Bran Stark


 * This article is about the son of Eddard Stark. For other characters who share the same name, see Brandon Stark (disambiguation)

"My dreams are different."

- Bran

Brandon Stark, commonly called Bran, is a major character in the first, second, third, fourth and sixth seasons. He is played by starring cast member Isaac Hempstead-Wright and debuts in the series premiere. He is the fourth child and second son of Eddard and Catelyn Stark.

Background
Bran is the fourth child and second son of Lady Catelyn and Lord Eddard Stark. Eddard is the head of House Stark and Lord Paramount of the North. The North is one of the constituent regions of the Seven Kingdoms and House Stark is one of the Great Houses of the realm. House Stark rules the region from their seat of Winterfell and Eddard also holds the title Lord of Winterfell. He is also the Warden of the North to King Robert Baratheon.

Bran was born and raised at Winterfell. He has an older brother Robb, and a younger brother Rickon. He has two older sisters, Sansa and Arya. He also has a bastard half-brother, Jon Snow. He is 10 years old at the start of the series. He was named for Eddard's elder brother, Brandon, who was slain by the Mad King. He is only called "Brandon" by his mother when he has done something wrong. He dreams of being a knight of the Kingsguard and one day becoming a bannerman for his brother, Robb. His favorite hobby is climbing the walls of Winterfell and using its old rooftops and passageways to get around.

Season 1
Bran is being trained by his father, brothers and the castle's staff in leadership and combat. Bran is considered old enough to see some of the uglier sides of life, and his father takes him to see a deserter from the Night's Watch being executed. The Starks find a litter of direwolf pups and Eddard reluctantly agrees to let his children adopt them because they are the symbol of their house. Bran eventually settles on naming his direwolf Summer. King Robert Baratheon's party arrives at Winterfell, and Eddard agrees to act as the Hand of the King and accompany Robert back to King's Landing, and to take Bran, Sansa and Arya with him.

During Robert's visit, Bran goes exploring. While climbing a decrepit tower, he catches the king's wife, Queen Cersei, and her twin brother, Jaime, engaged in sexual intercourse. To keep his silence, Jaime pushes him out of the tower window. Bran survives the fall, but is left comatose, forcing Eddard to leave him in Winterfell. While he is unconscious an assassin attempts to kill him. Catelyn struggles with the man until Summer arrives and rips out the would-be assassin's throat. Summer then stands guard at the end of Bran's bed. Bran awakens with no memory of what happened some weeks later, at the same moment as his father is forced to kill Sansa's direwolf, Lady.

After Catelyn leaves for King's Landing, Old Nan sits by Bran’s bedside to watch him. She offers to tell him the story of Duncan the Tall and Bran replies that he hates her stories —he prefers the scary ones. She retorts that he is a "sweet summer child" who knows nothing about fear, and tells him that fear is for the winter and for the Long Night, a winter season thousand of years ago that lasted a generation, in which those who didn't freeze to death had to face the White Walkers, who ventured south for the first time and swept through Westeros. They are interrupted by Robb, and Bran asks him if it is true he will never walk again. Sadly, Robb says yes. Bran says that he would rather be dead, to Robb's distress. Bran begins to have a recurring dream in which a three-eyed raven flies into the crypts of Winterfell. He is awoken to meet with Tyrion Lannister, who has stopped at Winterfell on his way home. Out of his regard for Jon Snow, Tyrion has designed a special saddle that will allow Bran to ride despite his injuries. Bran takes a lesson on the sigils and mottos of the Great Houses from Maester Luwin, who is confident that Tyrion's saddle will work. Luwin also suggests that Bran could learn to use a shortbow from horseback, in the manner of the Dothraki. Bran bitterly refutes Luwin's assertion that his mother will return home soon.

