Game of Thrones Showrunners Confirm They Just Resolved Another Book Mystery

Coldhands, welcome to the show...

By Eric Goldman

Warning: Full spoilers for the May 29th episode of Game of Thrones, "Blood of My Blood," below, along with discussion of the five books that have been released so far in The Song of Ice and Fire series.

Since Season 6 of Game of Thrones began, those who have read the books have braced themselves for "the show spoiling the books" in a much more notable way, now that the series has reached and moved past most of the big events from the Song of Ice and Fire series - and this week's episode was another big example of that, as the mystery of Coldhands was resolved.

Actually, two mysteries were resolved, since as it turned out, the mystery of who Coldhands is and the mystery of whatever happened to Ned's missing brother, Night's Watch member Benjen Stark, turned out to be one shared answer - Coldhands is Benjen Stark.

In the books, the mysterious Coldhands, who always keeps his face covered, first appeared in A Storm of Swords, released in 2000, helping Sam, Gilly and her son return to Castle Black. He appeared again in A Dance With Dragons, helping Bran, Hodor, Meera and Jojen. Many fans have theorized that Coldhands was actually the long-missing Benjen Stark (who hasn't been seen since the very beginning of both the books and the TV show), but so far, there has been no confirmation yet in the novels.

In the show however, while Benjen returned with his face covered, his true identity was given by the end of this week's episode - as was the manner in which he was dead, yet alive, thanks to the Children of the Forest. The name "Coldhands" is never used in the show, but if there was any lingering doubt that we were seeing that same character onscreen, Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss used the term in the "Inside the Episode" segment for "Blood of My Blood."

"Coldhands Benjen obviously had a lot to do with the Three-Eyed Raven for the last several years since his disappearance," explains Weiss, quickly reinforcing that yes, this is one mystery from A Song of Ice and Fire that we now know the answer to, after 16 years of speculation.

Eric Goldman is Executive Editor of IGN TV. You can follow him on Twitter at @TheEricGoldman, IGN at ericgoldman-ign and Facebook at http://ift.tt/LQFqjj.

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