Hodor has possibly become the most tragic character in all of this.
BUT I MEAN WHATEVER MORE TORMUND AND BRIENNE!
Lets examine the life and times of Wylis "Hodor" Lastname.
He starts out a stable boy in service to the Starks. Pretty sweet gig truth be told. The Starks are an honorable and good family. Wylis is pretty big and with some training could probably be a great fighter one day, but even forgetting that he should have a pretty good life ahead of him. One day though, he (maybe, maybe not) spots some other kid for a second before his mind is overwhelmingly flooded with a single thought, Hold The Door. It consumes him so much so that he has a seizure and can't help but say it over and over until it just becomes one word that he says, Hodor. The fit was so bad that it left him as a kind of dullard who could only say that one word over and over. What happens when you can only say one word though? People start calling you that one word. Hodor wasn't as dumb as people thought he was. If he'd known how to read and write he could probably have communicated with others and let them know why he is the way he is, but he was just a stable boy so it's unlikely he ever knew. I'm sure for a while every time someone called him Hodor it just reminded him of what happened.
Fast forward a lifetime. Hodor still works the stables for the Stark family but it's more of a pity job now more than anything. Any chance he had to be anything more left him when he lost his ability to speak normally. Whats worse still is that ever since Bran fell out of that tower, Hodor has been in charge of carrying him around. What's a guy to do though? It's not like he can say no, both literally and figuratively and besides it's just a kid. Still though, things could be worse.
Things just got worse. Ned got killed, Rob went to war and got killed and Winterfell itself was just taken over. Hodor's only chance is to try and get Bran to safety. Bran says he wants to go north because something about a three eyed raven, and also a couple other kids showed up and agree. What's a guy to do about it? He literally can't say no. So he goes north, even north beyond The Wall. Along the way though, Bran does something that's terrifying in how it's both bizarre and familiar. Hodor loses control of himself for the second time in his life. Maybe he knows, at this point that this is what happened all those years ago but that's crazy, right? Bran wasn't even born then, how could he have done it? What he does know is that he hates it but can't explain why to the kid who keeps doing it to him.
Fast forward some more. We're at the place now. This is where it's all supposed to come together. This is where Hodor dragged this kid through miles and miles of snow, past a great wall, through enemy territory and past an army of the dead. Now Hodor can rest, right? He did his job and got Bran to where he needed to go so now he can just rest, right? Although he really can't because he knows where he is, what's outside and that Bran is just going to learn to keep controlling him and making him feel the way he did on that day years ago. Whatever. It can't get worse, right?
It got worse. Bran did something he shouldn't have, which it would have been nice of that other guy to warn about, and now an army of the dead are coming in. Hodor is taken over once again to help drag Bran out while everyone around him dies. Summer sacrifices himself for us, the last child of the forest does the same all so we can get out through this back door. But the dead can just come through it too though, right? Oh god this is really why he's here. This is his whole purpose in life. Everything he's had to endure and go through and fight for has lead up to...this? To holding the door. Hold the door. And he can't even say no.
He starts out a stable boy in service to the Starks. Pretty sweet gig truth be told. The Starks are an honorable and good family. Wylis is pretty big and with some training could probably be a great fighter one day, but even forgetting that he should have a pretty good life ahead of him. One day though, he (maybe, maybe not) spots some other kid for a second before his mind is overwhelmingly flooded with a single thought, Hold The Door. It consumes him so much so that he has a seizure and can't help but say it over and over until it just becomes one word that he says, Hodor. The fit was so bad that it left him as a kind of dullard who could only say that one word over and over. What happens when you can only say one word though? People start calling you that one word. Hodor wasn't as dumb as people thought he was. If he'd known how to read and write he could probably have communicated with others and let them know why he is the way he is, but he was just a stable boy so it's unlikely he ever knew. I'm sure for a while every time someone called him Hodor it just reminded him of what happened.
Fast forward a lifetime. Hodor still works the stables for the Stark family but it's more of a pity job now more than anything. Any chance he had to be anything more left him when he lost his ability to speak normally. Whats worse still is that ever since Bran fell out of that tower, Hodor has been in charge of carrying him around. What's a guy to do though? It's not like he can say no, both literally and figuratively and besides it's just a kid. Still though, things could be worse.
Things just got worse. Ned got killed, Rob went to war and got killed and Winterfell itself was just taken over. Hodor's only chance is to try and get Bran to safety. Bran says he wants to go north because something about a three eyed raven, and also a couple other kids showed up and agree. What's a guy to do about it? He literally can't say no. So he goes north, even north beyond The Wall. Along the way though, Bran does something that's terrifying in how it's both bizarre and familiar. Hodor loses control of himself for the second time in his life. Maybe he knows, at this point that this is what happened all those years ago but that's crazy, right? Bran wasn't even born then, how could he have done it? What he does know is that he hates it but can't explain why to the kid who keeps doing it to him.