Bran tries out his new saddle on a ride in the godswood and is thrilled to find that it works. While riding, he is attacked by wildlings led by Stiv. Robb and Theon Greyjoy defend Bran, killing Stiv and the other wildlings apart from Osha, who surrenders. Robert dies after being injured while hunting. Eddard challenges the legitimacy of Robert's heir, Joffrey, with evidence of Cersei's infidelity and is arrested. Bran says farewell to Robb when he leads the Stark armies to war in response. He also tries unsuccessfully to reassure Rickon that Robb will return. He prays in the godswood for their safe return, and is joined by Osha (now a servant of Winterfell), who tells him that Robb's army is marching the wrong way and the true threat lies to the north, Beyond the Wall.

Bran tells Osha of his dreams featuring the Three-eyed raven as he rides on her shoulders, saying that he saw his father in the crypts. Osha is skeptical. Bran taunts her about her fear of the catacombs and eventually she agrees to take him down to the crypt. Bran recites the names of his deceased relatives as they pass them. They approach the place where Eddard was in Bran’s dream. There, they are startled by Shaggydog and Rickon. Rickon has also dreamt of their father in that spot. Osha and Bran go back to the surface and Osha attempts to soothe Bran’s worries about his father. As they exit the crypts, they cross paths with Maester Luwin who reveals that Eddard has been executed for treason.

Season 2
Bran continues to experience strange dreams as he is tutored in ruling Winterfell by Maester Luwin. He dreams that he is Summer as the direwolf roams the Godswood and sees his reflection in the pond there. He has Osha accompany him out to look in the pond himself and is reassured that his waking reflection is his own. He again dreams that he is the wolf. This time Summer enters his bedchamber and he sees himself awakening through the wolf's eyes. He discusses the dream with Maester Luwin who reassures him that magic has been absent from the world for centuries. Bran dreams of the Three-eyed raven again and seeks advice from Osha. She questions him further and he reveals another dream about the sea flooding Winterfell and drowning Winterfell and its people, including Ser Rodrik Cassel. She does not offer any explanation. Ser Rodrik brings news that Torrhen's Square has been besieged and Bran orders him to take the remaining garrison to relieve the siege.

Bran is awoken by Theon Greyjoy, who tells him that he has seized Winterfell. Theon tells Bran that he should yield the castle to protect his people. Bran reluctantly complies with a public announcement. Rodrik is captured on his return from Torrhen's Square. He insults Theon, calling him a traitor to Eddard Stark, and spits at him. Theon is pressured to execute him by his men. Theon ignores Bran's pleas and carries out a botched execution. Osha tells Bran that his dream came true; the Iron Islands (represented as the sea in the dream) have come to Winterfell. Bran escapes with Osha's help. They are accompanied by his brother Rickon, their direwolves and Hodor.

They flee as far as a nearby farm. Theon tracks them with hounds but loses their scent at the farm. He returns to Winterfell with two charred corpses, displaying them publicly and claiming that they are Bran and Rickon. The escapees actually doubled back, using a stream to mask their scent and are hiding under Theon's nose in the crypts of Winterfell. Bran overhears Luwin telling Osha that the bodies must be Jack and Billy, the two orphan boys that he had previously assigned to assist a shepherd.

They remain in hiding as Winterfell is besieged by an army of Northmen. The Ironborn flee and the Starks emerge from the crypts to find that their home has been sacked and abandoned. They find Luwin dying in the Godswood and he urges them to go north to find Jon Snow at Castle Black. Bran makes a tearful farewell to his mentor and they follow his last piece of counsel.

Season 3
Bran is on the road to Castle Black, along with his brother Rickon, Osha, Hodor and the direwolves, Summer and Shaggydog, in order to seek shelter with his half-brother, Jon Snow. Bran continues to dream about chasing the Three-eyed Raven, but encounters in his dream a strange boy, whom he later meets while awake. This is when he meets Jojen Reed and his sister, Meera. Jojen possesses "the sight", the rare gift of seeing the past and present through his dreams, and is able to speak with Bran through their dreams. Jojen also saw the Three-eyed raven, who is apparently responsible for bringing the sight to them, and tells Bran he is a 'Warg', someone who can control the minds of animals. Osha is distrustful of the siblings.

