It was two season finales ago that Bran gained the mysterious title of “The Three-Eyed Raven” after a long, strange trial north of the Wall. But it was in this season finale that the full scope and importance of his powers were most significantly displayed. Not only did he dig up the receipts to condemn Littlefinger, he provided a huge revelation for viewers by discovering that Jon Snow, thought to be a bastard of Ned Stark, is actually of royal parentage.

Both developments were a sign that Bran has become an MVP of the Game of Thrones plot engine. His powers are in fact so great that they threaten to break the story—as all-seeing, all-knowing types, whether in comic books or classic novels or religious texts, often threaten to do.

* * *

On some level, storytelling is the act of revealing information. To experience any narrative is to hear a mystery solved, and common plots are often quests for knowledge—how to save the world, the community, the self. So it’s striking that characters with the power to see things they haven’t personally experienced are legion in literary history, whether you look to mythology (Cassandra) or to pop entertainment (Professor Xavier in his Cerebro). Maybe that owes to a fundamental human desire to know the unknown. Maybe it’s also because of the oracle character’s usefulness as a narrative device, an easy way to close plot holes.

Certainly Bran’s powers help clarify the once-vexing question of what role he’s been meant to play all along. After providing the first gasp-worthy twist of Thrones when he was pushed from a tower in the series premiere, he’s rarely been a source of thrills. First, he convalesced; then, he underwent a long journey to the North for hazy supernatural reasons. Lately, after returning to his home of Winterfell and reuniting with his sisters, it seemed he might finally start affecting the larger storyline via clairvoyance. Instead, until the finale he just inspired memes about his stoner-like dialogue, his coldness toward loved ones, and his apparent refusal to use his powers to solve urgent problems.

All of which, in a way, should be very familiar: Bran is a trope. The often-criticized cliché of mystic disability—which explicitly or symbolically implies that bodily difference marks spiritual difference—has long been in full-force with Bran, who first began seeing visions once he lost the ability to walk. But some other common features of shamans, seers, and psychics are increasingly apparent: his cryptic-ness, his distance from those around him, his caginess about when and how to employ his powers. He’s the Yoda of Westeros.

The show explained these personality changes in the awkward farewell between Bran and Meera earlier in Season 7, during which Bran’s longtime companion said, “You died in that cave,” and he professed to not really be Bran Stark anymore. Cut him some slack, Thrones was saying—the ability to see all of the present and past would change you, too. (It’s not a theoretical matter, really. Are you quite the same person you were before Google was at your fingertips?)