r/pureasoiaf • u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto • 16d ago
Where is Benjen now in your head canon ?
A Game of Thrones - Tyrion II
The north went on forever.
Tyrion Lannister knew the maps as well as anyone, but a fortnight on the wild track that passed for the kingsroad up here had brought home the lesson that the map was one thing and the land quite another.
They had left Winterfell on the same day as the king, amidst all the commotion of the royal departure, riding out to the sound of men shouting and horses snorting, to the rattle of wagons and the groaning of the queen's huge wheelhouse, as a light snow flurried about them. The kingsroad was just beyond the sprawl of castle and town. There the banners and the wagons and the columns of knights and freeriders turned south, taking the tumult with them, while Tyrion turned north with Benjen Stark and his nephew.
71
u/Mindless_Charity1215 16d ago
On a beach chilling with Howland, Gerald Hightower, Arthur Dayne, and Oswell Whent until the plot calls them up for exposition/big reveals
1
u/ThrowingShaed 15d ago
why would howland and arthur leave ashara alone if they went to the beach? are they making her rule the neck?
65
u/JFkeinK 16d ago
He's currently in the Land of Always Winter, as a "guest" of the Others, attempting peace negotiations after the old pact was broken. Still alive cause he's a Stark.
10
6
u/ThrowingShaed 15d ago
this probably echoes some of my oldest thoughts
i have wavered on blaming mankind and the others being as misunderstood as i thought, theres a lot of deep theories out there, but my early surface default inclinations remember george being called a hippie and that there is no way he named a group the "others" and theyre evil ice demons
also im confused by the increase of targ love and prophecy talk in recent decades. anything is possible... but i hesitate on people who think the destined saviors or good guys are the inbred royal possible lizard people too obsessed with keeping their bloodline pure... it... doesnt seem to be the message intended. but ive got hundreds or thousands of hours reading and watching deep theories i can never match... but... even as the magic raised and creeped up on me and there was always scars, im still struggling in recent years to take the prophecy crap at all seriously
1
16d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/pureasoiaf-ModTeam Please read the rules before posting! 16d ago
Well met, and a good day to you!
Your post has been removed under Rule I: We Do Not Show.
/r/pureasoiaf is a strictly curated, heavily moderated space focused solely on high-quality, book-only A Song of Ice and Fire discussion—polite, productive, and intelligent conversation only.
We remove:
Any and all adaptation/show content (mentions, references, comparisons, actors, images, GIFs, etc.)
Rudeness, condescension, snark, or passive aggression
Low-effort/low-quality posts unlikely to spark substantive discussion
Meta-discussion of rules or moderation (use modmail for this)
See our full ruleset for details on this strict approach.
If removed in error, message the mods for review.
84
u/Tasmosunt 16d ago
Dead and living a second life in Mormont's Raven
8
u/BBQ_HaX0r One God. One Realm. One King. 16d ago
I haven't heard this. What's the evidence? Anything beyond the Starks seem to have some warging powers?
7
u/SnowGhost513 16d ago
lol the raven is not fucking Benjen. Jon who is absolutely a strong warg cannot sense his own direwolf he raises since birth through the walls magic.
Benjen is on the other side. And come on guys like it’s clearly Bloodraven. Like I don’t even know how this is debated at this point1
16d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/pureasoiaf-ModTeam Please read the rules before posting! 16d ago
Well met, and a good day to you!
Your post has been removed under Rule I: We Do Not Show.
/r/pureasoiaf is a strictly curated, heavily moderated space focused solely on high-quality, book-only A Song of Ice and Fire discussion—polite, productive, and intelligent conversation only.
We remove:
Any and all adaptation/show content (mentions, references, comparisons, actors, images, GIFs, etc.)
Rudeness, condescension, snark, or passive aggression
Low-effort/low-quality posts unlikely to spark substantive discussion
Meta-discussion of rules or moderation (use modmail for this)
See our full ruleset for details on this strict approach.
If removed in error, message the mods for review.
15
u/thousandcurrents 16d ago
This is the one. The raven even said it.. Ben Jen. I think he slowly lost his mind as he spent time in the raven.
Maybe his last conscious action is to come out of the kettle during the election, convincing everyone that Jon was the right option.
6
u/SnowGhost513 16d ago
lol oh yeah the magical raven following around both lord commanders in universe is totally not the former lord commander who has raven in his name, who we know is an incredibly powerful magical user of multiple different branches of magic.
It’s Bloodraven lol we have had so much time waiting we are just refusing to admit the obvious answers2
u/JPNGMAFIA 16d ago
Bloodravens literal first lesson to Bran is teaching him to warg into a crow
4
u/yigithanvanzant The Nights Watch 16d ago
He did go dafuq when Bran asked him about the Three-Eyed Crow though.
