NAME: Nick AIM: thatsenoughjm EMAIL: somestereos@gmail.com TIMEZONE: Eastern AVAILABILITY: During the day on most days
IN CHARACTER
NAME: Bran Stark JOURNAL: secondson_ PLAYED BY:Dion Carnell FANDOM: A Song of Ice and Fire CANON POINT: Post A Clash of Kings
CANON HISTORY: The second son of Lord Eddard Stark, Bran was born into the privilege and protection of the Stark family name. The Starks are an old house in Westeros, and Lord Eddard Stark is Warden of the North at the time of Bran’s birth. He was a key component in King Robert Baratheon’s rebellion, which took place several years before Bran was born. King Robert rules seven kingdoms and, at the start of the series, has a fairly good hold on them. The cracks and inadequacies of his rule only become obvious as the books go on.
Winterfell is a happy place for the Starks, up until the king rides north to pay Winterfell a visit. This journey comes after the death of Lord Jon Arryn. Both King Robert and Ned Stark were wards of Jon Arryn when they were younger, and the king rides under the pretense of sharing in grief with Ned - but his true purpose is devised quite quickly. He plans to ask Ned to be his Hand. The position of Hand is an honored one - the Hand of the King does a great deal toward ruling the kingdom, gives council, and helps to make difficult decisions - but it would also require the Starks to move south to King’s Landing, to the capital.
Ned decides to take Bran and his sisters, Sansa and Arya, to King’s Landing with him - but his plan is inadvertently put awry by the Lannisters in the worst way. Bran is fond of climbing the walls and baileys of Winterfell, and a few days before their departure, he’s scaling a tower when he hears strange noises. These noises are the sound of Queen Cersei and her twin brother, Jamie Lannister, engaged in an act of incest. Rather than allowing Bran the chance to tell the tale, Jamie shoves the boy out the window, where he falls - presumably to his death.
But Bran does not die. He falls into a coma, which lasts for some time - time in which Lord Stark (accompanied by Sansa and Arya) rides south, leaving Winterfell in the hands of Bran’s elder brother, Robb. Lady Catelyn Stark is gripped in grief over the comatose Bran, fearing that he may yet die - but an attempt on Bran’s life wakes her, and she leaves Winterfell as well, going off to try to work out who it was that had hired the assassin.
In his coma, Bran is subject to many visions, including the repetitive vision of a three-eyed crow. The crow orders Bran to fly, over and over again, and assures him that it can teach Bran how. It calls him the winged wolf bound in chains. The three-eyed crow even guides him out of his coma, but when Bran wakes, he wakes to find himself crippled from his fall, unable to walk. The crow assures him in subsequent visions that he will be able to fly, but Bran is crushed. His dreams of becoming a great knight are lost if he can’t even manage to walk.
King Robert is killed during a hunt - and Lord Eddard Stark is soon thereafter beheaded in King’s Landing as a traitor, accusted of plotting against the newly-crowed King Joffery. The North takes up arms against the new king, and declares Robb to be King in the North, an old title from an age when the seven kingdoms of Westeros were truly seven separate kingdoms. With Robb as king, Bran is Prince of Winterfell, and he rules the castle in his brother’s absence. Being without Robb and his parents proves difficult, and Bran is stuck on the fact that he is a useless cripple, and won’t ever do the things that he wanted to do. His younger brother, Rickon, is a terror in the absence of any authority, but Bran does his best to comfort him. His direwolf, Summer, is his closest companion at this time.
Because he is unable to walk, Bran has to rely on others to carry him. He feels a great sense of shame at this, and hates the thought that he is being pitied for his ailment. Hodor, a large and simple stableboy, is most often given the task of bearing Bran around Winterfell, with the help of a large basket on his back. A special saddle is also devised for Bran so that he can at least sit a horse - but still, Bran knows that he will not be a knight.
