Lady Stoneheart foreshadowing

[Alyn Oakenfist]

So I just noticed this little gem in ACOK when Tyrion and Alliser Thorne meet.

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If the dead are walking, then they're not buried properly

Guess while dead is currently walking because she wasn't buried properly?

Anyways, I was wondering, are there any more bits of foreshadowing regarding Lady Stoneheart?

[Tucu]

The drowned woman:

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The steel was polished to such a high sheen that she could see her reflection in the breastplate, gazing back at her as if from the bottom of a deep green pond. The face of a drowned woman, Catelyn thought. Can you drown in grief?

With a heart of stone:

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Sometimes she felt as though her heart had turned to stone; six brave men had died to bring her this far, and she could not even find it in her to weep for them. Even their names were fading

with her heart filling with revenge:

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“The skin from the little finger of Theon Greyjoy’s left hand. My son is cruel, I confess it. And yet…what is a little skin, against the lives of two young princes? You were their mother, my lady. May I offer you this…small token of revenge?”

Part of Catelyn wanted to clutch the grisly trophy to her heart, but she made herself resist.

 

[Frey family reunion]

6 hours ago, Tucu said:

The drowned woman:

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That's the first one I thought of.  And speaking of foreshadowing, since Cat saw her reflection in Renly's green armor, it makes me think that she may play the part of another mythological character who came back from the dead, the Green Knight in the Arthurian tales of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

And ultimately, the role of the Green Knight was as a judge/jury of the worthiness of a knight.  Which makes me think that she's going to give Jaime one last chance to prove himself.  And my guess is that it will either be to "rescue" Sansa or to enact vengeance on the Freys.

[Groo]

Is it stretching to call a character's entire story arc foreshadowing? Cat's major flaw was always how thoroughly consumed she became with her emotions when it came to family. Try picturing how other characters would act if they came back from the dead. Tywin, for example, would probably march right back to King's Landing and insist he's still the Hand and Lord of the Rock. Never mind the smell and if you comment on his rotting flesh you're going to end up in the dungeon. Sure, he'd want vengeance along the way but he's got a kingdom to rule first. If Ned came back could you picture him as Lord Stoneheart hell bent on retribution? No, Cat was always the one poised to be consumed by vengeance.

[Frey family reunion]

Possible ironic foreshadowing if (un)Jon and (un)Cat end up fighting over Winterfell:

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He would be a Sworn Brother of the Night’s Watch soon, and face worse dangers than Catelyn Tully Stark.

 

[Castellan]

I put this up somewhere else, probably in the moments of foreshadowing thread

I think it foreshadows Brienne bringing Jaime to a vengeful Stoneheart.

Its in the chapter where he has been standing vigil for Tywin for seven days, fading in and out as he has small moments of sleep and reviewing his life with a lot of associative memories and dreams (in the midst of which he says a small prayer for Brienne). Suddenly into this dreamlike vigil a woman appears. It's Cersei, but she has overtones of Stoneheart, even in the seemingly (to him) supernatural way that she is suddenly standing there.

A Feast for Crows - Jaime I

A woman stood before him.
It is raining again, he thought when he saw how wet she was. The water was trickling down her cloak to puddle round her feet. How did she get here? I never heard her enter. She was dressed like a tavern wench in a heavy roughspun cloak, badly dyed in mottled browns and fraying at the hem. A hood concealed her face, but he could see the candles dancing in the green pools of her eyes, and when she moved he knew her.

"Cersei." He spoke slowly, like a man waking from a dream, still wondering where he was. "What hour is it?"

"The hour of the wolf." His sister lowered her hood, and made a face. "The drowned wolf, perhaps." She smiled for him, so sweetly. "Do you remember the first time I came to you like this? It was some dismal inn off Weasel Alley, and I put on servant's garb to get past Father's guards."

"I remember. It was Eel Alley." She wants something of me. "Why are you here, at this hour? What would you have of me?" His last word echoed up and down the sept, mememememememememememe, fading to a whisper. For a moment he dared to hope that all she wanted was the comfort of his arms.

PS I wondered if Cersei's sweet and phony smile is foreshadowing of her death, considering there is a whole chunk of the chapter about Tywin's smile growing and growing as his corpse rots, and the sickly sweet smell.

[Seams]

On 3/1/2021 at 2:50 AM, Alyn Oakenfist said:

... are there any more bits of foreshadowing regarding Lady Stoneheart?

