3. Bringing A Pregnant Talisa To The Red Wedding
Some people might disagree with me in this regard, as Talisa was not a very popular character when she was introduced. In the books, she doesn't even exist. Instead, Robb marries Jeyne Westerling, a sweet girl who is in no way a major part of the story and really only matters insofar as how their marriage affects Robb's war effort. I can't say that I like every change they made with making Talisa such an important character when she wasn't one in the books, but I certainly did like this one. In the books, Jeyne Westerling wasn't at the Red Wedding and she certainly wasn't pregnant. (It's implied in the books that her mother has been giving her herbs to prevent pregnancy.) These two changes only heightened the tension, and the dread that book reading fans of the show had only got worse when they saw her walk in to the wedding with her husband and mother-in-law. The raw brutality of killing a pregnant woman by stabbing her in the belly pierced the heart of even the most cynical of fans and had many staring in shock by the end. (The friend with whom I was watching the show, who hadn't read the books, told me that she refused to even watch another episode ever, ever, again. She still came over again next weekend, though.) And it really did show the finality of the war between the Starks and the Lannisters. That stab in the belly was what it took to show that there really was no hope left and demonstrated in broad strokes, even before the arrows came down on Robb and Catelyn, that this was the end. As much as it hurt to watch, it was one of the telling moments in the show and showed what essentially amounted to the fall of House Stark...at least for now.