‘Game Of Thrones': Is No Lady Stoneheart Good News For Jon Snow? 

‘Game Of Thrones\': Is No Lady Stoneheart Good News For Jon Snow?

Michelle Fairley confirms that Catelyn Stark will NOT rise from the dead. Here\'s why that might be OK.

Every “Game of Thrones” fan who also read George R. R. Martin’s “A Song of Ice and Fire” series remembers all too well the pang of shock and disappointment that came when Catelyn Stark did not rise again in the show’s season four finale. In the books, Catelyn is resurrected by Lord Beric Dondarrion three days after the Red Wedding, then she quickly lays waste to Lannister allies in the Riverlands as the mute outlaw Lady Stoneheart.

It’s a brutal fate for a character who was (mostly) kind and nurturing throughout her human life, but it’s also a major plot point in the books — Stoneheart crosses paths with Brienne, Pod, and a couple of Freys during her various murder sprees. So it was pretty shocking to see “Thrones” executive producers David Benioff and D.B. Weiss nix Stoneheart not only in season four, but all throughout season five as well, and many fans are undoubtedly still clamoring for a Stoneheart appearance next spring in season six.

But according to Catelyn Stark’s erstwhile portrayer, Michelle Fairley, it’s just not going to happen.

“I am not under contract to ’Game of Thrones,’” the actress told

Now of course, you could always take this about as seriously as we’re taking HBO’s repeated insistence that Jon Snow (Kit Harington) is totally dead, but it seems far more likely that Fairley is gone for good — it’s been over two years since her demise, after all, and the Brotherhood Without Banners have factored into the show much less than their on-the-page counterparts. However, there’s potentially a silver lining, here: might the show be saving its Lord of Light resurrection plot line for Catelyn Stark’s former BFF, Jon Snow?

The series has been cutting less-than-desirable plot lines all willy-nilly since season four (bye, Quentyn Martell) and adding others that probably seemed like a good idea at the time (hi, Jaime in Dorne), and since it seems

unlikely that they’d resurrect two former lead characters at the same time using the same resurrection “technology” (the Lord of Light), doesn’t it seem pretty set in — well, stone — that Jon will replace Stoneheart as the one to receive a second chance? I mean, do we even know where the Brotherhood Without Banners

at this point? Because we definitely know where Melisandre is, and it’s about 20 feet away from our “dead” friend Jon Snow.

So, yeah. This is pretty bummer news for fans of Catelyn’s, but at least we can always remember her as the strong matriarchal figure that she was during her life, instead of as a vengeful zombie. Rest in Peace, Lady Stoneheart.