The actor behind one of Game of Thrones’ most popular characters is sharing how it felt learning the twist of his final fate.
Of all the sad character endings on Game of Thrones, Hodor may be the most heartbreaking. For six seasons, fans had come to love this hulking figure with a childlike demeanor whose only word was his own name. He was a loyal servant to the Starks, including protecting Bran (Isaac Hempstead Wright) on his journeys as Bran became the Three-Eyed Raven.
The season 6 episode “The Door” featured Bran enduring visions of a young Meera with a man named Wylis. In both timelines, Bran wargs across the timeline and controls Hodor and Wylis, as in the past they’re attacked by White Walkers. During the battle, Bran ended up linking Wylis’s mind to Hodor’s in the present.
As they escape, they tell Wylis to “hold the door” against the enemy. Wylis does, repeating the line over and over until it becomes “Hodor,” revealing he’s actually Hodor. He’s overwhelmed as Bran realizes he was responsible for Hodor’s mental regression.
Kristian Nairn remembers intense Game of Thrones security
As shared on his Instagram page, actor Kristian Nairn did a Q&A with fans and was asked when he knew of Hodor’s fate and his secret past.
“To start I knew nothing, I knew exactly what you guys knew right up until really I read the last script,” Nairn recalls. “They kept everything locked down, and it had to be that way, because towards the end, the security was crazy. Everything was double and triple securitied. ‘Securitied?’ That's a good word. And also there were drones and stuff flying over the set, trying to see what we were doing. The security was pretty wild, so everything was kept pretty much on lockdown.”
That level of secrecy is no surprise, given how famously the GOT producers worked to keep spoilers from leaking out. That was even more key in season 6, where fans were theorizing how the show would end. The fact that Hodor’s fate in the books is yet to be decided meant his death was all the more shocking.
The twist of his name and its tragic origins wasn’t just a shock for fans but served the storyline. It told Bran the dangers of meddling with fate as well as how the simplest of people can become heroes. It also put all of Hodor’s early scenes in a new light, as in a way he always knew where his fate led but followed it anyway.
It was a sad fate, especially given how great Nairn was in the role, and his ending showed the pathos and tragedy of the character who’d started out as comic relief. Narin is still happy to have taken part in this epic show, and it's interesting to learn he was as much in the dark about Hodor’s secret as fans were, making his conclusion all the more powerful.
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