Bran Stark is having a shared greensight dream with Jojen Reed. They are walking through the woods and see the three-eyed raven again. Jojen advises Bran that he must follow the raven, and when he is confused, Jojen points out that he must follow it by climbing a tree. Bran begins to climb the tree that the raven has landed in but he soon becomes terrified, remembering the fall that crippled him when he was climbing a tower at Winterfell. He sees a vivid dream-memory of his mother Catelyn, repeating her warning in which she made him promise never to climb again - a promise which he broke, and thus indirectly led to the fall which crippled him. Bran is so terrified of the memory of Catelyn yelling at him that he falls off the tree. Bran and Jojen wake in their camp in the woods, disappointed that he could not follow the three-eyed raven.

Tensions rise at camp between Osha and Meera Reed before Bran diffuses the situation. Jojen Reed experiences a seizure while sleeping, and Meera explains they are caused by his visions. Jojen then tells Bran that in his vision he saw Jon Snow with the wildlings.

On their way to the Wall, Bran Stark's party makes camp. Osha remains distrustful of Meera and Jojen Reed and reacts with horror when they mention they intend to go beyond the Wall. Osha bluntly refuses to go, explaining that she lost her husband, who then rose from the dead and tried to kill her. She rages that none of them understand what lies beyond the Wall and that there is nothing left for men there. However, Bran agrees with Jojen, arguing that the raven has been waiting for him to find him since Bran fell from the tower.

After seeking shelter in a derelict windmill during a rainstorm, the group notices a band of wildlings chasing down a old man. The sounds of thunder terrify Hodor, who shouts out in panic. Fearing discovery, Jojen tells Bran to silence Hodor, who keeps panicking. Bran unintentionally uses his Warg powers to render Hodor unconscious. With the wildlings still outside, Jojen convinces Bran to skinchange through Summer and Shaggydog outside, who then maul to death some of the wildlings. While in control of Summer and Shaggydog, Bran saw Jon Snow outside fighting the wildlings. After this, Bran insists that he must go beyond the Wall to find the raven. However, he wants Rickon to be safe, so he tells Osha to take his brother with her to the holdfast of Greatjon Umber, a loyal bannerman of the Starks. Bran bids a tearful Rickon farewell, who leaves with Osha and Shaggydog, while Bran continues northward with Hodor, Summer and the Reed siblings.

At last, they make it to the Wall and stay overnight in the Nightfort, an abandoned castle on the Wall that is rumored to be haunted. During the night, Jon Snow's fellow Night's Watch comrade Samwell Tarly, with Gilly and her child, emerge from a secret passageway. Samwell, noticing the gigantic Hodor and Summer, realizes who Bran is and offers to take them to Castle Black, but Jojen tells Sam that they are going beyond the Wall, as no force in the realm of Westeros could withstand the threat posed by the White Walkers. Sam reluctantly shows them the secret sally port and gives them the obsidian blades found north of the Wall, which he earlier used to slay a White Walker. That night, Bran, the Reeds, Hodor and Summer finally pass beyond the Wall.

Season 4
Bran, Hodor, Jojen and Meera are north of the Wall and Bran is looking through Summer's eyes, now having the ability to look through him whenever he wants. They wake him up which angers Bran. They warn him that if he stays in the wolf too long, he will stay in him permanently and lose everything he has ever known. Later, Summer finds a Heart tree. Bran skinchanges with it and has a vision of another Heart tree on a hill, the Three-eyed raven, his father about to be executed, a flight of ravens,  White walkers and  wights, including a glimpse of the Night's King, the Iron Throne sitting empty with snow falling around it, himself falling from the tower, a dragon flying over King's Landing, and finally the same tree on a hill again, all while a strange voice tells him to find him "beneath the tree, North." Bran  then tells the others that he knows where they have to go.

