To everything (turn, turn, turn)

Potential Spoilers Below

I have told you many times over the years about a “small boy”.  I mention it so much because that nameless boy grows up to become Brandon the Builder.  I have also theorized for years that Bran Stark is in fact Brandon the Builder.  He goes back in time physically; most likely to escape certain death at the hands of the Night King.  He is considered a small boy because in the book series only, a few years have passed to get to the point they find themselves in now that we are in the final TV episodes.  The TV show covers for that fact also.  The stories that we have heard that supposedly come from the past are stories that he witnessed before going back and turned them into inspirational stories.  I say inspirational because the biggest threat, the Night King, has come knocking at his doorstep and without a belief that he can be defeated all hope would most likely be lost.

A small boy still - Almost a man

A time to build up

During this time Brandon the Builder built the things that would last generations. 

“Five more castles he built, each larger and stronger than the last, only to see them smashed asunder when the gale winds came howling up Shipbreaker Bay, driving great walls of water before them. His lords pleaded with him to build inland; his priests told him he must placate the gods by giving Elenei back to the sea; even his smallfolk begged him to relent. Durran would have none of it. A seventh castle he raised, most massive of all. Some said the children of the forest helped him build it, shaping the stones with magic; others claimed that a small boy told him what he must do, a boy who would grow to be Bran the Builder. No matter how the tale was told, the end was the same. Though the angry gods threw storm after storm against it, the seventh castle stood defiant, and Durran Godsgrief and fair Elenei dwelt there together until the end of their days.”

The small boy grew up to be Brandon the Builder

At the center of the grove an ancient weirwood brooded over a small pool where the waters were black and cold. “The heart tree,” Ned called it. The weirwood’s bark was white as bone, its leaves dark red, like a thousand bloodstained hands. A face had been carved in the trunk of the great tree, its features long and melancholy, the deep-cut eyes red with dried sap and strangely watchful. They were old, those eyes; older than Winterfell itself. They had seen Brandon the Builder set the first stone, if the tales were true; they had watched the castle’s granite walls rise around them. It was said that the children of the forest had carved the faces in the trees during the dawn centuries before the coming of the First Men across the narrow sea.

Know that I also believe that Bran who currently sits within the weirwood tree at Winterfell also over time created the faith of the seven.  So, when people say I pray to old gods and the new they are actually the same just with a new wrapper.

How I think the TV show portrayed this fact

But there is a season (turn, turn, turn).  And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to lose

Bran loses the use of his legs and with them his dream of becoming a knight.  Without this happening there would be no small boy to go back and become the most powerful three-eyed crow.

Faces appeared in the window above him.

The queen. And now Bran recognized the man beside her. They looked as much alike as reflections in a mirror.

“He saw us,” the woman said shrilly.

“So he did,” the man said.

Bran’s fingers started to slip. He grabbed the ledge with his other hand. Fingernails dug into unyielding stone. The man reached down. “Take my hand,” he said. “Before you fall.”

Bran seized his arm and held on tight with all his strength. The man yanked him up to the ledge. “What are you doing?” the woman demanded.

The man ignored her. He was very strong. He stood Bran up on the sill. “How old are you, boy?”

“Seven,” Bran said, shaking with relief. His fingers had dug deep gouges in the man’s forearm. He let go sheepishly.

The man looked over at the woman. “The things I do for love,” he said with loathing. He gave Bran a shove.

Screaming, Bran went backward out the window into empty air. There was nothing to grab on to. The courtyard rushed up to meet him.

Somewhere off in the distance, a wolf was howling. Crows circled the broken tower, waiting for corn.

“He was going to be a knight,” Arya was saying now. “A knight of the Kingsguard. Can he still be a knight?”

“No,” Ned said. He saw no use in lying to her. “Yet someday he may be the lord of a great holdfast and sit on the king’s council. He might raise castles like Brandon the Builder, or sail a ship across the Sunset Sea, or enter your mother’s Faith and become the High Septon.” But he will never run beside his wolf again, he thought with a sadness too deep for words, or lie with a woman, or hold his own son in his arms.

