Going Over Bran III, A Game of Thrones

[@andreww.9342]

You’re cooking with all these uploads

[@secondeye1574]

"Forget that, you do not need it" I think memory suppression is what's being hinted at here. Specifically, repressing trauma. Either Brain is doing it under the guidance of Branraven, or Branraven himself is suppressing past Bran's memory. So the reason Bran can't remember when he saw at the tower, or falling itself, is a mix of supernatural and psychological (physiological?) means.

[@gonx9906]

this makes a lot of sense.

[@pirukiddingme1908]

Yeah to me the crow is telling bran to just push the traumatic thought of the fall away, it can’t help him to fly, he needs to focus on the situation he’s in now, not weeks ago

[@PBRStreetgang]

Branraven…kill me now😂

[@reddest-x]

I always assumed the curtain of light = the northern lights

[@spykd1G]

This has got to be one of my favorite chapters in the entire series. It was very introspective and eye opening for me (pun intended). My favorite line in it has to be when Bran says "I can't fly." and the crow asks him "How do you know? Have you ever tried?". I get the impression that the main theme of that chapter is the limits that we put on ourselves, which is truly fascinating to me. Whenever I find myself thinking about things in a closed-minded way and whenever I think that I can't do something, I try to think about this chapter and I ask myself "Have I even tried?"

[@VMohdude-]

Preston please keep uploading with this quicker frequency

[@MortenRoarBerg]

Hell yes

[@TheKingOfRooks]

He's on a break rn in his real life so it's easier, Preston is a busy dude usually

[@dasaggropop1244]

@@TheKingOfRooks is he? i thought he is just working remotely from abroad

[@IntermissionForBunny]

Preston, I'm time-travelling you from the future. Whatever you do, stop uploading these immediately.

[@jdqfromnbfu4604]

​@@IntermissionForBunnyPreston if by any chance you read this, it is imperative that you DO NOT stop uploading these.

[@michaelstalkfleet6989]

The curtain of light is the aurora borealis, he used a similar phrase in In the Lost Lands --"Tonight, is the clouds pass, you will see the lights rippling above the northern mountains, all purple and gray and maroon, twisting like curtains caught in the wind."

[@umwha]

Looking back, there is quite alot that doesn't make perfect sense in GoT. Like Brans fall timing. I say that Catelyn immediately figured out that Bran knew some secret, and that's why he was a target, which makes no sense. Since Catelyn knows Bran is the target of an assassination, then the last thing she should do is LEAVE WINTERFELL. If your comatose son was a target, then she wouldn't leave his side, surely. (Side note, did Catleyn ever hear about Bran waking/ did she ever see him again after this?) Here's how an editor should have fixed the Catelyn / Bran relationship. The Assasin should have been ambiguous about his target. He advances towards Bran's bed, but Catelyn gets in his way and struggles, hurting Catelyn. When she recovers, she would believe that SHE is the target of the assassination. Considering that she recently heard that Jon Aryyn has been killed (her sisters, husband) and her husband is believed to be threatened (due to the direwolf and stag). Bran has been hurt, it would be clear to Catelyn that someone is targeting the Starks and Tullys (or Stark Tully Arryn alliance - in other words the rebels of the Rebellion). Catelyn, as Lady Stark, is, of course, the main target at Winterfell. Catelyn would therefore believe that she has to get away from Bran to protect him. Therefore it makes sense why Catelyn travels personally down to Kings Landing to speak to Ned rather than send a messenger. When she is on her way back to Winterfell and meets Robb, she believes that she and Robb are the two main targets of their enemies, and it would only endanger Bran and Rickon if she goes back to Winterfell. She would, however, send a long, loving letter to Bran and Rickon to let them know that she cares about them and will see them soon, but for now, she must help Robb. (Did she even bother to send a letter to Bran and Rickon in the book?)

