44:55
(+5)
Benjen Stark:
Benjen tells the story of his death and resurrection to Bran Stark: "I led a ranging party deep into the North to find White Walkers. They found us. A white walker stabbed me in the gut with a sword of ice. Left me there to die. To turn. The Children found me. Stopped the walker's magic from taking hold."
(Death)
submitted by cmwalken15 (approved!)
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Edit: we heavily debated whether he was killed by the white walkers or just injured -cmwalken15
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This wording is almost a direct contradiction from his previous description of events about how he was about to die and then the Children of the Forest saved him: "A white walker stabbed me in the gut with a sword of ice. Left me there *to die*... The Children found me. Stopped the Walker's magic from taking hold."
I think we'll have to make our own determination on whether turning into a White Walker counts as "dying" (and thus WW-ifying counts as a Kill). Here's the scores it would affect:
1. Benjen's death points here.
2. Leaf's major injury of the First Man upgraded to Kill
3. Night King's boop on Craster's baby counts as a Kill
4. Probably very important for future scoring once the White Walkers truly invade -nyan
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Hmmm, we should define "death". But unless they are explicitly, without a shadow of a doubt, dead, then we shouldn't count the points. In GoT, there seems to be a gray area between "living" and "dead," and I think that Benjen is in that gray area, and not yet dead. -skywalkerdude
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I agree that it would change some of those scorings. We were unclear on what exactly unfolded with benjen, but now it seems a bit clearer. He was stabbed and left to die. The walker magic is to bring back the dead, meaning it cannot work on the living. So for the walker magic to be taking hold he would have had to be dead. It was unclear before if his scarring was do to walker magic of COTF magic. Now it seems that he was dead, based on his new statement, and was transforming into a wight and the COTF stopped it midway through the transformation process. Thus, benjen did in fact die. However, that does not mean white walkerifciation (like leaf in the flashback) is a death. We still need more info there. -cmwalken15
nyan and righteous like this -
I think the magic of the wall is slightly more nuanced than what we have time for in a 30 second scene/conversation between Bran and Benjen. Until we either see it or know that Benjen was once dead, I don't think he should get death points -alexanderdropkin
nyan likes this -
I'm thinking #4 is actually the event I'm most interested in the impact for. In the future if we see the White Walker King convert someone to WW-status (like they did with Craster's baby), would you like to see that credited as a Kill, or just a Major Injury? -nyan
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Major injury I think, though it would have to depend on what actually happens. Like are they transformed into a nameless White Walker or just like a white walker version of themselves? If there's no recognizeable original character left, I'd say that's a kill -alexanderdropkin
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There seems to be three differnt magics with life or death we have seen in the show. One, you die and come back as a mindless zombie (wight). Second, You are dead and the Lord of Light (whatever that is) brings you back, but your not fully who you used to be, as both John and Dondarrion have stated. "Ive lost something of myself" Dondarrion (paraphrasing). Third, a WW takes a baby and transforms them into a WW. I think its never an adult because they do keep a part of themesleves, thus babys can be indoctrianted into WW culture, whatever that is. So, i agree WW changing is just a Major Injury.
Benjen, i beleive, is a combination of two of these. WW are immortal, and can only be killed by a few select methods, but not natuarlly (evidence: night king is 1000s of years old). Benjen was slaughtered by WW and left to die, as stated, and was begining to tranasform into a wight, also as stated. We see evdience of his death by the necrosis all over his face, as well as the signiture blue markings of whightification on his face as well. Wightification times also vary depending on distance from the north, as well as local WW population. But wightification can only occur to individuals who are DEAD. And benjen this epsidoe stated that not only does the wall posses magic to stop the dead, but also he cannot cross. Ipso facto he is dead. However, kind like in trueblood where they turn jess into a Vamp to save her life, jess was pronounced dead as well, the COTF give Benjen a dose of WW magic to make him immortal, thus quasi ressurected. And the reason WW dont use this magic on all the dead, making a stronger army of WW instead of mindless wights, is do to them retaining parts of there mind and personality.
I beleive this should be suffcient evdience to demonstrate how benjen did in fact die, from both verbal and physical confirmation of death and whitification. And how WW transformation, although a differnt magic also plays a role in what bemjen daid in episode 6 and what happend to him. -cmwalken15
nyan likes this -
First of all, I think we agree that going 100% white walker counts as "death." I'll use that as a starting point. White Walkers are *dead* by all accounts in the show and the books. Ben's changed permanently but not quite WW-ified, sure.
My recommendation is to consider his horse's reaction to him. Horses in the show have usually bolted when White Walkers appeared--they generally fear death. However Benjen's trusty steed seems very obedient and well-tamed in service to him. This seems to be an argument for "majory injury" more than "death."
I'd agree with, at the very least, major injury. -righteous
skywalkerdude likes this -
Unless, of course, Benjen's horse is also dead, which it MAY BE. In which case, damn, dude's dead. -righteous
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Lol yea i mean the dudes dead. I think at this points its all but comfirmed. Reasons why above -cmwalken15
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I like @righteous's reasoning. I don't see any evidence that the horse is undead as well. Looks like a regular horse to me! -skywalkerdude
righteous likes this -
I just re-watched and saw that Benjen confirms in ep6 that the CotF plunged a shard of dragonglass into his heart (Bran's words). This might be along the lines of Jon Snow's reanimation (dead, and once again, alive). -righteous
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And to be clear, the horse is not undead. You can see it living clearly in ep 6. -righteous
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Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do...go through his clothes and look for loose change. -mattymatt808
bookworm13457 and as38 like this -
When Benjen says "The Wall has magic to stop the dead", I get the sense that he's talking about a different kind of dead - more like undead, like a vampire would be. Similar magic applies to the White Walkers (who couldn't enter the Three-Eyed Raven's cave).
In the two examples of direct WW-ification we've seen (Leaf's dagger and Craster's baby), it's been more like a vampire/zombie bite where the virus takes over and permanently changes the person, but at no point does the "life" go out of their body.
Since Benjen can walk and talk and generally do living-person things, I think it doesn't fit the criteria we want for someone who's scored as currently dead. We might also later discover that WW-ification is reversible, which puts us in an awkward spot. I think it's better to focus on whether WW or wight-status implies that the character must have died for real previously.
@cmwalken15 I think makes the best case - wightification (not WW-ification) only happens on corpses, so a reasonable theory is that Benjen became one, started wightification, but the CotF stopped the process and revived him.
Theory B could be that Benjen started the wightification process while just *injured*, but the CotF stopped it. Benjen's undead status comes from the partial wightification. However we have never seen wightification happen on a living person.
Theory B2 variant could be that Benjen was mortally wounded, and the CotF saved him by initiating the WW-ification process (improved after a couple thousand years of practice to no longer turn you into a mindless killing machine). Benjen's undead status comes from his WW-ification. However Benjen's features (decomposing skin) match the wights much more than WW (no hint of blue eyes).
@cmwalken15's theory means Benjen did die, and it does seem most likely. In retrospect, I think all of this evidence is already present in E6, so if we scored it might retroactively go there instead. -nyan
righteous and cmwalken15 like this -
since this is so unclear I believe the most we would be able to do with this is give points for a major injury as it is so unclear as to whether or not benjen was actually dead at any point -as38
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But it is not unclear, do to the vidual cues of the whightification process, which can only occur to a dead person. As well as the ipso facto logic of Benjen's lines is episode 10. -cmwalken15
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Yes, there are clear visual signs of rotting flesh on his face. WW-ification had definitely begun. -righteous
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