At night, Bran continues to dream. The three-eyed crow comes to him time and time again, and takes him flying. Bran is meant to fly alone, which is why he is no longer able to walk - as if losing his legs will gain him his wings. Bran sees Sansa in King’s Landing, once, crying alone - he sees all of Westeros, and things beyond the Wall. There isn’t anything the crow can’t see in his flight, but the crow tells Bran that he must open his eye, and pecks at Bran’s forehead.
Bran finds new companionship when Jojen and Meera Reed come to Winterfell from Greywater Watch to pledge the strength of the crannogmen to Robb’s cause. Their lord father, Howland Reed, was a close companion and friend of Ned Stark during Robert’s Rebellion. Crannogmen are rarely seen outside of their swamps, and Bran immediately takes an interest in the sister and brother. He becomes unnerved by Jojen, who insists that Bran is something special. Bran has been dreaming of wolves all this time, but has dismissed this as vivid dreams and fancy, and nothing more - but Jojen corrects him. He tells Bran that he is a skinchanger - a warg - and instructs Bran on how to use his ability. Bran begins to gather a rudimetary sort of proficiency at this skill, one which grows as time goes on.
Jojen also tells Bran that if he goes North, beyond the Wall, he can find the three-eyed crow from his dreams and become something still more. Bran is hesitant to leave Winterfell, but he soon has little choice. Jojen’s greendreams predict a terror that will befall Winterfell - the sea, rising up to drown men and fill the castle. The abstract dreams becomes terribly real when Theon Greyjoy, the former ward of Eddard Stark, brings his Ironborn to Winterfell, to take the castle. Bran and Rickon hide in the crypts of Winterfell, kept safe by the Reeds and aided by Hodor and Osha (a wildling woman who has been taken into the Stark household).
The Stark children and their companions eventually work their way out of the crypts and flee Winterfell, taking to the countryside. To hide their escape, Theon Greyjoy has two children of a similar age killed and skinned, and tells everyone that he has killed Bran and Rickon. Any member of their family left alive believes them dead, but Bran and Rickon are in fact largely safe - for a time. Theon Greyjoy, the turncloak, is subsequently betrayed by Ramsay Bolton, the bastard son of Roose Bolton. Though House Bolton is pledged to the Starks and thus in support of the King in the North, the Boltons have gone behind Robb’s back and made common cause with the Lannisters and King Joffery instead. Roose knows that Theon did not actually kill Bran and Rickon, so in secret, he sends men in pursuit. Bran and Rickon part ways - Rickon goes with Osha to White Harbour, while Bran turns North with the Reeds and Hodor. It is their intent to go beyond the Wall, to seek the three-eyed crow.
IN GAME HISTORY: Brandon was a summer baby, the second son born to Ned and Catelyn Stark. From the time he was born, he was affectionately coined 'Bran', a name that stuck and suited him even more than his full name ever has.
Growing up as a Stark, Bran had certain privileges afforded to him. Anything he wanted or needed was afforded to him, but Bran was a minimalist. He preferred climbing trees to pushing around an expensive toy. That wasn't to say he preferred books over guns as he liked to at least attempt shooting bb guns when he got the chance, although he wasn't very good at it. But he enjoyed lounging back with a warm mug of tea and a good copy of some thriller from time to time. Scary stories were his favourites. They engrossed him and took him to another place that other stories couldn't; other stories bored him. When he saw his first horror film (Child's Play as it so happened), he was hooked and has since been a horror enthusiast.
Often the butt of an older sibling's joke, Bran is the most sensitive of the Stark children. He can take a joke, even doling them out whenever he gets the chance, but he's more often the one with egg on his face. What Bran lacks in practical jokes, he makes up for in mischievous and curiosity. Bright and wide-eyed, Bran could be counted on for snooping, hiding, and climbing to places he doesn't belong. If someone was coming over, if there was a live show, if there was a new book to be had, he grew outwardly excited and eager.
