Game of Thrones: so who IS this Lady Stoneheart the fans are all going on about? 

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fan – and let\'s face it, there aren\'t really any \'mild\' fans, are there? – then chances are you\'ll have heard people talking about a mysterious character named Lady

The figure hasn\'t yet featured in the TV series, despite her introduction in the books having taken place much further back in the story. So who is she? And how could she potentially fit into the show now? Spoilers abound.

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, an epilogue reveals her identity to be none other than… drum roll please… Catelyn Stark!

After being murdered at the Red Wedding, Cat\'s body is dumped in the river. After several days, her lifeless

form washes up on the shore, and is pulled from the water by Arya\'s long-lost

Direwolf Nymeria (she\'s still out there, folks! A wolf queen, roaming the wilds of Westeros with a huge pack of regular wolves by her side – and wouldn\'t we like to see THAT on the show!).

Eventually, the Brotherhood Without Banners stumble across the corpse of the one-time Lady Stark, but seeing that she\'s been dead for days,

Myr refuses to plant his life-giving kiss upon her. 

But Catelyn is no longer the woman we knew. She\'s filled with hate and vengeance, and proceeds to take over the Brotherhood, leading them on a crusade to hang anyone with allegiance to the

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 by those terms – even children – regardless of whether they were totally innocent of the betrayal her family suffered. Stone heart indeed.

Her appearance, too, is strikingly different. Having spent several days as a corpse floating in the river,

Stoneheart\'s skin is bloated, pale, and waxy; her hair is either gone, or turned white. 

Having attempted to claw her own eyes out at the sight of her son\'s murder, she bears terrible scratches across her face, while the slash that opened her throat has not healed, so her throat hangs open - her voice a ghastly death croak. All in all, not someone you want to run in to on a dark night.

Despite her (true) claims that she\'s still searching for Sansa, thus fulfilling her oath to Catelyn,

Stoneheart won\'t hear of it. She demands that Brienne must kill Jaime to prove her loyalty, but given all she\'s been through with the one-handed Lannister, she refuses. 

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Threatened with hanging, Brienne later concedes, and the last we see is her leading Jaime Lannister alone right into the hands of

So that\'s all well and good, but how might it fit into the show? It seemed that with so much time passing since the Red Wedding, the show might just be skipping the whole Lady Stoneheart thread, whether due to economising the story, or perhaps 

to secure Catelyn actress Michelle Fairley\'s return.

But the series has introduced characters at different times on several occasions – even just this season,

made an overdue appearance in the North, having appeared much

Thoros appearing in the most recent episode. The fact that

Beric is alive doesn\'t necessarily mean nobody was able to resurrect Catelyn – maybe in the show\'s telling,

Thoros simply went ahead and did it like he has done before.

The latest episode also went very heavy on reminiscing about Catelyn Stark, who hasn\'t been mentioned all that much since her death.

We also have several characters returning from various states of being \'dead\'

Riverlands to run into her, with the series even making a point in the last episode of having Brienne keep Jaime\'s sword on her hip.

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Michelle Fairley has stated that she\'s not returning, and has heard nothing about taking up the role, but that means less than nothing. After all, Kit Harrington would\'ve sworn on his mother\'s life that Jon Snow wasn\'t coming back, and we all know how that turned out. 

Besides, given the incredible make up that would be needed to depict Lady

Stoneheart, it\'s not inconceivable that they could simply cast someone else under all those prosthetics. (Although Michelle Fairley\'s gravelly voice would fit perfectly with the ruined vocal chords of

This season alone has featured an appearance of every surviving Stark for the first time in a long time, what with all

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Lyanna and Ned in flashbacks, so where\'s our Catelyn? It\'s entirely possible that the series will still skip

Stoneheart, but if it\'s going to happen, the pieces are all in place, and the time is surely now.

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