Game Of Thrones: 11 Most Unforgivable Cuts From The Books

9. Jeyne Poole

From the very beginning, Arya Stark has been a fan-favourite. So, naturally, many were inclined to find Sansa just as irritating as did Arya. Even worse was Jeyne Poole, the Winterfell steward's daughter and Sansa's closest friend, who delighted in pointing out Arya's shortcomings. Jeyne accompanies her father as part of the Stark retinue to King's Landing in A Game of Thrones, and she is sequestered with Sansa after Ned's arrest and the slaughter of the Northmen. Jeyne is soon taken away by Littlefinger, never to be seen or heard from again. At least, not until A Dance with Dragons. In the fifth book, Jeyne makes a reappearance as she poses as Arya in order to marry Ramsay Bolton and secure the Boltons' rule of the North. Only former Stark ward Theon Greyjoy is able to recognise her, and she's brutalised by Ramsay to the point that she joins Theon in leaping off of the walls of Winterfell. Jeyne Poole is one of the most notable examples of a minor character to disappear early on only to show up unexpectedly in a far more significant capacity. Unlike other substitutions - such as Locke for Vargo Hoat - however, Jeyne's status as a companion to the Stark girls who had lived the majority of her life at Winterfell was essential to her presentation as Arya Stark to the Northern lords. For the Boltons to produce a random young woman by the time that the show catches up with the books both lessens the impact of what has happend to poor Jeyne as well as requires some serious suspension of disbelief.