Game of Thrones, as great as it is, can be slow. Like, almost-convincing-you-that-you-have-time-to-run-to-the-bathroom slow. (Don't fall for it! That will be when they reveal Ned Stark has been reincarnated as a dragon.) So there's not much to do while waiting for the High Sparrow to finish recapping your college philosophy seminar, other than come up with fan theories. And this one, posited by Redditor NegativeKarmaSniifer, is a doozy.
He writes, "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."
So, it's basically the time-travel butterfly effect fantasy readers and viewers have been warned about since childhood — don't change the past, or things will get a lot worse. (Unless you're just going to save a Hippogriff and a prisoner; then, it's okay.) But, since Bran was able to get his dad to turn around in one of his visions, featured in this week's episode, the influencing-the-past theory seems like it could hold up. So, does King Aerys plus Bran's whispers equal every single problem that we've ever enjoyed or had to slog through on GOT? If episode 3's reveal fake-out is any indication, the theory probably won't be confirmed or 100% proven wrong until the end of the season. Plenty of time to also decide that Jaqen H'ghar is actually Hodor's long-lost brother.