Game Of Thrones Fans Feel Bad For Sad Ghost

Game of Thrones fans Sunday were saddened at the state of Ghost in Season 8 episode 4, after the direwolf was shown wounded — but alive — in a funeral scene following his participation in the Battle of Winterfell.

Casualties of the strife included Eddison Tollett (Ben Crompton), Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer), young noblewoman Lyanna Mormont (Bella Ramsey), Theon Greyjoy (Alfie Allen), and Jorah Mormont (Iain Glen). Now fans are relieved to spot the noble creature among the survivors.

The little-seen pet once adopted by Jon Snow (Kit Harington) was last seen in Season 6 before returning in "A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms," before the Night King (Vladimír Furdík) and his forces marched on the castle of Winterfell with his undead army.

ghost, the well-deserved survivor #GameofThrones pic.twitter.com/JkSZf12v4V

— shan (@allthingsjunkie) May 6, 2019

This latest cameo comes as part of Ghost's "fair amount of screen time" this season as promised by visual-effects supervisor Joe Bauer, who told Huffington Post the series was forced to limit appearances of Ghost and sister Nymeria due to budgetary limitations.

"The direwolves are tough because you don't want to get them wrong, so we end up always shooting real wolves and doing a scaling trick with them, but the real wolves only behave in certain ways," Bauer said, stressing the use of real animals is "a bit limited."

"I think that has something to do with why the direwolves are in the show but they're not maybe as integral as they are in the books," Bauer said, pointing to showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss. Bauer promised the creature is "very present and does some pretty cool things in Season 8," which concludes May 19.