Game of Thrones season 7: How powerful is Bran Stark, really?

In the case of Bran Stark on Game of Thrones, access to power really might not mean true power. Could it all blow up in his face?

In the world of Game of Thrones, power can take many forms. Yes, we know that Cersei Lannister says “power is power,” which is still basically her governing principle right now in season 7. But there’s something to be said for access, even now. Take Missandei, for example. She’s powerful because she has the opportunity to talk to Daenerys on a regular basis and has her queen’s trust, a clear point of pride for her. Abilities, too, provide power. This is where Bran Stark comes in.

He may have lost the use of his legs, but he can warg into people and access the collective memories, metaphorically speaking, of weirwoods, which seem to extend far beyond what the carved faces on the trees could “see.” Presumably, since he’s the Three-Eyed Raven now, something he says to Sansa in “The Queen’s Justice” and echoed in Entertainment Weekly, he can also target people’s dreams.

However, all of Bran’s powers have us asking a very key question: How quickly will things take a turn for him? Isaac Hempstead-Wright told EW the following:

"“Somebody put in front of him a massive encyclopedia of all of time and he’s only opened page one. He can look stuff up but doesn’t have this all-knowing all-seeing capability just yet.”"

The encyclopedia metaphor elides a point that we think is worth noting: what Bran can do is incredibly dangerous. This isn’t Sam sitting in Oldtown and learning how to carefully slice greyscaled skin off of a living person (which is dangerous in its own way, granted). Even when he did have the old Three-Eyed Raven teaching him, he took ill-advised actions, like getting the attention of the Night King.

Of course, the problem might instead stem from the changes we’ve already seen. Earlier in the same EW piece, Hempstead-Wright also compares Bran to “a computer” now, which we can pick up on during his scene with Sansa in “The Queen’s Justice”. Pay attention to Bran’s facial expressions … or lack thereof:

He does have some semblance of emotion still — though his expression is still curiously flat — when he says “I’m sorry for all that’s happened to you.” Then again, the timing on this is spectacularly poor, and how he continues is more than a little creepy. But the contrast between his confused sister and him is very easy to see.

David Benioff, also quoted by EW, speaks of “serious challenges dealing with all the stuff happening in his mind”. In the above scene, Bran seems focused on improving his skills, but it wraps back around to the problem that this isn’t something you might not be able to learn via trial and error. Benioff picks up on this as well, saying, in effect, that Bran does not know everything about what he’s doing, which “prevents him becoming this omniscient character.”

It might also prevent him from ever getting more powerful. The Night King knows who Bran is and has touched him already. They share that connection. If he sees the Night King again, which is a very real possibility if he’s trying to practice, who’s to say that the lord of the White Walkers won’t try and finish off the Three-Eyed Raven for a second time?

Next: GoT season 7: 5 predictions for episode 4

Bran’s survival is not guaranteed. He has the access, but he himself does not have the power, and he might not have the time to do it.