Bran is Brandon the Builder

A time to break down

Everything that Brandon the Builder built up IMO was broken down in the order it was built.  R’hllor is the enemy as far as I see it as the things that were built up were meant as a deterrent to the coming threat as seen by the individual who lived it; Bran.

When we first run into Melisandre we see her burning the things that represent the new gods.  The very thing that Brandon the Builder IMO created.

The burning gods cast a pretty light, wreathed in their robes of shifting flame, red and orange and yellow. Septon Barre had once told Davos how they’d been carved from the masts of the ships that had carried the first Targaryens from Valyria. Over the centuries, they had been painted and repainted, gilded, silvered, jeweled. “Their beauty will make them more pleasing to R’hllor,” Melisandre said when she told Stannis to pull them down and drag them out the castle gates.

The Maiden lay athwart the Warrior, her arms widespread as if to embrace him. The Mother seemed almost to shudder as the flames came licking up her face. A longsword had been thrust through her heart, and its leather grip was alive with flame. The Father was on the bottom, the first to fall. Davos watched the hand of the Stranger writhe and curl as the fingers blackened and fell away one by one, reduced to so much glowing charcoal. Nearby, Lord Celtigar coughed fitfully and covered his wrinkled face with a square of linen embroidered in red crabs. The Myrmen swapped jokes as they enjoyed the warmth of the fire, but young Lord Bar Emmon had turned a splotchy grey, and Lord Velaryon was watching the king rather than the conflagration.

...

The fire had started to dwindle by the time Melisandre and the squires departed with the precious sword. Davos and his sons joined the crowd making its way down to the shore and the waiting ships. “Devan acquitted himself well,” he said as they went.

“He fetched the glove without dropping it, yes,” said Dale.

Allard nodded. “That badge on Devan’s doublet, the fiery heart, what was that? The Baratheon sigil is a crowned stag.”

“A lord can choose more than one badge,” Davos said.

Dale smiled. “A black ship and an onion, Father?”

Allard kicked at a stone. “The Others take our onion . . . and that flaming heart. It was an ill thing to burn the Seven.”

“When did you grow so devout?” Davos said. “What does a smuggler’s son know of the doings of gods?”

Melisandre was able to circumvent the magic was placed into Storm’s End by the small boy who protected the castle.   

The wind was shifting, Davos could feel it, see it in the way the black canvas rippled. He reached for the halyards. “Help me bring in the sail. I’ll row us the rest of the way.”

Together they tied off the sail as the boat rocked beneath them. As Davos unshipped the oars and slid them into the choppy black water, he said, “Who rowed you to Renly?”

“There was no need,” she said. “He was unprotected. But here . . . this Storm’s End is an old place. There are spells woven into the stones. Dark walls that no shadow can pass—ancient, forgotten, yet still in place.”

“Shadow?” Davos felt his flesh prickling. “A shadow is a thing of darkness.”

“You are more ignorant than a child, ser knight. There are no shadows in the dark. Shadows are the servants of light, the children of fire. The brightest flame casts the darkest shadows.”

Melisandre gives birth

Brandon the Builder placed magic into the Wall.  I believe the magic only affected magical creatures (i.e. those created by magic).  Thus the reason why the Night King and Coldhands couldn’t cross the Wall; similar to why Melisandre had to birth her shadow baby after she was rowed past the barrier of Storm’s End.  This is the reason I also believe that the Arm of Dorne was broken and Doom of Valyria occurred.  Bran had to ensure that no more First Men came over as they would have decimated the weirwoods.  He also had to make sure that the dragons were destroyed and the secret to bring them back was also lost to history.  Without a dragon the Night King could have never passed the Wall.  Did R’hllor give Daenys the Dreamer her vison of the Doom to thwart Bran’s plans?  But Bran’s plan did fail as the Night King set a trap to kill, capture and reanimate one of Dany’s dragons.

