When Hodor Died On "Game Of Thrones"
For a show that traffics in killing off main characters like spitting out watermelon seeds, it takes a lot for its deaths to shock and devastate viewers six seasons in. But the series outdid itself with the death of Hodor, the simple-minded, gentle giant named for the only word he ever speaks. Everyone within Westeros and watching the show on TV knew “hodor” to be only a nonsense word. But then Bran, Hodor and Meera find themselves being chased by a horde of wights, i.e., zombies. Meera and crippled Bran escape as Meera screams at Hodor to “hold the door” to the cave in which they were hiding, keeping the wights sealed in. Meanwhile, Bran uses his power to possess Hodor’s body, which produces a vision of the past, inadvertently linking Hodor’s mind to that of his younger self, the latter experiencing his own future death as the wights rip the older Hodor apart while Meera screams, “Hold the door.” Young Hodor collapses and seizes from the trauma of the time warp, convulsing on the ground and repeating “hold the door” over and over until it slurs into the single word that becomes the only thing he’ll ever say for the rest of his life.