Why is Ben Hargreeves the only established The Umbrella Academy character in season 3’s Sparrow Academy? Rocking up at Hargreeves mansion in the final moments of The Umbrella Academy season 2’s finale, the Hargreeves siblings were shocked to find a bunch of strangers in their places. Referred to by Sir Reginald as the “Sparrow Academy,” this motley crew comprised five totally unfamiliar faces and a weird metal cube, but one common thread remained – Justin H. Min’s Ben. He might have strange hair and an obnoxious attitude, but Sparrow Ben is undoubtedly this rewritten timeline’s version of the Horror.
To understand why Ben is the only child Sir Reginald adopted in both The Umbrella Academy timelines, one must first understand how the Hargreeves siblings have trampled over the time-space continuum during their journey so far. The Umbrella Academy‘s original continuity saw Sir Reginald Hargreeves acquire Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Five, Ben and Viktor from the 43 spontaneous babies. Ben died under still-very-mysterious circumstances while the Academy were all in their teens, but lived on as a ghost through Klaus’ occasional clairvoyance. To avert an apocalypse in 2019, the Umbrellas traveled back to 1963, successfully completed their mission, and returned home to find Sparrows in their nest.
The Umbrella Academy hasn’t confirmed precisely why the Sparrows replaced the Umbrellas, but season 2’s timeline antics allow for a solid guess. During their trip to the 1960s, the Umbrella Academy confronted a younger version of their future father. The meeting didn’t go quite to plan, and Sir Reginald walked away largely disgusted by the six messy adults claiming to be his children. The working assumption for The Umbrella Academy season 3 is that Sir Reginald hated the siblings he met in 1963 so much, he deliberately picked an entirely different Academy in 1989. Reggie also would’ve known his initial team failed to become the awesome superhero unit he envisioned. This explains why Ben was selected for both teams. Ghost Ben might be clinging onto Klaus during their visit to the past, but Reginald can’t see him (and, therefore, never meets him) during the ill-fated 1963 encounter. Unlike the other six miscreants, Sir Reginald has no reason not to pick Ben for his Sparrow Academy.
Ben’s Sparrow life has evidently played out very differently compared to The Umbrella Academy‘s original timeline. Not only did the Horror avoid dying at a young age, but he developed a harder, less compassionate personality, and now carries a scar across his face. This proves just how vital the original Hargreeves siblings – and also Pogo, who moved away from the Sparrow setup – were in shaping Ben’s persona. Reigniting the age-old nature vs nurture debate, The Umbrella Academy comes down hard on the latter side, with Umbrella Ben turning out delightful, and Sparrow Ben growing up frightful – a Horror in more ways than one.
The comparison between Umbrella Ben and Sparrow Ben will inevitably play a massive part in The Umbrella Academy season 3. Klaus might be (a little too) accustomed to seeing his brother, but the other Hargreeves siblings only witnessed one or two fleeting glimpses of Ben’s ghost when Klaus found enough strength to physically manifest him. Being around a real-life fleshy Ben once again – even one with an awful attitude – will hit the Umbrella kids harder than an interdimensional tentacle. Maybe some of them even believe the “old” Ben’s kindness and heart can still be dragged out of his Sparrow counterpart. If the Umbrella siblings made Ben a good person in the original timeline, maybe they can repeat the trick for his spiky-haired variant…
