon by James Hibbert. It's an
obscenity, he says, to go into
somebody's mind. So Bran may be
responsible for Hodor's simplicity due
to going into his mind so powerfully
that it rippled back through time. The
explanation of Bran's powers, the whole
question of time and causality, can we
affect the past? Is time a river you can
only sail one way or an ocean that can
be affected wherever you drop into it?
These are issues I want to explore in
the book, but it's harder to explain in
a show.
At the moment, the fandom's best idea is
that Bran here establishes a kind of
closed time loop. He had always will
have done it. So, poor Hodor is locked
in that loop forever. And if he can do
that, how much more can he do? If he can
skin change into animals and humans, is
not bound by time or distance, can
communicate with people in the past or
maybe even the future, and can do all of
this so powerfully that he can send
ripples through time itself. What is
there to hold him back? And he seems to
be able to do most of this without
anyone really knowing. Blood Raven had
to ask what Bran saw through the
Weirwood network. No one seems to know
when he is skin changing into Hodor. He
can learn what happened in the past
without anyone knowing he is there. And
crucially, he seems not to care about
the morality of any of this. Maybe the
Hodor incident will finally make him
hold back a little, but he has already
committed two acts even Vamir considered
abominations. Blood Raven doesn't seem
to have much interest yet in teaching
him what he shouldn't do, just telling
him what he thinks he can't do. And he
seems to be underestimating Bran's
abilities already. I suspect George R.
Martin would want us to compare what
Bran does with animals and with Hodor to
what the others do. They can control the
bodies of dead animals. The legends are
full of them lining up with undead giant
spiders or the like. And they also seem
to be able to control dead humans, the
ice whites. But Bran does that with live
animals and a live human just taking
control of them regardless of whether
they want it or not. Which is worse?
Bran's astonishing abilities combined
with his understandable given his age,
but still lack of critical thinking
about the impacts of what he is doing
are a toxic mix. His chapters are
getting darker and darker. And as George
R. Martin says, they will lead him to
exploring not just how Bran might affect
the plot, but the whole question of time
and causality itself in the world of ice
and fire.
If you'd like to see more A Song of Ice
and Fire videos like this, there's a
link to my playlist on the left of your
screen now. Or to support this channel,
thank you. There's a link to my Patreon
page on the right of your screen. Thanks
for watching. That's all for this time.
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
