Murdering his children

The penultimate episode of Game of Thrones season three played in the US on Sunday, causing a major internet storm.

Titled The Rains of Castamere, episode nine (which plays on M-Net tonight), it features the infamous ''Red Wedding" scene, in which the blood of major characters is shed.

Vanity Fair called it ''the most devastating television massacre of our lifetime", and The AV Club said the scene symbolised ''the death of hope".

The scene takes place at what is supposed to be a happy event, a wedding, but soon characters lose their lives violently.

This death scene is more gory than any in the super-gory movie franchise Saw because of the emotional attachment that viewers (and readers) have developed with these characters.

While those who have read the George RR Martin book, on which the series is based (or those who couldn't wait until tonight), already know who dies, I will refrain from giving away too much.

I will tell you this: your heart will be ripped out. You might weep. You might even need to call your therapist.

Prepare yourself because you will be in a state of shock, as a colleague and I were after watching the ''Red Wedding" on YouTube. It's going to hurt.

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, which was published soon after the episode aired, Martin said: ''That was the hardest scene I've ever had to write. It was like murdering two of your children."

Why do it then? Damn you, George.

• 'Game of Thrones' airs tonight on M-Net (101) at 9.30pm