Ben

Quick Facts

A senior assassin and second-in-command to the King of the Assassins, Ben dies just before the events of The Assassin and the Pirate Lord, but his absence shapes everything that follows. Barely thirty at his death, he was a mentor and rare source of kindness for Celaena Sardothien. Key ties: Arobynn Hamel (closest friend and commander), Celaena (protégé), and Sam Cortland (fellow inner-circle assassin). Known for his deft healing skills—“cool, deft hands”—and for balancing ruthless training with genuine care.

Who They Are

Ben is the Guild’s missing conscience. Though we never see him alive on the page, he functions as a moral north star whose memory steadies Celaena as she begins to doubt the world that raised her. His death is the crack that lets light in: it destabilizes Arobynn’s authority, exposes fault lines within the Guild, and gives Celaena a humane standard by which to judge the work of assassins.

Personality & Traits

Beneath the title of assassin, Ben carried himself like a caretaker—someone who could break bones and also set them. His mentorship of Celaena shows a man who believed efficiency and empathy weren’t mutually exclusive, a dangerous anomaly in a profession built on fear.

• Compassionate, even nurturing: The “ever-smiling assassin” who mended Celaena’s shattered hand and “coax[ed] a laugh from her with a joke or a lewd anecdote,” Ben turns a brutal training ground into a place where care exists alongside violence.
• Loyal and steady: He grew up with Arobynn and “never questioned his place as Arobynn’s Second,” providing ballast to a volatile leader and stability to the inner circle.
• Moral center: Celaena is certain he would have rejected the slave trade outright—“If Ben were alive, he wouldn’t have stood for it”—revealing a principled line between targeted killing and systemic cruelty.
• Skilled healer within a violent craft: Recollections of his “cool, deft hands” mark him as precise, gentle, and trustworthy, traits that deepen the loss felt by the Guild.
• Young but authoritative: “Barely thirty” and already the seventh member of Arobynn’s inner circle, he represents early mastery—and tragic, wasted potential.

Character Journey

Ben’s “arc” unfolds through absence. At first, he is a wound: news of his death detonates the fragile peace in the Keep and floods Celaena with grief. As the story progresses, he becomes a yardstick for integrity. What begins as personal mourning turns into an ethical compass, guiding Celaena away from blind obedience and toward her own code—an early movement in her Loss of Innocence and Coming of Age. By the time Celaena defies orders to honor him, Ben’s memory has transformed from private solace to public motive, legitimizing dissent against a corrupt system.

Key Relationships

• Arobynn Hamel: Ben is Arobynn’s closest confidant and the institutional glue of the Guild. Arobynn’s visible grief reads as one of his few genuine emotions, yet the murkiness around Ben’s final mission throws their bond into doubt, hinting that even deep loyalty can be exploited inside the Keep’s power games.

• Celaena Sardothien: To Celaena, Ben is both mentor and refuge—the one who trained her without stripping away tenderness. Her choice to recover his body against orders shows how his influence hardens into conviction; she inherits not just his skills, but his standards, and the “vacancy … that she didn’t think could ever be filled” becomes a moral space she feels compelled to occupy.

• Sam Cortland: Though their direct interactions are off-page, Ben’s presence once buffered tensions between Celaena and Sam. After his death, their rivalry sharpens into conflict, suggesting that Ben’s steadying influence had quietly kept the inner circle functional.

Defining Moments

Ben’s presence is felt most strongly at the points where the Guild’s codes collide with human decency. Each moment below reveals how his legacy redirects the plot and redefines allegiance.

• The announcement of his death

  • What happens: Arobynn informs the inner circle that “Ben was killed,” shattering normalcy inside the Keep.
  • Why it matters: The shock exposes how much cohesion depended on Ben’s quiet authority. Celaena’s volatile grief establishes immediate stakes and primes her to question the Guild’s narrative.

• Celaena retrieves his body

  • What happens: Defying Arobynn and over Sam’s objections, Celaena slips out to recover Ben’s body from the city guards.
  • Why it matters: This act is Celaena’s first open break with the Guild’s chain of command—an allegiance to personal honor over institutional protocol—and an early step toward the ideals of Freedom vs. Servitude.

• Memory as moral directive

  • What happens: Flashbacks to Ben’s training and healing shape Celaena’s disgust for the slave trade.
  • Why it matters: Ben’s remembered standards become actionable ethics; his absence actively moves the plot by pushing Celaena toward resistance.

Essential Quotes

Celaena gripped the arms of her chair. “What?” Ben—Ben, the ever-smiling assassin who had trained her as often as Arobynn had. Ben, who had once mended her shattered right hand. Ben, the seventh and final member of Arobynn’s inner circle. He was barely thirty years old.

This introduction compresses Ben’s dual identity—assassin and healer—into a single shock. Listing his roles underscores how much institutional weight he carried, while “barely thirty” emphasizes squandered promise. The cadence reads like a eulogy, establishing the elegiac tone that follows.

Ben. Ben was dead and gone, and she’d never again run into him in the halls of the Keep. He’d never set her injuries with his cool, deft hands, never coax a laugh from her with a joke or a lewd anecdote.

The grief here is domestic and intimate: empty halls, absent hands, missing laughter. Rather than glorifying his lethality, the memory lingers on care and humor—precisely the qualities that make his loss destabilizing and morally instructive for Celaena.

If Ben were alive, he wouldn’t have stood for it. Ben would have been as disgusted as she was. Being hired to kill corrupt government officials was one thing, but taking prisoners of war, brutalizing them until they stopped fighting back, and sentencing them to a lifetime of slavery …

This hypothetical draws a bright line in a murky profession. By invoking Ben’s imagined judgment, Celaena authorizes her own defiance; his standard reframes obedience as complicity and resistance as fidelity to the Guild’s best self. The unfinished thought trails into outrage, capturing the moment her grief hardens into principle.