Game of thrones themed army, what miniatures to use?

[Havock]

Or might be that direwolves in fiction only use the name and concept of a big wolf coz it's cool but have otherwise little to do with our dead american lupus species?

Exactly my point.

[Duke Ramulots]

Long before the American dire wolf was named there were fictions wrote about wolves as big as bears. Those are what I assumed the "dire wolves" in SoIaF are based upon. If you take all the main houses they all have a sigil of one of the dire animals from european tales(Stag, Kraken, Wolf, and Lion).

[Havock]

Dire Wolves are nasty buggers though, especially in the A and C configs.