“Battle of the Bastards” director Miguel Sapochnik on why Ghost wasn’t in the fight

Ghost? Where for art thou Ghost? Sunday’s penultimate episode of Game of Thrones Season 6, “Battle of the Bastards” lived up to and exceeded most fans’ high expectations, and yet left many of us asking: where was Ghost? Jon Snow’s constant companion was nowhere to be found in the fighting, where a giant wolf might have proven useful. Actor Liam Cunningham (Davos) earlier gave a logical reason why the always fearsome direwolf sat out the battle. “[O]bviously a big battle like that is no place for a direwolf,” he said. “They’re not gonna last very long – I mean look at what happened to Wun Wun, the last of the giants.” Director Michael Sapochnik gave was a different take:

"[Ghost] was in there in spades originally, but it’s also an incredibly time consuming and expensive character to bring to life. Ultimately we had to choose between Wun-Wun and the direwolf, so the dog bit the dust."

The show had to expend a lot of recourses to film “Battle of the Bastards,” so it’s easy to understand why some budgetary cuts were made. And even with Ghost cut, animating Wun Wun still took a lot of doing.

"Anything with the giant is a challenge because he’s not there, and you have to shoot multiple layers for each shot, and get extras to react to something that doesn’t exist, and then shoot the actual giant played by Ian Whyte months later on a green screen stage."

Similar to what’s done with Wun Wun, Ghost’s fight scenes are filmed with a CGI stand-in as to avoid injuring either the wolf or the actors. Still, while we understand Sapochnik’s explanation, it’s a bit like hearing that Santa Claus can’t come down your chimney because he doesn’t exist: it pokes a hole in the fantasy. We prefer Liam Cunningham’s explanation, that the battle was simply too dangerous for an unarmored wolf to run around without a leash.

h/t Business Insider