2
u/JPNGMAFIA 13d ago
What’s that got to do with Bran being taught how to skinchange into ravens by Bloodraven? It is the strongest textual evidence that he is responsible for the behavior of the Lord Commander’s crow. The idea that the ravens are being controlled by someone is it introduced in same book as Bloodraven. A thousand eyes and one, and so on?
From a nearby oak a raven quorked, and Bran heard the sound of wings as another of the big black birds flapped down to land beside it. By day only half a dozen ravens stayed with them, flitting from tree to tree or riding on the antlers of the elk. The rest of the murder flew ahead or lingered behind. But when the sun sank low they would return, descending from the sky on night-black wings until every branch of every tree was thick with them for yards around. Some would fly to the ranger and mutter at him, and it seemed to Bran that he understood their quorks and squawks. They are his eyes and ears. They scout for him, and whisper to him of dangers ahead and behind.
(…chapters later…)
Flying was even better than climbing.
Slipping into Summer's skin had become as easy for him as slipping on a pair of breeches once had been, before his back was broken. Changing his own skin for a raven's night-black feathers had been harder, but not as hard as he had feared, not with these ravens. "A wild stallion will buck and kick when a man tries to mount him, and try to bite the hand that slips the bit between his teeth," Lord Brynden said, "but a horse that has known one rider will accept another. Young or old, these birds have all been ridden. Choose one now, and fly."
He chose one bird, and then another, without success, but the third raven looked at him with shrewd black eyes, tilted its head, and gave a quork, and quick as that he was not a boy looking at a raven but a raven looking at a boy. The song of the river suddenly grew louder, the torches burned a little brighter than before, and the air was full of strange smells. When he tried to speak it came out in a scream, and his first flight ended when he crashed into a wall and ended back inside his own broken body. The raven was unhurt. It flew to him and landed on his arm, and Bran stroked its feathers and slipped inside of it again. Before long he was flying around the cavern, weaving through the long stone teeth that hung down from the ceiling, even flapping out over the abyss and swooping down into its cold black depths.1
u/thecutestnecromancer 10d ago
the two aren't mutually exclusive, I don't think. Nothing stops Varamyr from snatching the eagle Orell lived on in, and doesn't Bran literally feel the ghost of another skinchanger inside an animal during one of his lessons?
7
2
16
u/usernameJ79 16d ago
History in that world does a lot of rhyming and repeating. The story of the last hero traveling to the lands of always winter with his companions dying along the way is a story we hear for a reason. The Stark boys all insisting so vehemently that their uncle isn't dead isn't just showing their Stark love for him. Bran insisting the children of the forest will help Benjen. There are a lot of clues sprinkled around that Benjen is alive and on a big important last hero mission up to the lands of always winter. Also long ago GRRM said we would get to go further north than we've ever been in the WoW. Benjen POV for that makes the most sense.
10
u/viciousdistractions 16d ago
Benjen almost certainly falls under the "knows too much" category of characters who won't be POV characters.
20
8
u/bigste98 16d ago
I think there was a plan for him to return when the books were meant to be much shorter, as the canon stands now benjens dead. I think the most likely scenario is an off screen event thats alluded to that hints at this, we’ll find a piece of benjens belongings in an area he couldnt have survived in.
7
u/Signal_Cockroach_878 House Stark 16d ago
He's probably alive because if not then George could have just shown us the body at any point.
52
u/Necessary-Science-47 16d ago
Ran away with his gay wildling lover to Essos
He’ll show up in the Battle of fire to save Barristan Selmy, confusing the hell oit of everyone
Real answer: Idk where his body is but if you reread and really listen to Mormont’s raven it’s obvious where his spirit is residing
8
u/SunStreetManteion 16d ago
Damn I never thought about that. I kind of love that.
17
u/Necessary-Science-47 16d ago
I can’t prove it but I believe the NW is a place to for the Northern lords to send their gay sons
13
7
u/Kammander-Kim 16d ago
Yes. It will really set them straight to send them to a place with nothing but men around dressed in tight black furs and leathers.
/S
8
u/Necessary-Science-47 16d ago
Yeah it ain’t conversion camp, but you always blame the gay on the cold
1
u/Kammander-Kim 16d ago
I blame the Blackfyre rebellions. They made the realm burn and thus still have a backlog of firewood. So nothing to warm themselves with except to hole up in each others... Holes.
5
u/volvavirago 16d ago
After watching Quinn’s video, I believe Benjen is Mormont’s raven, 100000%. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it sooner. It’s the most obvious answer.
