Itās interesting to see the show cycle back and cover plot developments from the books that got skipped over earlier. The sudden appearance of āColdhandsā (I knew it was Benjen, no matter what GRRM said) makes for a much more interesting plot development now that the kids actually need him.
But waitā¦ didnāt he ride an elk and help Sam and Gilly to that tricky way under the wall? If my memory serves, Gilly and Sam need him then.
At this point the two stories have diverged enough for this just to be two interpretations of āColdhandsā. I still think that Book Coldhands is not Benjen, simply due to Leafās āthey killed him long agoā quote.
Iām really curious to see where this whole High Sparrow plot is going. Iām pretty sure Margarey is playing a dangerous but clever scheme to convince her doting and naive husband to embrace the Faith to get the High Sparrow to let his guard down.
Makes perfect sense to me. Sheās like a younger Cersei. No way sheās gone from careful schemer to demure penitent during a few months of captivity. If anything, it would make her more wily and determined for revenge.
Hereās hoping, Iām more ācliff hungā over this than anything else.
Yeah, but smarter, and not mean spirited (?). Sheās more like a young Olenna.
In addition to any internal evidence, his editor asked him point blank in the margin of the manuscript and his answer seems pretty clear.
That would be a really strange place to lie about that. Of course thatās only for the books. I can see why they would merge the characters on the show, especially if we never find out what happened to Benjen MacGuffin Stark in the books.
Which would make sense!
Iāve decided that Branās already/going to have been responsible for everything bad that will happen/has happened in the past because heās an undisciplined idiot. Weāre just lucky the mad king was killed by Jamie before he went from āBurn them all!ā to being āKing Ballā
Also, GoT takes place in the present dayā¦in the wreckage of the Forest Moon of Endor. The Children of the Forest are, of course, Ewoks (itās no longer a long, long time ago after all. Theyāve had tens of millions of years to evolve.) and they chose to make the white walkers in the image of the white-clad invaders that ended up completely trashing their planet when the wreckage of the Death Star completely destroyed their ecosystem.
Ewoks evolved razors and platform feet.
Yeah, it took them longer than it took usā¦but Iām sure they had a completely different set of evolutionary pressures. We really donāt know what sort of climate effects the Endor Holocaust had.
At least now we know why there are dragons!
(okay, this is starting to work a bit too well)
Sorry, GRRM lost his vote once he allowed the TV series to overtake the novels. All available canon says Benjen is Coldhands. 
My girlfriend tells me that Coldhands has gear that the Nightās Watch hasnāt used for centuries, which also supports not Benjen.
But hey book Coldhands got to meet Hodor and Jojen, so maybe reanimated Benjen will waltz into the plot in Winds of Winter. Maybe.
Itās like GRRM open-sourced his code and the TV show is just a fork of the books, isnāt it?
Iām actually excited for wildly divergent denouements, resolutions and endings, or lack thereof, between the books and the show.
Iāve also been hoping for a spin-off series that only focuses on the Brave Companions, as they were all neatly written out except for Qyburn. Iām full of GoT opinions and can speak on them for hours.
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