Game of Thrones

Originally Posted by wstar

They really don't give the wolves enough screen time compared to the books. I feel like if I only saw the series, there's just some wolves around on the sidelines and well, whatever. Each of the major houses has an animal. The Baratheons had a Stag, the Lannisters are the Lions, and the Starks are the Wolves. There was a bunch of animal stuff going on in the books that you don't see here. To recap (some of which was in the series, but not highlighted very well):

Ned Stark's party finds 6 Direwolves in the snow. Their mother died to being gored by a Stag, I think. Ned has 6 children counting his bastard son: Robb, Bran, Rickon, Jon Snow, Sansa, Arya. They each get one wolf, and all the wolves are named (Robb - Grey Wind, Bran - Summer, Rickon - Shaggydog, Jon - Ghost, Sansa - Lady, Arya - Nymeria). Ghost is notable because he was an albino and the runt of the litter, and given to the bastard of Ned's litter.

There's obviously some kind of nebulous psychic link between the Direwolves (which are some kind of magical creature from beyond the wall, not regular wolves) and their owners. Grey Wind dies in the Red Wedding we just saw, as did Robb. Summer and Shaggydog are still with Bran and Rickon. Ghost is still somewhere in Jon's part of the world, but they're currently separated. Sansa's Lady was killed by Ned after the incident where Arya's wolf bit Geoffrey's arm (much earlier in the story). The death of her dog while she lives on is a sort of sign that she's leaving the Direwolves' house (Starks), and she does basically turn on them to try to marry Geoffrey, which doesn't turn out so well. Arya chased off Nymeria to save her, but we don't know where she is now.

Originally Posted by SgtGoldy

Yea each time I think about it again I'm back at holy sh** balls. Straight up stabbed that baby through her stomach. Rob was just like "oh golly gee, this is surprising to say the least". I was yelling in my head for him to do something instead of just stand there watching his girl get stabbed repeatedly.


oh yea! They killed the wolf....
bastards...

Originally Posted by Bri7Synyster

Originally Posted by 4r3s

not really a spoiler but whatever

Originally Posted by 4r3s

I'm too lazy but you could probably find in this thread where I hit this part of the books. I was strongly considering putting the book down and quitting. Robb's story in the books was more of a side story, the tv show made him seem too much of a main character. I'm glad I stuck with it and kept reading.

not really a spoiler but whatever

Originally Posted by ElVee

I agree about the wolves, they're far less interesting and used in the show. But I imagine that has to do either with cost or insurance/risk reasons. I mean, to be honest it's hard to tell if the wolves used are real or CGI at times. If CGI, that's expensive. If real, that's risky for actors and potentially time-consuming to get correct. I imagine it's entirely a cost decision. Unfortunate, since it's vastly intriguing in the books to compare the Stark kids and their dogs and such; adding another dimension of mystery and trying to predict what happens to one's fave characters.

Originally Posted by wstar

Actually they're both in the show. They've used various mixes of dogs (Huskies I think), trained real Wolves, CGI, and just plain perspective trickery. The problem they face with all of this is that the Direwolves start out as pups, but eventually should be the size of a small horse when fully grown. The trained regular wolves with a little bit of camera/perspective -trickery do well for their adolescent state, but eventually they'll have to use a lot more CGI tricks to get them up to full adult size.

Originally Posted by birdmanx1

I don't think I've ever been this shocked watching a show. Lucretia, Oenamus dying in Spartacus pales in front of what happened in Game of Thrones.