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What does Hodor mean?


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Anyone have any suggestions of where Hodor got his name?

We know he is one of old Nan's grandchildren (or maybe great grandchildren) anyway, somehow related.

I was listening to the first book at work, and thought about when Eddard realized Joffrey wasn't Robert's because Sansa said they don't look anything alike.

He said something like, how could he be so blind that he needed a child to point it out. ...from the mouths of babes.

so i started thinking maybe the simplest minded character in all of Westeros is the key to saving the world.

Does anyone know what Hodor might mean, in other languages, or mythology...???

running a quick google search i found a kid in Mogadishu that has a nickname of Hodor - which means Talent in Somalian.

haven't found anything else.

any other ideas?

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He is called Hodor because that is all he has ever said in his life. My son started walking around the house babbling "beetle, beetle, beetle" before he knew what the word meant, so we started calling him Beetle and it stuck. Same with Hodor.

I think his real name was given in one of the books...maybe ASOS?...but I'm not sure.

Edit: I just did a search and apparently his name is Walder

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I like to think that Hodor means:

"Wherever whores go..."

But that's just because I have a twisted sense of humor and way too much exposure to A Song of Ice and Fire and Tolkien's pseudo-languages.

And if the description of him coming out of the hot springs pool by Osha (the wildling woman - not sure about her name), they may go to him happily...

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I was thinking that maybe Hodor had enough giant in him that it screwed up his vocal chords to the point where he couldn't speak properly, and Hodor is one of the few things that he can say. Has Bran ever said anything while warging into Hodor?

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I was thinking that maybe Hodor had enough giant in him that it screwed up his vocal chords to the point where he couldn't speak properly, and Hodor is one of the few things that he can say. Has Bran ever said anything while warging into Hodor?

Now that would be funny...Hodor expounding on the mysteries of the land beyond the Wall. Even better would have been if Bran learned to warg before the fall of Winterfell. Old Nan and Maester Luwin would freak if Hodor said something eloquent to them out of the blue. Bran is (was) mischevious...he could have had everyone in Winterfell thinking they were crazy.

On a more serious note: I can't wait for Bran to warg into Hodor and start slaying some others on the battlefield. I can see Bran becomming the most powerful of all Ned's children. His paraplegic state, like the loss of sight can lead to accute hearing, heightens his concentration on mental/metaphysical skills. He will be a seriously dangerous and versatile fighter in the future...probably better than Jon, who will likely learn to control his warging as well, but as a much more practical and physical person, I think he'll have a more straight forward, (though kick-ass) approach than Bran.

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I've read theories that "Hodor" is a simpleton's mispronunciation of some word with potential significance to his past, "Other" or "honor," perhaps.

A Google search also reveals that Hodor (various spellings, most commonly Hod?) was a blind god who appears to have been attributed to things like darkness and winter in the northern European mythologies. He is tricked by Loki into killing his twin brother Balder (various spellings) with an arrow or spear. One of Loki's domains is fire, and some variants of the story have Loki guiding blind Hod's hand.

Pretty interesting/suspicious. Certainly some crackpot theories could be born from accepting the above as premises.

I'm sure there are many knowledgeable people on the board who could offer a more informative answer.

It also appears to be a surname in use in Western culture, possibly derived from the name of the god. It would be odd to honor a friend by naming a mentally handicapped character after him, but I suppose it's possible.

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Anyone have any suggestions of where Hodor got his name?

We know he is one of old Nan's grandchildren (or maybe great grandchildren) anyway, somehow related.

I was listening to the first book at work, and thought about when Eddard realized Joffrey wasn't Robert's because Sansa said they don't look anything alike.

He said something like, how could he be so blind that he needed a child to point it out. ...from the mouths of babes.

so i started thinking maybe the simplest minded character in all of Westeros is the key to saving the world.

Does anyone know what Hodor might mean, in other languages, or mythology...???

running a quick google search i found a kid in Mogadishu that has a nickname of Hodor - which means Talent in Somalian.

haven't found anything else.

any other ideas?

I reckon he's just saying honour (As in honour to serve and all that)

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