Later, Bran and his companions are resting near Craster's Keep. They hear the faint sounds of a baby's cries. Bran enters the mind of Summer to investigate where he finds Ghost, the direwolf of Jon Snow. However, before he can free Ghost, Summer is caught by a trap. Against Meera's urgings, they go to rescue Summer and Ghost but are taken prisoner by Karl. While Hodor is being tormented by Rast and the other mutineers for pure amusement, Karl threatens to kill Jojen and Meera before Bran gives up his identity.

Bran and the others are being held imprisoned in a tent. Karl enters the tent and ties up Meera and prepares to rape and torture her. Jojen begs for mercy and offers to help them, saying he possesses the sight. Karl refuses and just before he cuts Meera, Jon Snow and members of the Night's Watch attack the keep. Locke, who really serves Roose Bolton, searches for Bran and finds him and attempts to escape the keep with Bran as he has also been tasked with finding and killing Rickon as well. However, Bran skinchanges into Hodor, who escapes his binds and catches up to Locke. He lifts Locke off the ground and breaks his neck. Bran can see Jon and tries to crawl over to him to get his attention. He is about to reach him when Jojen arrives and intervenes, telling him that Jon will not let him search for the Three-eyed raven if he goes with Jon back to Castle Black. Bran agrees and prepares to leave.

Bran and his group eventually reach the giant weirwood tree on the hill, but are attacked by a group of wights. Jojen is fatally stabbed and Meera attempts to save him, but Jojen tells her to leave him for dead. They are helped by a Child of the Forest, who leads them into a cave after burning Jojen's body. She explains that the wights cannot enter, as the magic that reanimates them has no power there. She then leads them deep into the cave to the three-eyed raven, who is revealed to not be a bird but a very old man whose body is fused to the roots of the weirwood tree. Meera begins to tell him that Jojen has died and before she can finish the raven says that Jojen knew what would happen the moment he left, and went anyway. When Meera asks how he knows that, the raven says that he has been watching them for all of their lives with a thousand eyes and one. The raven tells Bran that the hour is late, and Bran replies that he did not want anyone to die for him. The raven states that Jojen died so that Bran could find what he lost. Bran asks if the raven will help him walk again. The raven answers that Bran will never walk again, but he will fly.

Season 5
Bran is still largely believed to have died along with Rickon at the hands of Theon. When Sansa Stark returns to Winterfell to be wed to Ramsay at the behest of Petyr Baelish, Ramsay initially forces Theon to keep up the charade and apologize to Sansa.[19] Eventually, however, an irate Sansa forces Theon to finally admit that he did not kill her brothers. Stunned by this admission, her anger towards Theon cools but when she asks if he knows where they might have gone to, he breaks down and leaves the room, fearful of what Ramsay will do if and when he finds out what he just told her. However, Sansa appears to be left with a sense of renewed hope by the revelation that she still has surviving family left.

Season 6
Bran continues his training under the Three-eyed raven. He and the raven watch a vision of his late father Ned and his uncle Benjen Stark as young boys training in the grounds of Winterfell. Bran also witnesses his late auntie Lyanna Stark and Hodor. Through the vision, Bran learned that Hodor used to be a stable boy named Wylis before he became simple. While Bran longs to stay in the vision, he is pulled out by the Three-Eyed Raven, who warns him that he may become too enamored with the past to want to return to reality. Emerging from the cave, Bran encounters Meera Reed, who is still grieving over the loss of her brother Jojen Reed. Meera told Bran that she was having trouble coping with their apparent inaction to the coming war. In response, Bran reminded her that it is no longer safe anywhere outside.

