Last year, House of the Dragon reignited my interest in Game of Thrones and I’ve been doing sort of a history deep-dive as of late, soaking in the works of George R.R. Martin. I read through Fire and Blood, the text that inspired House of the Dragon, and before the release of season two, I intend on reading A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which is the collected tales of Dunk and Egg, and The World of Ice and Fire, a coffee table history of the continent. The Tales of Dunk and Egg, which was officially ordered to series over at HBO under the title A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms: The Hedge Knight, takes place during the Blackfyre Rebellion; admittedly, I needed a quick refresher on the subject and thankfully we had a primer on the subject in the previous link. But my cursory investigation took off and I went down the rabbit hole. Suddenly, the end of HBO’s Game of Thrones, with Bran sitting on the Iron Throne doesn’t seem too crazy. Hear me out.

In the final episode of Game of Thrones, Bran Stark is named King of the Andals. People’s reactions were…not too kind to this revelation. Throughout many seasons, we’ve been conditioned to expect Dany or Jon on the Iron Throne and lore junkies such as myself were convinced they’d end up ruling together because R+L=J. But none of that happened. Bran ended up on the throne. How random was that, it didn’t feel earned, especially when you consider that he’d be a much better spymaster. And while this may be true for the show, which rushed through the final season at a breakneck speed, often contradicting itself or creating gaping plot holes, this may not be the case if/when George R.R. Martin finishes A Song of Ice and Fire. But let’s get some context on the Blackfyres first.

Before Robert’s Rebellion, there was the Blackfyre Rebellion. Long story short, King Aegon IV declared on his deathbed that all of his bastards would become legitimate Targaryens and as you can imagine, this caused a war to break out in an attempt to claim the Throne. One of these bastards from Aegon’s sixth mistress, Brynden Rivers, also known as Lord Bloodraven, would never get a shot at the throne and would be banished North to take the black by Aegon V, eventually rising to the rank of Lord Commander of the Watch before vanishing North of the Wall. While he never explicitly confirms his identity, the Three-Eyed Crow in the books tells Bran that his birth name was Bryden. Given that the Crow (Raven in the show) is North of the Wall and shares the same name as this character, it seems extremely likely that the Crow is Rivers. In the show, he tells Bran that he once had “A brother that I loved, a brother that I hated, and a woman I desired”, with the general belief being that these beings are King Daeron II Targaryen, Aegor Rivers and Shiera Seastar.

As we know, Bran becomes King of the Andals in the eighth season of Game of Thrones. But since we know the Three-Eyed Raven mentored Bran and taught him all he knows about greensight and warging, we can look at it as a once legitimate-born Targaryen mentoring the next king. The Three-Eyed Raven likely knew the outcome of the war, knowing Dany would end up just like her father and Brendyn likely had enough of the Targaryens. If there’s anyone who qualified to criticize the family, it’s one of their own. So he opted to manipulate events to install a new King on the throne, one who isn’t Targaryen or corrupt like the Lannisters. By choosing Bran, someone who shares Brendyn’s powers and who can ensure the safety of the realm by using greensight, we can actually say that the Targayens did “win” the Game of Thrones. A true-born Targaryen may not sit on the throne, but a Targaryen was still responsible for the current monarch and the reformation that came with it.