7 Things Game Of Thrones Toned Down For TV

5. Greywind's Death

But if Daenerys' wedding had a higher death toll than she would have liked then spare a thought for poor Roslin Frey and Edmure Tully, the bride and groom at the infamous Red Wedding. Both in the book and on the screen, the Red Wedding is infamous for not pulling any punches.

The TV version was arguably worse because of the extra time invested in developing Robb's character and the decision to kill off the pregnant Talisa (her book counterpart Jeyne Westerling is not only not pregnant but not invited). However Robb's direwolf Greywind had a much reduced role, being shot ignobly while penned up in the stables as opposed to ripping Frey's apart left, right and centre before finally being overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Is it because direwolves are expensive to animate? Probably not. Game of Thrones famously has an Emmy for visual effects and a special effects budget of six million dollars per episode and it shows in every single frame as this video from Youtube user TheCGBro demonstrates.

Greywind being shot while trapped and defenceless was probably a better metaphor for Robb's own death. The writers of the show seemed to focus more on pathos than an epic fight scene, cutting the Tully-Stark's attempts to fight and focussing on the fact that they barely had time to fight. But by turning an unfair fight into a massacre, the writers also reinforced just how nasty and personal the motivations behind the Red Wedding were.

I don't think anyone enjoyed seeing the pregnant Talisa being impaled through the stomach but it left little doubt as to just how badly the Freys had taken Robb's decision to marry for love.