A GOT Fan Guessed The Meaning Of Hodor’s Name Back In 2008

Warning warning, if you haven’t watched episode five of Game of Thrones (The Door), then please bear in mind that this article contains spoilers…

Right-ho. So now we know what Hodor means. In last night’s episode, Bran and co came under attack from the King of the White Walkers (the Night King), and his army of wights.

Unfortunately, while this was happening, Bran was off back in time - enjoying a sunny morning in Winterfell’s courtyard - and Meera couldn’t wake him up, pretty much meaning that Hodor wouldn’t move either.

Luckily, however, while he didn’t wake up, back-in-time Bran could somehow hear present-day Meera begging him to warg into Hodor, and even more luckily, back-in-time Hodor (Wylis) was around for back-in-time Bran to warg into, and thus control present-day Hodor.

Confusing we know.

With back-in-time Bran warged into him, present-day Hodor managed to get present-day Bran (still unconscious) and Meera to the other side of a big heavy door, which Meera then repeatedly screamed at him to hold. “Hold the door, hold the door, hold the door”. Hodor.

You can remind yourself of it here:

Now, we never saw this coming, but one Game of Thrones fan - writing on a thread entitled, What does Hodor mean? - got it in one:

While it’s not an exact prediction of what happened (no mention of the time-loop), it basically nails where the name came from.

Writer Michael Ventrella also predicted that Hodor was a shortened version of “hold the door”, sharing on his blog a story about meeting George R.R. Martin, who joked with him that if he hadn’t been a writer, he would have been an elevator operator.

The next time they bumped into each other, they had this conversation:

“Ventrella: “I finally figured out why you have a character named ‘Hodor’.”

Martin: “Oh?”

V: “I was thinking about your comment about wanting to be an elevator operator. It’s clear to me now that ‘Hodor’ is short for ‘Hold the door’.”

M: “You don’t know how close to the truth you are!”

Did you the whole “hold the door” thing coming? Let us know in the comments!