Summer (and Leaf or whatever her name was) sacrificed themselves to buy Bran time and bought Bran... what, like, three seconds each?  Shit Summer didn't even get to take any wights down, really, he just went down like a big furry chump.  Not cool.

And thanks for drawing out the dying-wolf sound effects as long as fucking possible, well after we already knew Summer was a goner, HBO, you buncha goddamn sadists.  (See also:  Fat Walda and the dogs, "HOLD THE" fucking "DOOR".)  Learn when to look away, y'all.  We get it.

But yeah what the fuck, Bloodraven-or-whatever-his-name-is?  "It's time for you... to become me... so let's go back to this seemingly pointless moment in history knowing that the baddies are on their damn way and then just sorta stand around for a while waiting for OH WAIT I'M DEAD GOOD LUCK FIGURING THIS ONE OUT ON YOUR OWN, KID, 'CAUSE YOU AIN'T REALLY LEARNED NOTHIN'."

I guess he learned how to affect/interact with the past?  By, uh, psychologically destroying an innocent adolescent kid (who he then leaves to die, at the "same" time?).  Jesus, HBO, there's dire and then there's dire.

Also
It's a cave under a tree habitated by a bunch of magical forest elf people why is there a fucking door there in the first place--.

Excuse me.  I am more upset by the sloppy, dorky storytelling here than I am about the actual tragedy.

They say they got this straight from GRRM but I would be willing to put money down that in the context of the books it's significantly less stupid (see also:  Stannis, Shireen, a certain large fire).  And if it's not, and what we saw last night is verbatim what happens on the page, well... I'll have some pretty choice words about GRRM's ability to tell a story.

I wish they'd stop waving the "GRRM SAID THIS WAS HOW IT GOES" flag as if that excuses shitty storytelling.  GRRM is perfectly capable of shitty storytelling (see: Penny).

Anyways.

So... like... Benjen, right?  Or Coldhands.  Or Benjen-as-Coldhands (plot-convenience character-smooshing similar to Jaqen-as-the-Kindly-Man and Sansa-as-Jayne).

Like you, while the meaning of Hodor will be the same, the circumstances of how it happens in the book will for sure be different. The show at this point hits major points, but the finer details will be a lot better conceived. Especially in the Stannis/Shireen case - I'm very curious to see how that happens in the books. Or anything else going forward. Ugh, we need TWOW to come out like yesterday.

I'm of the camp that hopes to never see Benjen again - sometimes people just disappear. And he should stay that way. But yeah, it's gotta be Colhands who comes and saves the day. Guess we had to sacrifice 2 direwolves to get Coldhands.

The ending though was pretty damn emotional, even with the plotholes. Props to the actor playing young Hodor - that could've been very cheesy and he did a great job with such a delicate moment.

Sandor. Fucking. Clegane!

WTF, Arya. I don't see her getting killed off, but WTF.

The fact we haven't heard shit from Dorne, even if terrible in the show, is a still bit meh. That's too large of a portion of the continent to completely ignore... as terrible as it is.

I am 90% certain that that whole sequence was a big (risky) con.

I mean, last week she was hunkering down with Needle (which she portentously just retrieved1!) in a pitch-black room.  This week?  Making deals with ship captains and flaunting huge bags of money around like it ain't no thang, including explicitly saying out loud when she's leaving the city... then hanging out out in the open like she's just any other normal girl, not even armed.  She didn't even have Needle.

Naw, like, she's conning the Waif.  She knows she can't just walk away.  She's faking her own death.  I suspect she's doing it with the help of the mummer's troop (stage blood bladders, acting tips, etc), and I suspect she'll join said troop and then the lot of them will return to Westeros. 

She does, in preview chapters, join a mummer's troop in TWOW (though she does it at the HoB&W's behest), so it would line up enough without being exactly what's on the page--which, most of the time, is how the show works.

We've also seen her LARPing like she's in Assassin's Creed and running around the city while the Waif chases her in preview footage, so, yeah, I don't think she's actually all that injured.