As his powers and use of powers already suggest in the series, Ben is an Avataric Creature of Light.[1] An early draft of Carnivàle, which consisted of diary entries by Benjamin "Ben" Hawkins, summarized his childhood as growing up on a run-down farm with his mother and grandfather in the belief that his father had died in World War I. After both his grandfather and mother had died from cancer, he was "shanghaied by a group of carnies" in 1930.[2] In a later version closer to the actual series, Ben left his mother's farm at age sixteen and fell into a criminal life in Texas.