'Game of Thrones': Bran on his future and the Night King's ultimate fate

He can warg, he can see the past, present and future (sort of), and he can beat just about anyone in a staring contest. His importance is such that the Night King raised an entire army of the dead in his efforts to vanquish him — to erase him would be to erase the world’s memory. But instead of fighting back on a supernatural level, Bran sat back during the battle, as part of a strategy to lure the Night King into a vulnerable position.

Should he have played a more active role? Warged a dragon? Shared battlefield intelligence? Invaded the Night King’s psychic space? Perhaps. Fans speculated that he was doing all these things and more, but had no real answers.

Until now.During a phone interview this week, Hempstead Wright went deep on the Three-Eyed Raven, his role in the battle and his purpose beyond that.

Following are edited excerpts.

Q: So let’s talk about what Bran was doing during the Battle of Winterfell.

A: My involvement was small, compared to most people. I only did two weeks of night shoots, and they were there for 55 nights. The hard part for me is just sitting there, and staying put, keeping the furs in place for continuity. I can’t get up. So when the director yells, “Cut!” everyone else can wander around and have a chat, and I’m stuck in the courtyard yelling, “Hey, guys! Come out and hang out near me so I can talk to you!” I think everyone would get angry, though, if I complained that I had to sit down with loads of warm furs. [Laughs] I’ve got a pretty all right deal there.

So it was great to see what everybody else was up to! It just goes so quickly. It doesn’t feel like an hour and 20 minutes, because everything is so high stakes. But Bran’s role in it? [Laughs] He’s not going to be right at the forefront. There’s not a lot Bran can contribute on the battle side.

Q: Maybe not physically, but there is a moment where he is doing something. He wargs into the ravens to do some aerial reconnaissance, but that dissipates pretty quickly and he remains in that state. What was he doing?

A: As far as I understand it, he’s just in the ravens. He’s just keeping tabs on the battle. But having lots of shots of ravens flying around wouldn’t be much of interest! [Laughs] And it would be pretty impractical for him to be like, “Hey, Theon, can you go run over there and tell this guy to get out of the way of that guy?” Bran recognizes that all he can do is sit there and let whatever happens, happen. We saw how quickly all their plans disintegrated! There would have been no chance of an efficient communication system. [Laughs]

Q: Ah, OK. Whenever Bran does anything lately, the internet explodes with theories.

A: [Laughs] I thought this battle might have put some of those theories to rest. Evidently not!

Q: Such as the popular one that Bran was actually the Night King. That’s finally debunked now?

A: Yeah. The Night King is dead. I can’t see how Bran is the Night King, or was the Night King.

Q: Although they did share a meaningful look. What was going on between them, in that moment?

A: The reasoning behind that wasn’t actually in the script, but [director Miguel Sapochnik] and I came up with this idea that the look Bran gives the Night King is one of pity. Bran saw the creation of the Night King, or the first White Walker, or whatever. He realizes that he was once just a normal guy who was forcibly strapped to a tree, and had a piece of dragonglass plunged in his heart. He didn’t ask to become this raving, crazy ice killer. So it’s a bit like a Frankenstein’s monster scenario. He was forced into this situation, and he was trapped into this Night King’s body, and programmed to kill everyone. So we tried to get a moment where Bran is feeling sorry for him. Bran is looking at this ancient being who didn’t want to become this murderer, but is. And the reason the Night King takes so long is that he’s been programmed to destroy the Three-Eyed Raven from the moment he was created, so he’s taking a moment to savor it.

Q: There are even people now trying to make a case for Bran being evil.

A: Interesting! [Laughs] Well, you’ll have to wait to see if he’s up to no good.

Q: What do you think about how Bran’s arc is saying about the story’s larger theme of predestination versus free will? How much does he see from the future and set in motion? He gave Arya this dagger last season in just about the very spot where she ends up using it.

A: As I understand it, Bran can’t exactly see the future. I think he can have inklings. When Bran gives Arya the catspaw dagger, he knows there’s something important to do with it, but he doesn’t know that say, six months on, she’s going to use it to stab the Night King. So I think it’s still indeterminate, and not classical causal mechanics, where he just views things as actions that follow from one another. There’s still some uncertainty.

Q: He’s not a chessmaster putting people into position.

A: No, I don’t think he knows anything other than it’s important that Arya get that blade. He doesn’t necessarily know why.

Even if Bran did know everything that happened in the future — the reason, in my opinion, that Bran is so quiet and doesn’t necessarily choose to give everything away is that the Three-Eyed Raven is trained to be very calm and still, because he knows that the information that he has could be used for all sorts of purposes.

If any of the normal people knew anything about the past, or any sort of vague things that might happen in the future, it would probably change the way things unfold. People would end up making the wrong choices, or doing things based on what Bran’s told them. The very purpose of the Three-Eyed Raven is to be the one who is wise, and still, and careful enough to handle this information and not just go blabbering it about, because that would affect the outcome. He’s very cautious with what he reveals to people, because he’s aware that time has to unfold naturally.

Q: And yet, he seems to be directing people somewhat. He shuts down the conversation when Dany arrives at Winterfell: “We don’t have time for this.” And just after Sam has found out that his father and brother were killed, he doesn’t give him time to mourn. He insists that this is the moment to go tell Jon about his heritage. It could be read as manipulative, that he’s using Sam’s emotional state to influence how Jon receives the news.

A: Bran doesn’t care. It’s totally irrelevant to Bran that Samwell Tarly’s family has died, unfortunately. The Three-Eyed Raven doesn’t see things in terms of personal sadness. He just sees things in terms of the way things must unfold, or the way time goes. He’s not going to go, “Oh, I’m sorry, Sam. I hope you feel better in a minute.” He just sees things that have to happen next, and the importance of those things far outweighs any personal tragedies that might occur. It sounds brutal! But that’s been the role of the Three-Eyed Raven for millennia. To sit there, watching, carefully. He doesn’t sit there judging. He doesn’t sit there advising. He just sits there keeping an eye on history and time.

