Game of Thrones fans were excited when the preview for the 3rd episode showed that Bran Stark and Three-Eyed Raven would witness the Tower of Joy scene. It is a very crucial event in the series as it might reveal us who Jon Snow’s parents are and if the R + L = J fan theory is proved correct, it will have huge implications for the various characters in the series.

Sadly, the showrunners decided that it wasn’t the right moment to reveal everything and we just witnessed the fight between Ned Stark, Howland Reed and their 5 companions against Ser Arthur Dayne and an another member of the Kingsguard whose name wasn’t mentioned in the scene. In the books, the fight was between the 7 people on Ned’s side versus 3 members of the Kingsguard, which included Ser Arthur Dayne, Ser Oswell Whent, and Ser Gerold Hightower.

While many fans might be disappointed that the episode didn’t show us what happened when Ned went and met Lyanna, there was one incident that has made the fans jump with excitement.

This is the 2nd vision that we saw in this season and to everyone’s surprise, in this vision when Bran screamed “father“, Ned seemed to hear it and he immediately tuned back and looked if anyone was standing behind him but as it was Bran’s vision, Ned couldn’t see him. Despite the Three-Eyed Raven telling Bran, “The past is already written. The ink is dry,” it seems that Bran can actually reach out to other people through his visions.

After the episode ended, Reddit user NegativeKarmaSniifer posted this theory.

From S6E3, Bran realizes that others can hear him during the visions from the past, but doesn’t understand that they cannot fully understand him.

He attempts to reason with King Aerys when shown a vision of him.

The King only hears whispers, and is driven mad by it.

Bran tries to fix this, however makes it worse.

Mad King Aerys burns Bran’s grandfather alive while Bran frantically tries to stop him.

All he hears is whispers.

Bran sets the events of the show in motion.

As insane as it sounds, it might be possible and soon other people started commenting and another user added to the theory by saying that the Three-Eyed Raven is an older version of Bran Stark, who is training his younger self to correct the mistake that he couldn’t correct.

Now this additional theory seems a bit farfetched to me as we know that these are just visions and Bran is looking at the past through the eyes of the Weirwood trees. So it doesn’t seem that both of them are the same person, unless there’s some secret technique which the Three-Eyed Raven knows, using which a person can do more than just looking through the eyes of Weirwood trees. Also the real name of Three-Eyed Raven is Lord Brynden Rivers, who was a legitimized Great Bastard of Aegon IV Targaryen. So the theory of they being the same person seems highly unlikely.