The Trap is Set

The magic of the Wall is bypassed

So now the last of the place’s history tells us that Brandon the Builder built is on the verge of being attacked.  Since magic spells were placed in the previous two, we have to assume that he placed them at Winterfell also.  I believe that the magic was meant to protect the crypts because it was meant to protect Bran himself.  Like I have said for years now Bran is the Heart of Winterfell.  To get to Bran you will have to go into the crypts.  Bran was ingenious in how he designed the crypts themselves.  He built it so that the first Stark’s buried were placed near the center and close to where he sits.  Supposedly cave-ins will occur if you go to deep.  I think this is only to deter people from finding him.  Does anyone else think it strange that when they show people in the TV show entering the crypts it seems that the most recent Starks are entombed right near the entrance?  Almost like someone knew exactly how much space would be needed.

Bran himself can’t enter the crypts because like he said he is marked.  We saw what happened when Bran was first marked by the Night King.  Since Bran was past the magic circle/enchantment his physical body acted as a conduit for the Night King’s magic to destroy it from the inside out.  If Bran enters the crypts the Night King would be able to get by his defenses.  But like any good defensive tactic you protect what matters the most more aggressively.  This is why I believe that the crypts and Winterfell itself has a little more protection than both the Wall and Storm’s End.  Recap: the gods of Westeros both Old and New are under attack, Storm’s End magic was bypassed, The Wall has fallen and the Night King and his Army of the Dead are on Winterfell’s Door.

What magic I believe may be waiting inside the crypts  

What I believe to be Bran’s last resort to protect the crypts from the Army of the Dead

Recap: the gods of Westeros both Old and New are under attack, Storm’s End magic was bypassed, The Wall has fallen and the Night King and his Army of the Dead are on Winterfell’s Door.

A time to be born

Everything has a time to be born even Bran.  Although I think he is ancient even he had his beginnings.

He saw Winterfell as the eagles see it, the tall towers looking squat and stubby from above, the castle walls just lines in the dirt. He saw Maester Luwin on his balcony, studying the sky through a polished bronze tube and frowning as he made notes in a book. He saw his brother Robb, taller and stronger than he remembered him, practicing swordplay in the yard with real steel in his hand. He saw Hodor, the simple giant from the stables, carrying an anvil to Mikken’s forge, hefting it onto his shoulder as easily as another man might heft a bale of hay. At the heart of the godswood, the great white weirwood brooded over its reflection in the black pool, its leaves rustling in a chill wind. When it felt Bran watching, it lifted its eyes from the still waters and stared back at him knowingly.

Why did the weirwood act so towards Bran?  The answer is simple because it is Bran.

A faint wind sighed through the godswood and the red leaves stirred and whispered. Summer bared his teeth. “You hear them, boy?” a voice asked.

Bran lifted his head. Osha stood across the pool, beneath an ancient oak, her face shadowed by leaves. Even in irons, the Wildling moved quiet as a cat. Summer circled the pool, sniffed at her. The tall woman flinched.

“Summer, to me,” Bran called. The direwolf took one final sniff, spun, and bounded back. Bran wrapped his arms around him. “What are you doing here?” He had not seen Osha since they’d taken her captive in the wolfswood, though he knew she’d been set to working in the kitchens.

“They are my gods too,” Osha said. “Beyond the Wall, they are the only gods.” Her hair was growing out, brown and shaggy. It made her look more womanly, that and the simple dress of brown roughspun they’d given her when they took her mail and leather. “Gage lets me have my prayers from time to time, when I feel the need, and I let him do as he likes under my skirt, when he feels the need. It’s nothing to me. I like the smell of flour on his hands, and he’s gentler than Stiv.” She gave an awkward bow. “I’ll leave you. There’s pots that want scouring.”

“No, stay,” Bran commanded her. “Tell me what you meant, about hearing the gods.”

Osha studied him. “You asked them and they’re answering. Open your ears, listen, you’ll hear.”

Bran listened. “It’s only the wind,” he said after a moment, uncertain. “The leaves are rustling.”

“Who do you think sends the wind, if not the gods?” She seated herself across the pool from him, clinking faintly as she moved. Mikken had fixed iron manacles to her ankles, with a heavy chain between them; she could walk, so long as she kept her strides small, but there was no way for her to run, or climb, or mount a horse. “They see you, boy. They hear you talking. That rustling, that’s them talking back.”