[@Mj_Jetson]

Hmmm... Yeah I think it would've worked really well if Cat thought she was the target... a lot of juicy internal conflict potential, where she desperately wants to be with her children, but also feels that she has to stay away from them... She doesn't see Bran ever again, or any of her kids (except for Robb, obviously). She does know that Bran woke up (we just don't get the scene where she finds that out, I don't think? But she thinks about him often enough that we know implicitly that she knows he's awake), and she does send letters: _She had written to Bran and Rickon, that last night at Riverrun. I do not forget you, my sweet ones, you must believe that. It is only that your brother needs me more_ (Catelyn II ACoK)

[@umwha]

@ Ah that’s nice that she sent a letter - but I don’t remember Bran ever thinking about these letters or receiving them. Since they are the last contact he ever had with his mother, you’d think he would think about them often, or lament that the letters were lost when Winterfell was destroyed.

[@hexa3389]

The anecdote about the Fisher king sent me down a short Wikipedia rabbithole and I found something interesting: There's a figure in Welsh mythology called "Brân the Blessed" which supposedly means "blessed crow". He is a giant, and a king of Britain. I don't recall this being mentioned in the Minds of Wolves and Robbins or Time-Travelling Bran but this piece of trivia could be considered as supporting evidence for both. After all, Bran is a giant king and in MoWaR we said that greenseers are the real giants of history with the three-eyed crow being "the last greenseer" and henve the last king. In time-travelling Bran we say that Bran is a three-eyed crow, and indeed Brân in Welsh means crow. I'm not a big theory guy so my apologies if this is already well known info.

[@elinakeranen4499]

I haven't seen this theory anywhere, sounds interesting

[@pomelofromchina]

I recall to hear something like that from Preston. Maybe in a livestream.

[@mitchellhouser1572]

You should check out one of the other comments he goes over how Bran not only means crow like you mentioned but is related to other words and references also potentially. It was interesting

[@theletterm5425]

15:44 I‘m not sure Preston ever gave us his full thoughts on the "Bloodraven ≠ 3-Eyed Crow" theory but this passage (along with others) seems to me pretty strong evidence in favor of the idea. If Bloodraven truly was the 3-Eyed Crow talking to Bran in this dream, then who would simultaneously be watching him through the weirwood? If the Crow and Bloodraven were different entities, however, then this scene would make a lot more sense, representing two different agents attempting to influence Bran, with the 3-Eyed Crow seemingly exerting a stronger influence on him (i.e. actually speaking to him, telling him to fly etc.). I would be very interested in a full video of Preston going over his thoughts on the 3-Eyed Crow and Bloodraven and all the weird ways in which they don't seem to match one another at all.

[@slide4]

I WAS JUST ABOUT TO GO TO BED THIS IS PERFECT TIMING

[@markopavlovic5645]

And us europeans are just waking up, also perfect.

[@humzakhalid7902]

12:33 forget "that" u dont need "it" as in the memory the crow wants him to not focus on the traumatic bit it wants him to focus on what thats lead him to...the crow pecks away the memory he forgets it after the crow pecks at him

[@andremigueldecastro9391]

Hearing PJ talking about the Fisher King takes me back to my uni days, and the hours my supervisor and I spent discussing Parzival. I doubt it would be your thing, Preston, but I would love for you to read it. Chivalric romances and Minnesang are the shit. Anyway, thanks for doing this, man. The readings, the fanfic, the tinfoil theories... thanks. We appreciate it.

[@leviticusromanus8298]

The curtain of light is the Aurora Borealis, im not sure how else your supposed to interpret that.

[@dasaggropop1244]

at this time of year? in this part of the country?

[@GodKingReiss]

@@dasaggropop1244 Localized ENTIRELY within your fever dream?

[@domi6026]

No, it’s obviously is the ice wall surrounding our flat Earth

[@Rebel_Lord_Taron]

Hell yeah let's go! Shout out from Texas to all you awesome beautiful people. I hope you are all doing well

[@maxwell_j_R]

14:12 Before 'AGoT' was finalized (when he was already writing 'Clash'), he could have gone back to this chapter to "plant seeds".

