Throughout HBO’s Game of Thrones, audiences witnessed a number of incredibly emotional deaths, though few hit us as hard as Hodor‘s in Season Six, as the time-hopping episode revealed that his moniker “Hodor” was birthed out of the trauma he experienced when attempting to “hold the door” as he protected Bran Stark. Despite the power of the sequence, creator of the A Song of Ice and Fire series George R.R. Martin recently revealed that, while many plot points in the series mirrored the events of the source material, showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss deviated from how he aims to end the character in one of his upcoming books.
WARNING: Spoilers below for Martin’s upcoming books
While the upcoming sequences do have similarities, Martin details in the book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, which chronicles the making of the series, that Hodor will similarly meet his end by “holding the door,” but instead of physically holding it shut, he will defend the door with a sword.
“I thought they executed it very well, but there are going to be differences in the book,” Martin shares in Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon, per Entertainment Weekly. “They did it very physical — ‘hold the door’ with Hodor’s strength. In the book, Hodor has stolen one of the old swords from the crypt. Bran has been warging into Hodor and practicing with his body, because Bran had been trained in swordplay. So telling Hodor to ‘hold the door’ is more like ‘hold this pass’ — defend it when enemies are coming — and Hodor is fighting and killing them. A little different, but same idea.”
Given the differences in the storytelling mediums, those responsible for the HBO series thought the sequence would be more effective with a literal interpretation of “hold the door.”
“For our purpose, holding the door is visually better, especially because we have so much fighting,” co-producer Dave Hill added of the difference.
This has been only one of many deviations from the original storyline, with Martin sometimes supporting the changes and other times being disappointed with these tweaks. With Martin still yet to complete the two final books in the series, fans will have to wait to see what other surprises that Martin has in store for readers.
Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon is now available. Stay tuned for details on the release of Martin’s The Winds of Winter.
What do you think of the changes? Let us know in the comments below!