In another vision, Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven view the events that unfolded at the Tower of Joy towards the end of Robert's Rebellion. Ned Stark rides to the Tower of Joy with five of his bannermen, one of them being Howland Reed, to find Lyanna Stark. The tower is guarded by two Kingsguard: Ser Arthur Dayne and Lord Commander Gerold Hightower. After the two refuse Ned's requests to learn his sister's fate, the eight men duel. While Gerold Hightower is killed early on, Arthur Dayne single-handedly defeats nearly all of Ned's retainers, and is about to kill Ned himself when Howland Reed unexpectedly stabs Arthur Dayne through the back of the neck, having been injured early on, but not killed. Bran is shocked that the stories he heard were not as honorable as the events that actually unfolded. As Ned runs into the tower to find Lyanna, Bran calls out to him. Ned stops to look around, but is confused because he cannot find the source of the voice. Before Bran can discover what is in the tower for himself, the Three-Eyed Raven brings both of them out of the past. While he acknowledges that the younger Ned had heard Bran, he also warns Bran not to interfere with the past.

In a vision of the past Bran witnesses Children of the Forest create the first White Walker. Once out of the vision and shocked at the revelation, Bran asks Leaf why they did it, and Leaf confesses it was to prevent the First Men from destroying more of their sacred trees and the extinction of their people during war. Bran, without the consent of the Raven, connects to the weirwood with greensight, and sees an army of wights and whitewalkers. The Night King, who is present, intercepts his vision by touching him. The Three-Eyed Raven informs Bran that the Night King now has knowledge of their location and the cave's magic won’t prevent the white walkers or wights from entering due to the mark placed on Bran’s arm. The Night King arrives with three other white walkers and an army of wights outside the cave, while Bran and the Three-Eyed Raven are in a vision of the past of his father’s departure from Wintefell to the Vale. Meera tries to awaken Bran, and wights dig into the cave and a whitewalker enters. Meera kills the whitewalker with a dragon glass tipped spear and several of The Children die fighting. The Three-Eyed Raven advises Bran to listen to Meera’s voice, pleading to warg into Hodor, which now echoes in their vision. Bran sees a young Wylis and wargs into him, resulting in Bran warging into present-day Hodor as well. Hodor, under Bran's control, assists them in their escape out the cave. Summer stays to defend them against the wights, and is stabbed to death. The Night King then enters the cave and kills The Three Eyed Raven, causing him to disintegrate in the vision with Bran. Leaf sacrifices herself to halt the wights advancing toward Meera, Bran, and Hodor. Hodor, still controlled by Bran, and creates their escape. Hodor, now himself, held the door to hold the wights from killing everyone, and was slowly being overwhelmed. Meera carries Bran’s unconscious body away into the Northern winter. Desperate and scared, she screams “Hold the Door”. Still in the vision of the past of Winterfell Bran sees young Wylis/Hodor collapse after his mind returns to his body. Young Wylis keeps screaming “hold the door” repeatedly and it slurs into “Hodor”: Bran’s possession of young Wylis in his vision of the past breaks young Wylis’s mind and he hears the echoes of Meera’s screams, which made his mind simple and only capable of repeating a form of the last words he heard before his death,"Hodor".

Abilities
Bran Stark is one of a few characters known to possess magical abilities.


 * Greensight - also called simply "The Sight", is the ability to receive prophetic visions, starting off in the form of dreams. Bran's powers extend far beyond simply viewing events unfold; he is capable of influencing past events, though he cannot change what was not predestined to occur already.
 * Warg - Bran is a warg, a human who can send his consciousness into the mind of an animal, to see through its eyes and control its body as if it were his own. Jojen Reed states that this is a different, though related, ability to the Sight. Though he still needs training, Bran is inherently a very powerful warg, even able to enter the mind of another human, something the wargs among the wildlings are unable and unwilling to do. Bran has already become skilled at entering the mind of his direwolf Summer, in which he is a dangerous fighter, capable of dispatching several wildlings or wights, and uses Hodor to perform more complicated tasks or to supplement Summer's fighting capacity.
 * Skinchanging with a Heart tree, a Weirwood with a face carved in it by the Children of the Forest, allows Bran (when combined with his Greensight) to have vivid visions of past, present, and future events, including those far away from himself. While in the visions, Bran is once again capable of walking.

Behind the scenes
On the Season 1 Blu-ray, Bran narrates Complete Guide to Westeros videos on "The Children of the Forest, the First Men, and the Andals", "The Age of Heroes", "The Old Gods and the New" and "House Stark". On the Season 3 Blu-ray, he narrates Histories & Lore video "Wargs and the Sight".

