The Journal of Kitsch, Camp and Mas Culture

The Journal of Kitsch, Camp and Mass Culture

Volume 1 / 2017

BETWEEN
MOURNING AND RIDICULE:
THE ODD PHENONENON
OF “HODOORSTOPS”
Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

University of Jyväskylä, heidi.s.kosonen@jyu.fi
University of Jyväskylä, susanne.c.ylonen@jyu.fi

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

BETWEEN
MOURNING AND RIDICULE:
THE ODD PHENONENON
OF “HODOORSTOPS”
Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

1. Introduction
George R.R. Martin, the creator of the fantasy series ‘A Song of Ice and Fire’ (1991–ongoing),
and the team of writers adapting it into the popular television series Game of Thrones (2011–
ongoing) are well-known for killing off their characters (Fig. 1). On the one hand the highmortality rate has garnered critical admiration and the series has been saluted for its boldness.
Particularly in the Game of Thrones television series the celluloid death has been elevated into
a new level of realism, as the writers have defied the predictable formula of drama: this is thegritty world where even central protagonists can die in the middle of their journeys, their life
missions unfinished and incomplete. The contrast to the regular formula in which main
characters tend to be presented as undying symbols of futurity, while supporting characters
function as their sacrificial substitutes, is striking. In Game of Thrones it is accepted anyone
could die, his or her narrative left “incomplete” in the traditional sense – even the promising
young king of the north, Robb Stark, slaughtered on his wedding day (season 3 ep. 9).1
While the transgressive novelty of these deaths has delighted some audiences, thebloodshed has been known to cause outrage and even sadness among other readers andviewers of the series. In the western context, where grief outside family ties tends to bedisenfranchised,2 and both fandom3 and the mourning of “fan objects”4 are often ridiculed,
speaking of the death of a fictive character in terms of real loss might seem ludicrous. Yet theaffectivity of the viewing experience has been endorsed by the creator of the story, who invites
the readers and viewers to mourn the characters as if they were their friends:

34

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops””I try to make the readers feel they’ve lived the events of the book. Just as you grieve if a friend
is killed, you should grieve if a fictional character is killed. You should care. If somebody diesand you just go get more popcorn, it’s a superficial experience isn’t it?”5
The high mortality rates and Martin’s endorsement of grief, combined with theimmense popularity of the show, have contributed to the rise of a public memorial culture
where the deaths of these fictive characters are shared and mourned in various ways. At times
the online “fandom” has mimicked the cultural conventions of mourning, as in the case of thevirtual graveyard dedicated to dead GoT characters, opened by the Slate-magazine in June
2015, at the end of the 5th season of the television series. At other times theircommemorations have been more experimental in form, as, for example, in May 2016, when
the death of the well-loved character Hodor was followed by a production of different kinds ofmemes, which imagined the character as a doorstop.
The reactions to these ”memes” were varied and, as such, fascinating. Some accepted
their carnivalistic spirit as a coping mechanism, although complaints were raised about themappearing “too soon”, therein breaching the western conventions of mourning, which tend tocover death in solemnity if not in silence. To others, the doorstops instead seemed like trolling,that sought to render laughable the audience’s grief as well as Hodor’s moment of valour. The
doorstops were thus seen to fluctuate ambivalently between commemoration and ridiculing,
and the question of whether the memes were instances of mockery or homages to a characterand series well-liked was raised from different aspects in the many entertainment site
reportages and twitter comments making Hodor’s death a cultural phenomenon.
This instant of ambivalent internet “mourning” is where we find our cue. For two
researchers situated at the intersection of visual culture and death as it is represented andritually dealt with, the Hodor-doorstops and their reception offer a highly interesting researchsubject both as an aesthetic and as a theoretical phenomenon. This article is enlightened byquestions and concepts arising from the varied fields of cultural studies, such as fan studies
and the study of internet cultures, and from the socio-cultural side of the thanatological studyof death and mourning. The phenomenon itself we approach from the fields of aesthetics andvisual cultural studies, therein complementing the analysis of online mourning with a focus on
its ironic or pathetic sensibilities. Methodologically, the study rests on discourse analysis andvisual analysis. First, we seek to outline the context of the phenomenon by describing thefictive event from which it arose and by dissecting its discursive framing through analysing
how the doorstops were presented in various reportages. After this, we study the Hodor-asdoorstop -memes’ affective registers, forms and materialities, as well as in their performative35

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

uses. In this, our methodology reflects the meme research guidelines proposed by Eliisa
Vainikka in her introductory analysis of internet memes as well as Anu Harju’s key points inthe analysis of mourning in fan communities.6
The aim of this article is to examine the interesting oscillation between “grief“ and“ridicule” in the memefication and mediation of Hodor’s death, and to offer potential concepts
for the better understanding of this phenomenon. By studying the memes in their aesthetics
and reception in the “mourning” of Hodor we seek to tie the subversive potential of online
memes7 to the disenfranchised forms of affective involvement with the world. Although theversatile socio-cultural potential of memes on the one hand and the online politics of deathand mourning on the other have been studied in varied disciplines, for the moment being thememetic mourning of fictive characters still remains an uncharted territory. Since we feel theunderstanding of this controversial topic is inhibited in the lack of suitable concepts, in thisarticle the case of Hodor will serve as a starting point for a theoretical discussion thatcombines investigating “aberrant” mourning customs with the analysis of the explanatory
power and the shortcomings of varied aesthetic concepts such as “camp” and “kitsch”. We alsooffer the idea of “carnivalesque” mourning and the aesthetic mechanism of “sublation”, awillful lowering of a sublime or overwhelming experience such as death, as conceptual
templates through which to interpret these ambivalent forms of involvement – memetic formsof mourning that might connect fans as disenfranchised grievers to each other in more and lessironic and sincere ways.
2. The death of Hodor
In the fifth episode of the sixth season of the popular fantasy series Game of Thrones, May
2016, the grand audiences were agitated with the surprising death of Hodor (Kristian Nairn),
one of the secondary characters of the amply casted show.
Hodor, also known as “the gentle giant”, is a servant and stable boy of House Stark at
Winterfell. For the biggest part of the series, he has acted as a semi-silent escort to his masterand protegé, the physically handicapped character Bran Stark (Isaac Hempstead Wright), whom
he has carried on their exposition out into the North to meet a prophet-like character called
Three-eyed raven (Max von Sydow). Despite his striking size, Hodor is gentle and non-violent,
which has made him one of the most likable characters of the otherwise fairly violent show.
Hodor’s character is characterized by simplicity; the fact that he possesses no language aside theexpression “Hodor”, which lacks any intelligible meaning. “Hodor”, uttered in different
inflections, covers all of Hodor’s attempts to communicate, and in this has become his moniker.
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Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

Hodor meets his end in the end of the 5th episode of the 6th season of the series, andhis death combines all three characteristics that viewers all over the world have gotten toassociate with his character: strength, simplicity and loyalty. He dies while trying to protect his
protegé Bran and Bran’s friend Meera (Ellie Kendrick) from an army of white walkers, amysterious zombie breed of the series, that break into Three-eyed raven’s lair and kill him andhis companions. Bran, Meera and Hodor manage to escape through a tunnel, but in beingcommanded by frantic Meera, Hodor stays behind and uses his strength to hold shut the door
to the tunnel, already swarming with white walkers. While Bran and Meera escape into thesnow, Hodor is grabbed and killed by the zombies breaking through the door. Hodor’s is thus adeath categorizable as a glorified martyrdom: it is a death that can be seen to elevate amentally handicapped and otherwise "low" character. The audio-visual elements – Hodor’sfacial expression against the cold blue background of snow and stone and the sentimental
music – emphasize his martyrdom, and frame it as a death that stands apart from the banality
and gore that many of the other deaths of the series are treated with (Fig. 2).
Yet Hodor’s sentimentally framed sacrifice is not the most tragic part of his death. The
actual tragedy is that within the same scene depicting his death the audiences are introduced
to Hodor’s life’s story, so far left a mystery. Bran's ability to travel through time had earlier inthe season introduced Hodor in his healthy teenage years, as a young stable boy, then called
Wylis. Now, at the moment of his death the cause of Hodor’s handicap is finally revealed, andit tinges the heroism of his martyrdom with a sense of tragedy. Key both to the discovery andto the tragedy are Bran’s abilities to “greensight” and to “warg”, that is, to time travel andoccupy someone else’s mind in order to see through their eyes and to control their actions,
respectively. As Hodor is dying, his younger self sees this death through the action of Bran
Stark, who is, at the time of Hodor’s death, inside Hodor’s head and time traveling to his past.
By accident Bran opens a time loop in which Hodor experiences his death years before it
actually happens. Through this time loop the audiences witness young Wylis falling into aseizure, in which he is only able to repeat the instructions given to him at the time of his death.
“Hold the door”, he is told, and hold the door he does, and in the past his younger selfcollapses to the ground repeating the words, which, in his mouth, melt into one single word,
the only word we’ve heard him say, and the one word that became his moniker: “Hodor”.
The audiences reacted to Hodor's death with surprise and agitation. That Hodor’s death
was perceived as surprising rests largely on the fact that Hodor’s storyline is one of the ones tohave met its closure in the televised adaptation sooner than in the book series, that is still in
the process of writing. That the death turned out to be agitating, may, in turn, be explained by37

