So the Night King wants (wanted) to kill the TER because somehow that will erase mankind’s memory. So what? The TER lived basically by himself for thousands (?) of years and the rest of Westeros got along…well, good enough. It’s not like Westeros would fall into even more chaos without the TER.
The NK’s enmity would make sense if the TER was somehow active throughout history or was preventing the dead from crossing the wall or something. But unless I missed it it didn’t appear that the TER did much of anything. Except act creepy.
How do you know he wasn’t? We’re looking at a particular frame of reference here, in a certain timeline. It’s been established that he has some ability, at least, to influence places and people he visits in the past. From the (presumably) single frame of reference we’re viewing, things that have happened have always happened, and people hear a voice from the flames or from a tree giving them a heads-up. Are we to assume those are natural occurrences that would always happen? Given that it’s established there’s a character who can do things that could deliver information from the future?
He’s the fake Frodo trope, long trek for no real reason, then just an instrument to reveal the Bytor the Snowtarg, and be bait to kill the Night King… Well, its ending that way in the show.
In the books, he seemed to be in effect an early warning systems for the Others, but that’s pretty pointless if there’s nobody he can really tell in that big cave up north.
Warging also seemed much more importantant in the books too, across the board. It has been barely been touched in the show for about five seasons, Bran and indeed most of the Starks warged into their Direwolves and were a force for scouting, with Bran working the Ravens. Pure show CGI cost seems to have limited that.
The old TER was Bloodraven, btw, about of an age with the Nightwatch Maester: Aemon.
The old Three Eyed Raven was there at various points in the book. Pretty much every raven which interacted with anyone had TER’s eyes, sometimes squawking input. It is possible Aemon was much more aware of this too, having known Bloodraven, Bloodraven was a Lord Commander of the Nightwatch before disappearing beyond the wall. It also could be a mechanism for bringing back Dark Sister, one of the two original pre Westeros Targaryen family Valeryn swords.
Might have been a lot of potential for a story if the books had got written… Of course the show just dropped them.
Pretty sure Bran in the show will have an incomplete/unsatisfactory storyline. The showrunners seem to think his arc is complete (???).
In the books, there is no Night King/Night’s King (only mentioned in a myth - a previous Lord Commander who liked sleeping with white walkers) and Bran can’t literally see everything; he can only look through animals or the eyes of weirwood trees, so he’s not some repository of all human knowledge unlike the show. I have a feeling he will have some darker purpose and will end up inadvertently working for the Great Other (the ice side of the equation) in some way.
He does seem to be able to look into history, perhaps the future, as long as it happens near Weirwood trees, if I recall, that was in the books which I read before I saw it happen on the show. I can’t recall what it was, but I knew he could do that when he saw the Hodor thing and Jon Snow’s birth…
He can pretty much do the same in the show, as long as its near a weirwood tree. So can’t see everything. But a lot of Stark history is viewable because the high dramas would take place near those (weddings, funerals).
Bran in the show is pretty much an expository tool, nothing more. His contribution to the story as an active participant is essentially nothing, at least after his being pushed from the tower resulting in the events that started the War of the Five Kings.
Yup. He had to have Something to make him irresistible bait for the NK. He’s been that, NK is gone, he’s done. Now he’s back to “recorder” plugged into a tree somewhere in The North, and is useless in managing the fluid situation to the south. A branch can fall on his head any time now.