Bran Stark does not appear in Season 5. As David Benioff explained, Bran simply caught up with his material from the most recent book, and his arrival at the cave of the three-eyed raven was a good stopping point, so it made more sense to just take a year off from his storyline to focus on other sub-plots which are also competing for time:


 * "The fact is, even though we’re making changes to the books and adapting as necessary, we’re trying to keep the various storylines the same [as the books] and trying to keep them roughly [chronologically] parallel. And [in Season 4] we caught up to the end of Bran's storyline [in George R.R. Martin’s most recent book, A Dance with Dragons] last year. So if we pushed him forward this season, then he's way ahead of where the other characters are...Like, it would be far less interesting, after The Empire Strikes Back to have an hour-long movie in between Empire and Return of the Jedi where Luke is training, it's so much cooler to cut from end of Empire to beginning of Return, where he's become the Jedi."

In the books
In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels Bran is seven years old when the action begins. He has a love of climbing, and has been known to climb the walls of Winterfell and go exploring its ancient nooks and crannies. He dreams of one day being a great knight, but he is also fascinated by magic. Bran is described as having red-auburn hair like his mother, full brothers, and oldest sister, though on the series he has brown hair. Robb Stark's hair was also similarly darkened for the television series, while Rickon's is lightened to blond.

Before his disability, Bran shows some skills with a sword when Robert Baratheon visits Winterfell by befriending and sparring with Tommen Baratheon. Eddard also initially intends to take Bran to with him to King's Landing, along with Sansa and Arya, in the hopes that he will form a strong bond with the king's sons to foster good relations between their families in the next generation, much like Ned's close friendship with Robert did. Catelyn, however, wishes for Bran to remain in Winterfell with her and prays to the Seven Gods for something to keep Bran from leaving. Bran is later shoved out of a tower window by Jaime Lannister after he catches Jaime and Cersei together, and rendered crippled from the waist down, forcing Ned to leave him behind after all and leading Catelyn to blame herself.

While in a coma after the fall, Bran has dreams that he is still falling while the three-eyed crow (which became the three-eyed raven in the series), tries to help him open his own third eye and his magical abilities. He also sees visions of the present and potentially the future. Bran wakes from his coma just as he has accepted his power and chosen to fly instead of fall. Upon waking, he learns of his disability as well as the fact that his father, mother, sisters, and half-brother, Jon Snow, have left him behind. He spends a great deal of time depressed by his situation, which not only keeps him from the activities he loves but makes his dream to be a knight impossible. When the king dies and Eddard is taken prisoner, Bran acts as Robb's confidant while his older brother struggles to take on their father's role as lord and to bring together their bannermen in preparation to march south. Bran's the only one Robb can confess his fears and insecurities to while their bannermen take turns challenging Robb's authority. The Northern army soon marches south to save Ned, leaving Bran to be the Stark in Winterfell. Though Robb achieves some military success, Bran soon learns that his father has been executed.

Like in the television show, much of Bran's storyline in the second novel initially deals with his learning to rule Winterfell and his growing skinchanging abilities. But Bran's role is primarily in learning to rule as well as Northern politics and diplomacy, while the decision making is left to Rodrik Cassel and Maester Luwin. Bran also has to play host to two of Walder Frey's grandsons who are now being fostered at Winterfell as part of the pact Catelyn made to bring House Frey to Robb's side in the war. A harvest feast is held at the castle now that autumn has begun, and the remaining Northern nobility who haven't gone south with Robb come to Winterfell with various food offerings and to discuss political issues with Rodrik, Luwin, and Bran. Jojen and Meera Reed also attend the feast and reaffirm the Crannogman's oath of fealty to House Stark.

