Hold The Door

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Editor's Note: This entry contains plot spoilers to the sixth season of Game of Thrones.

About

"Hold the Door" is a quote uttered by Hodor, a recurring character in George R. R. Martin's fantasy novel series A Song of Ice and Fire and HBO's TV series adaptation Game of Thrones, before he sacrificies himself to save Bran Stark from a horde of White Walkers.

Origin

The mysterious origin as to how the character earned his name "Hodor" has been a subject of intense discussions among the fans of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones for many years. On May 22nd, 2016, the backstory was finally revealed in Season 6, Episode 5 of Game of Thrones titled "The Door."

In the episode, Bran Stark continues his time-traveling journey with the Three-Eyed Raven. Meanwhile, in the present time, a hoard of White Walkers led by the Night King close in on the cave that Bran and his group have been hiding in. As Meera Reed and Hodor prepare their escape, Meera asks Bran to warg, a form of mind-controlling, into Hodor's mind so that he can rescue his unconscious body out of the cave, which Bran obliges by warging into a younger version of Hodor, a cheerful stable boy then known as "Wylis," in the past. As they flee their way out of the cave, Meera pleads Hodor to "hold the door" to buy her and Bran enough time to escape safely, a command that echoes through the past into Wylis' head and triggers him to lapse into a state of seizure and "hold the door!" over and over again. As Hodor complies with the request in the present time, the character is overrun and killed by the White Walkers while "holding the door."

Spread

On May 22nd, immediately after the airing of the episode, the phrase "hold the door" and its hashtag form #holdthedoor began trending worldwide on Twitter and elsewhere in the social media, as fans reacted to the heart-wrenching death of Hodor and the reveal of a fatalist backstory behind the character's name.

At 10:02 p.m. (ET), Colombian pop culture commentator @9000x tweeted a two-pane image of the phrase "hold the door" stylized in the signature typeface of the TV series and a cartoon drawing of a stick-figure character lying down in a pool of one's own tears (shown below). In less than 24 hours, the tweet garnered nearly 2,000 retweets and over 1,600 likes.

At 10:05 p.m. (ET), Redditor Jedbanguer submitted an unknown author's webcomic referencing the quote from the episode (shown below) in a post titled "It's gonna be hard to be polite from now on," racking up 6,550 points (95% upvoted) within the first 24 hours.