Why Benjen had to die?

[ummester]

I'm pretty sure GRRM said Coldhands is not Benjen also and Coldhands in the book is very old, or has been dead a very long time, which makes you think it is not Benjen.

D&D did refer to Benjen as Coldhands in the latest Inside the Episode though.

It seems they are interchangeable - I think what is important is that they were both men of the Watch (probably both sworn to the Old Gods also). There is definitely something in that - some relationship between the magic North of the Wall and properly sworn Night's Watchmen - but who knows if the show will ever explain it.

[Marlom]

15 minutes ago, DarkBastard said:

I could be wrong, but I thought GRRM said that "Coldhands" in the books is not Benjen Stark.  If that's correct, then Benjen's presence is a "show only" thing and shouldn't have much significance to the end story.  I doubt he even knew about the lineage, but no way to know for sure anyway.

Yes, that's true.

Book Benjen has another story to tell if TWOW gets released in an anknown future.

[Nerevanin]

11 hours ago, Lucius Lovejoy said:

Lol agreed, I was trying to wonder why he had to come back in the first place.  The dying made sense to me lol.

I don't want to underestimade GRRM but I think that Coldhands was created to make Sam's (+ Gilly and the baby) and Bran's (and co.) survival behind the Wall more realistic (if you consider a helping zombie realistic, of course). D&D used him basically in the same way although they limited him to helping Meera and Bran once in fight and then the rest of his "help" was leaving Meera and Bran miles from the Wall.

10 hours ago, Tadco26 said:

He died to cut down the cast and tie up the "loose end" of what happened to Benjen in the laziest way possible.

Basically this. There is no hidden reason behind it, they're just killing off minor characters that they have no idea what to do with.

[hallam]

1 hour ago, DarkBastard said:

I could be wrong, but I thought GRRM said that "Coldhands" in the books is not Benjen Stark.  If that's correct, then Benjen's presence is a "show only" thing and shouldn't have much significance to the end story.  I doubt he even knew about the lineage, but no way to know for sure anyway.

The show is the editor GRRM never listened to...

Merging Coldhands and Benjen makes sense for the show. I suspect Benjen does have a role to play in the reveal in the books. Why else would he be missing in action so long? 

If Ned told anyone, it would have been Benjen. There is a passage during Ned's imprisonment where it is implied that Benjen knew.

[Lurid Jester]

9 minutes ago, hallam said:

If Ned told anyone, it would have been Benjen. There is a passage during Ned's imprisonment where it is implied that Benjen knew.

Can you provide the passage?  The only time I can find Benjen mentioned by name in one of Ned's chapters is in the very beginning during the King's feast in Winterfell. 

[Lucius Lovejoy]

25 minutes ago, hallam said:

The show is the editor GRRM never listened to...

Merging Coldhands and Benjen makes sense for the show. I suspect Benjen does have a role to play in the reveal in the books. Why else would he be missing in action so long? 

I tend to think book Benjen is like the russian from the Sopranos "Pine Barrens" episode - he is gone and we will never know what happened to him, despite our curiousity and suspicion he might come back.  Having an unanswered loose end like that actually is somewhat more appealing to me to be honest.

[Gala]

20 minutes ago, Lurid Jester said:

Can you provide the passage?  The only time I can find Benjen mentioned by name in one of Ned's chapters is in the very beginning during the King's feast in Winterfell. 

I doubt there is a passage, but I really think that Ned actually trusted Benjen and since Jon is the only living thing that was left of Lyanna (the Stark siblings were very close - of that we have a lot of proof), I think the only other person who knows about R+L=J except for Howland Reed is Benjen. He conviniently disappeared and is no longer with Jon.

[DarkBastard]

6 minutes ago, Gala said:

I doubt there is a passage, but I really think that Ned actually trusted Benjen and since Jon is the only living thing that was left of Lyanna (the Stark siblings were very close - of that we have a lot of proof), I think the only other person who knows about R+L=J except for Howland Reed is Benjen. He conviniently disappeared and is no longer with Jon.

In the show, yes it looks like Benjen and Ned have a good relationship.  In the books, the way I took it is that their relationship wasn't as close.  Could just be how my mind interpreted it, but that's the feeling I had as a reader.

[Gala]

5 minutes ago, DarkBastard said:

In the show, yes it looks like Benjen and Ned have a good relationship.  In the books, the way I took it is that their relationship wasn't as close.  Could just be how my mind interpreted it, but that's the feeling I had as a reader.

Interesting, I interpreted their relationship very close in the books as well. I have doubts about their closeness to Brandon, but since he was the oldest and the most badass... I had an impression that the kids were very close, I mean like Jon-Arya and Bran-Jon close and all of them had the similar relationships with Brandon like Jon, Arya and Bran had with Robb. At least Jon and Robb are very close, so probably Brandon and Ned could have the same type of relationship. There is one thing which is doubtless - they loved each other very much (Brandon, Ned, Lyanna and little Benjen, I mean).

[Lord Okra]

Benjen had to die because we won't be beyond the wall anymore and they needed to wrap up what happens to him or we'd have people at the end of the series complaining about Benjen being a loose end.

[DarkBastard]

14 minutes ago, Gala said:

Interesting, I interpreted their relationship very close in the books as well. I have doubts about their closeness to Brandon, but since he was the oldest and the most badass... I had an impression that the kids were very close, I mean like Jon-Arya and Bran-Jon close and all of them had the similar relationships with Brandon like Jon, Arya and Bran had with Robb. At least Jon and Robb are very close, so probably Brandon and Ned could have the same type of relationship. There is one thing which is doubtless - they loved each other very much (Brandon, Ned, Lyanna and little Benjen, I mean).

