Three-Eyed Raven

This page is about the title. For the earliest known Three-Eyed Raven, see: Brynden Rivers

The Three-Eyed Raven manifests in dreams as a literal three-eyed raven.

Bran: "I became the Three-Eyed Raven."

Sam: "Oh. I don't know what that means."

Bran: "I can see things that happened in the past. I can see things happening now, all over the world."

— Bran Stark and Samwell Tarly

Three-Eyed Raven is a title held by a powerful greenseer who opposes the White Walkers.

History

Game of Thrones: Season 1

After his fall from the tower and awakening from the subsequent coma, Bran Stark sees the raven multiple times in his dreams. In them, it appears as Bran is about to fire an arrow and causes him to stop before he shoots. Then, the raven lands on the head of a direwolf statue, cries once and then flies deep into the Stark family crypt. After having the dream again, he becomes convinced the raven is guiding him to the crypts in order to somehow find his father there, even though he is supposed to be alive and well at King's Landing. Anxious to find out, he asks Osha to take him down to the crypts. There, they are surprised by Rickon, who admits to having had the same dreams. Outside, Osha is still trying to tell Bran that it could be a coincidence when a saddened Maester Luwin appears, holding a letter announcing Eddard's death.

Game of Thrones: Season 2

Bran asks Osha about the significance of the Three-Eyed Raven but she does not divulge anything.

The Three-Eyed Raven watches Maester Luwin send ravens as Theon is attacking Winterfell.

Game of Thrones: Season 3

The Three-Eyed Raven guides Bran to a tree in his dreams.

While traveling north, Bran dreams once again of the Three-Eyed Raven. In the dream he's able to walk and attempts to shoot at him with a bow and arrow. A strange boy then appears in the dream, and tells Bran that he cannot kill the raven, because Bran is the raven. Another day, this same boy, Jojen, and his sister Meera encounter Bran and his companions in real life, and Jojen explains the prophetic powers of the Sight to Bran. Jojen explains that he also saw the Three-Eyed Raven and it was Jojen himself in the dream (not just a prophetic vision of him), as the power of the Sight, conferred by the raven, allowed his mind to enter Bran's dreams.

Game of Thrones: Season 4

When Bran touches a weirwood in the haunted forests beyond The Wall, he sees flashes of the Three-Eyed Raven from his dreams at Winterfell, flying through the crypts. Among his other vision is a single giant weirwood on a hill, with a voice that whispers, "Look for me... beneath the tree... North!".

Bran meets the Three-Eyed Raven in his real form.

Bran and his group eventually reach the giant weirwood tree on the hill, but are attacked by a group of wights hiding beneath the ice. 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. 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. Bran states that he is the Three-Eyed Raven, and the man tells them that he has been many things but is now what they see. 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.

Game of Thrones: Season 6

Shortly before his death during the battle at the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven, Brynden transfers all of his own knowledge to Bran, passing the mantle of Three-Eyed Raven on to him.

Known Three-Eyed Ravens

• Many Three-Eyed Ravens prior to Brynden
• Brynden Rivers
• Bran Stark

Behind the scenes

• The design of the Three-Eyed Raven in Bran's dreams (as an actual Three-Eyed Raven) was developed by William Simpson. There was considerable deliberation on where exactly the third eye should be located, as it wasn't specified in the books. For a time, Simpson considered actually putting it in the back of the head, to give it a full 360 degree field of vision. However, he later settled on putting it in the middle of the forehead. The Three-Eyed Raven is played by a real-life raven, but its third eye is digitally added in post-production.

In the books

In the A Song of Ice and Fire novels, the bird is a three-eyed crow rather than a raven. The crow is more active in Bran's dreams; it helps him wake from his coma. The crow speaks to Bran, telling him it can teach him how to fly, other times it screeches the words "fly or die".

When Bran finally meets him in the cave beyond the Wall, the three-eyed crow is revealed to be a pale, skeletal man in rotted black clothing in a weirwood throne of tangled roots. His skin is white, aside from a red blotch on his neck and cheek. He has fine, white hair long enough to reach the earthen floor. He is missing one eye, while the other is red. Weirwood roots surround the man and grow through his body, including his leg and his empty eye socket. His voice is slow and dry, as if he had forgotten how to speak. It is also implied that he was once a man of the Night's Watch, due to his tattered black cloak - which means that the "three-eyed crow" name is a double-meaning that was lost when the TV series chose to consistently refer to him as the "Three-Eyed Raven".

Within the books, there are numerous details that indicate who the three-eyed crow was before he entered the cave, but only few of them have made it into the series. The three-eyed crow tells Bran that he has many names, and his birth name is Brynden - hence the theory that he is Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers, a legitimized bastard son of King Aegon IV Targaryen and former Lord Commander of the Night's Watch who was lost beyond the Wall. Bloodraven lost one of his eyes in the Blackfyre Rebellion, years before being sent to the Wall, and the three-eyed crow's true form is indeed missing an eye, but in the series the Three-Eyed Raven still has both his eyes (similarly to the show portrayal of Euron Greyjoy). It's not clear if this means that the theory is wrong, or if the writers simply decided not to address his identity. He mentions to Bran that he once had "A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, and a woman I desired." These are believed to be King Daeron II Targaryen (though few fans have suggested it might be Daemon Blackfyre), Aegor "Bittersteel" Rivers, and Shiera Seastar, Brynden's half-sister and lover, respectively.

One of the visions Melisandre sees in the flames is about a "wooden face, corpse white" with a thousand red eyes, accompanied by a boy with a wolf's face; she wonders if this is the enemy. It is speculated by fans that mysterious figure is the three-eyed crow: he has white skin and hair, lives inside a tree, and (according to Leaf) has a thousand eyes and one; the boy is Bran.

External links

• Three-eyed crow on A Wiki of Ice and Fire