Why didn’t the Battle of Winterfell have giant ice spiders?

The Battle of Winterfell was pretty spectacular, but it was missing on key thing: GIANT ICE SPIDERS.

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Okay, so no one ever promised those would show up, but Old Nan did get our hopes up back in season 1 when she talked about what the White Walkers rode the first time they invaded the Seven Kingdoms. “Packs of pale spiders big as hounds,” she said. Well, where are they, Old Nan? WHERE ARE THEY?

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, showrunner D.B. Weiss talked about why these frightening AF creatures were MIA. Or, as EW puts it, he “signed” about it:

"Big as hounds. Didn’t we talk about that for 30 seconds? ‘Ice spiders’ sounds good. It would look good on a metal album cover. But once they start moving, what does an ice spider look like? Probably doesn’t look great."

Yes, it WOULD look good on a metal album. Or on the front of the 2020 Song of Ice and Fire calendar:

Realistically, I just doubt the production the time or resources or call to make ice spiders happen, particularly given how tremendously difficult the Battle of Winterfell was to stage already. The dragons were already eating so much of the special effects budget there was barely any left over for Ghost.

Or maybe they never existed in the first place; Old Nan isn’t that old. She wasn’t there. Still, it’s hard not to wonder what could have been. Maybe HBO’s Game of Thrones prequel show, which is set thousands of years before the mainline one, will make this happen.

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