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

the fact that the character of Hodor has been one of the few unambiguously “nice” charactersin the series with a wealth of characters involved in amoral politicking and vendetta. From his
position of being a simple sidekick with a tendency to communicate with his unintelligible
moniker only Hodor has been framed as a light and humorous character, and the memes
produced by “fandom” have often reproduced just that. Attached is, for instance, one memethat presents a quote by Hodor (Fig. 3), being funny in that it repeats the only word that thecharacter is able to say, which, as we already learned, happens to be that same as his name.
3. Hodor stopping door: a case study
Many of the early memes succeeding the tragic episode of Hodor’s death are “tributory” ones
and can be seen to function as kinds of memorials, as conventional vehicles of shared
mourning and remembrance. In continuum to the commemorative tradition, these earlymemes honor the “memory” of Hodor by focusing on his “lived life”.8 What is more, theypresent Hodor a hero precisely by pairing the narrative of heroism with the characteristically“simple” act of holding the door. But Hodor’s death did not only spark an avalanche of affective
tweets and tributory memes. It also produced a variety of offline activities such as the creationof different kinds of Hodor-themed doorstops that then took over the online sites of Twitter,
Etsy and Kickstarter and quickly became mediated on the entertainment sites withcommentary analysing their relation to the grieving fandom. While in our visual analysis weshall focus mostly on the doorstops, we shall study them in the contexts provided by the other
Hodor-memes and the “media circus” where these memes, doorstops and tweets became
rationalized primarily through the label of “fan practises”.
All in all our data consists of 30 entertainment site reportages introducing the ways inwhich fans and viewers of the show reacted to Hodor’s death on the internet, primarily on
Twitter. The reportages usually presented the repertoire of doorstop-memes through acavalcade of tweets, arranged into in a storified narrative and spiced up with witty
commentary. Six of the reportages precede the “sensational news” of Hodor having been
rendered into doorstops and thus can be approached as “the first wave” of reactions to Hodor’s
death, whereas the last twenty-four are focused primarily on the coverage (and occasional
promotion) of these doorstops. As for the doorstop-memes, at the time of writing this article
we have analyzed in total 37 doorstops. The total amount of Hodor-themed doorstops is
unknown to us, for the idea circulated quickly to Etsy where hundreds of similar doorstops
made of plastic and wood continue to be on sale. Noting the saturated nature of the data in ourcategories, however, we believe to have gathered a representative selection.
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Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

By our analysis the doorstops could be roughly divided in five categories. In addition to
the aforementioned doorstops made for sale on Etsy (1) the doorstops consist of DIY-doorstops
with Hodor’s name written on readymade doorstops by hand (2) or with stickers or images ofKristian Nairn’s face attached to readymade doorstops or the “Hold the door” -buttons ofelevators (3), reused Hodor-merchandise photographed holding doors (4) or photomanipulated doorstops where Hodor has been “photoshopped” into a doorstop (5). Moreover,there are instructions for 3D-printed Hodor-doorstops and two campaigns in Kickstarter forcrowdfunded production of Hodor-doorstops. One was fully funded and yielded an amount ofsimplistic, wood-carved and white-painted memorial doorstops with the official Game ofThrones-symbol “Ø” on them (See fig. 12), and the other one, for the production of a gilded
doorstop with a full-body figure (See fig. 16), was cancelled due to HBO having licensed the
production of official doorstops to another provider, presumably to the former campaigner. In
addition to these, there are many tributary tweets and image macros, and Twitter and YouTube
gags, featuring a fake commercial for Hodør-doorstops by Ikea, and an official Ikea campaign
for their Patrull-stops.
In this paper, we speak of the aforementioned doorstops as well as the jokes and theimage macros connected to Hodor’s death as memes. By this we maintain that they are all
manifestations and modifications of the same piece of cultural information, shared, modified
and circulated by various individuals – mostly online, but also in other everyday contexts fromthe public space (such as elevators or gym entrances) to the privacy of homes. According to theevolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, who coined the term in 1976, a meme is a “unit ofhuman cultural transmission” spread “from brain to brain” in the form of, for example, tunes,
ideas, catchphrases, fashion trends and beliefs9. As a cultural equivalent of ‘gene’, meme thus
draws “an analogy between cultural and genetic transmission”.10 Dawkins’ conception has been
criticized for it’s cultural and biological determinism, but the term itself has been approved ofas applicable, as long as one acknowledges that memes do not spread in a self-copying way, but
through the active participation of people, who reappropriate and reiterate them.11
In online contexts, this process of cultural information transfer becomes especiallytraceable, since internet memes leave “footprints”.12 As our examples shift between online andoffline contexts, we choose to drop the prefix ‘internet’ when speaking of the memes in case,although most of the time we focus on analysing the footprints that the memes have left precisely
in the online environment. Furthermore, while contemporary common parlance often reduces
the term “meme” to denote only digitally shared image macros, we argue for a wider view thatencompasses the whole phenomenon of Hodor-doorstops from actual, tangible doorstops to the39

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

spreading of similar ideas via photoshopped images and catchphrase references. These we referto as Hodor-as-doorstop-memes, Hodor-doorstops and Hodoorstops.
Next to this, there are two further terminological choices worth explaining before we
get going with our analysis. Terms such as “fan” or “troll” were used in the reportages indescribing the people whom the doorstops might interest or who might produce them. Thispartially justifies their use also in our article. However, not all viewers of the show mightchoose to term themselves fans even if they might share the deep enthusiasm usuallyassociated with “fannish” consumption,13 while not all who were entertained by the wittiness ofthe Hodoorstops necessarily share a “trollish” attitude. Although we remain rather doubtful as
to whether we can title the producers of the Hodoorstops “trolls” or those who seemed to be“mourning” Hodor “fans”, these concepts remain important to our study for a couple ofreasons. On the one hand, the question of whether the sharing and multiplication of
Hodoorstops can be termed “fannish” or “trollish” becomes important, because it affects theanalysis of the aesthetic impact of the production and circulation of the Hodoorstops.
Subcultural groups may, for instance, harbour tastes and evaluative practices that differ frommainstream evaluative practices, as in the case of trolling, which can be described either as ataste for malevolence or as entertainment, depending on the “side” on which one stands in thegame14. Moreover, the positions of “fan” and “troll”, and the statements made in regard tothese two groups in the entertainment reportages, become important when the memeficationof Hodor’s death is related to grief and mourning – in particular in their disenfranchised
forms. Thus, distinctions between “fans”, “consumers” and “trolls” are made in the course ofthis article whenever it seems relevant to the discussion of the aesthetics of the different
Hodoorstops. In the following two subchapters we introduce the phenomenon through the two
discursive frames introduced in the reportages: in the first subchapter through “ridicule” andin the second one through “mourning”.
3.1. Laughing at fans: Hodoorstops, “Trolls” and the “Zany Register”
The memetic reactions to Hodor’s death could be divided into two categories: “trolling” and“coping”, both of which were introduced also in the reportage articles making sense (andcatchy headlines) of the doorstop-phenomenon. In our analysis of the aesthetics of the Hodor
memes and doorstops, we will use this crude division as a springboard, from which we
continue to discuss the ambivalent doorstops and their divided online reception in more detail.
These two concepts take opposing sides to the humorous memes: “trolling” points to theimpulse to laugh at the tearful audiences (Fig. 4), whereas “coping” refers to the aspiration of40

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

the audiences to come to terms with their “loss” through humour. In this chapter we study thephenomenon in its “trollish” aspects.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines trolling as the practice of making “a deliberately
offensive or provocative online posting with the aim of upsetting someone or eliciting an angry
response from them”.15 Along these lines, trolling is colloquially referred to as online behaviour
that seeks to inflame discussions. Etymologically, trolling can be linked to the piscatory“stringing lines of bait behind a fishing boat” or to the troll figure that has migrated into thewestern commonplace from Norse mythology. The first of these linkages emphasises the
sportive character of the trolling game, and the second highlights the anti-social and evenmonstrous side of trollish conduct.16 While much of the research on the subject of trolling has
focused on the disruptive and anti-social features of trolling, 17 newer research is paying
growing attention to the subcultural communities formed by trolls and the symbiotic as well as
exploitative relationship that trolling has to mainstream culture. Phillips, for example, likens
the mechanisms of trolling to those of mainstream media reporting, which, in its mostspectacular forms, seeks to inflame public emotional responses just as trolling does. 18 The
affiliation of trolling and mainstream culture makes sense also as we consider the stereotype of
the internet troll as comparable to the stereotype of the fan as an avid producer of newcontent.19 Thus the concept of “trolling” conveniently leads us to consider also the obvious aimof the memes in seeking to entertain a networked audience through a humorous (and evensomewhat sharp or hurtful) use of words and imagery (Fig. 5).
The connection between the Hodoorstop-memes and the entertaining aspirations
behind trolling can be elucidated through a look at the stylistic choices of individual posts.
Many of the posts shared on Tumblr and Twitter used witty phrasing, image macros and gifanimations in expressing their viewing experience and their reactions to Hodor’s death.
Profane wording emphasises the irony of, for example, the following comment: “I’m not crying
there’s just a door in my fucking eye.” In another comment similar hyperbole is used to reflect
the tragedy of Hodor in relation to the conventions of fiction: “That is some strong character
development for a character that can only say one fucking word.” In many of the reportages thestyles of narrating reflects those of the individual posts. The ironical tone of these emotional
outbursts is mirrored in a BuzzFeed reportage that reads: “Discovering the truth about how
Hodor became Hodor is probably one of the most devastating things to ever happen to theGame of Thrones fandom – and that’s saying something. [...] Naturally, people have taken to
Tumblr to express their emotions (SO MANY EMOTIONS)…”20