[@gavindonohue313]

Keep it up please, really hope you do every single chapter of the series

[@gonx9906]

isnt the golden sun refering to oberyn martell, bran is seeing oberyn martel, the hound and the mountain, oberyn martell will poison him, then later the mountain will be turned into a zombie and the hound will finish oberyn job by killing the mountain??.

[@shayanlostflash]

Years and still something new 👍

[@michaelstalkfleet6989]

Bran falling in the dream is a H.G. Wells Time Machine reference, in that story time travel is accompanied by the sensation of falling (because "braon" means "to drop, dropping" in Gaelic), and the Time Traveler's name is Bran. And the Time Machine is a retelling of the Gaelic story of the Voyage of Bran, which is a time travel story about Bran visiting the Celtic Otherworld, and being unable to return to the land of the living. And in ASoIaF, Bran visits the Otherworld, on the other side of the the Wall that separates the living from the dead. Many of the elements of Bran's dream come from the Gaelic and Welsh words that sound like Bran or are spelled like Bran. Bran means "Crow" in Welsh and Gaelic and "ominous hovering crow/bird", and cro means "eye" in Gaelic and brannra means "tripod" in Gaelic, HG Wells associated time travel with falling because "braon" means "to drop, dropping" braonan means "icicle" and brionn means "dream" bruan means "fragment, morsel" cro also means "heart"

[@mitchellhouser1572]

Huh very interesting

[@jswagaudio]

Missing the live stream tonight!!! Hope you and your family are doing great preston!

[@osamaal-jundi2186]

It's been a long time since I watched a preston jacobs video Always Awasome to hear you

[@jswagaudio]

This is awesome. I love having some much content!

[@MrPhbahia]

Chapters like this are great for analysis but not much for entertainment!

[@hugolouessard3914]

At 12:45 the "it" Bran does not need is, I'd say, what made him fall, it represents the reason or the person that made him fall. Instead the crow wants him to focus on now, and flying therefore awakening his magic abilities. As for the 1000 dreamers, I've always interpreted that as being the potential greenseers whose powers have never awoken, like Euron maybe, and many others before and after. For the heart of winter, I think it's a real place in which the others live, far to the north, a magical place. And the curtain, I'm not sure at all, could be a limit beyond which no mortal can pass.

[@WheresPoochie]

3:57 - I think you mean Altered States, though Altered Beast is an awesome game

[@PrestonJacobstheSweetrobin]

Yeah, my bad

[@secondeye1574]

I guess it's redundant, but I saw Summer's name as representing Bran's naivete and innocence. Spring is a hope for the future, but Summer is nostalgia for the past? Again it could be a meaningless distinction in the end, essentially conveys the same thing because summer could be applied to hoping for the future, and spring could be applied to dreaming of the past.

[@arvaakuka8568]

Tie this to time travel, "let's go back to the last Summer"

[@JacobTemplar]

26:28 one of my favorite lines from the entire series

[@makimasbrat5508]

When I first read this as a teen I had to go off my bunk bad and pace around my small apartment at night. I just had feeling "ok this is it". I was so impressed, especially with the final line.

[@Jotari]

"You do not need it" might be a reference to Bran's memory of the fall. Because him not remembering Jaime and Cersei is pretty significant element of the plot. Events would be very different he did remember and pointed the finger at them.

[@jaxjones5905]

@12:45 - “It” could just be the memory of him being thrown from the tower.

[@michaelstalkfleet6989]

About the 3 eyed crow pecking into Bran's forehead to open his third eye. In the HG Wells story, the Stolen Body, a man's consciousness jumps outside of his body and into the astral plane, (and he gets trapped in the astral plane when a disembodied demon takes over his empty body) and is able to communicate with psychic medium by probing her pineal gland which he says is the Third Eye inside your head, and that it is sensitive to light, and that is why Bran opens it in darkness. Also, in the Wheel of Time series, Shaitan visited the heroes in their dreams as a raven and pecked their heads in order to mark them so he could track them down.

