3. There Was No Red Wedding
The Red Wedding, the scene in book A Storm of Swords (and season threes penultimate bombshell episode) in which King in the North Robb Stark and his mother Catelyn are brutally butchered at the hands of the Freys and Lannisters, is not part of GRRMs initial draft. This scene is the crowning glory of GRRMs third book - a masterpiece weaved from narrative threads of shock, tension, and suspense. Its also the scene that made show creators David Benioff and DB Weiss want to shoot the series, and provided one of the greatest WTF moments in TV history for viewers not in on the secret. In the original draft, Robb and Cat are revealed to die in hugely different circumstances, and though both deaths remain compelling, they dont match the gradually escalating dramatic tension of The Red Wedding. Robb duels with Joffrey during the campaign to avenge his father, maiming the boy-king, but is then eventually killed by Tyrion and Jaime. After this event Tyrion, and not Ramsay Snow as in the book, besieges and burns Winterfell. Cat flees north of the Wall with Arya and Bran and, after being captured by Mance Rayder, dies at the hands of the Others.