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Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

The connection that the Hodoorstops have to trolling as another entertaining form of
online culture becomes further emphasized when one considers the fact that many of thecurrently circulated memes originated in subcultural troll-sites like 4chan’s /b/ board.21 With
the accelerated permeability of Web 2.0 this “participatory culture” is not just for groups suchas fans or trolls.22 Therefore, it would be wrong to simply assume that the makers of thesememes were all subcultural trolls aiming to “poke fun” at another distinct subculture.
Circulating memes for fun has long been part of mainstream internet practices. In this light, it
seems to us, that the Hodor-as-doorstop -memes can be counted as a cultural reaction thatsought to network over a shared consumer experience while using a now mainstream practiceof meme-making to convey the mixed feelings that such a fictional death might cause. Thus,
even if we do not see this phenomenon as the kind of subcultural trolling that Phillips, forexample, discusses, we maintain that many of the Hodoorstop memes are, indeed, laughing or“LOLing” at tragedy in a somewhat trollish way.23
In fact the most “trollish” reactions might have been those that commented on the
jocular vernacular of Hodor-memes, not the memes themselves. One of the most obviously“trollish” reactions that sought to inflame “outrage”, is a video response of the producers of the
TV series that broadcasted in Jimmy Kimmel Live just few days after the episode featuring
Hodor's death had aired (Fig. 6).24 It was framed as a response to the recurring requests tojustify and even to apologize for the killings that happen in the show, but instead of thepromised “heartfelt apology” the creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss offered sarcastic
regrets for creating a possibly irritating meme, if not even a real life joke. Sitting on piles ofcash, they announced that they are not sorry for killing Hodor, since killing characters issomething that they do “all the time”. Instead, they did apologise for the fact that people will
now be shouting “Hodor” whenever they want someone to hold a door for them. A similar
stance is visible in The Verge’s post25 listing “the best and worst of internet’s uninspired Hodor
jokes”, which contrasts the “loving Hodor tributes” with the unimaginative Hodor-related
jokes it titles “not-that-good” “attempts at comedy” before it displays them at length.
The aesthetic, or, stylistic aspects of these “trollish” iterations, that rode the hype
without seeming too sincere about their emotional commitment, may be theorized through theconcepts of “zany” and “camp”. According to cultural theorist Sianne Ngai the aesthetic of thezany is marked by strenuous performance. It is an aesthetic of action, fluidity and appealing
freshness, but at the same time it requires continuous effort on the part of the performer andconstantly risks becoming unsuccessful. In text, the zany manifests itself in the excessive use of“italics, dashes, exclamation points and full capitals”. In a wider cultural context it is visible in42

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

the breakdown of the borders between work and play, a development strongly related to theincreasing prominence of affective labour in Post-Fordist capitalism.26 But if the sharing of
Hodor-memes exhibits a certain sort of zaniness by consequence of being part of a networked
social world that thrives on competition and the uninhibited flow of ideas, what can be said
about the sensibility that the reading of such zany performances requires? What kind of
relation does it bear to the “unmistakably modern”27 sensibility of camp?
According to Susan Sontag (1964) camp is a sensibility that values style over content,
reception over actual object value. It is a “way of looking at things” that are out of fashion orotherwise culturally failed. Camp expressions are flamboyant and theatrical, self-conscious,
artificial and extremely sentimental, but next to this, they are also characterised by being “alive
to a double sense in which some things can be taken”.28 While the objects of camp may (andshould) be created in a serious and sincere or naïve way, the camp interpretation itself is
playful, mocking and even harmful.29 This connects it to the practice of trolling. Like trolling,camp is a “queer” and even mischievous reading. Or, as Sontag notes: “Behind the “straight”
public sense in which something can be taken, one has found a private zany experience of thething”. 30 The ironic distance that marks camp spirit is thus comparable to the “mask” oftrolling,31 while the zaniness and the performative reiteration of existing cultural content ofcamp correlate with the way in which memes work.
The apology video might be one of the most cynical responses to the outrage andsadness felt by fans and viewers, but it only emphasizes the trollish trait that is common to
many of the memetic responses to Hodor’s death. It appears to be ridiculing the sadness felt byfans, while it plugs into this emotive content in order to further escalate the phenomenon.
Most of the memes might not be this contemptuous, and they certainly are not related tofinding something démodé or bad enjoyable in the usual campy sense, but many of them doseem to place the grief related to Hodor’s death into quotation marks and they do target
something that might be regarded as pure or naive and yet in some sense culturally failed: themourning of a fictive character.32 Also, while they might be funny or even cynical, there is realenjoyment, if not outright fandom of the show behind them, which corresponds with whatcamp sensibility is usually considered to consist of, even if this liking is camouflaged under asugarcoating of irony.33
Thus, even if the overt aim of many of the posts, tweets and reportages seemed to be thesharing of sadness and outrage, the expressions chosen in the reportages deliberately sought to
put the emotions into an ironically hyperbolic form that the online community, saturated withmemes, would honour with clicks and likes. Instead of focusing on the disruptiveness of the43

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

memes as the accusations of trolling seemed to do, one might, thus, find it more rewarding tofocus on the zany and camp aspects of the phenomenon. These concepts might also make iteasier to discuss the memes in terms of fannish behaviour, committed to the sharedcommemoration and mourning of a well-liked character. Focusing on the memes as productsof a zany camp spirit or a campish attitude might, thus, at least partly help us understand theambivalent and even trollish combination of genuine sadness and arrogant sniggering.
3.2. We are all grieving viewers: Authorizing and Carnivalizing Disenfranchised Grief
Next to the accusations of trolling, the ambiguously humorous Hodoorstops were, as alreadynoted, psychologized as a coping mechanism. The media reportages quite often described thepeople producing both “loving tributes” and “uninspired Hodor-jokes” as “grieving fans” andin this vein, the memes were classified as grieving practices. This was reflected in thereportages, which were, to a great extend, written as if "from fans to fans", in an affective
tonality of sorrow. As in the click-baiting media industry, these expressions of sadness were
often hyperbolic ones as they invoked tears, the “money shot” of sorrow, both in words andimages (Fig. 7). Reflecting the style of the original tweets and reiterating their choices in words
the reportages referred to “bawling”, “sobbing” and “weeping”. 34 In a similarly hyperbolicmanner the tragic episode was denoted “heartbreaking”35 and accused of “tearing” or “ripping
our hearts out”.36 On top of this, the title of “world’s saddest homeware item” that originatedon Mashable was circulated from site to site. 37
As competitors and collaborators in their own kind of “meme pool”,38 the tweets, memes
and reportages (by virtue of being launched) sought success by displaying a) knowledge of theevent in case and by b) plugging into the affective maelstrom that the event caused in a c) moreor less witty manner. By their stylistic alignments the reporters circulating the memes seemed to
identify with the grieving fans, laughing not just at them, but with them. 39 They identified
themselves as “us” and as “fans” and attested insider knowledge of the show by dropping in juicy
tidbits as well as by providing their own summarizes of the course of events. Next to this, theyalso scapegoated Bran and insisted on shared emotions with regards to the “heartbreaking” yet“valiant” death of Hodor. Despite the exaggerated register of irony, the reportages thus seemed
to imply that the sorrow over his tragic death was perceived to touch “us all” as viewers of theshow. In this manner the majority of the reportages appropriated the grief of fans as a norm,
while they implied that the jocular tributes from memes to doorstops helped fans “cope”.40 If one
considers the fact that both artistic mechanisms and humour are widely accepted as coping
mechanisms,41 the Hodoorstops, interpreted as trolling by some, could thus also be seen as the44