[@ompholoslunarhalo]

On my last read through I puzzled over the apparent mountain reference even thought he wasn’t in the Robert’s entourage, and kind of wondered if maybe Ilyn Payne was supposed to fill the role the Mountain ended up representing at this stage of George’s writing.

[@johnp2921]

That actually sounds pretty good... When was first mention of the mountain

[@jammysmears4077]

How do you know? Have you ever tried? isn't in quotes. It's like George is talking directly to Bran.

[@markboyd9275]

For the algorithm 🗡️

[@_addison4772]

12:40 I think he means he doesn’t need to stew on the past, the vengeance and anger we see in many of the other stories, but look to future and what he will become

[@secondeye1574]

I'd be interested in a more extensive use of that Hemingway editor. Maybe it could be used for an analysis of how the different perspectives are written, at least for the chapters in AGoT? Could be a good place to consolidate things like your point about Tyrion and Catelyn having the most flowery prose, Bran having the simplest, etc. You could talk about the children you think are most and least realistically written in terms of 'voice'. And in combination with that subjective analysis, using the ai tool thing for every chapter then getting an average for each character could be interesting, especially when comparing them in the context of each characters' age and maturity.

[@jgr7487]

"I'm trying. [...] Say, you got any corn?" is a genius use of comedy.

[@CosmicCorviknight]

Dragons still existing in the far east of Essos whilst Westerosi assume them extinct could be an interesting inversion of the real medieval world in which people seemed certain that distant parts of Asia were home to certain fantastical animals. Westerosi science and geographical knowledge are very advanced in comparison to the real middle ages and I could imagine that eyewitness accounts of dragons near Asshai would be dismissed as nonsense

[@mechistarvily5078]

been waiting for this chapter!!

[@kushalkarmodiya]

The protagonist in the Wheel of Time is also a Fisher King analogue.

[@Alchemist1330]

This is shorter than the Hodor chapter?

[@reddest-x]

It seems to me from this chapter that the 3EC WOULD know it appeared as a crow, and Bloodraven doesn't seem to know that. Never been big on 3EC=/=BR before but now I need to think on it more.

[@reddest-x]

Particularly from "'You have wings.' 'So do you!'" the 3EC doesn't show confusion about being told he has wings. Then again, he could have assumed wings = telepathy right away, but why would he assume that was what Bran meant?

[@MC-el2us]

“Impaled upon jagged spires”, glass candles 👀 they were supposed to be more powerful or more overt in the early material?

[@justthat4333]

this chapter being rated at a third grade reading level and still sounding like it does is crazy George is built different

[@sumexz6418]

Preston is the only thing that gets me through this painful life

[@garethwilliams2483]

Playing on the Fisherking idea, would it be a GRRM thing to have Bran at the end of his journey fully accept his physical injuries by giving up the skin changing and using his power to heal/close the magical wounds of the world, allowing for the return of normal seasons.

[@TheKingOfRooks]

8:10 oh, so I guess the "corn" really is maize then ah?

[@hugolouessard3914]

No, it could be wheat. It likely is

[@alexsnewhandle]

George making the shortest chapter in the series one of Bran's makes complete sense since he's an unimportant character destined to *checks notes* sit the iron throne?!

[@GKinWor]

PJ IS BACK FOMOS

[@Sniffchicken5]

I might be reaching but the mountains and the silver rivers could be Robert strong and qyburn, maybe Robert could be a vessel from bran in the future?

[@maxwell_j_R]

12:30 if "it"/"that" isn't just the traumatic memory, and actually "golden face", then the crow is talking about the crown/being king? Was this still written when Jaime was going to be a villainous king?

[@MrSilvUr]

"He would wake up the instant before he hit the ground, he knew. You always woke up in the instant before you hit the ground." How does Bran know? This is the first time he's slept since the first time he fell (since he believed he couldn't fall). Has dreamt of falling before this? Enough to form a trend about when you wake?

