bran week 2025

Now, Bran, the crow urged. Choose. Fly or die

BRAN STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2025 ↳ Day 7: Mythological parallels

Your father, let me tell you, Was wounded between the legs And his whole body was crippled. All the lands, and the immense Treasure his bravery had won, Began to fall away.

Perceval, Chrétien de Troyes

"Bran," he said sullenly. Bran the Broken. "Brandon Stark." The cripple boy. "The Prince of Winterfell." Of Winterfell burned and tumbled, its people scattered and slain. The glass gardens were smashed, and hot water gushed from the cracked walls to steam beneath the sun.

Bran I, A Storm of Swords

How wrong to sit there, silent, When just a simple question Could have cured that rich And noble king of his suffering, Allowed him to rule his kingdom In peace.

Perceval, Chrétien de Troyes

"I'm here," Bran said, "only I'm broken. Will you … will you fix me … my legs, I mean?" "No," said the pale lord. "That is beyond my powers." Bran's eyes filled with tears. We came such a long way. The chamber echoed to the sound of the black river. "You will never walk again, Bran," the pale lips promised, "but you will fly."

The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White

To a boy, Winterfell was a grey stone labyrinth of walls and towers and courtyards and tunnels spreading out in all directions. In the older parts of the castle, the halls slanted up and down so that you couldn’t even be sure what floor you were on. [...] It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know. It taught him Winterfell’s secrets too. The builders had not even leveled the earth; there were hills and valleys behind the walls of Winterfell.

Bran, A Game of Thrones

Sir Ector’s dog boy was none other than the one who had his nose bitten off by the terrible Wat. Not having a nose like a human, and being, moreover, subjected to stone-throwing by the other village children, he had become more comfortable with animals. [...] The Wart was fond of the Dog Boy.

The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White

Hodor the stableboy who smiled so much and took care of his pony and never said anything but “Hodor,”

Bran, A Game of Thrones

The aged gentleman put down his bucket and looked at him. “Your name would be the Wart.” “Yes, sir, please, sir.” “My name,” said the old man, “is Merlyn.” [...] “How did you know to set breakfast for two?”

The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White

"...I have watched you for a long time, watched you with a thousand eyes and one. I saw your birth, and that of your lord father before you. I saw your first step, heard your first word, was part of your first dream. I was watching when you fell. And now you are come to me at last, Brandon Stark, though the hour is late.”

Bran, A Dance with Dragons

“I should like to be a merlin,” said the Wart politely. This answer flattered [Merlyn]. “A very good choice,” he said, “and if you please we will proceed at once.”

The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White

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. “A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth,” [Bloodraven] said, “but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly.”

Bran, A Dance with Dragons

Kay was kneeling down too, and it was more than the Wart could bear. “Oh, do stop,” he cried. “Of course he can be seneschal, if I have got to be this King, and, oh, father, don’t kneel down like that, because it breaks my heart. Please get up, Sir Ector, and don’t make everything so horrible. Oh, dear, oh, dear, I wish I had never seen that filthy sword at all.” And the Wart also burst into tears.

The Sword in the Stone, T. H. White

“You are the lord in Winterfell now,” Robb told him. [...] “You must take my place, as I took Father’s, until we come home.” “I know,” Bran replied miserably. He had never felt so little or alone or scared. He did not know how to be a lord.

BRANOWEEN 2025 Day 7 - Parallels | In-Universe | Bran and Sansa, hopeful children with crushed dreams.

Bran Stark - Family and Heritage

another design breakdown ! just in the nick of time😶

anyways so it's PRINCE BRANJAMIN FLORIAN, SON OF THE BEAST KING, who has a vision of a mysterious, beautiful, purple haired girl on the Isle and realizes there are children there and he has to get them the fuck out what the hell dad. none of this maps very well onto the movie characters but - audrey-sansa, slowly but surely won over against her will by the VKs, lonnie-arya, who does not give a shit about what the VKS have done she just wants to play tourney and kick chad-joffrey's ass, and jane-jon snow, the ugly duckling of the group who is Definitely Magical but totally pretending he's actually super normal and may or may not have a chip on his shoulder.