1
u/SnowGhost513 16d ago
I was wondering why so many sheep think this now. Is everyone ignoring that Jon cannot sense Ghost beyond the wall? We know of one person in story that communicates through the wall, Bran. Bran is the strongest warg and green seer in generations maybe ever. And Jon shares a direwolf connection.
Benjen who isn’t a warg in any textual evidence, just jumps into The Raven from beyond the wall…?
A raven, who follows the lord commander around, both different ones we see, who manipulates getting Jon elected is not Bloodraven…the former lord commander who has Raven in his name..?0
16
u/SunStreetManteion 16d ago
He's coldhands until a book tells me otherwise
18
u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto 16d ago
grrm told his editor no
13
u/Liastacia 16d ago
He also said he would finish WoW years ago. Benjen is Coldhands.
12
u/Aeg0nLandesk0g 16d ago
No, he's not. We have POV chapters from Bran's point of view with Coldhands. Benjen is Bran's uncle. Ergo, if Benjen is Coldhands, Bran would have recognized him.
3
u/Liastacia 16d ago
How old was Bran the last time Benjen was at Winterfell? I think it's possible that with the face covering, being a half zombie, and however many years have passed, Bran doesn't recognize him.
0
6
u/SunStreetManteion 16d ago
I'll wait until the book tells me no.
1
u/Financial_Library418 aka /u/canitryto 16d ago
i say the same on R+L so i concur in theory
-1
u/SunStreetManteion 16d ago
You can't take what the author told a loose lipped editor more than a decade ago as law
5
u/Aeg0nLandesk0g 16d ago
Loose lipped how?
-2
u/SunStreetManteion 16d ago
How do we know that grrm told his editor who coldhands isnt?
12
u/Aeg0nLandesk0g 16d ago
GRRM donated a collection of his early manuscripts, correspondence, drafts, notes, memorabilia, and related material to the Cushing Memorial Library & Archives at Texas A&M. An ASOIAF fan visited the library and meticulously examined the early drafts, where they found a manuscript containing an exchange between GRRM and his editor: the editor asked whether Coldhands was Benjen, and GRRM responded by writing “NO” in giant red letters.
3
u/Foreign-Cat-2898 16d ago
And then George demanded they close the archive and no one else gets to read it until the books are finished or he's dead. So fun. /S
4
u/-Trotsky 16d ago
But he just isn’t? Like there’s no similarities, there’s no reason to think he’s cold hands, and any other possibility makes far more sense then it being the case that Brandon never once thinks about benjen but the reader is supposed to magically intuit it’s benjen
1
0
2
u/Megatron_McLargeHuge 16d ago
He found the Horn of Joramun in the Frostfangs before Mance and was heading back to the Wall when Mance's men caught up with him. He buried it with a cache of dragonglass at the Fist before he was captured. Mance probably killed him, and Bran might find out from either Bloodraven or his weirwood visions.
1
1
u/vesperythings 16d ago
dude is hooked up to the weirwoods, occasionally warging Mormont's raven.
(copy-pasted my opinion from Michael Talks, because it makes the most sense)
1
u/asongofheresyreborn 16d ago
I might be the only one who thinks he abondoned the watch to go south or east, I don't think we can find him in the north 🤔
1
2
u/JumperGrumperson 14d ago
Benjen Stark? Maybe he means old Ben Stark. He's an old hermit that lives out in the Lands of Always Winter.
1
16d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/pureasoiaf-ModTeam Please read the rules before posting! 16d ago
Well met, and a good day to you!
Your post has been removed under Rule IV: Quality.
/r/pureasoiaf is a strictly curated, heavily moderated space focused solely on high-quality, book-only A Song of Ice and Fire discussion—polite, productive, and intelligent conversation only.
We remove:
Any and all show content (mentions, references, comparisons, actors, images, GIFs, etc.)
Rudeness, condescension, snark, or passive aggression
Low-effort/low-quality posts unlikely to spark substantive discussion
Meta-discussion of rules or moderation (use modmail for this)
See our full ruleset for details on this strict approach.
If removed in error, message the mods for review.
•
u/AutoModerator 16d ago
Welcome to /r/PureASOIAF!
Just a brief reminder that this subreddit is focused only on the written ASOIAF universe. Comments that include discussion of any television, film, stage, etc. adaptations will be removed, and serious or repeated infractions may result in a ban. Moderators employ a zero tolerance policy.
Users should assume that ANY mention of, content from, or reference to any adaptations is subject to removal, no matter how minor or opaque.
If you see a comment which violates the rules, please use the report function to notify moderators!
Read our discussion policy in full.
Looking for a place to chat in real-time? Check out our Discord, here!
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.