A fan theory suggests Bran Stark may share an identity with The Night King. Photo / HBO
A fan theory suggests Bran Stark may share an identity with The Night King. Photo / HBO
Is Bran Stark the Night King?
That's the theory one Reddit user has put forward ahead of the finale of Game of Thrones' seventh season next week.
Reddit user turm0il26 laid out the potentially plausible theory in a long post detailing Bran's new-found abilities. Now that Bran Stark is the Three Eyed Raven, he can travel through time - and as we saw in season six, he can be seen and heard in whichever time he has travelled to.
Turm0il26 argues that Bran, aware of the death and destruction the White Walkers bring to Westeros, decides to travel back in time to stop The Night King. To do so, he "wargs" into the man that the Children of the Forest turned into the first White Walker (as seen in season six) - but he gets caught in his body and he becomes stuck in the past, inadvertently becoming The Night King.
"Bran believes he is eventually (with more knowledge) going to be able to rewrite history and that's why he decides to go back and stop the Night king several times, but fails every time, ending up fulfilling the timeline-circle and taking the identity of the Night king himself," writes Turm0il26.
The Night King is the leader of the villainous White Walkers. Photo / HBO
"Bran goes back all the way to where the Night king was created, to warg into the human that later is going to become the Night king (or maybe even try to kill the children of the forest). He wargs into him to instead stop the "dragonglass into the heart"-event from happening (or maybe in his attempt to kill the children, he gets chosen as the vessle for the NK) (sic).
"Only he doesn't think of that the children of the forest won't recognise him from the future, and that they at that point are in war with the first men (he is gagged because of all the wierd future-talk). When he realised he failed again, he tries to go back in the current timeline, but can't because he's too deep into the past and stayed to long ("it is beautiful beneath the sea, stay too long and you drown").
"From here Bran gets stuck in the past (exactly as Brynden and Jojen warned him not to) and becomes the Night king. With the combination of the children's magic and Brans power, he becomes the villain instead of the hero he tried to be, resulting in turning against the children for creating him and getting stuck behind the magical Wall he later builds as Bran the builder."
If it seems like a stretch, that's because it is - there's little evidence other than speculation to support the theory. Some have noted that Bran, The Night King and the man viewed in the flashback all adopt the same pose, and that Bran and The Night King share similar costumes.
Next week's season finale is the longest episode in the show's history, clocking in at 79 minutes - so perhaps we'll get some answers in regards to The Night King's identity. Until then, we can only speculate.
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