‘Game Of Thrones’ Actor Reveals His Character’s Name, And Book Fans Get Excited At The Implications [Spoilers]

For fans of the books that Game of Thrones is based on, a confirmation of a character name that appeared in Episode 7 will be very exciting news indeed, suggesting the possible appearance of Lady Stoneheart. For TV viewers of Game of Thrones, the name Lem Lemoncloak will mean nothing at all. So who are these characters and why should TV fans be excited?

SPOILER ALERT: This article contains information and speculation about Season 6 of Game of Thrones as well as the books the TV series is based on. Please proceed with caution if you wish to avoid spoilers.

Episode 7 of HBO’s Game of Thrones introduced several new characters including Ian McShane’s Brother Ray and a small group from the Brotherhood Without Banners, both of which you can find out more about in this previous Inquisitr article. But it was the character name announcement by Jóhannes Jóhannesson on his official Twitter account that got book fans excited. For reference, Jóhannes Jóhannesson is one of the actors seen in the Brotherhood Without Banners group in Episode 7 of Game of Thrones.

Officially confirmed that I will be in next weeks episode of #GameOfThrones Episode 8 as sweet old Lem Lemoncloak???????? pic.twitter.com/PT3KfMLcPG

— Jóhannes Haukur (@johanneshaukur) June 8, 2016

But who is Lem Lemoncloak? In the book series Game of Thrones is based on, the Song of Fire and Ice series, Lem Lemoncloak is a member of the Brotherhood Without Banners. His name is a result of the color of his cloak he always wears and he’s known to have bad teeth, a bushy brown beard, and be a fierce soldier type. He is also a supporter of a character who has yet to make it to the TV series, Lady Stoneheart, and muttered the following line in A Storm of Swords.

“She don’t speak. You bloody b*stards cut her throat too deep for that. But she remembers.”

So who is Lady Stoneheart then? If you can remember the woman who got her throat deeply cut in the infamous red wedding episode (Episode 9, entitled “The Rains of Castamere,” of Season 3 of Game of Thrones), then you already know who Lady Stoneheart really is. In the books, Lady Stoneheart is actually Catelyn Stark (played by Michelle Fairley in the TV series) resurrected.

But how did she get resurrected? In the books, when Catelyn was killed at the red wedding, the Freys threw her body into the Green Fork to mock the burial customs of Catelyn’s family’s traditions. Her body was found after that by Arya Stark’s direwolf, Nymeria. Nymeria retrieves the body and Lord Beric Dondarrion brings Catelyn back to life via a technique called the “last kiss.” However, this resurrection did not heal all her wounds and, thanks to the deep gash in her throat, Catelyn can no longer talk. She now goes by the name Lady Stoneheart and has vowed to avenge her death by killing everyone associated with her family’s murder and betrayal. Lady Stoneheart then goes on to lead the Brotherhood Without Banners and is relentless in her pursuit of killing those she thinks have wronged her family.

So, could the confirmation that Jóhannes Jóhannesson is playing Lem Lemoncloak an indicator Lady Stoneheart will make an appearance in Game of Thrones? it seems HBO could go a couple of ways with this storyline. The Brotherhood Without Banners could have just been there to move the Hound’s storyline along, in much the same way Brother Ray only appeared to help reveal the Hound’s fate to the audience. HBO could have picked a random name from the book series and used it in the TV series. However, as io9 points out, this rarely happens on Game of Thrones. Another thing to note is that Lem Lemoncloak is slated to appear in two episodes of Season 6 of Game of Thrones. According to IMDb and Jóhannes’ tweet above, Lem Lemoncloak will also appear in Episode 8 (entitled “No One”). Thus, his storyline does not yet appear to be over.

So this could mean that HBO is actually setting the scene for Lady Stoneheart to arrive, even though Game of Thrones director Alex Graves has denied this will happen in Season 6. “It was never on the docket to do this season – ever.” This season. Interesting. He did also add in his interview with Entertainment Weekly that the showrunners, David Benioff and Dan Weiss, found it difficult to incorporate the Lady Stoneheart storyline into Season 6 of Game of Thrones. Once again, only Season 6 is used. So perhaps it was just a decoy to throw fans off and to make them think Lady Stoneheart was never appearing in the TV show?

And what of Nymeria? If the dog is pivotal in finding Catelyn Stark, where exactly is the direwolf in the show presently? Well, she hasn’t been seen since Arya Stark scared her off in Season 1 after the wolf bit Joffrey and Cersei insisted the wolf be put to death. So Nymeria is still out there, somewhere, with a whopping big hole in her schedule just waiting to be filled by a call from HBO.

Do you think the introduction of Lem Lemoncloak is an indicator of Lady Stoneheart finally making an appearance in Game of Thrones? Let us know your thoughts and theories by commenting below!

Season 6 of Game of Thrones returns to HBO with Episode 8, entitled “No One,” on Sunday, June 12, at 9 p.m. ET.

According to Entertainment Weekly, the official synopsis has been confirmed as follows.

“While Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) weighs his options, Cersei (Lena Headey) answers a request. Tyrion’s (Peter Dinklage) plans bear fruit. Arya (Maisie Williams) faces a new test.”

[Image via HBO]