“What are they saying?”

Summation: the old gods = the wind

Bran’s throat was very dry. He swallowed. “Winterfell. I was back in Winterfell. I saw my father. He’s not dead, he’s not, I saw him, he’s back at Winterfell, he’s still alive.”

“No,” said Leaf. “He is gone, boy. Do not seek to call him back from death.”

“I saw him.” Bran could feel rough wood pressing against one cheek. “He was cleaning Ice.”

“You saw what you wished to see. Your heart yearns for your father and your home, so that is what you saw.”

“A man must know how to look before he can hope to see,” said Lord Brynden. “Those were shadows of days past that you saw, Bran. You were looking through the eyes of the heart tree in your godswood. Time is different for a tree than for a man. Sun and soil and water, these are the things a weirwood understands, not days and years and centuries. For men, time is a river. We are trapped in its flow, hurtling from past to present, always in the same direction. The lives of trees are different. They root and grow and die in one place, and that river does not move them. The oak is the acorn, the acorn is the oak. And the weirwood … a thousand human years are a moment to a weirwood, and through such gates you and I may gaze into the past.”

“But,” said Bran, “he heard me.”

“He heard a whisper on the wind, a rustling amongst the leaves. You cannot speak to him, try as you might. I know. I have my own ghosts, Bran. A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, a woman I desired. Through the trees, I see them still, but no word of mine has ever reached them. The past remains the past. We can learn from it, but we cannot change it.”

Summation: the wind = Bran

Transitive Property of Equality

If a = b and b = c then a = c

If the old gods = the wind and the wind = Bran then “the old gods = Bran”

I say that this is Bran’s time to be born because when he comes face to face with the Night King, he will know who he truly is and begin the journey to becoming the three-eyed crow that has existed under the crypts of Winterfell since the beginning of the series.  For those of you realize that the series is following a circular time line where things that are said to have happened in the past are happening again or are foretold will happen again you will appreciate this also.  When Bran hid from Theon after he captured Winterfell where did Bran hide?  You guessed it he hid within the crypts of Winterfell; right where Theon was but did not look.  That is exactly where he will hide from the Night King; right in plain sight.

Bran has almost came full circle

TLDR:

Bran is the old gods and he created the new gods

A small boy goes back in time physically and places spells into Storm’s End and grows up to become Brandon the Builder.  Brandon the Builder built Winterfell.

Bran placed spells into Storm’s End, the Wall and Winterfell

Bran uses magic to “Break the Arm of Dorne” and cause the “Doom of Valyria”

R’hllor gives Daenys the Dreamer a prophecy to save 3 Targaryen Dragons and they sail for Westeros before the Doom.

The reason why Winterfell is called Winterfell is because Brandon the Builder was the First King of Winter.  When he went back and told the story of how he became injured it became known as the place that the First King of Winter fell; thus Winterfell.

Everything that Bran built begins to be torn down:

I believe R’hllor is the Night King.  Melisandre in the name of R’hllor comes to Westeros and starts burning the old gods.  She bypasses the spells of Storm’s End and births a shadow baby to kill Renly.

The Night King sets a trap to kill, capture and reanimate a dragon to bypass the magic of the Wall.

The Night King’s Army of the Dead is on the doorstep of Winterfell.  What magic did Bran place there to protect his home?

The books and TV show give you evidence that Bran is indeed sitting within the Winterfell weirwood tree and has been for a long time.

Transitive Property of Equality

If a = b and b = c then a = c

If the old gods = wind and wind = Bran then the old gods = Bran

This entire series can be summed up with the following song:

The Byrds – Turn! Turn! Turn

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To everything (turn, turn, turn)
There is a season (turn, turn, turn)
And a time to every purpose, under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it's not too late

Comments encouraged.  Love to hear the idea’s of others.  Most believe that since I present my idea’s as “fact like” I’m not open to change my viewpoints which is far from the truth.  I simply look at the information presented and go from there.  If you can shine a light on another way of thinking that opens the door to debate.