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

excuse and the alleviator of something called disenfranchised grief.
According to Kenneth Doka, who coined the concept, ”Disenfranchised grief can be
defined as a grief experienced by those who incur a loss that is not, or cannot be, openly
acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported.” 42 He continues: “The concept ofdisenfranchised grief recognizes that societies have sets of norms [...] that attempt to specify
who, when, where, how, how long and for whom people should grieve”. 43 Doka’s idea of
disenfranchised grief is easily extended to “case Hodor” through the disenfranchisement ofintense emotions experienced in fandoms and the marginalized status of “fannish”
involvement. As Anu Harju writes, in reference to Cornel Sandvoss, "More often than not,intense fandom is treated in our culture as a marginal phenomenon, often as subversive innature”. 44 Additionally, the intense feelings can be seen invalidated as grief, in particular.
According to Doka, there are several criteria that have to be met in order for a death to becomea legitimate source of grief and mourning. First, the relationship between the lost one and thegrievers should usually be one that is based on kin-ties in order for the loss to be recognised.
Next to this, the loss, the griever, the grief and the death itself should all be acknowledged andunderstood. Given the fictitious aspect of both Hodor’s character and his death, and the factthat the relationship between him and the audiences of the show are stereotypical one-way
relationships that posit “fanatical” and “irrational” reactions, one could claim that the loss of
Hodor is what Doka would call disenfranchised. That is, their grieving and mourning are notsocially endorsed or acceptable unlike those related to the loss of, say, a close relative.
Julie Andsager (2005) and Harju (2015) have already found disenfranchised grief a
useful concept in studying grief and mourning in celebrity fandoms. Their study is preceded by
the study of the disenfranchisement of public participation at the event of either high-profile ortraumatic death. 45 Even if some distinctions must be drawn when moving fromcommemoration of violent death and from the celebrity cult to fiction “fandoms”, all cases canbe seen united in the stereotype that views public grief and mourning as signs of obsessiveness,
excessiveness and irrationality.46 Of course, in fandoms such stereotype precedes the event ofrepresented or mediated death. This stereotype likes to see fans stuck in a state of prolonged
infantility, and this state is seen to render them unable to draw the line between fantasy andreality as they tie affective relationships to the characters.47
The stigmatization of these affective ties and the discounting of death as it isencountered as an image might render audiences disenfranchised in terms of the grief that
goes with the psychological processes of dealing with celluloid death. For one, thedisenfranchisement of fandoms tends to ignore that fan objects are not necessarily “unilateral”
45

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but might contribute to the sense of self by functioning as reflexive extensions of identity.48 On
the other hand, it ignores the symbolic potential of media objects to signify beyond their
immediate contexts. What is more, it could be claimed today it is mostly through media mostpeople first come in touch with death and first learn to cope with it. That these losses are“symbolic” or “fictive” does not, thus, make them less personally felt.
Yet the disenfranchised status of these emotions also tends to be replicated within
audiences. Even among fandoms proper grief is known to be a cause of internal conflict.49 As
Racheline Maltese argues, “enchanted believers”, the specific types of fan that mourn, often
evoke suspicion, censorship and disapproval.50 Thus, although we live in a century of “bigemotions”51 and consider mass media its feeding ground, in a culture which likes to engenderemotion, effeminize fans and debase their affective involvement, 52 part of these dynamics
might affect and complicate also the reactions and responses to the death of Hodor and hisshared mourning.
As to the question of why such a “camped up” or humorous ways of remembrance, as in
the case of Hodor, might be considered manifestations of grief one might, therefore, seek ananswer in the possibility that the sense of loss experienced by the audiences is not fullyrecognized and endorsed. Few preliminary explanations might be in order before we move on
to study what relations these memes might have with mourning. Firstly, death has quite
universally been qualified as a life event that needs to be “worked through”, whether we are
discussing psychological processes or collective social “rituals”. 53 It is also recognized thatvaried societal norms govern the manners with which these processes of grief and mourning
are accomplished. These two distinct, yet affiliated, concepts of grief and mourning draw
attention to two different sides of bereavement. While grief and grieving refer to sorrow and its
expressions, mourning refers to the ritualized practises with which sorrow is overcome. Dokaacknowledges these norms and considers abnormal mourning practises might lead todisenfranchisement: grief might not be validated if one “fails to mourn in a socially acceptableway”.54 For instance in the Western history these norms have for long insisted on the privacy ofgrief, and tend to demand solemnity and seriousness from collective mourning. 55 When
studying the Hodoorstops, they seem to go amiss in quite many senses: in the hyperbole ofemotion and in the irreverence or their “memorials” (Fig. 8, Fig. 9).
The concept of “carnivalesque”, popularized by Bakhtin (1965), might make sense inthis particular context of “zany mourning”, as it elucidates how the necessary social andsymbolic transitions involved with death might be accomplished precisely with improper
symbols and festive humour. The concept of carnival refers to a similar "liminal” phase also the46

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

rituals of mourning are traditionally situated in, and posits that these collective rituals arecompleted with a merrymaking, ludic attitude and a reversal of the established symbolic order.
However unusual the carnival spirit might be to the death culture of Western modernity,
carnivalesque mourning practises are more familiar in the global and historical scales. For
instance the Mexican-Catholic Dia de (los) Muertos, popularized in the Anglo-American
popular culture over the last decades, epitomizes such "rites of passages" that represent bothmourning and carnivalization.56 Similarly, The Bals de Victims of post-revolutionary French
were seen to carnivalize death by decapitation with macabre dance moves.57
Carnivalization also appears in other contexts where either the loss or mourning
relationship has remained unrecognized. Together with the aforementioned examples ofcolonization and victimization, this makes it suspect that a position of disenfranchisement ingrief or in society might contribute to countercultural, misunderstood forms of mourning.
LGBT relationships are often seen to epitomize such relationships that remain unrecognized in
the face of bereavement. 58 A recent example is provided by Antu Sorainen, who pins theOrlando LGBT mass-murder down by relating it to the mourning of AIDS, as she writes:”Treating the trauma with irony, carnivalization and the incorporation of comedy with tragedy
have provided a familiar and natural way to mourn”. This seemingly nonchalant attitude
Sorainen defines precisely as an act of defiance. 59 Therein she taps onto the politicalundercurrents behind the “carnival laughter” that Bakhtin has studied as a folk cultural riposte
against official culture. Carnival permits a temporary abandonment and ridicule of the official
institutions and forms of culture. 60 For this reason carnivalism is a “natural” way to mourn forthe low and the marginalized.61
Next to this laughter, carnival is engaged with a form of consumption we might title“camped up”. Not only is this attitude pertinent to queer culture, but such a stance towards theofficial culture is also shared in the general idea of “fan culture”, which endorses popular
entertainment and challenges even its official canons with their own “fanons”, or DIY
cultures 62 According to Jenkins fan culture thus “stands as an open challenge to the“naturalness” and desirability of dominant cultural hierarchies”.63 In its camped up attitudeand carnivalesque laughter the entire media event of doorstops resembles such ‘highly
orchestrated performances of mourning’ that manifest in other disenfranchised occasions ofgrief.64 Like the Hodoorstops, also these earlier folk commemorations face scorn as excessive
and manic. 65 What is more, one cannot help noticing certain similarities to the death ofHarambe, the lowland gorilla whose high-profile killing gave rise to a memefication not unlikethat of Hodor in May 2016, and likewise became labeled “trolling”.66
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Yet, as has been argued, although carnival succeeds in upsetting the order, thecarnivalistic defiance affirms rather than subverts the order of things. 67 Also the aberrant
mourning practices have been seen as such factors that effect disenfranchisement.68 Even theappealing spectacle of the Dia de (los) Muertos has been connected to essentialist national
stereotypes, producing otherness. 69 In the rise of the participatory “spontaneous shrines”,
instead, the perceived “fetishism” of these derogatively titled “makeshift memorials” works todisenfranchise the grief of the common people producing them.70
Now, in the reportages the jocular memes following Hodor’s death were seen to express
grief and to function as tools for “coping” inasmuch as they turned tragedy into humour. In thezany register acknowledged as pertinent to the culture in question, the reporters suggested ashared experience – a shared fandom if you please – as they were eager to denominate thememes precisely as coping practices and themselves as fans. The online circulation of the“post-mortem” Hodor-memes would thus seem to legitimise a sort of disenfranchised grief andits carnivalistic, campy or zany manifestations. But as the grief itself was seen to unit everyone,
not all Hodoorstops were to be considered equally good and equally acceptable “monuments”
of mourning and remembrance. Many of the memes and reportages were characterized byexclamations stating the memes – and the material doorstops, in particular – were made “toosoon”.71 The addition of “too soon” saw these objects as having interrupted the “mourning
period”, that was in line with the traditional western mourning customs.
In determining why the doorstops might be interpreted as unsettling, some more thanothers, one cannot pass to analyze their aesthetic qualities. If we consider these artifacts such“memorials” around which mourners have been argued to gather for their signifying
potential72, what separates them from the more usual forms of commemoration, or one groupof Hodoorstops from another? In the following chapter we discuss the material and affective
features of the various groups of Hodoorstoppers by relating them to the dominant culture ofmourning through the idea of “kitsch” and the practice of “aesthetic sublation”.
4. Fandom strikes back? Kitschy Conventions, Sublate Artifacts
Throughout time, mourning has been connected to forms of commemoration and ritualizationthat have revolved around material objects of varied kinds. Such vehicles of mourning traditionally
include physical relics, death plaster casts, post-mortem photographs, poetry and paintings.73
Outside home, the deceased are commemorated in gravestones, memorial monuments and varied
graveyard paraphernalia. Online memorial culture – featuring RIP-pages, memorial forums andYoutube videos – plugs into these traditional forms of commemoration.74 Just as traditional death48

