* Spoilers for Game of Thrones season 8 episode 3 ahead *
The Battle of Winterfell is done and everyone is either tired and dirty, or dead. Except Bran – Bran is offputtingly chill for the entire episode.
Everyone is fighting for their lives to save humanity*#GameofThrones
Bran: pic.twitter.com/OEuK58up5g
— joseph bouhanef (@joe_b13) April 29, 2019
Every group project ever…where would we be without Arya #AryaStark #BranStark #JonSnow #Sansa #GOTS8E3 pic.twitter.com/iAdU72Y3TG
— SeattleDataGuy (@SeattleDataGuy) April 29, 2019
Bran sat by the Weirwood tree, waiting for the Night King to come, with Theon (RIP good man) standing by. In classic Bran style, he abruptly announces he’s “has to go”, and wargs the hell outta there with no further explanation.
But it seems like sloppy, un-GoT-like work to just have Bran sitting pretty as bait the entire episode and merely watching the battle from a raven’s-eye-view. That’s surely too simple and futile a role to have Bran play in the Great War.
So if he wasn’t just checking out the battle, where was Bran warging to?
Bran: I’m going to go now
Theon: Go where?
Bran: pic.twitter.com/syRlNZMf1X— K-Waj (@barnaclemans) April 29, 2019
This is the biggest thing left unexplained in the Battle of Winterfell episode, and there are, of course, various theories roaming around. Some contend that Bran really was just spectating, which is simple and honestly a little rude, but possible.
Others speculate that Bran was travelling back in time, to tamper with history in a way that is necessary to bring about the victory for the living. Or possibly he was travelling South for something that will unravel in the coming episode when the troupes must face their next enemy – Cersei Lannister.
We would like to think that Bran warging for about 90 minutes has a more complex significance than meets the eye, although there is the possibility that we’re in for disappointment.
Disappointment is a sentiment a lot of fans are currently feeling about the anticlimactic end to the Night King arc. If this truly was the end of the White Walker narrative, the fan-made theories of Targaryen relation and origin story were actually a lot more interesting than the simplicity that the show delivered.
#GameOfThrones fans: *years of complex and intricate theories surrounding the white walkers, Night King, and Bran*#GameOfThrones writers: pic.twitter.com/0A4kqaIV0j
— Steve Rebeiro (@steverebeiro) April 29, 2019
Hopefully Bran’s activity during the latest Game of Thrones episode will come to light in the next, and we will have a more intricate web of narrative to delve into. Only time will tell.