The eastern sky was rose and gold as the sun broke over the Vale of Arryn. Catelyn Stark watched the light spread, her hands resting on the delicate carved stone of the balustrade outside her window. Below her the world turned from black to indigo to green as dawn crept across fields and forests. Pale white mists rose off Alyssa's Tears, where the ghost waters plunged over the shoulder of the mountain to begin their long tumble down the face of the Giant's Lance. Catelyn could feel the faint touch of spray on her face.

Alyssa Arryn had seen her husband, her brothers, and all her children slain, and yet in life she had never shed a tear. So in death, the gods had decreed that she would know no rest until her weeping watered the black earth of the Vale, where the men she had loved were buried. Alyssa had been dead six thousand years now, and still no drop of the torrent had ever reached the valley floor far below. Catelyn wondered how large a waterfall her own tears would make when she died. "Tell me the rest of it," she said.

AGoT, Catelyn VII

The sudden bull rush caught Bronn off balance. Ser Vardis crashed into him and slammed the lip of his shield into the sellsword's face. Almost, almost, Bronn lost his feet … he staggered back, tripped over a rock, and caught hold of the weeping woman to keep his balance. Throwing aside his shield, Ser Vardis lurched after him, using both hands to raise his sword. His right arm was blood from elbow to fingers now, yet his last desperate blow would have opened Bronn from neck to navel … if the sellsword had stood to receive it.

But Bronn jerked back. Jon Arryn's beautiful engraved silver sword glanced off the marble elbow of the weeping woman and snapped clean a third of the way up the blade. Bronn put his shoulder into the statue's back. The weathered likeness of Alyssa Arryn tottered and fell with a great crash, and Ser Vardis Egen went down beneath her.

Bronn was on him in a heartbeat, kicking what was left of his shattered rondel aside to expose the weak spot between arm and breastplate. Ser Vardis was lying on his side, pinned beneath the broken torso of the weeping woman. Catelyn heard the knight groan as the sellsword lifted his blade with both hands and drove it down and in with all his weight behind it, under the arm and through the ribs. Ser Vardis Egen shuddered and lay still.

AGoT, Catelyn VII

The weathered statue of Alyssa Arryn may also evoke Catelyn's scene with Robb at the weathered sarcophagus of King Tristifer Mudd, the pre-Andal king of the Rivers and the Hills. Catelyn as Lady Stoneheart will go on to become associated with a river (Green Fork) and a (Hollow) hill. 

"He died in his hundredth battle, when seven Andal kings joined forces against him. The fifth Tristifer was not his equal, and soon the kingdom was lost, and then the castle, and last of all the line. ..."

ASoS, Catelyn V

[The Commentator]

Lady Stoneheart is what Arya could become. Arya has something going for her which could save her from this ending.  She’s a warg with a dire wolf.  Arya will die and live as a dire wolf.  She won’t get resurrected into a walking dead like Catelyn.  Death will free Arya.

[Alyn Oakenfist]

31 minutes ago, Widowmaker 811 said:

Death will free Arya.

Wasn't it "work will free Arya" as an enemy of the ValARYAN master race.

[Tucu]

On 3/1/2021 at 4:04 PM, Frey family reunion said:

 

That's the first one I thought of.  And speaking of foreshadowing, since Cat saw her reflection in Renly's green armor, it makes me think that she may play the part of another mythological character who came back from the dead, the Green Knight in the Arthurian tales of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

And ultimately, the role of the Green Knight was as a judge/jury of the worthiness of a knight.  Which makes me think that she's going to give Jaime one last chance to prove himself.  And my guess is that it will either be to "rescue" Sansa or to enact vengeance on the Freys.

I had to go to Wikipedia to read about the Green Knight as I am not familiar with the tale. A couple of things caught my attention:

-his name was Bertilak de Hautdesert and apparently one of the etimologies of Hautdesert is High Hermitage (as in House Dayne of High Hermitage)

-he has been identified as a Green Man, a medieval representation of ancient rebirth deities.

The two together take us to the Tower of Joy with Arthur Dayne and Howland Reed where Ned's honor was tested.

[Springwatch]

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"Make them stop!" she cried. "I can't stand it, make them stop, make them stop, kill them all if you must, just make them stop!"

Cat in AGOT, foreshadowing Stoneheart's response to the Frey problem.

[Bullrout]

 

On 3/1/2021 at 2:50 AM, Alyn Oakenfist said:

If the dead are walking, then they're not buried properly

Someone was skeptical.  The dead never come back to life, right.  It doesn't predict the future for Catelyn. 

Catelyn doesn't have a long future.  She will get her revenge but she will have to hurry. 

[Alyn Oakenfist]

5 hours ago, Bullrout said:

Someone was skeptical.  The dead never come back to life, right.  It doesn't predict the future for Catelyn.

It's the they haven't been buried properly that's the foreshadowing