Fast forward some more. We're at the place now. This is where it's all supposed to come together. This is where Hodor dragged this kid through miles and miles of snow, past a great wall, through enemy territory and past an army of the dead. Now Hodor can rest, right? He did his job and got Bran to where he needed to go so now he can just rest, right? Although he really can't because he knows where he is, what's outside and that Bran is just going to learn to keep controlling him and making him feel the way he did on that day years ago. Whatever. It can't get worse, right?
It got worse. Bran did something he shouldn't have, which it would have been nice of that other guy to warn about, and now an army of the dead are coming in. Hodor is taken over once again to help drag Bran out while everyone around him dies. Summer sacrifices himself for us, the last child of the forest does the same all so we can get out through this back door. But the dead can just come through it too though, right? Oh god this is really why he's here. This is his whole purpose in life. Everything he's had to endure and go through and fight for has lead up to...this? To holding the door. Hold the door. And he can't even say no.
BUT I MEAN WHATEVER MORE TORMUND AND BRIENNE!
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Kinda wish I hadn't read the summary for this one; it had a couple plot points that were probably in George RR Martin's outline. One being tragic, the other being dumb but sounding like something he'd write.
That was not the door that most people thought it was going to be.
I think part of the reason for this is that he also experienced his own death.[DOUBLEPOST=1464013503,1464013328][/DOUBLEPOST]Dear Raven guy,
YOU MIGHT HAVE WANTED TO TELL BRAN WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF A WHITEWALKER TOUCHED HIM IN SEER-LAND!!!
Dave
Staff member
And Bran...Bran knows what he did. He's well aware of what he's done and what he's doing as he does it. He sacrifices Hodor simply to save his own skin and even then it might not help that much.
There's only one dire wolf remaining. (If Rickon has indeed been caught.)
I fucking HATED the explodey seed grenade things. Game of Thrones - by Michael Bay.
There is another wolf. She just hasn't popped up in the books or show yet.
I'll tell you what I had. An explanation for the origin of the Whitewalkers. Things are much more scary when you leave their origins shrouded in mystery.
Dave
Staff member
True. I hope she does and brings Arya back to the fold. I don't like her as a Faceless Man. I mean, that's badass and all, but she's a Stark, damn it.
Midichloreans!!
Ring, Valyrian Steel sword, tomayto tomahto
That's the dumb thing that I'm pretty sure George RR Martin came up with. I hope I'm wrong for the books' sake, but usually the stuff the show makes up is character-related, not world-related.
In the books is the map, where you look at the part for the Wall. It shows some towers, the Haunted woods, and then there aren't any lines or details, just a vast white unknown called The Land of Always Winter. No knowing what's up there, or even how big it is. It's creepy all on its own and it's where the white walkers have been. Needed no further explanation.
I semi agree. I guess the origin of them wasn't super important but the questions of why and why now are still important, and seeing into their origin can help with that.
I'm not saying we should know nothing of them, but what we were given here was underwhelming. Why they're coming back after 5,000 years is certainly significant, though I assumed it was because winter is bad enough this time for them to finally make the trek south.
It's unfortunate that the show can't capture the kind of winter described in the books. That winter is a frozen hell of endless snow, homes completely buried in several feet of it, while the white walkers ride prowl in the dark. You wouldn't even know your neighbors were already dead.
I think most of us here have encountered worse snow than we've seen in the show.
I mean being from Texas I already assumed they were in a frozen hell hole.
And to me I assumed winter cMe with the walkers and not the other way around. That were wood the guy was tied to was surrounded by green when they turned him into Walter Whitewalker and it was covered in ice when bran revisited it later. Presumably it's far north where the WW are.
Winter comes no matter what. The white walkers haven't been seen for 5,000 years, but there have been winters in that time. This was just a particularly long stretch between them, which the maesters don't like because a long summer usually means a long winter. Nan called Bran a summer child because he never experienced winter before, but all of the adults have experienced them. No white walkers though, for such a long time that no one believes they exist anymore. Maybe the long winters started with them, I don't know. It's odd that these long seasons only happen in Westeros. They talk of the coming of an endless summer, but other parts of this world already have that.
And certainly the white walkers were up there in the Land of Always Winter, but no one knows how big that place is or what else is up there. Keep in mind the Watch was doubting the existence of giants, but they sure found out whether or not that was true. Outside the realms of the maesters, magic is alive and well in this world.
I'm sure to people from Texas and California this looks pretty crappy
. Honestly it's beyond reason to expect them to depict the kind of winter described in the book. It would look beyond hope, which is kinda where things are in the books right now. I can't imagine the cost of that much fake snow.
Because the tv show needs to cut down on shit, while wasting older props.
You know what door will be used in the books... eventually.
Sure he could have... but then he'd break the loop... and waste all that money he spent on installing that back-door in his cave.
GasBandit
Staff member
