So good, eh? I really, really want to know if "hold the door" belongs to Martin or Benioff and Weiss. Might be the best thing in the whole series since Ned lost his 'ead.

Apparently that was authentic GRRM.

"We had this meeting with George Martin where we're trying to get as much information as possible out of him, and probably the most shocking revelation he had for us was when he told us the origin of Hodor and how that name came about," said Benioff. "I just remember Dan and I looking at each other when he said that and just being like, 'Holy s--t.'"

Not the only powerful moment in the episode though. The theme of the episode was "the look on his face when..." - Jorah, Varys and Bran. The Varys moment was especially delicious, as he'd always seemed too fucking sure before.

Agree, Banduan. You've left out the scenes with Jon and Sansa as well. Very touching.

I have one worry about the show though. I watched the TV show Lost in a vacation binge until I got to season 5 and they pulled out an outrageous plot twist and I just quit. A wheel turned and I just stopped and didn't care to find out how the show finished. The whole thing with Bran warging through time, and setting up Hodor 40 years prior to become his saviour was a very cool scene. It opens the potential for some exciting plot developments. However, it could also be abused to create some really outrageous outcomes. There is an explicit causal conundrum in the Hodor story that I can deal with, but I am bit nervous that the story could unravel around Bran's greensight.

He didn't set Hodor up 40 years prior did he? I thought what happened in the past was just a consequence of what was happening in the future?

I think there may be some Stark infighting in the future. Saw some early signs between sansa and jon which would be a shame.

Lost was idiotic because it's time travel approach made no sense logically. GoT's seems better- "the ink is already dry", or the past is already set. As you point out, in Hodor's case there was a mysterious event that needed to occur in the past for the present to exist. Bran was revealed to be the proximate cause of the event. So far, that doesn't seem to be a big problem.

Not sure if the Jon+Sansa moment was the same episode. However, I think the Littlefinger exchange was supposed to be of the same theme, but didn't really work.

Yes, the problem of the Hodor thing is the fact that it's a time-travel gimmick and those always irk me - just like Days of Future Past. It would be stupid to continue down the same path, but there's already two new theories out of this episode, and one of them is B = B. That would suck if true.

goon wrote:

He didn't set Hodor up 40 years prior did he? I thought what happened in the past was just a consequence of what was happening in the future?

Time is a flat circle man.

@[deleted] The approach to time travel in Days of Future Past is entirely different. There, we see them go back from the future to change something, and when they do the future we saw doesn't exist anymore. In Days of Future Past, Hodor would talk like a normal person until we saw Bran travel back in time to change it. Game of Thrones' approach isn't really problematic in my opinion, as everything Bran will do in the past has already happened on the show.

Qwiss! wrote:

goon wrote:

He didn't set Hodor up 40 years prior did he? I thought what happened in the past was just a consequence of what was happening in the future?

Time is a flat circle man.

I meant Bran and Hodor were in both the past and the present at the same time, so Bran going into Hodor's head in the future scrambled his brain in the past somehow. He takes control of future Hodor before anything happens to past Hodor.

Irish gunner wrote:

The hodor thing was a popular theory, glad that it came true

Can't wait for the R+L=J reveal, Sansa is going to flip her shit as she'll be left with nothing. I think it may result in a Stark vs Stark civil war so to speak. The Tully army and the Vale for Sansa versus the Wildlings and a few northern houses for Jon. Would be very cool, and very unexpected for most viewers/readers.

Does feel like they're building up the Jon and Sansa relationship for a big fall. A war between them doesn't really make sense to me though, doesn't fit Jon's character. 

Why would Jon and Sansa fight, they'd be cousins.

@ Pep, you mentioned Benjen and Coldhands before, they are probably one and the same.
Samwell wouldn't have recognised him when he rescued him and Gilly so just called him Coldhands.

@[deleted] what is the B=B Theory?

Also sansa cannot act.

Irish gunner wrote:

The hodor thing was a popular theory, glad that it came true

The plot thread essentially got spoiled some years ago when a guy spoke to GRRM in an elevator and made a joke about Hodor and elevator attendants and GRRM laughed and told him he wasn't far off.

mohan wrote:

@[deleted] what is the B=B Theory?

Brandon = Brynden.

Another theory that sprouted recently is R+L = J+M

El Genio de Oviedo wrote:

Lost was idiotic because it's time travel approach made no sense logically. GoT's seems better- "the ink is already dry", or the past is already set.

But the obvious implication is that the future is already written too. If the ink of the past is already dry then there's no way for Brandon to avoid warging back in time and frying Hodor's brain in the future. If a future event is written into the past then they're acting out a script that can't happen any other way.

I agree with bands. People should just avoid time-travelling plots altogether because the paradoxes quickly become impossible to overlook. Which means you basically have two choices: make everything about those paradoxes or ignore them altogether. Either option is incredibly poor storytelling in my opinion.