#branweek2025

[mercyalayne]

magic, visions, and religion @branweek2025

commission done by @rinthecap

[branwinged]

i think what grrm's doing with bran's disability narrative in asoiaf is that it's something of a deconstruction of the common fantasy trope of a disabled character acquiring magical powers as a result of their disability, powers that are then narratively regarded as 'compensation'. bran's greenseer abilities are trigged by the fall from the broken tower in agot and the greater part of his storyline is concerned with the quest for a cure for his mobility impairment, something that will allow him to live out his dreams of knighthood.

“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

i don't believe bloodraven's offer of a thousand eyes and the ability to see anywhere in the world is a promise of godlike powers that will let him transcend his bodily form, it's the culmination of the process of dehumanisation that begins after bran's fall. bran is being asked to set aside his boyish hopes and dreams and his identity as a stark of winterfell to permanently assume a passive existence as the watcher, removed from the bounds of society. it's a twisted fulfillment of bran's opening wish to go south with ned's retinue: "Bran had been marking the days on his wall, eager to depart, to see a world he had only dreamed of and begin a life he could scarcely imagine" and once he's wedded to the trees bran can see that world, he'll just never get to live in it. magic here, or at least the kind bloodraven is offering, is not a cure or compensation, it's a reflection of all the ways in which bran is socially excluded for his disability. but as with arya & the faceless men and sansa & littlefinger, bran's not destined to be a greenseer in some tree any more than arya will be a faceless man or sansa littlefinger's possession.

[asoiafbran]

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."

Bran I, A Storm of Swords

[atopvisenyashill]

Branoween 2025, Day One -> The Hero’s Journey

I am almost a man grown, he had to remind himself. I have to be brave now.

[ladyylynx]

Bran Stark - Family and Heritage

another design breakdown ! just in the nick of time😶

buy me a coffee☕

[ivorysansa]

branoween day 4: family and heritage.

— a storm of swords, bran vi.

[daensaism]

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

“Bran was going to be knight himself someday, one of the Kingsguard.” — AGOT, Bran II // “She was a Stark of Winterfell, a noble lady, and someday she would be a queen.” — AGOT, Sansa I

[solartvln]