After the celebration has ended, the Reeds remain in Winterfell and befriend Bran. Jojen has magical gifts similar to Bran's and repeatedly attempts to discuss them and the future with him, only for Bran to put him off because he is afraid of acknowledging his own abilities, though he knows he is skinchanging into Summer when he sleeps. Jojen has prophetic visions or green dreams which he shares with Bran. In the television show, the prophetic dreams are given to Bran since the Reeds are not introduced until the third season. One of Jojen's visions is of the sea coming to Winterfell, drowning a number of the castle's household. This comes to pass when Theon Greyjoy captures Winterfell while Rodrik is distracted by the attack at Deepwood Motte. Theon frees "Reek", a Winterfell prisoner who had served the presumed dead Ramsay Snow, while committing crimes. Theon takes him as one of his men. Not long after being forced to yield the castle to Theon, Bran, Rickon, the Reeds, and Hodor escape with the help of Osha the Wildling. They end up circling back to hide in the castle's crypts while Theon attempts to recapture them. When Theon fails to find them, "Reek" suggests they kill the sons of a miller and pass them off as Bran and Rickon. The children only leave the crypt after Ramsay Snow, who had been posing as Reek, sacks Winterfell and takes Theon prisoner. They find a dying Luwin in the godswood. He advises them to split Bran and Rickon up for safety. Osha takes Rickon while the Reed siblings take Bran. In the series, the younger Stark brothers aren't separated until the end of the third season.

Bran spends the third novel traveling to the Wall with the Reeds while also strengthening his skinchanging ability. Jojen warns him not to pend to much time in Summer's mind or else he'll loose himself. In their journey, they come upon a man from House Liddle, who seems to recognize who Bran is due to his direwolf and paralysis, but says nothing overtly. When they part, he leaves much of his food with them and Bran vows to pay House Liddle back for this once he returns to Winterfell. While hiding in an abandoned castle, the children see Jon Snow fighting Wildlings below them. Bran skinchanges into Summer to fight them off, allowing Jon to escape. Once the Wildlings are gone, they continue traveling north until they reach the Nightfort at the Wall. Once there, they meet Samwell Tarly and Gilly, who were instructed by a mysterious man named Coldhands to send Bran and his party through the Wall to meet him on the other side. Sam brings them to the Black Gate and opens it for them by reciting part of his Night's Watch vows.

Coldhands leads the party beyond the Wall for a great deal of time until they reach the cave of the three-eyed crow. Before entering, they are attacked by wights and have to fight their way in with the help of the children of the forest. Once there, Bran meets the three-eyed crow, who is a very old man whose life has been extended by the physical joining of his body with the weirwood roots. Bran asks if the three-eyed crow can help him walk again, but is told that he can't. But even though Bran will never walk again, he will fly.

In the television series, the character Coldhands is left out. So Sam helps them to the other side without his instruction while the children make their way to the cave on their own. There is not, however, any interaction between Bran and the Night's Watch mutineers or Vargo Hoat (Locke's literary counterpart), these subplots having been added in order to stretch out Bran's storyline and avoid completing his A Dance With Dragons chapters. Also, while Jojen dies during the battle with the wights outside of the cave in season four, he survives to enter the cave in the novels, though he is weak and depressed.

In real life, "Bran" is the word for "raven/crow" in several Celtic languages (Welsh, Cornish, Breton, etc.). Given that Westeros is loosely analogous to Britain, the First Men and their Old Gods are loosely analogous to the original Celtic inhabitants of Britain who worshiped druidic nature gods, but were later driven to the fringe of the island by invading peoples (i.e. the Andals are like the Anglo-Saxons). It is unknown if George R.R. Martin intentionally picked the name "Bran" knowing it is the Celtic word for "Crow", but it does neatly associate with Bran and his visions of the three-eyed crow.

Bran is the very first POV character in the novels. His chapter in A Game of Thrones, "Bran I", initially led many fans to assume that Bran was the main protagonist of the novel, and George R. R. Martin has since stated that Bran's fall from the tower was the series' first shocking moment which captivated fans, before other plot twists such as Ned's execution, the Red Wedding and the Mutiny at Castle Black.