Game of Thrones season 6: The epic White Walkers twist explained

They also hint at Bran Stark's fate

** Spoilers for Game of Thrones season 6 episode 5 **

“The Door” featured some of the most heart-wrenching moments in Game of Thrones history (poor Hodor), all packaged alongside some of the show’s biggest revelations.

Notably, we were shown how the White Walkers were created - as a way to protect the Children of the Forrest from the First Men. (Ironically, the things men fear most were created by those who feared men.)

While dissecting the episode for HBO, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss broke down the revelation, looking more directly at the symbols used in the episode and how they reference things we’ve seen before, including a symbol we saw in the very first episode.

“The symbols are ancient symbols of the Children of the Forrest used in their rituals,” the showrunner says. They also confirmed that the man strapped to the tree is the Night’s King, created to defend the Children of the Forrest.

When talking about Bran’s second flashback/forward they also make another intriguing comment: “He’s not the Three-Eyed Raven yet, he doesn’t have control over these visions like Three Eyed Raven does.”

Why is this intriguing? Well, thanks to the line “The time has come, for you to become me” delivered to perfection by Max Von Sydow, fans have been speculating that the Three-Eyed Raven is actually Bran.

While, in the books, it is revealed the Three-Eyed Raven (Crow) is Lord Bloodraven, fans have been speculating how in the show, somehow, Bran will become the tree dweller in a weird time paradox. Does the added “yet” to “He’s not the Three-Eyed Raven” imply what is to come? Probably not, but, then again, we are deciphering the ever growing cryptic story that is Game of Thrones.

Meanwhile, you can watch the preview for episode six which show’s the Tyrells starting a civil war in King’s Landing.