THE PROBLEM ARISES WITH THE VKS.

commission done by the incredible @fagstannis for @branweek2025 day six: friends and allies

If I had my legs, I'd knock all of them into the water, he thought bitterly. No one would ever be lord of the crossing but me.

I learned to fight in this yard, he thought, remembering warm summer days spent sparring with Robb and Jon Snow under the watchful eyes of old Ser Rodrik. That was back when he was whole, when he could grasp a sword hilt as well as any man.

“There was a knight once who couldn’t see,” Bran said stubbornly, as Ser Rodrik went on below. “Old Nan told me about him. He had a long staff with blades at both ends and he could spin it in his hands and chop two men at once.” [...] “Ser Rodrik should teach me to use a poleaxe. If I had a poleaxe with a big long haft, Hodor could be my legs. We could be a knight together.”

and finally he settles on a potential magical cure because the three eyed crow that came to him in his dreams promised him the ability of flight.

Bran realized he was crying. Stupid baby, he thought at himself. No matter where he went, to Karhold or White Harbor or Greywater Watch, he’d be a cripple when he got there. He balled his hands into fists. “I want to fly,” he told them. “Please. Take me to the crow.”

at first glance this is a straightforward application of the trope, bloodraven says it outright, "you will never walk again, but you will fly." bran learns his very existence marks him out as an extraordinary individual, the only one capable of replacing bloodraven and in possession of a far greater destiny than that of a mere knight:

A thousand eyes, a hundred skins, wisdom deep as the roots of ancient trees. That was as good as being a knight. Almost as good, anyway.

but martin complicates that initial premise. as a skinchanger bran can elude his immobility by assuming the form of his direwolf, summer and hodor. hodor's existence in bran's chapters functionally amounts to being bran's unwilling prosthetic. even before bran started occupying his body, hodor was a stableboy in service to the starks, his only job post-bran's fall was to carry bran around on his back as a glorified horse. bran loves hodor and hodor provides willing service in return but it's still a relationship of subordination with a good bit of dehumanisation. and i think it's revealing that no one in the stark household can think of any kind of accommodation for bran (only tyrion can, because of shared experience) and what little the others can do involves the exploitation of another disabled character at the other end of the feudal hierarchy. bran beginning to skinchange into hodor is then a reflection of that hierarchical abuse of power and that the only way bran could live a fulfilling life in their world is by trading his societally abject body for someone else's. hodor being seven feet tall with considerable physical strength is an important detail, in a culture that celebrates martial prowess, bran's inability to enter that culture of violence (his first act in the book is being witness to a beheading) also emasculates him.

and bran being mentored by bloodraven and being prepared to replace him in the cave is a literalisation of the way he's institutionally othered for his disability. at the start of agot bran's a seven year old boy who's never known a life outside of winterfell and is eager to go south and see the rest of the world. his favourite activity is climbing the turrets and towers of winterfell so he can look down at the castle and its people from above. and then he sees something he shouldn't have. bran overhears people plotting to potentially have his father killed and then makes the choice to swing up to the window to learn who was speaking, so he can go tell ned. notably what bran learns in his second chapter is what takes ned 10+ to figure out. i do think it's an intentional choice to give him information that is the key to solving agot's main plot and then immediately taking away his opportunity to do anything about it. even more than his dreams of knighthood, what jaime takes from bran is his agentic existence. from there on he assumes the role of a passive watcher, watching other people live their lives is all bran allowed to do once he's disabled.

In the yard below, Rickon ran with the wolves. Bran watched from his window seat. [...] His eyes stung. He wanted to be down there, laughing and running. AGOT A year ago, before, he would have visited the town even if it meant climbing over the walls by himself. In those days he could run down stairs, get on and off his pony by himself, and wield a wooden sword good enough to knock Prince Tommen in the dirt. Now he could only watch, peering out through Maester Luwin’s lens tube. AGOT [A]bed, the room was his cell, and Winterfell his prison. Yet outside his window, the wide world still called. He could not walk, nor climb nor hunt nor fight with a wooden sword as once he had, but he could still look. ACOK “At least I should climb to the top of the Wall,” Meera decided. “Maybe I’ll see something up there.” It should be me [...] I want to stand on top with Meera, Bran thought. I want to stand on top and see. But he was a broken boy with useless legs, so all he could do was watch from below as Meera went up in his stead. ASOS One day I will be like him. The thought filled Bran with dread. Bad enough that he was broken, with his useless legs. Was he doomed to lose the rest too, to spend all of his years with a weirwood growing in him and through him? Lord Brynden drew his life from the tree, Leaf told them. He did not eat, he did not drink. He slept, he dreamed, he watched. I was going to be a knight, Bran remembered. I used to run and climb and fight. It seemed a thousand years ago. ADWD

