Ever since Bran started seeing visions of the past, it’s been a matter of time before something happened that affects the future. Two weeks ago, at the Tower of Joy, Bran almost changed the future when he called out to his father, Ned Stark, who turned around as if he had heard something. The Three Eyed Raven was there to stop him (and pull him away since he was becoming too involved.) But tonight, we saw things go all sorts of wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey, and made a tragic discovery. SPOILERS AHEAD.
This will be my monument
This will be a beacon when I’m gone
So that when the spoiler comes,
I can say I did it all with love
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We’re Coming For Your Spoilers
“The past is already written.” But what about the future? When the past and the future meet, sometimes there’s a paradox. And sometimes that paradox means that the future was already here, and all this has happened before and all this will happen again.
Something like that happened tonight. When it was revealed that the Night’s King was coming for Bran, it seemed very strange to me that the Three-Eyed Raven immediately insisted he must warg back into the past, back to Winterfell, and to the moment when his father left Riverrun. But that’s because the Three-Eyed Raven knew that, back in the past, Bran had to be there on that afternoon, and Bran had to warg through time and space into Hodor in the present, through Hodor in the past.
At first, it seemed like Wylis (past Hodor) was fine, as Hodor in the present (commanded by Bran inside) ran from the wights with Bran in tow and Meera behind. We knew things were dire when Summer sacrificed himself so the threesome could get away. We knew things were worse when the Child of the Forest blew herself up to give them time.
But we didn’t know that, in order to keep Bran and Meera safe, Hodor would be making the final sacrifice, and would be killed by wights, holding the door…or that moments before he died with Bran warged into him, Bran would accidentally warg into Wylis in the past, bouncing the moment back through time. The trauma that made Wylis unable to speak any word but Hodor was experiencing the memory of his own final moments and the last command he ever heard…hold the door…holddadoor….holdador…hodor…hodor…hodor…
And now we know that, for decades, Hodor has held in his mind the moment of his own death, already written in the past.