Q: Well, there are some contradictions within that. If he doesn’t fully know the future, how does he know what has to happen next? If he isn’t concerned with people’s emotions, why would he steer Sam to tell Jon at just the exact moment when the news would be somewhat tainted by his perception that Dany could be an unfit ruler?

A: That might just be for dramatic tension. But yeah, good point. [Laughs] This is all conjecture on my part. I’ve never actually gone through a very detailed analysis of what exactly Bran’s powers are with [showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss]. To be honest, I don’t think they really want to do that. It would become like a superhero movie, if we knew every way that Bran’s powers worked and what exactly he can do. It’s best to keep that sense of mystery and an unknown to it.

Q: Beyond his powers, Bran is also able to help validate the redemption of other characters, such as Jaime previously and Theon in this battle. Both of them have done really awful things to him in the past, and have tried to rectify that. And perhaps because Bran is beyond caring, it’s very easy for him to forgive?

A: I don’t think it’s a question of Bran forgiving them. There’s nothing personal when Bran tells Theon, “You’re a good man.” What he’s basically doing there is that he knows that Arya is running and charging on her way to save the day, and Bran recognizes that he needs to buy some more time. And that’s a real moment there where Theon could give up again, as we’ve seen him do several times before. He looks at the Night King like, is he just going to run away or give up? And Bran recognizes that Theon needs that final push to give it one last go, to buy enough time for Arya.

Q: So there is a little bit of manipulation.

A: Yeah, but I don’t think it’s manipulation on his part. It’s not for anything selfish for Bran’s ego. It’s for the Three-Eyed Raven. He recognizes that the Three-Eyed Raven has to exist. If you look back in time, Bran isn’t bothered by the death of Hodor, because that’s what had to happen to allow him to get away from the White Walkers. Bran views them as a necessity for the greater good, not for himself, but for the world, for time, for history.

Q: You said he’s very careful about sharing that information. But what about coordinating with, say, the Citadel to update their historical records? Why be the sole proprietor, who can be killed, when some of this information could be recorded and shared to benefit a greater number of people?

A: The reason that you have a Three-Eyed Raven is that you need to be sensible to guard this information. Even in our world, if we knew every single precise thing that went on in history, the world would probably be a very different place. I think the job of the Three-Eyed Raven is to keep the information and decide what’s to be shared. The previous Three-Eyed Raven, and all the Three-Eyed Ravens before him, they didn’t share information. They sat there, and they waited. They just kept abreast of everything. So I don’t know whether that’s something that would be on Bran’s agenda.

Q: It’s like he’s Google, and only one person has internet access.

A: Yeah, I guess. But I wouldn’t want Cersei to have Google, would you? [Laughs]

Q: “101 Ways to Use Wildfire.”

A: There are plenty of people who could use that information, and Bran recognizes the potential that it could fall in the wrong hands. It’s far too dangerous. He can look up anything in history, and it’s not just uploading images anymore. He can just go, “What happened on the 5th of November of this year,” or whatever, and look it up with some precision. I think what the previous Three-Eyed Ravens did is they sat there in the cave, and they went through every single day in the history of the world. Obviously, Bran hasn’t had time to do all that yet. He’s only been the Three-Eyed Raven since the end of Season 6.

Q: Vladimir Furdik, who plays the Night King, reminded us on Twitter of the importance of his touch. He marked Bran before, but with his death, is that completely gone? Or is it still there?

A: It’s still there. It’s kind of like frostbite. But if the Night King is dead, I can’t see how it will have any supernatural connection anymore. Without a Night King, it’s redundant.

Q: You tweeted that you love the Bran memes: “Keep ‘em coming.” Most of them are about the Three-Eyed Raven stare, which is basically just because you can’t see without your glasses.

A: Yeah I kind of like that, because it makes you feel distant and removed. You’re sitting there, and you can’t see what’s going on, so you’re forced to become a bit more interior, thinking about things. Bran’s not going to be sitting there playing “I Spy,” looking at different things. He’s sitting there inside his head. So I think not having my glasses kind of helps. I probably made my vision sound worse than it is — it’s really not that bad. But if I take them off, it’s a bit blurry.

But to be honest, with the Battle of Winterfell, the last thing on my mind was how people were going to react in a comedic way. It was such a hard shoot, and so focused and intense, the only thing I thought as far as audience reaction was how astonishing they’d find it. But I really do love when people respond with memes and comedy. It’s great fun. And there are some really original ones. It’s a testament to how much people love the show that they come up with these funny little things that refer to these moments.

Q: Do you ever worry if those responses could turn Bran into comic relief?

A: No, I don’t. You’ve got to let people laugh, and you have to laugh at yourself. It would be really pompous if we said, “You can’t make a joke about Bran because he’s a very serious person.” Anyone who watches Episode 3 and thinks it’s hilarious or meme-worthy, that doesn’t change that it’s still utterly dramatic and terrifying and captivating. You can still enjoy the comic relief after.

Q: Could Bran’s watching in a way be a meta-commentary about the show’s pacing and the audience watching?

A: Yeah! He could be a parallel to the audience, an audience surrogate, in that the audience also isn’t able to contribute much, in the sense that the audience can only watch just as Bran can only watch. I don’t know if that’s intentional, but I just like the fact that Bran is a very still character, because there aren’t many people in “Game of Thrones” who are content with just getting by, and letting things happen, and just watching them and observing. It’s nice to be one of the people who isn’t reactionary, who isn’t charging around and stabbing things or whatever, but remains calm. It’s quite refreshing.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.