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Is Benjen Good On 'Game of Thrones'? Little Is Known About His Current Status

Season 6 of Game of Thrones has already given us some huge character reappearances, and more are rumored to be on the horizon. But what are we to make of Benjen Stark's return? He faithfully rescued his nephew Bran and Meera from a mob of wights, so, that seems nice, but also, he's joining Season 6's pantheon of technically undead characters, which feels sketchy. So is Benjen good on Game of Thrones? Here's what we know.

Benjen returns after being lost north of The Wall during Season 1 on a reconnaissance mission for The Night's Watch, where he was a high ranking ranger. As Jon Snow's uncle, he was the one who convinced him to join up and who served as a mentor figure to him during his early days at Castle Black. But after Benjen goes missing, Jon is on his own.

During Season 2, Sam finds a stash of dragonglass-fashioned weapons north of The Wall, which he conveniently discovers is the one way to kill a White Walker. Fans speculated that Benjen had already puzzled this out and left the weaponry behind for his brothers to find. Plus, the fact that Benjen swoops in to rescue Bran from wights suggests that he's still fighting the good fight.

But we also learn that Benjen was attacked by a Wight Walker himself, and only survived (ie., wasn't turned into a wight) because the Children of the Forest intervened and pulled their little shoving-a-piece-of-dragonglass-into-a-man's-heart trick. For whatever reason, it stopped him from becoming a wight (even though the same move is how The Night King was made). So he is stuck in a similar kind of zombie limbo as The Mountain, who was revived by Maester Qyburn last season.

While Benjen looks much better than The Mountain, whose face is apparently too horrific to show, there is still some frostbite-looking facial scarring and paleness that seems a little unnerving. There's also a fan theory that Benjen is the character known as "Coldhands" in the books, who helps Bran and Meera find the cave of the Three-Eyed Raven. He is described as having black, ice cold hands, but the rest of him is very pale, and he hides his face. Bran realizes that he's undead, but the character is never revealed to be Benjen in the books and George R.R. Martin debunked the theory, too.

For now, we're cautiously optimistic that Benjen is a good guy, based on his clear connection to/alliance with the Three-Eyed Raven, his speculated assistance in fighting White Walkers, and his gallant rescue of Bran, complete with a hot cup of Game of Thrones cocoa aka rabbit's blood.