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Bran Meets A 'Game of Thrones' Big Bad In Season 6

Who would have thought that the most shocking thing about the new Game of Thrones Season 6 trailer would not be Jon Snow's dead body, huh? For a brief moment, a now infamous White Walker made an appearance next to an unexpected character. Does Bran meet The Night's King on Game of Thrones ? There's probably more to this moment than meets the eye.

In the new trailer, we see him standing in the snow, looking around in dismay, and The Night's King is standing right behind him! Run, Bran, run! This is the dude who lead an attack on a Wildling village and gave Jon Snow an epic shrug that's now your favorite meme. He also likes to turn babies into his own kind. This is not a friendly dude.

Bran is still beyond the Wall and in the realm of the White Walkers, however I don't think this scene necessarily means that the Night's King strolled up to talk to Bran in person. While it's certainly possible, and Bran is maybe one of the only Westerosi humans that the White Walkers would be interested in visiting — with the possible exception of Jon Snow.

I think it's more likely that this is one of his visions. Brandon Stark, who we haven't seen on the HBO series since Season 4, is currently training with a character known as the Three-Eyed Raven — played by Max von Sydow, who was recently seen all too briefly as Lor San Tekka in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Part of this training allows Bran to witness the past, present, and future. That's right, get ready for a lot of flashbacks this season. There's also, as Vanity Fair pointed out and caused me to smack my forehead and say "d'oh," the fact that Bran is standing up in this moment... a thing that he can't do in real life on Game of Thrones.

My theory is that Bran is seeing the moment in which the King faced off against his "brother" Jon. Whether Bran is meeting the Night's King in person or having a vision of him, this is a pretty cool development. Only one other main character has seen this guy in person, Jon Snow, and we all saw what happened to him. Winter is here to stay on Game of Thrones, and it's good to have Bran back in the mix.

Image: Helen Sloan/courtesy of HBO