‘Game Of Thrones’ Creator George R. R. Martin Reveals Which Character Omission He Argued Against

With Season 7 of HBO’s hugely popular Game of Thrones finally premiering tonight, fans all over the world are looking forward to the much-anticipated return to Westeros, where some of their favorite characters, such as Daenerys Targaryen, Jon Snow, and Tyrion Lannister, await. One character who definitely won’t be returning to Season 7, however, is Michelle Fairley’s Catelyn Stark. Just like in George R. R. Martin’s ASong of Ice and Fire novels, on which Game of Thrones is based on, Catelyn was brutally murdered by the treacherous Lord Walder Frey and Roose Bolton at the now infamous Red Wedding. Unlike in the books, however, Catelyn has not returned as the vengeful Lady Stoneheart in the TV adaptation, as her corpse was never found and revived by the Brotherhood Without Banners. In a recent interview, Martin has now revealed that he actually did want to introduce Lady Stoneheart to the show.

Speaking with Time, Martin said that he would prefer if the show would stick as close to his books as possible. However, the showrunners and producers, David Benioff and D. B. Weiss, would not always agree with Martin. This is why many characters, some of which played significant roles in the ASong of Ice and Fire series, were ultimately omitted from Game of Thrones. Furthermore, Martin revealed that the showrunner’s decision to drop the character of Lady Stoneheart was the first big change from the books, which the author didn’t seem to be too thrilled about.

“I think one of the biggest ones would probably be when they made the decision not to bring Catelyn Stark back as Lady Stoneheart. That was probably the first major diversion of the show from the books and, you know, I argued against that, and David and Dan made that decision.”

Still, Martin seems to have come to accept Catelyn Stark’s fate in Game of Thrones, saying that she is “a fictional character,” whose story can be told either way. The author did, however, admit that he has put up walls in his mind to separate the characters from his novels from the ones in the TV show. This should come as good news for fans of the source material, as Martin’s books could still offer some alternate twists and revelations that were cut from the show. Game of Thrones has, of course, caught up and even moved ahead of the books since Season 6. With Martin still avidly working on the latest addition to the A Song of Ice and Fire series, The Winds of Winter, it remains unclear when exactly the author will finally wrap up the story of his long-running fantasy series. That’s probably not something fans will want to worry about right now though, as they eagerly await the first episode of Season 7.

Tonight, #WinterIsHere.
“Dragonstone” premieres tonight at 9PM on @HBO. pic.twitter.com/498IZyDsQs

— Game of Thrones (@GameOfThrones) July 16, 2017

[Featured Image by Karwai Tang/Getty Images]