I'm with you on Daenerys, but how is Benjen different in the books? I never read them so I'm curious.
It's not so much that he is different, but the scenes he has make more of an impact. He's a big reason Jon joints the Night Watch. He goes on a scout mission and Jon is alone for the first time. All the NW do for a while is ask - where is Benjen, do you think he was killed? The entire march north with the Lord Commander is about looking for him as much as anything else, and if he had been around there was a real sense it would have gone better. That was his reputation. Then everyone just stops talking about it but for readers it just sits out there forever: kind of like the Pine Barrens guy from the Sopranos if you know that: where the heck is Benjen? For whatever reason he never had the same impact on the series.