Game of Thrones isn't just a bloodthirsty sex-filled fantasy show, it's a bloodthirsty sex-filled fantasy show with dragons. No, in all seriousness, there's a lot of great writing that has gone into making it such a successful show, beyond its obvious crowd-pleasing elements.
While its last season started to bring disparate characters together, giving many of them death-defying heroic moments, the show started off as something extremely gritty. Ned Stark and his family were typical heroes from the fantasy genre, but it was all turned on its head when the series showed that having all the loyalty and honor in the world won't help you - in fact, you're more likely to end up dead or worse if you tell the truth.
And yes, that means that a lot of people end up dead. This is a world where a drunken boar hunt can kill a lazy king, or a skilled wildling warrior can be killed by a young boy if he's handy with a bow and arrow.
As the bodies piled up with each passing season, the show ended up overtaking the source material entirely. George R R Martin's book series still has two more books left before it comes to an end, while we'll be seeing the last season of the show in 2019.
This unique situation means that the show will show us the end of the story before the books ever get the chance to. And that also means that they've skipped over plenty of characters that the books wanted to highlight, usually for the sake of time. But while he may understand a lot of their choices, the author of the books does have one character he really wishes they'd have kept around in the hit HBO show.
In what is likely still the most brutal and harrowing moment of the series, the infamous 'red wedding', a lot of characters were dispatched in horrible ways. Among these deaths was Catelyn Stark, who also dies in the book - except, the book brought her back to life at a later date.
As a zombie fuelled by revenge, she took on the name of 'Lady Stoneheart', but she never actually showed up in the show. You can see what she would have looked like in the fan art below:
In an interview with the Chinese edition of Esquire magazine, the author said:
"In the book, characters can be resurrected. After Catelyn’s resurrection, it was Lady Stoneheart who became a vengeful and merciless killer.
"In the sixth book, I still continue to write her. She is an important part of the entire book. [Keeping her character] is the change I most wish I could make in the [show]."
Fans were convinced she would arrive at some point in the show, but it never came to pass. There were even some who were adamant that they had seen her ghost in the background of a scene in Winterfell. But when you look at the scene, it really could be any female extra walking by.
If you wanted to see more of Lady Stoneheart, she will turn up in the next book, The Winds of Winter - but who knows when that will be released?
