Game of Thrones boasts some of the most impressive visual effects seen in a television show. From giants and dragons to massive castles, the show is no stranger to bringing the imaginary to life.

One might assume any time a fantastic creature appears on screen in the show that CGI was used, but as the video below shows, that isn't always the case. This is how some of the most captivating creatures seen in the show's fourth season were created.

Spoilers for Game of Thrones season 4 below!
 

It served as one of the most shocking moments in the fourth season: Bran, Hodor, Meera and Jojen travel north of the Wall to find the Three-Eyed Raven, only to be ambushed by a handful of skeletons brought to life. A fight ensues, Jojen is mortally wounded and the group is saved in the nick of time by a Child of the Forest.

However, these aren't ordinary zombies like we've seen in the past on the show. These animated bones looked like they could have been ripped straight out of a Ray Harryhausen film. Breathtakingly real, yet obviously fake, you may have wondered how these skeletal wights came about. They looked like CGI creations, and they are, mostly. But that's not all they are.

What makes these terrifying corpses so lifelike is that actual actors helped bring them to life. Actors in green-screen suits, wearing various scraps of clothing and armor, clashed with Bran, Hodor and the others on set. Afterward, the visual effects wizards working on the show would remove the actors and replace them with a CGI counterpart, keeping the performance of the actor and transforming them into a walking pile of bones.

The end result speaks for itself. In a show filled with dragons and a hundred-foot tall wall of magic ice, these skeletons still stand tall.

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