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‘Game of Thrones’: If you’re still waiting for Lady Stoneheart, we’ve got bad news
“Game of Thrones” book fans — plus show fans who troll the Internet for spoilers — will know all about Lady Stoneheart and her haunting presence in George R.R Martin’s novels. Those same fans have been waiting with baited breath to see if the HBO series would ever incorporate her story into the show, but we can almost definitively say now that you should all stop waiting.
Lady Stoneheart is a character who, so far, has only existed in the book series “A Song of Ice and Fire.” Morbidly enough, she’s the resurrected corpse of Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley) who is rarely seen or heard, but constantly talked about by the Brotherhood without Banners, with whom she travels.
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On the show, no such resurrection has occurred (that we know of), even though there were times we were certain Lady Stoneheart was about to make her grand entrance. Remember Lena Headey’s totally cruel Instagram pic that had us all scrambling?
My stone heart
A photo posted by Lena Headey (@iamlenaheadey) on Apr 21, 2014 at 4:12pm PDT
Get it? Stones … heart. Stoneheart?
After spending so long in denial about this long-awaited plot twist, we’re finally ready to admit to ourselves that it’s time to kiss Lady Stoneheart goodbye.
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No matter how much we’d love to see Catelyn back in the land of the living, Lady Stoneheart’s purpose within the novels has officially been trumped by what we’ve seen on screen.
Most of Lady’s Stoneheart’s time in the books is spent seeking vengeance against the Freys for the Red Wedding, where she and her son were murdered, so it makes little to no sense for “Game of Thrones” to introduce her now.
Season 6 ended with the epic and gruesome murder of Walder Frey (David Bradley) and his family, whom Arya (Maisie Williams) baked into pies after returning from Westeros. With Stoneheart’s sole mission essentially fulfilled by her daughter, it wouldn’t exactly be cost-effective to spend Season 7 introducing a zombified Catelyn Stark and then watching her twiddle her thumbs.
Season 6 also gave us our first look at the Brotherhood Without Banners, and they were painfully sans zombie-Catelyn. Moreover, Beric Dondarrion made his triumphant return, which would have been a little hard to pull off if he’d died to resurrect Catelyn as Lady Stoneheart, which is what happens in the books.
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The show could technically still be planning to bring her into the picture someday, but we’re beginning to seriously doubt it. “Game of Thrones” likes to keep its major secrets secret, but they’re also a big fan of foreshadowing. If they were planning to bring Lady Stoneheart into the Brotherhood plot at some point, Season 6 would have been the time to start dropping those hints.
Now, with only a limited number of episodes left to finish out the epic series — not to mention Jon Snow (Kit Harington) kind of stealing the resurrection thunder — it just doesn’t seem likely at all that we’ll ever see Lady Stoneheart on “Game of Thrones.”
“Game of Thrones” is set to return in the summer 2017.