Skip to main content

New photo reveals Bran Stark is back for Game of Thrones season 6

bran stark game of thrones season 6 hbo
HBO
After being absent for an entire season, Game of Thrones character Bran Stark (played by Isaac Hempstead-Wright), is coming back in a big way. His voice was heard in a season 6 teaser in early December, and now Entertainment Weekly has provided the first look at the psychic son of the late Ned Stark in a new photo from the upcoming installment.

Fans will have to wait until April to see Bran’s actual return, but the image shows that the teen has matured since his last appearance on the show. Not only is he more grown up, he now has short hair. It does, however, remain to be seen exactly how his psychic powers have developed since he appeared in the season 4 finale.

bran-stark-game-of-thrones
Helen Sloan/HBO
Helen Sloan/HBO
Recommended Videos

As the offspring of Ned and Catelyn Stark, Bran has four full siblings, plus a half-brother. The latter, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), has been the source of endless speculation after (spoiler alert!) being stabbed numerous times in the season 5 finale. While logically it would seem that his wounds should have killed him, there have been several hints that he may have survived, or been resurrected after the brutal attack.

Please enable Javascript to view this content

In July, before resuming filming for season 6, Hempstead-Wright told the Irish Examiner that he hoped Harington’s character would be back, but that his co-star had said he wouldn’t be. The young actor did, however, have more details to drop about his own role. “I can’t say a lot but I am back this season, and it’s going to get particularly interesting with Bran,” he said. “He has some interesting visions.”

We don’t expect HBO to offer any definitive evidence about the fate of Snow prior to the season 6 premiere, but either way, we do look forward to Bran’s return.

Stephanie Topacio Long
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Stephanie Topacio Long is a writer and editor whose writing interests range from business to books. She also contributes to…
House of the Dragon renewed by HBO for season 3
A woman stands with her two sons staring out to sea.

The Targaryen civil war will continue. On Thursday, HBO announced the renewal of House of the Dragon for season 3. The news comes days before Sunday's season 2 premiere.

House of the Dragon is based on George R.R. Martin’s novel Fire & Blood. Set 200 years before the events of Game of Thrones, the series chronicles House Targaryen and the war of succession that will lead to its decline. Martin and Ryan Condal co-created the series for HBO.

Read more
Game of Thrones’ disappointing finale lost sight of what made the series so great
Daenerys stands above the Unsullied in the Game of Thrones finale.

Ending a TV show well is an infamously hard thing to do. Plenty of great, talented writers have tried and failed over the years, and even more fans have been left disappointed as their favorite shows failed to stick the landing. While bad final episodes have been a part of the TV landscape for decades, no series finale in modern memory has been as universally and passionately detested as Game of Thrones'.

After entertaining millions of viewers for eight years, the HBO drama delivered a final trio of rushed, ham-fisted episodes in May 2019 that brought its story to an incredibly disappointing, unearned conclusion. The show that had long held the TV crown subsequently faded from the world's pop cultural conversations — proving that sometimes the destination is as important as the journey. Many longtime fans seemingly pushed Game of Thrones from their minds altogether, while others decided to place all their hopes for a better ending on the two remaining Song of Ice and Fire books that author George R. R. Martin still hasn't published.

Read more
5 years ago, Game of Thrones aired its last great episode. Here’s why it still holds up
Jamie knights Brienne in episode 2 of Game of Thrones season 8.

Many fans would likely agree that Game of Thrones went out not with a bang, but a profound whimper. After dominating pop culture for nearly 10 years, the hit HBO series concluded with a trio of episodes that were universally reviled by both fans and critics alike. The show's lackluster, ham-fisted finale led to its popularity seemingly vanishing into thin air. In the five years since it aired, time hasn't been kind to Game of Thrones season 8.

To this day, many people still discuss the series' final season with a mix of bitterness and disbelief, and those fans won't find any disagreement about the quality of Game of Thrones' last few chapters here. As disappointing as its eighth season remains, though, April 21 marked the five-year anniversary of its noteworthy second episode, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. The fan-favorite installment ranks not only as its season's best chapter, but also as the last great episode that Game of Thrones ever produced.

Read more