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

rituals, which often emphasize positive remembrance as well as life and continuity over death,online memorial culture also tends to focus on finding positive things to say about the deceased,thus alleviating emotions that might be hard to understand, express and govern by channelingthem into a track of positive remembrance.
Many of the Hodor-memes are easily posited into this continuum of commemoration.
One can regard them as online memorials75 or as disparaged spontaneous memorials76 but inboth cases they circulate elements familiar from the aforementioned traditions ofcommemoration. The early tributory memes, for instance, are fraught with a positivity that links
them to the traditional formulas of commemoration. They celebrate the heroism of Hodor byfocusing on his lived life in sweet drawings (Fig. 10) and in the circulation of familiar imageries
in a new context of glory. Often these memes are also accompanied by comments and quotes
displaying appropriate sentiment. This is true of the a Hodor-meme (Fig. 11) that is circulatedwith a caption saying: “Hodor always had his back, no matter what. My heart is so sad now”.
These kind of tributary images abide to the socially acceptable manner for displaying grief andmourning. Likewise, the crowdfunded, wood-engraved doorstops mimic the solemnity of amarble tomb (Fig. 12). How can they, thus, evoke controversy by appearing “too soon”? And how
do the less solemn Hodor-themed doorstops fit into the prevailing traditions of mourning?
According to our analysis, one of the most obviously controversial features about thedoorstops is their kind of materiality. In contrast to the usual memorial items, which can beconsidered elevated remainders of a person’s life and achievements, 77 a great part of the
Hodoorstops embody a banal and lowly sort of remembrance. First of all, they are mostly madeof relatively “low” materials such as plastic and wood, which pale in comparison to the stone
and marble used in more conventional, “lasting” memorials such as statues and gravestones.
The ephemerality of this kind of commemoration becomes even more accentuated in the caseof Hodor’s cut-out faces, that some mourners placed on “hold the door” -buttons of elevators
or glued onto already existing doorstops (Fig. 9, Fig. 13).
Another feature that would attest to the “low” character of the doorstops as memorial
items is their price tag. The Patrull doorstop that sells at Ikea using the memetic slogan “Holdthe door” costs 2,99 dollars,78 while an Etsy doorstopper (Fig. 14), which featured Hodor’s lastscene on a slab of plastic was criticized for being too expensive at 30 dollars. The meme wasalso facetiously recycled into a fake commercial of an Ikea doorstop, titled Hodør and labelled
to cost 1,29 dollars.79 Next to these examples, price and (mass) production were causes ofcriticism precisely in the claims that (some of) the doorstops came “too soon”; it appeared notenough time had passed for people to start making money on Hodor’s death. The media
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reportages drew a sturdy line particularly between the fan-created DIY-doorstops and the two
kickstarter projects. The unrelated, most blatant attempts at corporate monetization wereridiculed, as a sandwich-tribute (presumably by a sandwich-shop) testifies (Fig. 15).80 This
would appear to replicate Jenkins’s (1992) notion of consumer capitalism's power to divide
fandom. It also corresponds with the other countercultural forms of mourning: “It seems as if
people are reacting to the mass industrialization of death and the alienation of contemporarysociety with new folk traditions, rituals and celebrations.”81
Mass-production and ease of consumption, facilitated by a cheap price, are usually seen as
kitsch markers. The positive readings that sought to see the doorstop-phenomenon as coping
accentuate this aspect of “having your emotions on the cheap”.82 After all, they seemed to be quite
sure that the type of the shared emotion was one of collective sadness, expressed in a strange
manner. Earlier we suggested, that by affiliating with the fans they legitimized theirdisenfranchised grief. Yet it must not be overlooked, that by labeling the phenomenon as grief,
they turned an affective and unexpected media phenomenon into something predictable. If kitsch
is seen as cultural production that deals with emotional themes in stereotypical, easily
recognizable ways without enriching the associations related to the subject in any way,83 one could
claim, that at least part of the phenomenon of Hodor grieving does or did have kitsch aspects.
The material and aesthetic features of some of the Hodoorstops emphasized thesekitsch aspects. The annulled kickstarter project, for example (Fig. 16), proposed an all chromecolored full body sculpture in Hodor’s likeness (in miniature form, of course, and standing on adoorstopper wedge instead of being wedged underneath the door himself, as in some of theother cases (Fig. 17)). This figure no longer bears any trace of Hodor’s handicap. Simplicity isreplaced by sternness and alertness in both his stance and his facial expression. The hardshipsof his long journey seem to be washed away and the metallic coloring gives his form an eternal
glow. To a more critical eye, such a maneuver, of course, beautifies Hodor’s violent and unjust
death. A cynic might also point out, that the smooth coloring would probably wear out quickly
in real use since it is only spray coating. Still, many of the reportages lamented that thisparticular doorstop did not reach actual production.
To attach to the “ubiquitous and inescapable” prominence of kitsch, 84 one does,
however, not need to buy a gilded true-to-life miniature version of Hodor nor any of the plastic
busts on sale on Etsy.85 One can also lay down a flower at the virtual graveyard 86 or make useof pre-existing Game of Thrones paraphernalia, such as Hodor-figures or -vinyl toys (Fig. 18,
See also Fig. 8). The online graveyard may not share the kitschy materiality of the doorstops
and the reuse of a Hodor-figure as a doorstop may give it some unexpected use value that50

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

reduces the item’s kitschiness. Yet as an imitation of a real graveyard the virtual one may be
regarded as providing an easy and stereotypical, and thus kitschy, way to mourn, while Hodorfigurines may be considered kitschy because of their mass-produced nature alone.
In discussing the kitschy elements in case Hodor one cannot pass to notice, that his
manner of death was the only element in the phenomenon left “un-disenfranchised” in the
traditional sense.87 If we look past the fictitiousness of Hodor’s death, we see a death that,
according to all codes of representation, figures as a sanctified, glorified martyrdom.
Sentimentally it elevates an otherwise "low" character. The Etsy doorstops created in his
likeness aim to reproduce this sentimentality, attempting to “be sublime without the effort
being so”.88 In this they follow the line of thought Roger Scruton presents: “When tragedy
enters the world of kitsch, it is denatured, purged of that absolute sense of loss that is theproper response to the death of a moral being.” 89 Honouring Hodor’s death, many of theviewers of the show resorted to more established ways of commemoration, perpetuating his
martyrdom in their own self-made, gilded, Hodor-look-a-like memorials, and thus creating“kitschy” readings without the help of the official cogwheels of production.
However, not all doorstops attested to this easy sentimentality and kitschy aesthetic.
While most of the Etsy doorstops mimic the aesthetics of the show, showing the show’s logo or
font and featuring either one or both of the following elements: a version of Hodor’s name(often capitalized) or a figure bearing his likeness (a bust, or more often, a full body figure
holding shut the door), there were various DIY-doorstops that were less ambitious in theirappeal. Not made for sale, these “least fancy” doorstops were simple doorstoppers, renamed,
ranging from bricks to well-used wooden wedges, with the only Hodor-related feature being
his name written on them (Fig. 19, Fig. 20). To us these doorstops represent the least
respectful and most ironical form of remembrance, which makes it possible to read them as akind of resistance to the “kitschifying” treatment of Hodor’s martyrdom and his sentimental
and merchandised mourning. Notably, these doorstops also lack the flamboyance often related
to “camp” performances. In the case of the aesthetics of these simple Hodor-doorstops, neither
the concepts of kitsch or camp seem to provide sufficient explanatory power. Instead of trying
to categorize them through these terms, one might thus try to understand their aesthetic
performance through the idea of “aesthetic sublation”.
Aesthetic sublation is a an evaluative, expressive process, that seeks to abase or degradea sublime or beautiful thing or event90 – for instance, by rendering it “grotesque” or “abject”.
As an aesthetic concept “sublate” was coined by Carolyn Korsmeyer,91 who borrowed the termfrom the field of chemistry and discussed it as an aesthetic counterpoint to the sublime. In the51

