When The Umbrella Academy revealed the circumstances of Ben's miraculous birth, it also added a deeper layer of emotional resonance to his death. The Umbrella Academy season 3 finally provided long-awaited details about the Hargreeves siblings' biological mothers. Indeed, the very first scene showed a teenage girl, very heavily implied to be Ben's mother, on the day she was spontaneously impregnated by the mysterious "marigold" fireflies that gave rise to the Umbrella Academy. The girl was happily frolicking with a boy around her age, they kissed gently, and then a baby sprouted into her stomach, rapidly reaching full term before the subway even reached its stop.

Of course, Ben died in The Umbrella Academy season 2. Justin H. Min's character was already a ghost due to the unexplained "Jennifer" incident that occurred years before, but Klaus' spooky powers allowed his brother to cling on. With Viktor threatening another accidental apocalypse in The Umbrella Academy season 2, Ben volunteered to sacrifice himself, sharing a final, emotional scene with Viktor before departing permanently. Umbrella Ben sharing his final scene with Viktor - rather than Klaus, who he had spent the past two seasons bonding with - seemed an odd creative choice at the time, but Ben's birth scene in The Umbrella Academy season 3 finally explained it.

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Ben & Viktor's Similar Births Make Season 2's Sacrifice Better

Ben mother in Umbrella Academy

Weirdly, Ben's birth in The Umbrella Academy was almost identical to Viktor's. Swapping a subway in Seoul for a swimming pool in Russia, The Umbrella Academy season 1, episode 1, showed Viktor's birth. His not-pregnant-whatsoever mother was happily frolicking with a boy around her age. They kissed gently, and then a baby sprouted into her stomach moments later, perfectly mirroring the circumstances of Ben's birth shown in The Umbrella Academy season 3. This parallel between Ben and Viktor makes the brothers two-of-a-kind, even among the seven tight-knit Hargreeves siblings, and that closeness makes Ben sharing his emotional last moments with Viktor all the more meaningful.

Since only Klaus could see him, Ben Hargreeves very rarely interacted with his other siblings throughout The Umbrella Academy seasons 1 and 2. This meant the live-action Netflix adaptation never developed Ben's relationships with Viktor, Luther, etc., despite them all speaking highly of him. Choosing Viktor as the character Ben would share his final moments with, therefore, seemed odd. The numerous references to Klaus during Ben's final conversation with Viktor further highlighted how Klaus himself was the more obvious choice as the character to hug Ben while he died. The parallels subsequently raised in The Umbrella Academy season 3, however, explained why Ben and Viktor share a particularly special bond.

Is Love Important To The Hargreeves Mothers In Umbrella Academy?

Viktor mother in Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy has not yet explained why specific young women were chosen to carry the 43 children - if, indeed, they were chosen deliberately at all. The process remains entirely ambiguous, meaning the marigold fireflies may have found hosts at random, or picked choice Umbrella Academy mothers with specific qualities. Given that the process may have involved some element of intention, it is strange that both Ben and Viktor were born to young teens who had kissed boys they were flirting with only moments earlier. The odds that two out of seven Hargreeves siblings would experience such eerily similar beginnings at random are remote.

And yet The Umbrella Academy season 3 also reveals that not every Hargreeves sibling birth was preceded by a teenage kiss in a public setting. The flashback montage of head explosions triggered by Harlan reveals many of the mothers were in settings where kissing would be highly inappropriate - a school, a workplace, a butcher's shop, etc. - when they received their fireflies. The shot of Viktor's mother dying at the swimming pool confirms that these alternate timeline mothers died in the same place their prime counterparts were supposed to give birth, meaning time travel changes in The Umbrella Academy do not affect where each mother was located.

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Confirmation that not every marigold mother had the same pre-birth experience makes the strange correlation between Ben and Viktor even more special in The Umbrella Academy. These two birth scenes had no obvious logical reason to play out so identically, and yet the similarities are too glaring to deny. Ben may have spent his post-death existence hitching a spectral ride with Klaus, but The Umbrella Academy season 3 strongly signposts that Viktor was perhaps a closer sibling while Ben was alive, and that makes season 2's sacrifice so much stronger.

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