He was one of our favourite Game of Thrones characters.
But even Kristian Nairn, the man behind the beloved Hodor, admitted he was fooled by his own character’s journey in the HBO series.
For years, fans watched Hodor guide and protect Bran Stark after the Stark family got separated.
Warning: the rest of this story contains spoilers for season 6 of Game of Thrones
The gentle giant ultimately was killed during The Door, the dramatic and just plain harrowing season six episode where an army of White Walkers tried to attack Bran.
Hodor blocked the door in an effort to stop them from coming in, which is when fans got the origins of his name: “Hold the door…”
We’re not entirely over it, even after all this time.
Even Nairn was surprised by the journey his character even ended up taking – mostly, though, since he thought Hodor actually belonged to a different (in)famous Westerosi family.
Namely, the Cleganes.
He told SFX:
“A theory I had, being a big guy.
“Maybe he was another one of the Clegane brothers, and something happened to him as a child, like it did with the Hound, having his face burnt, which made him the way he is.”
Which…well, that kind of makes sense to us, to be honest. And definitely would’ve made things a whole lot more interesting.
The DJ also revealed that he had tried to bribe George R. R. Martin, the author of the A Song of Ice and Fire series, for spoilers.
He joked:
“I bought him whiskies, vodkas, everything… never worked. He has a good poker face.”
