Game of Thrones “The Door” Review: Hodor

The Children of the Forrest on Game of Thrones

Photo Credit: HBO 

A bunch of thoughts on “The Door” right after I look after I make you a new fir coat…

“Hodor”

-Hodor

RIP Hodor/Wyllis.

Never in a thousand years did I think I would be near tears watching the death of Hodor, yet here I sit utterly devastated. Sure Hodor was a beloved character but more for a much needed of internet driven humour than anything else. I did enjoy me some Hodor jokes but never saw him as a character to really take as a player who would occupy any sort of big emotional portion of the show.

Boy how wrong I was. The death and tragic origin story of Hodor/Wyllis was one of the best scenes that Game of Thrones has ever done. It was the most tragic example of civilian casualty we have ever seen take place on the show. One of the things that fantasy stories tend to ignore when telling their epic stories are the little guys. We always get the stories of the giant overarching battles for kingdoms and empires but never get to a peek into the existences of every day people whose lives could be ruined by the epic battles that occur. Hodor is the biggest innocent casualty we have ever seen on Game of Thrones to date, a man who had everything taken from him because of “the greater cause.” It was pretty clear from the moment we saw part of Hodor’s backstory that we were ultimately going to get to the reason he lost the ability to say anything other than Hodor and turns out it was more tragic than anyone could have imagined. Turns out that Hodor did not just meet his end from holding the door so that Bran could escape the white walkers but it is through Bran’s magic link to the past that Hodor initially looses almost all forms of speech as well. Turns out that Bran’s powers can actually have an effect on the past in devastating fashion as we see poor Wyllis become overwhelming by the screaming in the present only to have a seizure and be left with the ability to say a mumbled version of “hold the door” i.e. Hodor. Hodor was just a simple stable boy looking to have a great life in Winterfell, but because he was dragged into this mess he found himself voiceless and eventually dead.

The final sequence of “The Door” was yet another fantastic example of the grand cinematic gestures that Game of Thrones does so well. The arrival of the White Walkers and their zombie army was terrifying, and the action that followed was gut wrenching. The death of Hodor that climaxed the sequence was so perfectly handled, a perfect example of how well Game of Thrones can mine a massive amount of emotion out of a side character in a single grand gesture. As I mentioned at the top the tears were nearly flowing as Hodor was tragically stabbed to death as the tragic score swelled in the background. I did not expect any big final scene this season to top Dany emerging from the fire last week, but the tragic death of Hodor may have done the trick.

The rest of “The Door” was just a breezy episode of Game of Thrones that advanced multiple plot points nicely. I am still really enjoying this newfound alliance between Sansa and Jon as they continue to plot taking over the north this week. After largely being a secondary player in her own torture last season it seems that Sansa is taking her fortune back into her own hands in a most satisfying manner. Her conversation with Littlefinger was both painful and empowering as Sansa seems to no longer be a prisoner to the pain of her captor. Sansa may have lived through a lot of hell with Ramsey, but she is now in full control and is not giving it up anytime soon.

We got some bits and pieces from afar as well. Tyrion employing the help of the priestess of the Lord of Light is an interesting development in the continued building of support for Dany. It also gave us a nice little tidbit of Varys’ past giving us more of a sense of what makes him tick. We also got a continued look at the battle for leadership on the Iron Islands. Yarra and Theon don’t end up winning the battle for leadership but they seem to have won the war as they get their revenge by stealing most of the fleet to end their end of the episode.

At the end of the day though “The Door” will be remembered for its final scene and the tragic end of Hodor. It has been nice knowing you Hodor you shall be missed.

Some other musings:

• I still don’t know exactly what they are doing with Arya. This week she has to kill an older actress and witness the death of her father in play form yet again. I am enjoying the individual moments of Arya’s plot line well enough but I hope we are headed towards some kind of conclusion sometime soon.

• This was the first episode in a while with no Kingslanding and no Ramsey. With the show continuing to feature so many characters I hope that the show continues to pair down the amount of characters in each episode in order to give each character a larger amount of focus per episode.

That’s it for this week. I need to go and recover now…

That’s just me though. What did everyone else think?