Helen Sloan/Courtesy of HBO
Lady Stoneheart
The Theory: Lady Stoneheart, the vengeful reanimated corpse of Catelyn Stark (Michelle Fairley), is past due on Game of Thrones, but the undead matriarch's appearance on the show is still entirely theoretical. In A Storm of Swords, it’s revealed that the leader of the Brotherhood Without Banners, Beric Dondarrion (Richard Dormer), gave up his life to resurrect Catelyn a few days after the Red Wedding, and Catelyn became the new leader of the Brotherhood.
This Season’s Evidence: If Lady Stoneheart isn’t gearing up to make an appearance, the Game of Thrones showrunners are certainly having a laugh at our expense. First, Season 6 reintroduced Walder Frey (David Bradley) of Red Wedding infamy after a long absence from the show, then just about every other character started reminiscing about Catelyn, from Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and Edumre (Tobias Menzies) to Brienne (Gwendoline Christie) and the Blackfish (Clive Russell). We even got to see glimpses of Catelyn’s death in Bran’s (Isaac Hempstead Wright) visions. To top it all off, a number of characters closely associated with Stoneheart in the books have started to show up, including Dondarrion, who resurrected her, and Lem Lemoncloak (Jóhannes Haukur) who is already dead on the show, but who could conceivably be replaced by The Hound (Rory McCann), since Lem had The Hound’s helmet in the books.
One more Season 6 reveal could also give Lady Stoneheart hopefuls reason to believe her character could still be introduced. The fact that Coldhands/Benjen Stark (Joseph Mawle) finally showed up long after his book counterpart could mean that Stoneheart is also just late instead of completely written out.
Alternate theory: Could the Blackfish be the show’s Lord Stoneheart?
The biggest issue with the resurrection of Catelyn Stark at this point would be decomposition. In the books, she was dead for a few days before the Brotherhood found her, and even that was enough to dissuade Thoros of Myr (Paul Kaye) from bringing her back. So with as long as it’s been on the show, Catelyn would basically have to be a Walking Dead-style skeleton monster at this point.
But what if the show replaces Lady Stoneheart with Lord Stoneheart? Catelyn’s uncle Brynden Tully, better known as the Blackfish, was built up fairly significantly this season, only to die anticlimactically off screen. A freshly dead Tully could make for a better Stoneheart candidate, and the Blackfish’s experience with Brienne and her split loyalties to Sansa (Sophie Turner) and Jaime could potentially play into a major Stoneheart plot that’s still developing in the books.