Game of Thrones season 6: Hodor death scene was originally much more horrific, reveals director Jack Bender

The Lost director was told to tone things down to make it more emotional

The last two episodes of Game of Thrones have been directed by one man: Jack Bender. Best known for his work on Lost, the director has helmed some of the show’s recent big reveals, including the return of Benjen Stark and showing the Children of the Forrest creating the White Walkers.

The biggest twist, however, regards Hodor and the now infamous phrase “Hold the door”. In the scene, the half-giant struggled to hold close a door, thus preventing the rapid zombie creatures reaching Bran and Mereen.

Unfortunately, as you likely know reading this piece, Hodor ends up sacrificing himself for the young Stark in the most emotional scene of the season so far.

“I talked about it with Dave (Benioff) and Dan (Weiss, showrunners) a lot,” Bender told The Observer when speaking about filming the scene.

“I said, ‘What the dead would be doing to Hodor would be ripping his clothes off once they got through that door. They would be ripping his flesh off. If the dead can go through wood, they’re going to be tearing Hodor apart.’

“And they said something to me that really stuck. Which was ‘If it’s too horrific, we’re not going to feel the loss of Hodor.’ And that was my compass the entire time, to make us really care at the end.

“I still wanted to make it scary enough, see Hodor surrounded and engulfed by these skeletal arms and long fingers, that were eventually going to smother and kill and rip him apart, or whatever they were going to do that we didn’t see.

“But to not let the horror of it overwhelm the emotion of losing that character and making it really land on the idea that he was sacrificing himself so his friends could get away. That was the dominant idea.”

It’s interesting the scene was toned down to make us care more about the death; many previous deaths on the show have been graphically shown, such as those at the Red Wedding and Oberyn Martell’s trial by combat.

Also of note in the same interview, Bender revealed that the show is turning more toward time-travel, a move the showrunners are fully behind. He did not add a huge amount of detail, instead going on to say that there is a lot more footage from the ‘play within a play’.

Meanwhile, in Game of Thrones news, Ramsey Bolton actor Iwan Rheon has defended his character’s controversial rape scene from season five.