For the first time since the series began, some major Game of Thrones character won’t be featured in the next run of episodes when the HBO drama returns in 2015. Kristian Nairn, who plays Hodor, revealed in a recent interview that both he and Isaac Hempstead-Wright, who plays Bran Stark, have a year off.

“We’re not actually in Season 5,” Nairn told Australian radio station Australia’s 7.30. “We have a season off. We have a year’s hiatus. Solely because, I imagine, our storyline is up to the end of the books. So I get a year off now to do Rave of Thrones and gallivant all over the world.”

Nairn is a DJ and is embarking on a Game of Thrones-themed DJ tour called, wait for it, Rave of Thrones.

This is a huge surprise, but it makes a lot of sense as Bran’s storyline in the series has now caught up with where it is in George R.R. Martin’s books. This obviously presents producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss with a dilemma as they don’t really want to spoil the events of Martin’s long delayed next novel.

However, season four saw more than a few scenes which have yet to be shown in the books featured in the series, so it’s already happening, and many fans believe that the Game of Thrones TV show will inevitably end up beating them to the end. Will we see any other major characters left out in season five?

We’ll just have to wait and see for now, but the fact that they’re leaving those as pivotal as Bran out shows that it could end up being the case at some point over the next couple of years as the series continues.

Hodor