Game of Thrones: What is Bran Stark’s role in season 8?

Bran Stark faded into the background as season 7 wore on, but is he poised for a season 8 comeback or doomed to lose the spotlight once again?

Bran Stark ended Game of Thrones season 7 in a close race for the character who is most able to creep people out. (The other is his sister, Arya Stark.) His season 7 basically revolved around other people coming to terms with him, despite Isaac Hempstead Wright’s talking early in the season about just what his character is capable of these days and seeming to hint at some trouble down the line for the youngest living Stark. None of that really appeared to pan out.

Instead, by the season 7 finale, Bran was down to providing some creepy and not-creepy lines as more of a support character in terms of information rather than part of his own narrative, which about ranks a C. It’s average, in other words. Even though the show itself has shifted significantly towards the fantastic — it has to, considering the existence of the Night King and the dragons — Bran hasn’t been part of that shift quite as much.

Granted, he wasn’t always the most interesting character anyway, and it’s hard to complain when his shift also helped bring new levels of complexity to his sisters, especially Sansa, but Arya as well by the end of the season. (Hempstead Wright naturally had something to say on that as well.) That doesn’t mean that he’s not a great resource, however, and he shouldn’t really be just a plot-revelation device.

Maybe the show is planning to bring Bran back in season 8 in a big way. After all, there is still that theory that posits that he’ll go a little too far in trying to stop the Night King and end up actually becoming his greatest foe, but for him to whip back to that level of prominence requires a careful hand, which I noted back when I analyzed the idea itself.

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If the theory itself is false, then maybe Bran’s role remains as it is right now, with him effectively playing second fiddle to everyone else. It’s not the worst thing that can happen, but it does feel like a slight waste of potential.