[@sandiaYpescado]

My dude said “altered beasts “ ha ha. Close homie . ¡Sega!

[@seth410]

“Altered Beasts” 😂 RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE

[@mondayz5383]

The Curtain of Light is the Aurora Borealis

[@Mj_Jetson]

Why call the direwolf Summer, instead of Spring... maybe GRRM was (and probably still is?) planning for Summer to die? The series ends with winter thematically defeated, but at the cost of summer, so the story is left with a bittersweet spring? 🤷‍♀

[@onetwothreefourfive12345]

Don't expect any uploads in the coming days... Preston will be a bit busy crying leftwing tears at Trump's great victory

[@trippinzombiez]

Well this was a cringey thing to say Bet you thought you looked cool huh? Lol

[@wademarshall2364]

ANOTHER BANGER?

[@Sniffchicken5]

How could time traveling bran cushion his fall with crows if he had died without the crows who would have been able to put them there to help current bran

[@umwha]

I think the idea is that time traveling bran wasn’t crippled. The original bran(s) could walk, but bran decided to cripple himself to force his destiny down a certain path like developing psychic abilities early

[@Sniffchicken5]

@ ohh gotcha thanks 👍

[@umwha]

When Bran hit the ground, there should have been a big pool of blood, and his body should have been badly buried. His flesh (legs, back, torso,) should have bad scars. You'd think Cat , Robb and Theon should all have recurrent images of Bran laying in that pool of blood, because they all should have seen it. In fact, didn't Bran fall while Ned, Sansa and Arya were still at Winterfell? Wouldnt they all have seen him on the impact site? Someone correct me if Ned , Arya and Sansa were there.

[@Mj_Jetson]

Didn't notice this before but yeah you're right - very interesting that GRRM didn't describe the fall site... especially since he likes coming up with really striking imagery short-hand for events like that (a babe wrapped in a crimson cloak; rubies falling into the river; etc.) - could totally see Cat getting haunted by this kind of imagery for Bran and referencing it books later. I guess GRRM chose not to do this because he wanted to preserve the ambiguity of what exactly happened when Bran hit the ground? Yes Ned and the girls were still there: in Jon II, Jon visits comatose Bran and then says goodbye to Arya as she packs.

[@umwha]

@@Mj_Jetson No matter what heppned when he hit the ground - crows or a haybale or whatever, there would definitely be blood. Weird, since the 'sea of blood' image becomes recurrent in later books. Also, Catelyn, Arya Sansa nad Ned should definitely think back about bran and his crashsite. CRAZY that they don't. And Jon, ascutally, he should have seen the crashsite, and Arya - why isn't she having nightmares ? She seems to be unbothered and having fun with Myca on her journey, like nothing happened.

[@elinakeranen4499]

Winterfell is a huge castle, more like a village, and Bran was climbing in the abandoned part. There's no reason for everyone to see the gruesome scene, the servants would have cleaned him and carried him inside immediately when found.

[@umwha]

@ Ned or Catelyn would definitely have seen. Servants wouldn’t act without their permission. Robb, Arya , Sansa and Jon - at least one would get there before or at the same time as Cat or Ned. Even if Arya / Sansa / Jon didn’t see the crash site they would have seen a bloodstain and would have seen Bran on the same day as the accident so they would see him very injured and that sight alone should have traumatized them. Arya and Jon at least

[@pomelofromchina]

I ask myself how Cersei and Jaime made their way back, whilst down everybody is on their feet because Brans fall!

[@Bnasty1414]

ARE YOU DONE WITH IT YET!?

[@suburbanburrito210]

Hahahahahah trump won

[@alinaCatwatcher]

For the algorithm 🗡

[@Azor19]

🐦‍⬛

[@AJ_Mac]

Posted 5 seconds ago.

[@phantomjoker5]

yeet

[@jimjamsam3482]

rip USA

[@skrink1981]

Been thinking about you Preston. I appreciated your support of Kamala 🫶🏽