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why was Ladystoneheart cut out


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If we're honest Lady Stoneheart wouldn't have worked on screen. They would have had to do a really lame cliffhanger where the episode ends with the reveal of a zombie Catelyn. The show only viewers would be up in arms about how stupid it was.

Or, they might have reacted like a lot of readers did, with a hell yeah, it's about time for some Stark payback.

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If we're honest Lady Stoneheart wouldn't have worked on screen. They would have had to do a really lame cliffhanger where the episode ends with the reveal of a zombie Catelyn. The show only viewers would be up in arms about how stupid it was.

What? I can't see most show-only watchers being anything but ecstatic about it.

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If we're honest Lady Stoneheart wouldn't have worked on screen. They would have had to do a really lame cliffhanger where the episode ends with the reveal of a zombie Catelyn. The show only viewers would be up in arms about how stupid it was.

It would have easily worked if it was written by a competent screenwriter.

I would have loved to see the Arya's wolfdream where she pulls Cat out of the water as Nymeria. It would have shown how big of a connection she still has to Westeros, but I mean even this is pretty unnecessary since the show is doing such a bad job convincing anyone that Arya is actually becoming 'no one' in the first place.

But by now Cat has been dead for 'years', as Myrcella puts it, or who knows with this show.

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What? I can't see most show-only watchers being anything but ecstatic about it.

Well, in ASOS and the later books, Catelyn coming back as a monstrous ghost isn't really very uplifting. And then at the end of AFFC she is willing to hang innocent Pod as well.

And in any case they already established resurrections with Beric Dondarrion, so logically it would have made sense for them to go there. Especially since the BWB were fairly popular.

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Well, in ASOS and the later books, Catelyn coming back as a monstrous ghost isn't really very uplifting. And then at the end of AFFC she is willing to hang innocent Pod as well.

I don't think she seemed very monstrous in her first appearance in ASoS, just resurrected and really, really pissed off. Later when Brienne encounters her, sure. But giving the audience something seemingly uplifting only to sweep the rug a bit later would fit in the show like a glove. Or she could have just been made more reasonable towards Brienne in the show, if necessary.

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I don't think she seemed very monstrous in her first appearance in ASoS, just resurrected and really, really pissed off. Later when Brienne encounters her, sure. But giving the audience something seemingly uplifting only to sweep the rug a bit later would fit in the show like a glove. Or she could have just been made more reasonable towards Brienne in the show, if necessary.

Seriously her hair all gray, her throat cut and the way the Brotherhood have become dark, hanging the hostage even after the dude arrives with the ransom and then hanging him too without so much as a defense. The last chapter of ASOS is really gothic and horror story. We have this semi-sympathetic Frey as well. I think making Stoneheart sympathetic to Brienne defeats the purpose.

There are a bunch of reasons why I think they adapted her out but the main reason is, and this shows why Game of Thrones is such a conservative show ultimately, Stoneheart works better the less you see her. She has two on-screen appearances in the book and a lot of background mentions and that's why she's so effecitve. In the show, they have to make Stoneheart-Cat into a character to justify paying the actor's salary and the like. It's why Littlefinger is a supervillain on the show and starts teleporting across the Continent, as such he's not menacing and mysterious anymore. Varys is though, surprisingly enough.

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There are a bunch of reasons why I think they adapted her out but the main reason is, and this shows why Game of Thrones is such a conservative show ultimately, Stoneheart works better the less you see her. She has two on-screen appearances in the book and a lot of background mentions and that's why she's so effecitve. In the show, they have to make Stoneheart-Cat into a character to justify paying the actor's salary and the like. It's why Littlefinger is a supervillain on the show and starts teleporting across the Continent, as such he's not menacing and mysterious anymore. Varys is though, surprisingly enough.

I thought actor salaries tend to be per-episode? Regardless, I don't think she'd need more appearances than in the books; one for the reveal, a scene or two with Brienne, and in between only rumors and other BwB characters. I agree that she'd work better the less you see of her, so she'd still have had to have only a few appearances... but practical and financial matters aside, I don't think there'd have been any problem with that.

Sometimes I see people saying that it'd somehow be beneath a good actor to come back to do the role of a glorified zombie because the role wouldn't do justice to them, but that's a meta concern that doesn't make any sense to me, as actors are there to play roles, not for the show to to pay homage to. Not to mention that that part of the deal wouldn't have been a surprise to anyone involved.

However, only the remaining books will show how big a change cutting her ultimately was.

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If we're honest Lady Stoneheart wouldn't have worked on screen. They would have had to do a really lame cliffhanger where the episode ends with the reveal of a zombie Catelyn. The show only viewers would be up in arms about how stupid it was.