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

case of death, sublation confronts the sublimity of “the great unknown” and renders it
controllable by concretising it through tangible materiality. Unlike usual memorial practices, itdoes not, however, seek to beautify the event. Instead, it emphasises the crude, nasty or uselessside of death by portraying the actual moment of dying in all of its banality and gore. For
instance, instead of tactfully ignoring the gasses that escape from the dead body of a loved one,an aesthetically sublating stance might choose to emphasize them by making an inappropriate
remark or joke about the sound or odour. To an audience used to the sublimation andaesthetization of death, this would, of course, seem disrespectful and debasing.
In “case Hodor”, the concept of aesthetic sublation can be used to describe, first of all, thecommonplaceness of doorstops as household objects. The use of a lowly everyday object such asa doorstop as an item of mourning might appear mundane, when compared to the “consecrated”
position of most memorial objects. Their “liminal” position underneath doors and between
spaces, in passageways, further diminishes them. Moreover, their practical nature might distract
one from the spiritual interpretations that the vehicles of remembrance often evoke. This notion
is related to the second manner aesthetic sublation elucidates the nature of Hodoorstops as
memorial artifacts. Next to being banal, the most well used or “recycled” doorstops incorporate amateriality that chooses to objectify Hodor. Without the sublime accompaniments – the soundof violins or the emotion on dying Hodor’s face – the doorstops reduce his death to the simple
act of holding a door no matter how much feeling is read into them. In this sense the sublimity ofa martyr’s death can be reduced to a body lying (in)conveniently, like a plug, in the way of azombie horde, against a door that might otherwise open – or close.
While these actions of commemoration might, thus, be accepted as mourning customs
informed by grief, their “lowly” forms easily turn the phenomenon more complicated. The reactions, which claimed that the doorstops appeared “too soon”, for instance, accentuate thefact that some of the doorstops missed the devout solemnity of traditional memorials – either
by monetizing or by debasing Hodor’s death. In our view, the lack of solemn sentiment, thatmarked the phenomenon and divided opinions on the doorstop-memes, can be explained atleast partly by the concepts of “kitsch” and “aesthetic sublation”. Aided by both of theseconcepts the doorstops can also be tied to the aberrant, carnivalistic mourning patterns we
discussed earlier, even if the normalized coping mechanism of humour was replaced by a formof grotesqueness, that is not so easy to laugh at. As Doss writes: “Spontaneous memorials areoften scorned as fetishistic for their obsessive materiality and manic mourning: their excessive
physical and emotional properties are deemed “too much” for the public sphere; theiroverwrought dimensions seemingly strain the boundaries between good taste and vulgarity.”92
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5. Unlikely monuments: A Conclusion“If humour is the inner side of mourning, the external side takes the form of the monument.”93
In this article we have sought to describe the ambivalent internet phenomenon of“Hodoorstops” by applying various aesthetic terms in order to gain a better understanding of
their nature and affective impact. One of our first findings was to relate them to the idea
disenfranchised grieving. In our analysis, we found that the doorstops did not only flourish invarious ingeniously entertaining forms, but that they also seemed to plug into a larger wave ofaffective online sharing and commemoration of dead GoT characters. Within this mode ofmemetic mourning, the existing aesthetics of mourning seemed to extend the idea of “tribute”
to fictional characters, while remaining curiously inconclusive about the actual level of the“mourners” commitment. In a sense the memes even seemed to render laughable the online
and offline memorial cultures, which they borrowed from, both generating and alleviating thedisenfranchisement of the mourning of fictive characters.
By looking at how the phenomenon was discussed and framed on the entertainment
sites, we concluded that the reactions to the memes were roughly divided into two categories,
which saw the doorstops either as “trolling” or as “coping”. We problematized the accusationsof “trolling” in its malicious stereotype and noted, that the memes apply a “zany” register thatcan be related to a “campy” spirit, but observed, that the reportages also sought to interpret thephenomenon in terms of grief. Despite the obviously humorous or carnivalistic quality of these
sorts of “remembrance” we suggested the doorstops be seen as attempts to come to terms with
an emotional, tragic experience in the form of a shared – memefied – commemoration. After
this, we sought to understand the uproar and the interest that these memes sparked byfocusing on the material, aesthetic qualities of the doorstops. We described their generally“low” material quality and the cheap price and noted the sentimental and mass produced
aspects that helped one “have one’s emotions on the cheap” in a somewhat “kitschy” fashion.
Next to this, we suggested that the most banal Hodor-as-doorstop -memes, the well-used
doorstops with Hodor’s name written on them or the elevator buttons and pieces of cardboard
with his face glued on them, seemed to be exercising a performative aesthetic that could not be
fully explained with the concepts of kitsch or camp. In their humble materiality and “low”
everyday character, these doorstops appeared to degrade the heroic death of this well-liked
character in an aesthetically “sublating” manner.
We find that a wide repertoire of concepts captures the aesthetic nature of thesomewhat controversial phenomenon in question better than a more fixed reading. Just as the53

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

audiences in question cannot be studied as a homogenous ”fan community”, their divided
responses towards the doorstops being stuck between the many labels of “trolling” or“coping”94, the nature of the doorstops themselves remains ambivalent. The laughter madevisible in them can be interpreted from different positions. To a reviewer, socialized into a
culture of mourning where solemnity is seen as a norm, the lowly doorstops capturing acharacter in his moment of death may easily seem a form of ridiculing and trolling not only
Hodor’s death but also the possible grief of the fan community. To a devoted viewer or fan,they might, in turn, offer a channel for shared mourning and commemoration. And lastly, toan outsider, the whole phenomenon might seem ridiculous or uninspired. In the end, thejuxtaposition between ridicule and mourning might even seem somewhat artificial. In fan
communities and in fictive occasions of death grief can be disenfranchised in many ways, andthus mourning might simply not follow an established tradition.
A wide variety of concepts, thus, highlights how in the context of participatory internet
culture and in disenfranchised occasions of grief, the roles of “fan” and “troll“, may blur into
each other in ways that complicate such simple readings. Even a moment of hesitation in thefannish commitment may make the performance veer towards camp95, and an enhanced focus
on the amusing parts of a tragic event may result in trollish interpretations. The possibility ofsuch a fluctuation has much to do with the sentimentality that underlies both kitsch and campconsumption. The use of Hodoorstops becomes campish, when it becomes self-aware andhides behind the “trollish” mask of ironic distance. Without the ironical distance that marks
camp spirit, the sentimentality of mourning, however, quickly turns to kitsch, attesting to such
conventions of mourning that are “cheaply” achieved and sentimentalized. Yet this kitschstance may also be re-evaluated and sublated as the meme multiplies, in carnivalesque or
aesthetically sublating stance towards an overwhelming experience such as death.
The outcries about the doorstops being made “too soon” highlight the clash in which
normative views of mourning collide with the appraisal of the online community’s prolificcreativity. Despite their simple, ephemeral and humorous nature, the Hodoorstops can betreated as a way to share grief of a disenfranchised nature within a fan community. Combining
readings that studied the “fan practices” in relation to varied mourning customs and the aesthetic categories of “zany”, “camp”, “kitsch” and “sublate” we have, thus, sought to make senseof the mourning that appeared to us “carnivalesque” and grief that could be titled “disenfranchised”. While the idea of carnivalesque mourning suggests that the audience is aware of its
disenfranchised position and uses its humorous take on tributes both to mourn and to display
defiance, the detection of kitsch elements involved in these jocular “makeshift memorials” can54

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

also appear to suggest a normalising stance towards a death, grief and mourning that resist
normalization. The practise of aesthetically sublating the sanctioned kitsch of prevailingconventions and sentiments can, then, be seen as a sort of rebellion against the normative
ways of mourning in a death that is deviant. In their inappropriateness, Hodoorstops may
become read as trollish or campish behaviour, but as a whole, they can function as part of alarger affective reaction of a varied audience.
In this sense, then, the production and circulation of Hodoorstops can be seen as an
instant of fandom “striking back”. As C.L. Harington writes, “In the context of television bothcreatives and fans imply that endings ultimately belong to fans[...],”96 and if something is clear
in this curiously ambivalent phenomenon that reeled us in as scholars and as viewers of theshow, the ending of Hodor’s life was the beginning of a hype around his character. Whether aparticular doorstop is seen as kitschified or as sublated instant of mourning or trolling, it
testifies to a will to participate in the weaving of Hodor’s life story in its post mortem form. We
shall finish with an ever so accurate quote by the one of the sites commenting on the
doorstops: “We’re not sure if all this is tasteless and tragic, or incredibly funny. So we’re justgoing to declare it “Hodor” .”97

1 Robb’s centricity is emphasized, for instance, in the following network visualization: “Mathematicians mapped out every“Game of Thrones” relationship to find the main character”, Quartz, accessed March 14, 2017,https://qz.com/650796/mathematicians-mapped-out-every-game-of-thrones-relationship-to-find-the-maincharacter/?utm_source=qzfbarchive.
2 Kenneth J. Doka, “Disenfranchised grief,” Bereavement Care 18(3) (1999): 37–39.
3 Irma Hirsijärvi “Star Trek ilmiö fanitutkimuksen valossa,” in Kulttikirja: Tutkimuksia nykyajan kultti-ilmiöistä, ed.

