[The Three-Eyed Raven — Lore]
Due to the harrowing experiences of the Stark children, Sansa experiences a development in the relationships with her surviving siblings when they are reunited. Though she and Jon were the least close of the Stark children, they love one another as siblings and their relationship as brother and sister become stronger when they are reunited. While Sansa will argue with Jon, she speaks to him as an equal, wants to see him safe, and Turner observes Sansa's relationship with Jon has restored Sansa's faith in men. While Jon remains a protective older brother to Sansa and likewise wants her safe, he also recognizes Sansa's intelligence and her adeptness as a leader, placing the North in her charge as his regent. Sansa and Arya did not get along as children and though they love each other, experience a rocky start after their reunion in Season 7 due to their experiences. Nonetheless, they come to recognize new strengths in one another: Arya's skills as a combatant and Sansa's abilities as Lady of Winterfell. By the end of Season 7, their relationship grows stronger and they develop a new closeness as sisters. Sansa is relieved and happy to be reunited with Bran but is unsettled by the changes he has undergone as a result of becoming the Three-Eyed Raven . Regardless, she asks for Bran's help in using his powers to look into Littlefinger's past and upon learning the truth, decide to put Littlefinger on trial to answer for his crimes.
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 Ned 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 Ned has been executed for treason .
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 . He attempts to shoot the raven, but the boy tells Bran that he cannot shoot the raven, because he is the raven. Bran awakens suddenly, worrying Hodor for a moment but he says that he is fine. Osha says they have enough problems without black magic dreams. Bran, Rickon, Osha, Hodor, and the direwolves Summer and Shaggydog continue to head north from Winterfell to the Wall.
Later, 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 is having a shared 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.
While in control of Summer and Shaggydog, Bran tells Rickon he saw their half-brother Jon outside fighting the wildlings but assures Rickon that Jon got away. Osha says Jon will be heading to Castle Black and they should as well but Bran insists that he must go beyond the Wall to find the Three-Eyed 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.
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 Summer permanently and lose everything he has ever known. Later, Summer discovers a Heart tree , to which Bran request Hodor to carry him to it. 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 turning Craster's last son , 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 suddenly returns to his own consciousness and then tells the others that he knows where they have to go.
Bran and the others are being held imprisoned in a tent. Karl enters the tent and ties up Meera and prepares to rape her. Jojen offers to help them, saying he possesses the Sight . Karl refuses and just before he cuts Meera, Jon and members of the Night's Watch attack the keep. Locke , who 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 wargs 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. 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 Leaf , a Child of the Forest who leads them into a cave after burning Jojen's body when Jojen dies. 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 Brynden Rivers , 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, Brynden says that Jojen knew what would happen the moment he left, and went anyway. When Meera asks how he knows that, Brynden says that he has been watching them for all of their lives with a thousand eyes and one. Brynden tells Bran that the hour is late, and Bran replies that he did not want anyone to die for him. Brynden states that Jojen died so that Bran could find what he lost. Bran asks if Brynden will help him walk again. Brynden answers that Bran will never walk again, but he will fly.
Bran thanks her for her help, though she is upset this is all he has to say to her, despite the fact that Jojen, Summer, and Hodor all sacrificed themselves to help Bran. However, Bran says that he is not "Bran Stark", and the many generations of the Three-Eyed Raven have all flown into him, meaning he can experience everything. Meera tearfully tells Bran that he died in the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven. Having another vision in the Godswood, he is reunited with his long-lost sister Arya, whom Bran initially thought was going to King's Landing to kill Cersei, a target on her kill list. With all three surviving children of Ned and Catelyn together, Bran gives Arya the dagger, explaining it is wasted on a cripple. When she asks why such a lowborn assassin would have a dagger made of Valyrian steel, Bran monotonously says that someone of a much higher position of power must have hired him and given the dagger to him. The three siblings then continue into the castle together, Arya pushing Bran's chair.
Growing up under the tutelage of Brynden Rivers, Bran maintained his curious nature, defying Brynden's warnings about the Sight on several occasions. Bran's personality changed significantly after the battle at the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven , during which his mind was filled with a superabundant amount of knowledge in a short time. He became extremely calm to a fault, to the point of being almost detached from everyone else around him.
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, have left him behind. In A Clash of Kings , Bran reflects, "It was as if some cruel god had reached down with a great hand and swept them all away, the girls to captivity, Jon to the Wall, Robb and Mother to war, King Robert and Father to their graves, and perhaps Uncle Benjen as well.” Bran 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.
Sam later arrives at Winterfell, having learned of Jon's leaving the Night's Watch and becoming King in the North. He is greeted by Brandon Stark, who recalls how Sam helped him and the Reeds pass through the Wall. After learning of Bran's new powers as the Three-Eyed Raven , Sam states his intent to help Jon win the war against the Night King. Brandon reveals his discovery that Jon is actually the son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, saying that as he was born in Dorne his bastard surname should actually be "Sand". Shocked, Sam counters that the transcription Gilly read to him before said that Rhaegar had annulled his marriage to Elia so that he could marry Lyanna. They both realize that Robert's Rebellion was built on a lie and that Jon (whose birth name was Aegon Targaryen) far from being illegitimate, is the true heir to the Iron Throne.
Following the assassination of Daenerys Targaryen , Brienne attends the trial of Tyrion. After Tyrion suggests that the lords of Seven Kingdoms choose their new king and suggests Bran's name, Brienne assents to the proposal. She is made Lady Commander of the Kingsguard , with the emblem of a raven now present on the armor of the sworn brotherhood, an ode to Bran's status as the Three-Eyed Raven. While reading the Book of Brothers , she comes upon Jaime's entry and decides to complete it. She praises his actions and says he "died defending his queen", welling up while writing it.