Benjen Stark

It becomes peaceful.

He even mentions finding his own brother frozen at his watch with a smile on his face.

Wow.

And that physical reality of the environment is weaponized here as a misdirection.

He is seven years old.

He is brought along to watch a man be decapitated.

His older brother, Jon Snow, explicitly tells him not to look away because his father will know if he does.

It is institutionalized trauma in the name of honor.

Yeah, it can't be bypassed.

And Benjen as well, but you're not playing this in the same deck.

at all.

Yeah, but you're not playing this in any deck because it's too much of a counter card.

Anyway, it seems likely that one of Artos and Lysara's descendants, a couple of generations later, was Lainara Stark, who was Rickard Stark's first cousin and wife.

Lainara and Rickard, of course, were the parents of Brandon, Ned, Lyanna and Benjen.

So the Starks we know in the main story have quite a bit of Karstark ancestry.

A thing that the Karstarks are proud of.

While in Bloodraven's cave, Bran accesses the Weirwood network and sees through the Winterfell Weirwood as a number of scenes play out.

They appear to be going backwards in time – I'll skip a couple of them for brevity – and do be aware that there's some graphic language in the upcoming quote, but we get first his father, then his uncle Benjen and aunt Lyanna as children, then what seems to be Old Man as a young woman, and probably Sir Duncan the Tall, what appears to be Brandon Snow making weirwood arrows at the time of Aegon's invasion, and furthest back in time, this.

A bearded man forced a captive down onto his knees before the heart-tree.

A white-haired woman stepped toward them through a drift of dark red leaves, a bronze sickle in her hand.

They end up setting fires, and Jon talks to Old Bear, and he's trying to be strategic.

But you can tell he's trying to not say, "Hey, what about my uncle?"

[laughs]

"We were supposed to look for Benjen.

And it's all about themselves.

And-

Yeah, 'cause, like, their uncle died or whatever, and they don't give a fuck.

They're just like, "Okay, who's next in the line?"

I mean, the rest of the Mad King play, which is everything after the tournament of Harrenhal, Robert's Rebellion, and all that other stuff.

So yeah, the, it starts with the Royal Procession, then How We Pray, Drinking Contest, The Feast, Lady Whent Confronts Rhaegar, Dornish Meeting, The Starks Meet Arthur, Lyanna, Benjen, and Howland, Ned and Robert and Rhaegar, A New Approach, Lyanna and Robert, Ashara and Brandon, A Spider, Harold, The King Arrives, Interlude: Book Sources.

And then the second half of our episode, a- as distinguished from the second half of the play, which is not, not to be covered today at all, Rhaegar and the Kingsguard, A Lady's Favor, The Prince and the King.

Yes, that is a play on The Princess and the Queen.

And so her brothers show up, whatever, whether they heard the commotion, they heard the howl, or they heard both.

They, they appear and that's enough for the squires to run away.

And because it's Benjen, Ned, and Brandon.

And Brandon is...

No, that's...

That might be Benjen.

No, Rhaegar looks like a Targaryen.

Nobody-

That guy?

Who's-

One of these guys might be Benjen.

Right.

Jon investigates the abandoned free folk village White Tree, the fourth of its name here of its kind, abandoned with Jeor and Sam.

They wonder what Benjen might have discovered when he rode through here.

Arya

IV, on the southern shores of the God's Eye, the Lannister soldiers attack.