Hold The Door

2016catchphraseclassic

Published August 28, 2026

Hold The Door is the catchphrase and gut-punch backstory revealed for Hodor, the gentle Stark family servant on HBO's Game of Thrones, when Season 6 Episode 5 aired on May 22, 2016. The moment finally explained why he could only say one word and set social media on fire within minutes, giving 2016 one of its most-shared TV death memes.

game of thrones memescatchphrase memestv show memesdeath hoax tragedy memes2016 memes

Overview

Hold The Door works on two layers at once. The first is the literal instruction Meera Reed shouts at Hodor inside the Three-Eyed Raven's cave, telling him to block the doorway so she can drag an unconscious Bran Stark to safety1. The second is a time-travel loop in which Bran wargs into a young Hodor, then known as Wylis, in the past, and the phrase collapses in the boy's head into the single word he would repeat for the rest of his life2.

As a meme, it lives as an in-joke plus a sad-face image. Fans pair the phrase with drawings of a crying stick figure, screencaps of Hodor bracing the cave door, or the Game of Thrones title-card typeface, and drop 'hold the door' as a wince-worthy line whenever someone asks them to actually hold a real door4. The whole point is that a plain, mundane request now reads as a death sentence to anyone who watched the episode.

Origin & Background

Platform
HBO Game of Thrones (source) / Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, from a twist supplied by George R. R. Martin
Date
2016

The line was written for Season 6 Episode 5 of HBO's Game of Thrones, titled 'The Door,' which first aired on May 22, 20161. The episode paid off a mystery that book and TV fans had chewed on for years: how the character actually got his name3. Screenwriters revealed that Hodor, born Wylis, was a cheerful young stable boy at Winterfell whose mind fractured when Bran, warging back in time, connected him to the moment of his own death decades in the future1.

The scene ends with Meera and Bran fleeing the collapsing hideout while Hodor holds the door shut against a White Walker horde led by the Night King. Actor Kristian Nairn, who played Hodor for six seasons, told Entertainment Weekly he was 'thrilled' with the send-off and pointed out that his death is implied rather than shown on camera2.

How It Spread

Within minutes of the East Coast broadcast, #HoldTheDoor was trending worldwide on Twitter as viewers reacted to the reveal2. At 10:02 p.m. ET on May 22, 2016, Colombian pop-culture account @9000x posted a two-pane image pairing the phrase in the show's signature typeface with a cartoon of a stick figure lying in a pool of tears, and the tweet pulled close to 2,000 retweets and 1,600 likes inside 24 hours3.

Three minutes later, at 10:05 p.m. ET, Reddit user Jedbanguer submitted an unattributed webcomic riffing that it would be hard to be polite about holding doors from now on, and the post climbed to 6,550 points at 95% upvoted in its first day3. Mainstream press caught up by the next morning, with CNN, Variety and other outlets running recaps that spotlighted the hashtag right next to Hodor's death12. Meme roundups on sites like Romper then collected older Hodor image macros with the new tragic context, arguing that every earlier 'Hodor!' joke suddenly read differently in hindsight4.

How to Use This Meme

Common convention is to post the phrase over an image of Hodor bracing the cave door, a crying reaction face, or the show's title-card font. Off-screen, people typically drop 'hold the door' as a wince pun whenever someone asks them to hold a real door, with the payoff being any Game of Thrones viewer feeling bad on the spot4. Urban Dictionary submissions later stretched the phrase into unrelated Sheldon Cooper and 'keep unwanted people out' bits, showing how quickly the line detached from the show and floated into everyday speech5.

Frequently Asked Questions

Hold The Door

2016catchphraseclassic

Published August 28, 2026

Hold The Door is the catchphrase and gut-punch backstory revealed for Hodor, the gentle Stark family servant on HBO's Game of Thrones, when Season 6 Episode 5 aired on May 22, 2016. The moment finally explained why he could only say one word and set social media on fire within minutes, giving 2016 one of its most-shared TV death memes.

game of thrones memes catchphrase memes tv show memes death hoax tragedy memes 2016 memes

Overview

Hold The Door works on two layers at once. The first is the literal instruction Meera Reed shouts at Hodor inside the Three-Eyed Raven's cave, telling him to block the doorway so she can drag an unconscious Bran Stark to safety1. The second is a time-travel loop in which Bran wargs into a young Hodor, then known as Wylis, in the past, and the phrase collapses in the boy's head into the single word he would repeat for the rest of his life2.

As a meme, it lives as an in-joke plus a sad-face image. Fans pair the phrase with drawings of a crying stick figure, screencaps of Hodor bracing the cave door, or the Game of Thrones title-card typeface, and drop 'hold the door' as a wince-worthy line whenever someone asks them to actually hold a real door4. The whole point is that a plain, mundane request now reads as a death sentence to anyone who watched the episode.

Origin & Background

Platform
HBO Game of Thrones (source) / Twitter (viral spread)
Key People
David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, from a twist supplied by George R. R. Martin
Date
2016

The line was written for Season 6 Episode 5 of HBO's Game of Thrones, titled 'The Door,' which first aired on May 22, 20161. The episode paid off a mystery that book and TV fans had chewed on for years: how the character actually got his name3. Screenwriters revealed that Hodor, born Wylis, was a cheerful young stable boy at Winterfell whose mind fractured when Bran, warging back in time, connected him to the moment of his own death decades in the future1.

The scene ends with Meera and Bran fleeing the collapsing hideout while Hodor holds the door shut against a White Walker horde led by the Night King. Actor Kristian Nairn, who played Hodor for six seasons, told Entertainment Weekly he was 'thrilled' with the send-off and pointed out that his death is implied rather than shown on camera2.

How It Spread

Within minutes of the East Coast broadcast, #HoldTheDoor was trending worldwide on Twitter as viewers reacted to the reveal2. At 10:02 p.m. ET on May 22, 2016, Colombian pop-culture account @9000x posted a two-pane image pairing the phrase in the show's signature typeface with a cartoon of a stick figure lying in a pool of tears, and the tweet pulled close to 2,000 retweets and 1,600 likes inside 24 hours3.

Three minutes later, at 10:05 p.m. ET, Reddit user Jedbanguer submitted an unattributed webcomic riffing that it would be hard to be polite about holding doors from now on, and the post climbed to 6,550 points at 95% upvoted in its first day3. Mainstream press caught up by the next morning, with CNN, Variety and other outlets running recaps that spotlighted the hashtag right next to Hodor's death12. Meme roundups on sites like Romper then collected older Hodor image macros with the new tragic context, arguing that every earlier 'Hodor!' joke suddenly read differently in hindsight4.

How to Use This Meme

Common convention is to post the phrase over an image of Hodor bracing the cave door, a crying reaction face, or the show's title-card font. Off-screen, people typically drop 'hold the door' as a wince pun whenever someone asks them to hold a real door, with the payoff being any Game of Thrones viewer feeling bad on the spot4. Urban Dictionary submissions later stretched the phrase into unrelated Sheldon Cooper and 'keep unwanted people out' bits, showing how quickly the line detached from the show and floated into everyday speech5.

Frequently Asked Questions