#which is... good?

collectingthingsandstuff​:

I’d argue that the discussion about show!Hodor’s decission or lack thereof is almost moot because the show didn’t do a good job at showing WHAT actually happened. I see people arguing about it, and the opinions on what exactly Bran did, at what point he was or wasn’t skinchanged into Hodor etc wary to a degree that shows how little the show succeeded in making it clear.

I see you think that it was all Bran. Meanwhile, the actor playing Hodor clearly disagrees with that. Or in his own words:

Although Bran was responsible for the whole chain of events that killed Hodor, Hodor didn’t have to hold that door. He wasn’t being warged into at that stage. It was Meera who asked him to hold the door, it wasn’t Bran. He wants to protect the little guy. That’s all he’s ever done. He wants to help — this is the ultimate helping hand here. (x)

In addition, I doubt that the showrunners wanted to imply that Bran killed Hodor (it wouldn’t be the first time they created very unfortunate implications without noticing it, though). Clearly, they wanted to show that it was Bran who caused Hodor’s disability, but I very much doubt they wanted to add actively killing Hodor to the list.

But no matter the intention, there seem to be three opinions on what exactly happened: 1. It was Bran the whole time. 2. It was present!Hodor himself, Bran merely created a bridge through which young Willis witnessed his death 3. It was young Willis, whom Bran skinchanged into present!Hodor. My point is that if you take that scene apart, every theory will have something that doesn’t add up. If Bran was skinchanging into Hodor the whole time, why was he still in the Winterfell vision, still reacted to everything that was going on there and looked completely unaware of what was happening in the cave? If Bran wasn’t skinchanging into Hodor at all, or only for a brief moment in the beginning, what exactly was the point? If it was young Willis, why would he be motivated to “hold the door” after suddenly finding himself in a 40-year-old body among zombies and protecting people he doesn’t know. The actor himself clearly thinks that Bran skinchanged into him first, but was gone at some point before “Hold the door”. At what point? How did it work? Still, why was Bran stuck in the vision and why did he look like he has no idea what was going on?

I see a lot of praise for that scene. And while yes, it was emotionally devastating, and in that sense they accomplished what they were going for, in terms of establishing the how and why… the scene fails. It didn’t bother to explain and that’s why I find it hard to take it seriously. I don’t know if GRRM will make it more or less problematic, but I’m sure he’ll actually make clear what happened. Although, I must add, that alone from the way Old Nan spoke about Hodor, it doesn’t seem like he started saying that word in similar circumstances.

I agree, the scene isn’t clear at all. I personally think that what happened was a combination of (1) and (2). The actor’s quote is important because it proves that he was playing the *hold the door* scene as Hodor, not as Bran-warged-into-Hodor, which is probably the stage direction he was given (so, authorial intent). 

However, Bran was clearly warging Hodor before, so when did he stop, exactly? This is a problem intrinsic to how the show visually handled the warging dynamic. So far, we’ve always seen that as soon as Bran wargs Hodor, Hodor's eyes roll back for a second and then go back to normal, while Bran remains “white-eyed” during the whole time. Usually, Bran’s eyes reverting to normal is what signals the end of the possession; this case, however, is more complicated because Bran was using two of his powers simultaneously: greensight (the winterfell vision) and warging (Hodor, from inside the vision itself, something he’s never done before). So it’s hard to tell if, and when, Bran slipped off of Hodor’s consciousness; he remains white-eyed the whole time (in the present), but that might be because he does not leave the Winterfell vision until much later.

If there’s a pivotal moment, a turning point where present!Hodor regains control of himself, I’d say it’s (probably?) after Wylis’ eyes go white. This is confusing because it seems like he’s being warged, but I think it’s not the case. rather, Wylis is basically catapulted into the terrifying moments preceding his own death due to Bran inadvertently opening a “bridge” between his present consciousness and his future one. Distraught and overwhelmed by the horrific realization of what’s happening in front of his eyes, Bran loses his grip on present!Hodor, who becomes himself again but, urged by Meera, continues to hold the door to let them escape. 

But that’s my personal interpretation and admittedly I don’t have a lot to back it up. 

However---I always try to give a positive spin to what I see, or at least one that makes sense to me, so here’s a thought: what if the scene is supposed to be confusing and unclear? The show essentially created a grey area in which it’s truly (and maybe, deliberately?) impossible to determine where Bran ends and where Hodor begins. Isn’t this the crux of why Bran’s story is thematically and ethically so disturbing? The reason why “you should never, ever warg a human being”? 

I get the frustration at not being able to determine the exact cause-effect correlation at work in the scene, but maybe Bran himself doesn’t know exactly what the fuck happened there, and what’s the extent of his responsibility in Hodor’s disability and death. Did he mentally cripple a perfectly sane individual? Did he “just” traumatize him, aggravating a preexisting mental condition? Did he strip him of his free will entirely and force him to die? Or did Hodor ultimately regain his free will and sacrificed himself? 

Did Bran kill his friend or did his friend choose to die for him? 

(and even if it’s the latter, can we consider Hodor’s sacrifice a free choice given that Bran was warging him just seconds before?)

I think the whole point is that these question remain unanswered. It’s much more unsettling this way. Bran will never know for sure, and will be plagued by these doubts forever, and that’s his tragedy.