8. Sansa's Direwolf Dying
HBOThis one is especially difficult for the animal lovers among us. The people who have to check doesthedogdie.com before going to see a film. Because this might sound heartless, but a lot of us would rather watch people die than harmless little animals. People are nasty little creatures, but dogs? They're innocent. Massacre an entire village on screen? Sure, what do we care? They probably had it coming anyway. Kill a defenseless animal? You done screwed up. In the first season, about a hundred or so major deaths back, Arya's direwolf was to be executed for biting Prince Joffrey (looking back, they probably should have elected that direwolf Mayor of Winterfell). But Arya helped Nymeria escape, so the only fair thing to do was to kill Sansa's dog instead -- who had nothing to do with the biting incident. Because that makes total sense. Even worse, our hero Ned Stark was the one who had to carry out the sentence. While this story line did help us learn to hate Cersei and Joffrey in probably the most effective way possible, it was nonetheless incredibly painful to watch this poor innocent dog get executed. Luckily, we can take solace in the fact that actress Sophie Turner adopted the dog that played her beloved direwolf.