ASOIAF/Game of Thrones: Is Catelyn Stark still alive in the books?

Catelyn Stark died at the Red Wedding. She shredded her own face with her nails and then someone put her out of her misery by slitting her throat.

Her body was dumped unceremoniously into the Green Fork in a mockery of Tully family burial customs, which places the body in a boat on the Trident which is then set on fire.

Three days later Nymeria (Arya's wolf) glimpsed her bloated, pale corpse floating in the water, swam out and retrieved the corpse, drawing her back to the riverbank.

art by Pinselohr

At the point, the Brother's Without Banners, who were pursuing Sandor Clegane, came across the pair and Nymeria split.

Beric Dondarrion resurrected the corpse by kissing it. He died doing so.

The resurrected corpse of Catelyn Stark is known by many names: The Silent Sister(so called because the wound at her throat prevents her from speaking above a whispery rasp); Mother Mercy; and Lady Stoneheart. She now leads the Brother's Without Banners in a neverending quest for vengeance on the perpetrators of the Red Wedding, especially the Freys. She is not the same character per se as Catelyn Stark. Her personality, damaged by three days of death, seems to have one central purpose: revenge. Much of what humanized Catelyn is gone. She has no mercy and no leeway.

The Brothers Without Banners which follow her have been diminished morally: their focus is no longer as a"Merry Men" type organization stealing from the rich and giving to the poor; they are now more like the gang of a Frey-murderers. They still do support the Smallfolk, though. But they are darker and with less heart than under Beric Dondarrion's rule.

Is Lady Stoneheart the same character as Catelyn Stark, the mother who forewent her urges for vengeance and pushed for peace with the Lannisters and retreat back to the North? The political thinker who almost forged a deal with Renly Baratheon?

For me, no. Lady Stoneheart was Catelyn Stark. But her three days of death have changed her so much—simplified her, purified her—that I see her as a different character.

I liked the flawed Catelyn Stark.

Stoneheart's a hang-happy bitch.

Written Aug 9