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Game of Thrones season 7 episode 3: Bran Stark actors discusses his reunion with Sansa at Winterfell

 Isaac Hempstead-Wright on the moment the two Starks finally met

Jack Shepherd
Monday 31 July 2017 09:51 BST
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Game of Thrones marches on, season seven’s third episode being remarkably good, featuring huge reunions, notable meetings, and some dramatic revelations.

** Spoilers for ‘The Queen’s Justice’ ahead **

While most of the post-episode discussion has centred on a certain meeting, there was one huge reunion that has got people talking: Bran (or the Three-Eyed Raven) and Sansa back together in Winterfell.

Sure, the two had a rather strange conversation — Bran bringing up the most horrendous scene in Game of Thrones history — but the moment marks another brilliant Stark reunion.

Speaking about the moment post-episode, Bran actor Isaac Hempstead-Wright spoke about how his character’s personality has changed drastically since the magic took over, along with Sansa's reaction.

“I think it’s a major shock for Sansa,” Hempstead-Wright told Entertainment Weekly. “She’s lost her brother once before when he fell out of that tower, and now Bran’s back but she loses him all over again.

“All the Starks have changed so much. Arya is like this ninja assassin. Sansa has been held captive by these tyrannical men and had to become politically cunning herself. But Bran is now this tree-raven-magic thing.”

Game of Thrones: Season 7 Episode 4 Preview

Hempstead-Wright added how being the Three-Eyed Raven is “like imagining you have all of space and time in your head,” adding: “Bran is existing in thousands of planes of existence at any one time. So it’s quite difficult for Bran to have any kind of semblance of personality anymore because he’s really like a giant computer.”

To help explain the magical elements of Bran, showrunners David Benioff Dan Weiss were on hand. On balancing the magical storyline and the more down-to-earth elements of Game of Thrones, Weiss said. “With Bran, ideally you want to use him in a way that adds to the story and enriches the story and not in a way that’s a magic bullet to conveniently deal with things that you haven’t come up with a better way to deal with. So it was a balancing act to account for who Bran is now without letting that overtake the story.”

There wasn’t much need for too much juggling this season, as last year’s episodes managed to bring the two worlds together by making Bran the Three-Eyed Raven.

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“There was supposed to be more time to learn what he needed to know and they ran out of time,” showrunner David Benioff told the publication. “Now Bran the Broken is broken in more ways than one. He’s got serious challenges dealing with all the stuff happening in his mind and that prevents him becoming this omniscient character.”

The episode ‘The Queen’s Justice’ also saw two Targaryens reunite, along with a harrowing callback thanks to Cersei’s torture scene. Read our review and recap here.

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