This post is dark and full of spoilers.
“Your father’s last living true-born son. You’re Lord of Winterfell now,” Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) tells her brother Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) when he arrives home in Episode 3 of Game of Thrones Season 7.
But Bran, being the keeper of memories, knows that’s not the case.
“I can never be Lord of Winterfell,” he responds. “I can never be Lord of anything. I’m the Three-Eyed Raven.”
As it turns out in the series finale, Bran can be lord of something because he is chosen by a small council to be King of Westeros. When Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage) asks him if he would accept the role, Bran states, “Why do you think I came all this way?”
Bran knew he would become king. He knew how the story would end.
He also apparently knew that he wanted to change his sigil the minute he was declared Bran the Broken, First of His Name, King of the Andals and the First Men, Lord of the Six Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm.
House Stark is a thing of the past for him ― he is now part of House Raven.
In the scene where Ser Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie), Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, fills out Jaime Lannister’s (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) page in the Kingsguard White Book, Bran’s new sigil is seen on her breastplate. It appears to be a raven, soaring through the sky.
This change of heraldry is very peculiar, considering Bran opted to create his own sigil rather than simply take that of his family: the direwolf of House Stark.
Now, perhaps he was offended that Sansa, the new Queen in the North, decided to keep her territory independent of the southern crown. But it feels more like he wanted to represent his identity as the Three-Eyed Raven. As he tells Jaime in Episode 2 of Season 8, he’s no longer Brandon Stark. “I’m something else now,” he says. He wants everyone to know who he truly is ― the keeper of their history.
Some before him had changed their sigils, so the move isn’t necessarily controversial. Stannis Baratheon (Stephen Dillane), for example, did not just use the stag symbol of House Baratheon but made his own symbol, a stag in “the fiery heart of the Lord of Light,” as Melisandre (Carice van Houten) explained to his brother Renly in Season 2. He kept his House’s words ― “ours is the fury” ― though some believe he tacked on R’hllor’s signature phrase, as well ― “for the night is dark and full of terrors.”
Ser Brynden Tully (Clive Russell), known as the Blackfish, also changed up his sigil. Instead of donning the silver trout of House Tully, the Blackfish chose a black trout for his signature.
Still, Bran changing his sigil completely is telling. It appears he has moved on from House Stark to bigger, better things ― like being Resident No. 1 of his own House.
As for House Raven’s words, well, there are many options:
“All men must stare.”
“I’m going to go now.”
“Almost a man.”
“You were exactly where you were supposed to be.”
“I am our memory.”
“The past is written.”
“You’re a good man, Theon. Thank you.”
“Chaos is, indeed, a ladder.”
“Waiting for an old friend.”
“Hold the door.”
“That’s so Raven.”
“Unbowed. Unbent. Unblinking.”
“Knowledge is power… that you keep to yourself.”
“Flock yeah.”
“I know what you did last summer ... and the one before that ... and before that.”
“What is dead may never fly.”
“Raisin’ Bran.”
Bran didn’t return HuffPost’s request for comment, so pick your poison.