Who is Brynden Rivers, aka Bloodraven, the man who appears in Daemon's vision?

In the season 2 finale of House of the Dragon, Daemon Targaryen puts his hand upon a upon weirwood tree in the Harrenhal godswood at the behest of Alys Rivers, and he has a vision. He sees Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, he sees White Walkers, and he sees a strange, unknown man played by Joshua Ben-Tovim.

This man is Brynden Rivers, aka Bloodraven, aka the Three-Eyed Crow...or at least he's known as the Three-Eyed Crow in George R.R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire series; on Game of Thrones he's called the Three-Eyed Raven. Either way, guy's got a lot of names.

And yes, that means that we've met Brynden before; Bran Stark ran into him in season 4 and trained under him in season 6, eventually inheriting his powers of greensight, which basically means he can see the past and the future by making use of the mysterious powers of weirwoods.

Who is Bloodraven?

So who is this guy, and why does Daemon see him? Well, Bloodraven isn't born until decades after Daemon Targaryen is dead, so it seems like Daemon is having a greensight vision of his own. Brynden is the bastard son of King Aegon IV Targaryen, known as Aegon the Unworthy on account of what a crappy ruler he was. On his deathbed, Aegon IV legitimatized all of his bastard children, and he had a lot; Bloodraven was the child of his sixth mistress Melissa Blackwood.

This led to a series of wars called the Blackfyre rebellions, where Aegon IV's bastard son Daemon, also known as Bittersteel (not the same Daemon from House of the Dragon) declared himself to be the true heir to the Iron Throne and went to war against his trueborn brother King Daeron II Targaryen, the son of Aegon IV and his sister-wife Naerys Targaryen. Bloodraven allied himself with Daeron, helping the king and later his sons put down numerous Blackfyre rebellions against both Daemon and later Daemon's sons.

Bloodraven was tall, thin, and had a winestain birthmark that looked something like a raven drawn in blood, which is where he got the nickname. Like his ancestor Aemond Targaryen, Bloodraven lost an eye — in battle during the First Blackfyre Rebellion — but unlike Aemond, Bloodraven doesn't wear a patch, preferring to show his socket to the world. His pale skin is sensitive to light so he usually went about hooded and cloaked. He cut a creepy figure.

And that's before you consider his reputation. Brynden became Hand of the King as well as Master of Whisperers to a number of monarchs, and was thought to use sorcery to spy of the people of the Seven Kingdoms. A popular riddle during his time went like this: "How many eyes does Lord Bloodraven have? A thousand eyes, and one."

After the death of yet another king he served, Maekar I Targaryen, Bloodraven called a great council to decide the matter of succession. Aenys Blackfyre, son of Bittersteel, came to put his name forward, but Bloodraven had him executed out of fear that he could start yet another Blackfyre rebellion.

The council chose Aegon V Targaryen as the next king, and his first act was to arrest Bloodraven for the murder of Aenys. Bloodraven was banished to the Wall to serve in the Night's Watch; he made the trip alongside a young Maester Aemon Targaryen, who was an old man by the time of Game of Thrones.

Bloodraven served as Lord Commander of the Night's Watch for years, but disappeared on a ranging beyond the Wall. His story gets murky at that point. Somehow he ended up becoming the Three-Eyed Raven/Crow, which means he encountered the Children of the Forest and decided it was a good idea to merge with a tree and spend the rest of his apparently immortal life peering through time, collecting knowledge he later passed on to Bran Stark. One assumes that he became aware of the threat posed by the White Walkers, and decided to help. Or maybe the Children of the Forest forced him; we really don't know.

Daemon's vision is about the Song of Ice and Fire prophecy, of which Daenerys and the White Walkers are an important part, which is likely why Bloodraven shows up in it. We doubt we'll see more of him in the show, though, unless House of the Dragon throws us a serious curveball.

However, Bloodraven does feature in George R.R. Martin's Dunk and Egg novellas, specifically the third one, The Mystery Knight. This is back when he's at court grappling with the Blackfyre rebellions, long before he goes into the far North. HBO is adapting those novellas as A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, which we'll hopefully be watching sometime next year.

It's not known if Joshua Ben-Tovim will reprise his role as Brynden "Bloodraven" Rivers of it HBO will hire someone new; my bet is on the latter. Also, The Mystery Knight is the third of three Dunk and Egg novellas yet written by Martin, so it's doubtful he'll appear in the first season anyway.

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