Urpo Kovala and Tuija Saresma (Helsinki: SKS, 2003), 143–165.; Henry Jenkins, Textual Poachers: Television, Fansand Participatory Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1992).
4 Julie Andsager, “Altaered sites: Celebrity webshrines as shared mourning,” in Afterlife as afterimage: Understanding

posthumous, eds. Steve Jones and Joli Jensen (New York: Peter Lang, 2005): 17–30.; Anu Harju, “Socially Shared
Mourning: Construction and Consumption of Collective Memory,” New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia 21(2014): 123–145.
5 'Game of Thrones' author George R.R. Martin: Why he wrote The Red Wedding,” CNN entertainment, June 7, 2013,

accessed March 28, 2017, http://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/07/showbiz/tv/game-martin-red-wedding-ew/
6 Eliisa Vainikka, “Avaimia nettimeemien tulkintaan: Meemit transnationaalisena ilmiönä,” Lähikuva 3 (2016), 60–77.
7 See: Patricia Dias Da Silva & José Luís Garcia, “Youtubers as satirists: Humour and remix in online video,” JeDEM 4(2012): 89–103.; Petri Saarikoski, ”Pistä natsi asialle ja mene itse perässä!” Hitler-videomeemien historia ja anatomia,”
Widerscreen (2016), accessed March 26, 2017: http://widerscreen.fi/numerot/2016-1-2/pista-natsi-asia-ja-anatomia/;
Limor Shifman, Memes in Digital Culture (Cambridge MA: MIT Press. 2014): 129, quoted in Vainikka, “Avaimia nettimeemien tulkintaan”.

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8 Anna Haverinen, Memoria Virtualis – Death and Mourning Rituals in Online Environment, (Turku: Annales Universi-

tatis Turkuensis B386, 2014).
9 Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 30th anniversary ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006): 192.
10 Dawkins, The Selfish Gene, 2006, 189–201; Alister E. McGrath, Dawkins’ God: From The Selfish Gene to The God

Delusion (Sussex, UK, Wiley Black5): 122.
11 Ryan M. Milner, The World Made Meme: Public Conversations and Participatory Media, (Cambridge, Massachsetts &London, England: MIT Press, 2016): 16–21.
12 Michele Coscia, “Competition and Success in the Meme Pool: A Case Study on Quickmeme.com,” Proceedings of theSeventh International AAAI Conference on Weblogs and Social Media, Copyright: Association for the Advancement of
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http://www.aaai.org/ocs/index.php/ICWSM/ICWSM13/paper/viewFile/5990/6348.
13 See for instance Abercrombie’s and Longhurst’s division of the audiences into “enthusiasts”, “fans”, “cultists” and “con-sumers” and Taalas’s and Hirsjärvi’s notions of the commercialization of fantasy. Nicholas Abercrombie and Brian J.
Longhurst, Audiences: A Sociological Theory of Performance and Imagination (London: SAGE, 1998).; Saara Taalas
and Irma Hirsjärvi, “Fanit ja seuraajat. Tieteiskirjallisuuden kuluttamisen organisoituminen”, in Fanikirja: Tutkimuksia
nykykulttuurin fani-ilmiöistä ed. Kaarina Nikunen (Jyväskylä: Nykykulttuuri, 2008): 200–224, p. 206–213.
14 For more on subcultural trolling see Whitney Phillips, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Mapping the Relation-

ship Between Online Trolling and Mainstream Culture. (London: MIT Press, 2015).
15 “Trolling”, Oxford English Dictionary, accessed March 10, 2017, https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/troll.
16 Phillips, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, 17–20.
17 Claire Hardacker “Trolling in asynchronous computer-mediated communication: From user discussions to academic

definitions,” Journal of Politeness Research: Language, Behavior, Culture, 6(2)(2010): 215–242.; Pnina Shachaf andNoriko Hara, “Beyond vandalism: Wikipedia trolls,” Journal of Information Science 36 (3) (2010): 357–370.; Erin E.
Buckels, Paul D. Trapnell & Delroy L. Paulhus “Trolls just want to have fun” Personality and Individual Differences 67(2014): 97–102.
18 Phillips, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, 16–21, 51–69.
19 Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 16–24.
20 “19 Tumblr Posts That Sum Up How Hodor Fans Feel Right Now,” Buzzfeed, accessed March 10, 2017,https://www.buzzfeed.com/jennaguillaume/bran-stark-ruins-everything?utm_term=.gbO3qMBvn#.upE6km3gJ.
21 Phillips, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, 22, 137–145.
22 Henry Jenkins “From YouTube to YouNiversity,” accessed March 21, 2017,

http://henryjenkins.org/2007/02/from_youtube_to_youniversity.html; Kaarina Nikunen “Televisiofanius – Verkon
varassa”, in Fanikirja. Tutkimuksia nykykulttuurin fani-ilmiöistä, ed. Kaarina Nikunen (Jyväskylä: Nykykulttuuri,2008): 184–199, p.196.
23 LOLing, here, refers to the not-so-ethical laughter or “Schadenfreude” that trolls use for justifying their behavior, “do-ing it for the lulz”, Phillips This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, 71–94, quotes on p. 27–33.
24 “Game of Thrones Producers Apologize for Hodor,” YouTube, accessed March 28, 2017,https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xpG74e_-94&feature=youtu.be
25 “The best and worst of the internet's uninspired Hodor jokes,” The Verge, accessed March 21, 2017,

http://www.theverge.com/2016/5/25/11770886/game-of-thrones-hodor-hold-the-door-stop-jokes.
26 Sianne Ngai, Our Aestheic Categories: Zany, Cute, Interesting, (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press,2015), quote on p. 184.

56

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

27 Sontag, "Notes on camp," in Camp: queer aesthetics and the performing subject: a reader, ed. Fabio Cleto, (Michigan:

University of Michigan Press, 1999), 53–65. Originally published in Partisan Review, December 1964, 515–530. Accessed March 21, 2017 in Monoskop: https://monoskop.org/File:Sontag_Susan_1964_Notes_on_Camp.pdf
28 Sontag, "Notes on camp", 5.
29 Sontag, "Notes on camp"; Max Ryynänen, “Pakko nauraa: camp korkeakulttuurina ja lasikattona,” Nuori Voima 4(2012): 38–41.
30 Sontag, "Notes on camp,” 5.
31 Sontag, "Notes on camp,” 11; Phillips, This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things, 33–36.
32 Sontag, "Notes on camp;” Doka, “Disenfranchised grief”.
33 Sontag, "Notes on camp;” Ryynänen, “Pakko nauraa”.
34 There were different versions of both “sobbing” and “weeping”. Some spoke of “Sobbing one's eyes out” (HUH.) othersof “softly sobbing” and “weeping” (Mashable) or “hysterically weeping“ (Elle Decor). See: “Too Soon? Someone's Made
Hodor Door Stoppers,“ HUH, accessed March 21, 2017, http://www.huhmagazine.co.uk/11582/too-soon-someonesmade-hodor-door-stoppers ; “Hodor door stoppers are surely the world's saddest homeware item,” Mashable, accessed
March 21, 2017, http://mashable.com/2016/05/25/hold-the-door-stoppers/#tW2Sgzw5Guqx ;“Are Hodor door stoppers the saddest homeware item of our time?,” Elle Décor, accessed March 21, 2017,
http://www.elledecor.com/life-culture/fun-at-home/news/a8710/hodor-door-stoppers/ .
35 “This Hodor Doorstop Will "Hold the Door" For Every Grieving Game of Thrones Fan,” Popsugar, accessed March 21,

2017, http://www.popsugar.com/tech/Hodor-Doorstop-41458215 ; “This Hodor Doorstop Is the Perfect Gift for StillWeeping Game of Thrones Fans,“ Slate, accessed March 21, 2017,
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/05/25/game_of_thrones_fans_are_making_hodor_doorstops_to_hold_t
he_door.html ; and “Hold the door: now Game of Thrones fans are making Hodor doorstops,“ The Telegraph, accessed
March 21, 2017,
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2016/05/25/game_of_thrones_fans_are_making_hodor_doorstops_to_hold_t
he_door.html .
36 “People Are Selling Hodor Doorstops And It’s Not OK,” Buzzfeed, accessed March 21, 2017,https://www.buzzfeed.com/andyneuenschwander/you-can-now-buy-a-hodor-door-stopper ; “Everyone Is Trolling‘Game Of Thrones’ Fans With Hodor Door Stoppers,” Uproxx, accessed March 21, 2017, http://uproxx.com/tv/hodordoorstop-hold-the-door-game-of-thrones/ .
37 “The world's saddest homeware item,” Mashable.
38 Coscia, “Competition and Success in the Meme Pool”.
39 The discursive and affective alignments shared by the tweets and the reportages would appear to correspond with theones Harju (“Socially Shared Mourning,” 136–138) had analyzed to be in use in building a sense of a shared community
in the mourning of Steve Jobs, another fandom and another social media network of “weak ties”(Mark S. Granovetter,“The Strength of Weak Ties”, American Journal of Sociology 78 (1973): 1360–1380).
40 A Verbatim version suggested that fans were “coping with humour” (“People Are Freaking Out Over The Shocking

Ending To This Week’s “Game Of Thrones,” Buzzfeed, accessed March 21, 2017,https://www.buzzfeed.com/andyneuenschwander/people-are-not-ok-with-the-ending-of-this-weeks-game-ofthro?utm_term=.ptdr42O9X0#.saZk72dOj5). Popsugar’s was a citation of a caption by one Etsy seller: "Yeah, it might be
too soon for these types of depressing jokes, but we have to cope somehow, right?” (Popsugar). As a further example,
other reportages that suggested that Hodor-related humour functioned as an attempt to “mourn” (“These Hodor Door
Stops Have Us Sobbing,” The Creators Project, accessed March 21, 2017, https://creators.vice.com/en_us/article/hodordoor-stop) or to “complete the grieving process” (“‘Game Of Thrones’ Fans Found The Most Hilarious Way To Honor
57

