George R.R. Martin kind of got himself into a weird situation when he took his time finishing his fantasy saga A Song of Ice and Fire. The very popular TV show Game of Thrones has moved past where his books left off with 2011's A Dance with Dragons, the fifth in a planned seven-book series.
That means, with Martin's supervision, the show's writers are now controlling the fate of Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, Tyrion Lannister, and the rest of the beloved characters who will probably die soon anyway. As Martin has explained, he gave the writers a general outline of where the series was heading and the main plot points that the writers would need to hit. They fill in the rest.
But that doesn't mean they've all agreed on the direction of the TV show compared to the books. Martin said in a new interview with Time that there's one deviation where he disagreed with showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss.
"At some points, when David and Dan and I had discussions about what way we should go in, I would always favour sticking with the books, while they would favour making changes," Martin said. "I think one of the biggest ones would probably be when they made the decision not to bring Catelyn Stark back as Lady Stoneheart. That was probably the first major diversion of the show from the books and, you know, I argued against that, and David and Dan made that decision."
As book readers will know, after Catelyn is killed at the Red Wedding, Arya's direwolf Nymeria saves her body from the Green Fork. Catelyn is then resurrected by Lord Beric Dondarrion and takes command of the Brotherhood Without Banners to take revenge on everyone who is loyal to the Lannisters.
"In my version of the story, Catelyn Stark is re-imbued with a kind of life and becomes this vengeful wight who galvanises a group of people around her and is trying to exact her revenge on the Riverlands," Martin said. "David and Dan made a decision not to go in that direction in their story, pursuing other threads. But both of them are equally valid, I think, because Catelyn Stark is a fictional character and she doesn't exist. You can tell either story about her."
This, it would seem, is pretty solid evidence that Lady Stoneheart is NOT going to make an appearance in the show, even though she's a fan favourite of the books' readers.
