Where did Bran The Broken come from?

It debuted the same night the Game of Thrones finale aired on May 19, 2019, when Twitter users started posting jokes about Tyrion's speech naming Bran king.

What does Bran The Broken mean?

The name refers to Bran Stark's paralysis after a childhood fall in season one; Twitter users treated Tyrion's use of the epithet during the coronation as needlessly condescending.

How do you use Bran The Broken?

People pair the phrase with screenshots from the coronation scene to mock an underwhelming winner or a plot twist where a passive character prevails, like @TheRachelFisher's viral joke from finale night.

Is Bran The Broken still popular?

The meme peaked in the days after the May 2019 finale and faded quickly, though Urban Dictionary entries from that period preserve the joke.

Bran The Broken

Q: What is Bran The Broken?

Bran the Broken is the ceremonial nickname Tyrion Lannister gave Bran Stark when Bran was crowned king of the Six Kingdoms in the Game of Thrones series finale.

2019catchphrasedead

Published August 16, 2026

Bran the Broken is the ceremonial title Tyrion Lannister gave Bran Stark when Bran was crowned king of the Six Kingdoms in Game of Thrones' 2019 finale. Twitter and Reddit users spent the same night mocking the plot choice, the condescending nickname, and Bran's frozen coronation reaction.

game of thrones memes celebrity nickname memes fandom discourse memes tv show memes 2019 memes

Overview

Bran the Broken is the ceremonial nickname given to Bran Stark after he was chosen as king of the Six Kingdoms in the finale of HBO's Game of Thrones3. The title was announced by Tyrion Lannister during the war council that closes the series, and viewers immediately fixated on how strange and condescending it sounded delivered as an official royal style.

Jokes about the phrase went up across Twitter and Reddit within hours of the May 2019 broadcast1. Most of them ridiculed the logic Tyrion used to justify picking Bran, his blank facial expression when the vote passed, and the medieval bluntness of naming a paralyzed king 'the Broken'. Bran the Broken quickly became one of the go-to shorthand jokes used to sum up the widely disliked season eight ending.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

HBO (source) / Twitter and Reddit (viral spread)

Date

2019

The nickname debuted on May 19, 2019, in 'The Iron Throne', the sixth and final episode of Game of Thrones season eight3. In the scene, Tyrion Lannister nominates Bran Stark to rule the Six Kingdoms after Daenerys Targaryen is killed by Jon Snow, arguing that Bran has 'the best story' of anyone alive. Tyrion then addresses him as 'Bran the Broken', a callback to the fall from a tower in season one that left Bran paralyzed and set the whole plot of the series in motion.

How It Spread

Reaction jokes hit Twitter the same night the episode aired. On May 19, 2019, @Adam_Jacobi posted a tweet mocking the choice that pulled in more than 7,100 retweets and roughly 45,800 likes within twelve hours1. Later that day, @TheRachelFisher posted another Bran the Broken joke that ran up over 35,200 retweets and 157,200 likes in the same window2.

The nickname also fed into the wider backlash against the season eight ending on Reddit, where fan subreddits turned the 'best story' line and the 'Broken' epithet into recurring punchlines. An Urban Dictionary entry riffing on the coronation appeared in the following weeks4.

▶

Watch Video

How to Use This Meme

Bran the Broken is typically used as shorthand for an underwhelming or bewildering plot conclusion, especially when a passive character wins a contest for reasons that do not track. Posts often pair the phrase with Isaac Hempstead Wright's slack, unreadable expression in the coronation scene, and screenshots of Tyrion's 'best story' speech get remixed with unrelated failed leaders or awkward workplace promotions.