Benjen Stark: Mystery of Jon Snow's Schrödinger Uncle Explained
While Game of Thrones has one too many mysteries, the fans of the show who never read the books struggle more than others. One of the things that don't get explained in the series is how in Seven Hells did Benjen Stark survive.
We first meet Benjen Stark, Jon Snow’s favorite uncle, at the very beginning of the show. As the First Ranger of the Night Watch, Benjen travels to the Wall with Jon after his nephew decides to join the Watch…
And we basically lose him.
At first, he’s too busy with his First Ranger duties; then he rides off beyond the Wall to never return.
Several seasons later, Benjen Stark appears out of thin air to save the day and starts helping everyone, but there's borderline zero explanation for that. For someone who only watched the show, it seems really strange; that's why we'll have to resort to the books and theories to give an answer.
In the book series, there's a character called Coldhands who serves the same purpose as Benjen Stark in the show. Just as the show Benjen told Jon, he was also admittedly killed and left for dead behind the Wall, but resurrected by the children of the forest.
However, since they did it in a similar way as with the Night King, he was now stuck between life and death, and there was no way for him to return to the Wall — its magic wouldn't have let him through.
But Benjen Stark is not Coldhands. It has always been a popular fan theory, but George Martin himself disproved it. Coldhands doesn't even have a name: all we know about him is that he used to be a member of the Watch. And you might think, well, who on Earth is Benjen Stark then?
The answer is both simple and confusing. Benjen Stark is not Coldhands in the books, but he is replacing Coldhands in the series. The showrunner decided to use the fan theory instead of introducing yet another new character, and it worked out… Except for the fact that the viewers were very confused about his story.
On a funnier note, some book fans think that Benjen Stark might have survived, escaped to Essos, and become Darrio Naahris. And the show fans speculate that, after the fall of the Wall, Benjen Stark can return to Winterfell and become Lord Stark since his vow to the Night Watch ended with his death.