Cliffhanger that ended season 2 was completely lame. Army of zombies come from nowhere and is starting to attacks night's watch and their leader sees Sam and then suddenly cut to black. Wait for next season. And then how it was resolved next season was even more lame. But audience obviously didn't have problems with that so they'd probably survive zombie Cat which is like 100 times smarter and better built moment.

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The problem again is we don't know where it's going. Jamie could kill her in the very next chapter for all we know and it could just be a personal reflective thing for him. If something like that is the case, it probably isn't worth paying Michelle Fairley to come back for that.

Screw it, with the lack of LSH material we have in the books, it's probably not even worth it now. If she has a significant role at all they can bring her back next season and give her a seasons worth of material including all her book stuff and future storylines, because right now she has 3 scenes worth of material.

It also would have been stupid to bring her back in season 3. She just died the previous episode and they weren't even finished with most of ASOS storylines. The proper time would have been last season, but again, you would have only had two good scenes worth of material. If she is coming, it's probably better to wait, introduce at the end of this season, give her all her AFFC and WOW stuff so something actually happens with her and it fits better with the timeline. You can have Brienne travel back to the Riverlands after she leaves Winterfell this season, and Jamie can come back from Dorne, see the mess Cersie is in, ditch her, and look for Brienne, and all of a sudden LSH is in the middle of it. Then you can have the resolution to that and have all of them where they need to be for their current book storylines.

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Screw it, with the lack of LSH material we have in the books, it's probably not even worth it now. If she has a significant role at all they can bring her back next season and give her a seasons worth of material including all her book stuff and future storylines, because right now she has 3 scenes worth of material.

While delaying a character or storyline for a later season works in some cases, her appearance could easily feel like a tacky afterthought if it was delayed for many seasons, unless it was carefully built up during her absence (which it hasn't been so far). You can't just kill a character, leave things at that for a few seasons/years and then reveal that "a-ha, she's actually been alive (almost) this whole time". It'd immediately seem like a contrived soap opera -like twist which wasn't originally intended.

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It's no more contrived than it is in the books where she dies and then all of sudden she isn't dead. It's the exact same thing. The only difference is that we get her debut later when it makes more sense.

Just have a creepy scene in the Riverlands at night with Dondarrion dragging a Frey by a noose through a forest with men hanging all around them. Have him give his little spiel about resurrection. Stop at a hooded figure. Tell him how they dragged her from the river three days after her death and tried to resurrect her, while he's tying the Frey to a tree. Show a hooded women watching. Then do the whole, "she don't speak. You bloody bastards cut her throat too deep for that. But she remembers". Pan up. Pan up to show her face, end the season.

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Given Daniel Portman (Pod) said the final episode would break the internet, and the final episode is called Mother's Mercy, I'm putting a decently high probability of Lady Stoneheart appearing still. I'm not going to allow myself to get too excited, though, and won't be too disappointed if she isn't (I already went through that at the end of season 4).

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It's no more contrived than it is in the books where she dies and then all of sudden she isn't dead. It's the exact same thing.

Well I just explained why it'd be more contrived than in the books and how it wouldn't be the exact same thing.

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Given Daniel Portman (Pod) said the final episode would break the internet, and the final episode is called Mother's Mercy, I'm putting a decently high probability of Lady Stoneheart appearing still. I'm not going to allow myself to get too excited, though, and won't be too disappointed if she isn't (I already went through that at the end of season 4).

The internet will break because Jon will be stabbed, some other characters might die, and the High Sparrow mentioned the Mother's mercy in 507.

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The internet will break because Jon will be stabbed, some other characters might die, and the High Sparrow mentioned the Mother's mercy in 507.

Is that a fact? I didn't realise you had seen the episode already. :)

Actors generally only big up stuff that affects their character's story line. It's possible Pod might be in some way involved with the whole Jon dies/gets resurrected storyline, but it seems unlikely.

Sure, he could have been talking about stuff that related to different characters, but why? He probably wasn't even involved with the filming of it, and quite possibly hasn't even seen the script for those scenes.

As for the title, obviously the main reference is for the Walk of Shame, but D&D like having multiple meanings for episode titles.

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Given Daniel Portman (Pod) said the final episode would break the internet, and the final episode is called Mother's Mercy, I'm putting a decently high probability of Lady Stoneheart appearing still. I'm not going to allow myself to get too excited, though, and won't be too disappointed if she isn't (I already went through that at the end of season 4).

Interesting. I'm with you on this one.

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Given Daniel Portman (Pod) said the final episode would break the internet, and the final episode is called Mother's Mercy, I'm putting a decently high probability of Lady Stoneheart appearing still.

Honestly, it's about the only thing that could come close to a "break the internet" kind of moment.

The only things that could remotely qualify would be Naked Cersei and Robert Strong (yawn) and Jon Snow gets stabbed (meh).

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