branoween: family |

Branoween, Day Three -> Leadership and Politics, Destiny and Duty

branoween day 4: family and heritage.

BRAN STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2025 ↳ Day 4: Winterfell and the North

When he got out from under it and scrambled up near the sky, Bran could see all of Winterfell in a glance. He liked the way it looked, spread out beneath him, only birds wheeling over his head while all the life of the castle went on below. Bran could perch for hours among the shapeless, rain-worn gargoyles that brooded over the First Keep, watching it all: the men drilling with wood and steel in the yard, the cooks tending their vegetables in the glass garden, restless dogs running back and forth in the kennels, the silence of the godswood, the girls gossiping beside the washing well. It made him feel like he was lord of the castle, in a way even Robb would never know.

Bran II, A Game of Thrones

Thousands and thousands of years ago, Brandon the Builder had raised Winterfell, and some said the Wall. Bran knew the story, but it had never been his favorite. Maybe one of the other Brandons had liked that story. Sometimes Nan would talk to him as if he were her Brandon, the baby she had nursed all those years ago, and sometimes she confused him with his uncle Brandon, who was killed by the Mad King before Bran was even born. She had lived so long, Mother had told him once, that all the Brandon Starks had become one person in her head.

Bran IV, A Game of Thrones

"Your notion about the bastard may have merit, Bran," Maester Luwin said after. "One day you will be a good lord for Winterfell, I think."

Bran II, A Clash of Kings

He looked up and down the benches at all the faces happy and sad, and wondered who would be missing next year and the year after. He might have cried then, but he couldn't. He was the Stark in Winterfell, his father's son and his brother's heir, and almost a man grown.

Bran III, A Clash of Kings

The stone is strong, Bran told himself, the roots of the trees go deep, and under the ground the Kings of Winter sit their thrones. So long as those remained, Winterfell remained. It was not dead, just broken. Like me, he thought. I'm not dead either.

meera reminded bran of his sister arya. she wasn't scared to get dirty, and she could run and fight and throw as good as a boy. 

for a moment bran thought it was his sister arya … madly, for he knew his little sister was a thousand leagues away, or dead. 

the girl was the older and taller of the two. arya! bran thought eagerly, as he watched her leap up onto a rock and cut at the boy. but that couldn't be right. if the girl was arya, the boy was bran himself, and he had never worn his hair so long. and arya never beat me playing swords, the way that girl is beating him.

bran and arya stark for #branoween day four: family and heritage

Bran Stark

BRAN STARK APPRECIATION WEEK 2025 ↳ Day 2: Summer

Now you know, the crow whispered as it sat on his shoulder. Now you know why you must live.” "Why?" Bran said, not understanding, falling, falling. Because winter is coming.

When his brother Robb burst into the room, breathless from his dash up the tower steps, the direwolf was licking Bran's face. Bran looked up calmly. "His name is Summer," he said.

Bran III, A Game of Thrones

He bid them welcome in the name of his brother, the King in the North, and asked them to thank the gods old and new for Robb's victories and the bounty of the harvest. "May there be a hundred more," he finished, raising his father's silver goblet.

Bran III, A Clash of Kings

Prince. The man-sound came into his head suddenly, yet he could feel the rightness of it. Prince of the green, prince of the wolfswood. He was strong and swift and fierce, and all that lived in the good green world went in fear of him.

Bran I, A Storm of Swords

"And who is Summer?" Jojen prompted. "My direwolf." He smiled. "Prince of the green." "Bran the boy and Summer the wolf. You are two, then?" "Two," he sighed, "and one."