Warning: This article contains spoilers from “Game of Thrones” Season 6, Episode 5.
Five episodes into the sixth season of “Game of Thrones,” a fan favorite character bit the dust.
Hodor (Kristian Nairn) made the ultimate sacrifice in Sunday night’s episode, giving up his own life to save Bran (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) from the wrath of the White Walkers.
Bran was in two places at once in the final, emotional minutes of Episode 5, titled “The Door.” In the present, he was in the supine position, eyes rolled backwards ’til the whites showed. In the past, he was time-tripping with the Three-Eyed Raven (Max von Sydow), playing the “GoT” flashback machine and ignoring the entreaties of Meera Feed (Ellie Kendrick) and Leaf (Kae Alexander) that the White Walkers were coming for him.
The Three-Eyed Raven, too, had warned Bran of the danger facing him earlier in the hour, after the Night King touches him. “His mark on you,” Raven says sadly. “The time has come for you to be me.”
As the present and the past converge, Bran begins to hear the voices from the other side, and Raven disappears in front of him, his black cape cut to smithereens. While Bran is processing this dire turn of events, we see his cronies dragging his unconscious body through the dark caves with the White Walkers in deadly pursuit. (So is every show now borrowing from “The Walking Dead”?)
Poor little Leaf sacrifices herself, throwing a ball of flame to circle her killers as they carve her up. When Hodor, Meera and Bran reach the door to the outside world, Hodor throws his entire weight against the door and the way is clear. Meera drags Bran behind her, while, in the past, Bran sees the child Hodor fall to the ground, experiencing what seems like a seizure. “Hold the door, hold the door,” he says, inexplicably to those around him.
In the present, the grown Hodor keeps the door shut while the army pushes against it, eventually slicing through the wood with an ax. The Walkers start ripping at his clothes and his flesh while Meera carries on to save Bran. In the past, the desperate Hodor cries, “Hold the door, hold the door” and eventually, his breath shortened, “Hodor, Hodor.”
In other “Thrones” developments, Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner) tells the evil Littlefinger (Aidan Gillen) to get lost, but not before she taunts him by making him guess every horrid act that she suffered at the hands of Ramsay Bolton (Iwan Rheon) on their wedding night. “You said you would protect me. I don’t need you.” And “I never want to see you again.” Later on, with her new protector Brienne of Tarth (Gwendoline Christie) by her side, she sets out with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and their posse to drum up a proper army to go head to head with Ramsay.
In the bleak Iron Islands, Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen) publicly supports his sister Yara’s (Gemma Whelan) quest for the salt throne. Their uncle Euron Greyjoy (Pilou Asbaek) makes several nasty statements and sets off with the other grumbling elders to kill his niece and nephew.
As for next week, it looks like Jaime Lannister (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) will finally have his moment of reckoning with High Sparrow (Jonathan Pryce) — just as Margaery (Natalie Dormer) is set to take her Walk of Shame.