It wasn't a cold relationship to me, just not a very personal one it seemed.  It could be that the truth of it all polarized them a bit though...but I don't know if Ned would have told anyone the truth of it.

[LokisRaider]

13 hours ago, Tadco26 said:

He died to cut down the cast and tie up the "loose end" of what happened to Benjen in the laziest way possible.

Nailed it.

[Vuron]

1 hour ago, Gala said:

I doubt there is a passage, but I really think that Ned actually trusted Benjen and since Jon is the only living thing that was left of Lyanna (the Stark siblings were very close - of that we have a lot of proof), I think the only other person who knows about R+L=J except for Howland Reed is Benjen. He conviniently disappeared and is no longer with Jon.

Why would Benjen be the only person that Ned ever told in his entire life, though.  They were close, but not like best buddies, share everything close.  If he was going to tell Benjen, than why wouldn't he tell Cat and save himself and Jon 15 years of bitching.

[Ranger Kragin]

I think they made him come back to show that the WW can be brought back. Probably they want to resurrect another important character turned to ice from the NK.

Viserion perhaps?

[falcotron]

5 hours ago, Ranger Kragin said:

I think they made him come back to show that the WW can be brought back. Probably they want to resurrect another important character turned to ice from the NK.

Viserion perhaps?

But Benjen isn't a WW who was brought back. He's a man who would have been wighted, but the Children prevented it by shoving dragonglass into his chest. And he didn't come back from that; he's the same in his final battle as he was the whole time.

Benjen's transformation is similar to, if anyone's, the Night King's, so I suppose you could argue that he shows that the NK can be killed? But that's a hell of a stretch.

The real reasons Benjen was brought back are much simpler:

From a storytelling point of view, Benjen's return and death ties up the story of Jon Snow of the Watch. Benjen was the reason he ran away to the Watch in the first place, and now Benjen was there for his last ever Ranging. From now on, there is no more story of Jon Snow of the Watch, only the story of Aegon Targaryen.

From a showrunner point of view, people complained about the books not bringing Benjen back, and they didn't want viewers complaining about the same thing in their show. They already merged Benjen and Coldhands because they thought viewers would be more satisfied seeing Benjen still helping his family than having another mystery to ruminate over, and now they killed Benjen onscreen because they thought viewers would be happier seeing the end of his story than having to assume he did somewhere offscreen.

[Mikkel]

14 hours ago, Vuron said:

Why would Benjen be the only person that Ned ever told in his entire life, though.  They were close, but not like best buddies, share everything close.  If he was going to tell Benjen, than why wouldn't he tell Cat and save himself and Jon 15 years of bitching.

If he did tell Benjen, he probably told him right around the time it all happened - at this point Ned barely knew Catelyn, theirs was the epitome of an arranged marriage (taking your brother's place, of all things!). Later it grew into love, which is awesome for the people involved of course. I don't really see anyone Ned could confide in other than Benjen, and it's possible he needed to confide in someone, at least. He's not made of stone, after all.

[Col Cinders]

On ‎8‎/‎21‎/‎2017 at 10:32 PM, Lurid Jester said:

He wouldn't have to go inside to know what happened.  There's no way Howland is going to buy the story that Jon is Ned's bastard.  

"Hey Ned.  Who's baby?"

"Mine." 

"Lolwhut?  No seriously.  That Lyanna's kid?  He looks just like her."

"Nope.  My kid.  Totally my kid.  One of those wet nurses gave birth to him.... after we... had relations."

"you mean one of those wet nurses that clearly haven't given birth in the last five minutes?"

"yes."

Also, how long does it take to pull down the tower and use its stone to build a cairn?  The subject of the baby is going to come up.

[Gala]

15 hours ago, Vuron said:

Why would Benjen be the only person that Ned ever told in his entire life, though.  They were close, but not like best buddies, share everything close.  If he was going to tell Benjen, than why wouldn't he tell Cat and save himself and Jon 15 years of bitching.

Well, because Cat has her own children and if it comes to their safety she wouldn't hasitate and I doubt that she would like Jon more if she knew he was Lyanna's son. Benjen is his blood and he has nothing to be blackmailed by - all Ned's children and Jon are similar to him - they all are his nieces and nephews. Additionally, Benjen and Lyanna were close.

[Mikkel]

1 minute ago, Gala said:

I doubt that she would like Jon more if she knew he was Lyanna's son

I don't think that's quite true, her reasons for disliking Jon were threefold: first the obvious, he's a walking talking reminder of Ned's infidelity*, secondly he's a potential threat to her children**, and if not him then his children's children might be etc etc. and thirdly the normal discrimination against bastards in general.

^{*yes Jon is of course the wrong target for her anger, but that doesn't change the fact that he is just that}

^{**Jon would of course have no legal claim but when has that ever stopped a sufficiently ambitious person?}

[falcotron]

1 hour ago, Mikkel said:

I don't really see anyone Ned could confide in other than Benjen

What about Jon Arryn? Ned confided in Jon about everything. When Ned and now-King Robert had their falling out, Jon's the one who Ned went to for help, even though he was Robert's Hand. It's possible that in this case, he'd be afraid that Jon would tell Robert—but that doesn't seem like something Jon would do if Ned asked for his confidence, and I think Ned might trust that.

Also: Everything that's gone wrong in Westeros has been set off by two things: R+L=J, and Littlefinger killing Jon Arryn right before he was going to reveal Cersei+Jaime=Joffrey. If LF also managed to (completely by accident) bury the truth of R+L=J as well when he killed Jon Arryn, that would fit nicely.