A new book reveals that Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss gave several reasons why they left Lady Stoneheart out of the HBO TV adaptation despite her popularity with fans of George R. R. Martin’s fantasy novel series. Slight spoilers for the book and TV series follow.
Catelyn Stark met her end at the infamous Red Wedding in season 3’s “The Rains of Castamere,” however in the third book, Storm of Swords, she’s resurrected by Lord Beric Dondarrion and emerges as the cold and vengeful Lady Stoneheart. Talking to James Hibberd for his book Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series, Benioff said “There was never really much debate about [Lady Stoneheart]. There is that one great scene.” And Weiss added, “that was the only debate. “The scene where she first shows up is one of the best ‘Holy Shit’ moments in the books. I think that scene is where the public response came from.”
The first reason is that Benioff and Weiss didn’t want to tread on Martin’s plans for the books storylines. There are still two more novels to go before Martin’s epic saga concludes and according to Benioff, “part of the reason we didn’t want to put it in had to do with things coming up in George’s books that we don’t want to spoil.”
The second reason is more understandable, even when working on season 3, Benioff and Weiss knew that they would have one major death and resurrection. “We knew we had Jon Snow’s resurrection coming up,” Benioff says. “Too many resurrections start to diminish the impact of characters dying. We wanted to keep our powder dry for that.”
And lastly, as fans of the series know, the Red Wedding is one of the show’s most shocking moments and both showrunners felt that resurrecting Catelyn would remove the impact it had. As Benioff explains, “Catelyn’s last moment was so fantastic, and Michelle is such a great actress, to bring her back as a zombie who doesn’t speak felt like diminishing returns.”
However, author George R. R. Martin disagreed with Benioff and Weiss’s decision to leave out Lady Stoneheart saying that “[she] has a role in the books whether it’s sufficient or interesting enough. I think it is or I wouldn’t have put her in. One of the things I wanted to show with her is that the death she suffered changes you.”
Fire Cannot Kill a Dragon: Game of Thrones and the Official Untold Story of the Epic Series by James Hibberd is scheduled for release on Oct 6 and is available to pre-order now.
Source: Entertainment Weekly
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