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

Hodor,” Elite Daily, accessed March 21, 2017, http://elitedaily.com/entertainment/game-of-thrones-hodor-doorstoppers/1504031/). Other articles spoke, among other things, of “alleviating the pain” (“13 fans who were completely
destroyed by THAT Hodor reveal on Game Of Thrones ,” Metro, accessed March 21, 2017,
http://metro.co.uk/2016/05/23/13-fans-who-were-completely-destroyed-by-that-hodor-reveal-on-game-of-thrones5899418/) and “dealing [...] with the saddest moment on Game of Thrones yet" (“Hodor doorstops have officially takenover the internet,” Hello Giggles, accessed March 21, 2017, http://hellogiggles.com/hodor-doostoppers-officially-takeninternet-world/).
41 Alexander Etkind, Cultural Memory in the Present: Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Un-buried (Redwood City, US: Stanford University Press, 2013), 21.
42 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief,” 37.
43 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief,” 37.
44 Harju, “Socially Shared Mourning,” 125; Cornel Sandvoss, Fans: the Mirror of Consumption (Oxford: Polity Press,

2005).
45 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief”; Erika Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials and Contemporary Modes of Mourning in Ameri-ca,” Material Religion: The Journal of Object, Art and Belief 2 (2006), 294–318; Jack Santino, “Performance Commemoratives, the Personal, and the Public: Spontaneous Shrines, Emergent Ritual, and the Field of Folklore (AFS Presidential
Plenary Address, 2003), Journal of American Folklore 117 (2004), 363–372.
46 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief”; Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials,” 294–318; Santino, “Performance Commemoratives,”

363–372.
47 Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 10.
48 See: Andsager, “Altaered sites,” 18; Sandvoss, Fans; Harju “Socially Shared Mourning”; Rebecca Williams, Post-Object

Fandom: Television, Identity and Self-Narrative (New York and London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2015).
49 Matt Hills, “Proper distance in the ethical positioning of scholar-fandoms: Between academics' and fans' moral econo-

mies?,”) in Fan Culture: Theory/Practice, ed. Katherine Larsen and Lynn Zubernis (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars
Publishing, 2012), 28–31.
50 Racheline Maltese, “Fan communities and the Mourning of Fictional Characters,” (paper presented at “Desiring the

Text, Touching the Past: towards an Erotics of Representation”, Bristol University, 10 July, 2010) quoted in Hills “Proper
distance,” 29.
51 Veijo Hietala, Media ja suuret tunteet: Johdatusta 2000–luvun uusromantiikkaan (Helsinki: BTJ Kustannus, 2007).
52 Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 10, 15.
53 See: Maurice Bloch and Jonathan Parry, ed., Death and the Regeneration of Life (Cambridge: Cambridge University

Press, 1982; Sigmund Freud, “Mourning and Melancholia,” in Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of
Sigmund Freud Vol. XIV, trans. James Strachey and Anna Freud (London: The Hogarth Press, 1953); Arnold vanGennep. The Rites of Passage (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965); Victor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure
and Anti-Structure (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969).
54 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief,” 38.
55 See: Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials,” 301–306.
56 See: Stanley Brandes, “Sugar, Colonialism, and Death: On the Origins of Mexico's Day of the Dead,” Comparative

Studies in Society and History 39 (1997), 270–299; Stanley Brandes, “Is There a Mexican View of Death?,” Ethos
31(2003), 127–144.
57 Etkind, Cultural Memory in the Present, 1–4.
58 Andsager, “Altaered sites,” 17–18; Douglas Crimp “Mourning and Militancy,” October 51 (1989), 9; Doka, “Disenfran-chised Grief,” 37.
58

Between Mourning and Ridicule: The Odd Phenomenon of “Hodoorstops”

59 Antu Sorainen, “Orlandon Perintö,”AntroBlogi, June 28, 2016, accessed January 16, 2017,

http://www.antroblogi.fi/2016/06/orlandon-perinto/.
60 Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965).
61 Sorainen, “Orlandon Perintö”.
62 See: Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 16–24: Sandvoss, Fans, 11–43.
63 Jenkins, Textual Poachers, 18.
64 Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials,” 298.
65 Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials,” 298; Santino, “Performance Commemoratives,” 369.
66 Although the juxtaposition with Harambe is made complicated in the sensitive questions of racialized violence, its

position as an animal and a symbol also evoke questions of the disenfranchisement of its mourning.
67 Terry Eagleton, “Bakhtin, Schopenhauer, Kundera,” in Bakhtin and Cultural Theory, ed. Ken Hirschkop and David

Shepherd (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 1989), 229–240.
68 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief,” 38.
69 Brandes, “Is There a Mexican View of Death?,” 138.
70 Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials,”298; Santino, “Performance Commemoratives,” 369.
71 “Too Soon?,” HUH., “Game Of Thrones Inspired Door Holder Featuring…Well, You Know Who,” Nerdist, accessed

March 28, 2017, http://nerdist.com/game-of-thrones-inspired-door-holder-featuring-well-you-know-who/;“The growing market of Hodor door stoppers,“ The Daily Dot, accessed March 28, 2017,https://www.dailydot.com/parsec/hodor-door-stoppers/; “This invention is both depressing and brilliant, and somedie-hard 'Game of Thrones' fan needs to make it ASAP,” The Business Insider, accessed March 28, 2017,
http://www.businessinsider.com/hodor-door-2016-5?r=US&IR=T&IR=T
72 “It is the artifact that the mourners gather as it is the memorial that comes to carry meaning(s),"Harju, “Socially

Shared Mourning,” 140.
73 Martha Pike, “In Memory of: Artifacts Relating to Mourning in Nineteenth century America,” American Culture 3(1980), quoted in Andsager, “Altaered sites,”17.
74 See: Andsager, “Altaered sites”; Haverinen Memoria Virtualis.
75 Andsager, “Altaered sites,” 17-18; Haverinen, Memoria Virtualis, 29.
76 Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials”; Santino, “Performance Commemoratives”.
77 Andsager, “Altaered sites,”; Margaret Gibson, “Melancholy objects,” Mortality 9 (2004), 285–299, accessed March 28,

2017, doi: 10.1080/13576270412331329812; Haverinen, Memoria Virtualis.
78 “Patrull,” Ikea, accessed March 28, 2017, http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/10098949/
79 “Everyone

Is Trolling ‘Game Of Thrones’ Fans With Hodor Door Stoppers,” Uproxx, accessed March 28, 2017,

http://uproxx.com/tv/hodor-doorstop-hold-the-door-game-of-thrones/
80 “Internet's uninspired Hodor jokes,” The Verge.
81 Santino, “Performance Commemoratives,” 370.
82 Roger Scruton, “Kitsch and the Modern Predicament”, City Journal, Winter 1999,

http://www.city-journal.org/html/kitsch-and-modern-predicament-11726.html.
83 Tomás Kulka, Taide ja kitsch (Helsinki: Kustannus Oy Taifuuni, 1997).
84 Scruton, “Kitsch and the Modern Predicament”.
85 “Everyone Is Trolling,” Uproxx.
86 “The Game of Thrones Graveyard”, Slate, accessed March 27 2017,

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2014/04/game_of_thrones_deaths_mourn_dead_characters_at_their_
virtual_graveyard.html.
59

Heidi S. Kosonen and Susanne C. Ylönen

87 Doka, “Disenfranchised grief,” 37–39.
88 Scruton, “Kitsch and the Modern Predicament”.
89 Scruton, “Kitsch and the Modern Predicament”.
90 Susanne Ylönen, Tappeleva rapuhirviö: Kauhun estetiikka lastenkulttuurissa, (Jyväskylä: University of Jyväskylä,2016): 81–91.
91 Carolyn Korsmeyer, Savoring Disgust: The Foul and the Fair in Aesthetics, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011): 130–135.
92 Doss, “Spontaneous Memorials,” 298.
93 Etkind, Cultural Memory in the Present, 21–22.
94 Abercrombie & Longhurst, Audiences; Andsager, “Altaered sites,”; Maltese, “The Mourning of Fictional Characters,”

quoted in Hills “Proper distance,” 29.
95 Helena Sederholm, “‘Camp’, lainausmerkkien taidetta,” in Kulttikirja. Tutkimuksia nykyajan kultti-ilmiöistä, ed, Urpo

Kovala and Tuija Saresma (Helsinki : Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2003): 166.
96 Lee C. Harrington, “The ars moriendi of US serial television: Towards a good textual death,” International Journal of

Cultural Studies 16 (2012): 590.
97 “Hold the door: now Game of Thrones fans are making Hodor doorstops,” The Telegraph, accessed March 28, 2017,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2016/05/25/hold-the-door-now-game-of-thrones-fans-are-making-hodor-doorstop/60