When Bran was ten, he climbed for the last time. Like all boys his age, naked women were something to be very excited about, and for an already excitable boy who sometimes had very little respect or notion of privacy, this could be dangerous, especially when there was a boyfriend involved. During one of Bran's climbs up the side of a house that was for sale, Bran saw them through the window of the attic. She was naked, and so was he. Bran knew he should have turned away, but he was too rapt to do anything more than watch and get caught. The teenage boy was one of those rebel types, but he hadn't meant to push Bran at all. In fact, it was him who called 9-1-1, but he never turned himself in. Bran didn't remember much, but admitted that he'd been climbing and snooping. Not because he wanted to, but because the girl did come forward to confess and told everyone what Bran had done. She was charged with trespassing, and Bran's parents were almost charged as well. They were shown leniency, however, and only fined.
The injuries from the fall included a concussion, a sprained wrist, a couple of bruised ribs, and a spinal injury that broke just so, causing Bran to have no use of his legs below the hips. Even as a kid, Bran understood what it meant, that he'd never walk again. Bran found this most distressing, he saw it as a punishment for having spied on strangers, and he buried himself in books and films until he was forced to go outside and go back to school. At school, it was his guidance counselor who told him about people who played basketball out of their wheel chairs. Bran hadn't ever really been much of a sports enthusiast, but he asked his father for an athletic wheel chair. Once he got one, he took to the sport like a fish to water. His confidence grew, but he never became arrogant about it.
It may have been the accident that has given Bran a different, more compassionate perspective, and he sometimes considers it a gift. Sometimes, he sees it as a burden and becomes ashamed and frustrated, especially now that he attends Laguna Beach's high school where everyone is beautiful and mostly able bodied. Feeling sorry for himself isn't attractive and he does it privately. He handles his emotion with a calm sort of grace that makes it often difficult to read him.
School hasn't always come easy for him. Even though Bran is smart, he has to work a little harder than most to earn good marks. But because of Bran's unique outlook on life, he has become somewhat of a diplomat at his school and strives to be president of his class during his senior year. Girls are still an enigma to him and most only say they want to date him, but as soon as the reality of his paralysis becomes more than a wheel chair, they always become unexpectedly busy, or a tragedy happens to them such as a grandmother dying.
Life has become a challenge for Bran. Sometimes he's embarrassed. Sometimes he's discouraged. But that calm grace is something of a gift. It keeps him level and strong where he might otherwise break down. When Bran is at home, he is often in the company of a pit bull he rescued before he had his accident. Because of his breed, it's taken others a while to warm up to the dog whose name is Cobalt for his one shining blue eye (the other had been beaten shut), but Bran begged with near tears to rescue the puppy. The dog has proven to be one big love bug who wants nothing more than to lay his head on Bran's lap and play basketball in the drive way with him.
Over the past year or so, Bran has made friends and has even had a girlfriend. Summer is now part of his life due to the strange dreams that plague him and everyone around him. Essentially, Bran is the same person, but he has become more confident and has learned to appreciate his life more.
Animals are quite possibly the most important thing in Bran's life, next to his family. Despite his condition, Bran wishes to make a career in the veterinary field, dealing specifically with wild animals.
AUDITION
Over the past five years, Bran had grown accustomed to the stares from other people. He could feel the pity in their eyes and he hated it. Shame was an understatement for the way the sorrow from other people felt. The trouble was, they were all well meaning so he couldn't very well be upset with them. People also felt the urge to talk to him, as if they owed it to him. As if they'd been the ones to push him from that balcony.
One woman in the grocery store line smiled brightly at him, averting her eyes. She'd seen him, of course, but she didn't want to stare. He wished they'd stare. It was a lot less lonely of a feeling than people pretending he wasn't even there. Like he was invisible. At eye level, he saw Million Dollar bars and Snickers. Why was the chcolate always here? He knew why. So little kids would see it easier and cry for their parents to buy it for them. Bran picked up a bag of M&Ms. The woman who'd smiled at him had been reaching for them when she saw him and turned back around.
"Miss," he said, holding up the bag of M&Ms.
She turned and looked tentatively over her shoulder, that smile coming back. It was too big to be a real smile.
"Did you want these?" he asked.
"Oh!" she smacked her own forehead. "I forgot," she said and took the bag of M&Ms. "Thank you."