The Original Hodor/"Hold The Door" Scene Was Supposed To Be Way More Graphic

TIME- Jack Bender discussed filming the crucial door scene (needless to say, door spoilers ahead) The director for the recent Game of Thrones episode that destroyed nearly all its viewers in revealing the true meaning of ‘Hodor’ said his original plans for the character’s demise were much more graphic. Cinematographically, Jack Bender told the Observer, the whole scene was going to be shot using single shots pushing closer to the faces of both Hodor and Wylis (across the time divide). But his ideas for what that shot would reveal, as he first told Game of Thrones creators David Benioff and Dan Weiss, were horrific. “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,’” Bender recalled. Then Benioff and Weiss told him, “If it’s too horrific, we’re not going to feel the loss of Hodor.”

Shut up. Just shut up. I had when directors and writers of a TV show do this. After the the fact they go on the record and say, “Ohhhhhhhh we wanted it to be soooooooooooo much worse. So. Much. Worse. But we decided against it.” Fuck off. You’re Game of Thrones. Make it as nasty and gross and graphic as you want. You’ve made us watch girls get raped and our favorite characters get their heads sliced off season after season after season. This is where you draw the line? At poor ol’ Hodor? Get outta my face with that. Go nuts, you crazy bastards. Show him getting his lungs ripped out and eaten by zombies. Show me his insides sloshing out onto the snow. Smash his eyeballs. Roll his head like a bowling ball. Either make it super duper graphic or don’t make it super duper graphic. I don’t really care. But don’t decide to pull back on the violence and then talk about it afterwards. Game of Thrones has a license to do fucked up shit. A baby got eaten by a pack of rabid dogs this season for christssakes. We show up for the fucked up shit. So don’t brag about making something less violent. Crank that violence all the way to the max. Give the people what they want.