Preston Jacobs and the Purple Wedding

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

5 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

As GRRM discussed in the interviews he gave after "The Lion and the Rose", the point of the hairnet was, from the Tyrells' perspective, that Sansa would be blamed for the murder if Joffrey's death was not accepted as having resulted from choking.

No, but I've yet to see any compelling case for what the point of this would be, and that's relevant to the discussion.  It really doesn't change much of anything.

Aha, but what if the Tyrells wanted Sansa to be blamed for Tyrion's murder?

And maybe he will never reveal the answer but wanted to make it ambiguous on purpose. Because he's like that. I think Oberyn poisoned Tywin. Will this ever be revealed? I have no idea. But it would be important to character motivations if true.

[Lord Wraith]

11 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Well, I have a problem with the premisse that the hairnet is "too convulated" a scheme.

Sansa was given the hairnet well in advance. Was ordered to wear it on Joffrey's wedding to Margaery. One of the gems is missing. And Olenna did fidget with her hairnet. And the lfetover wine that Tyrion poured out was purple. Then there's the GoHH prophecy about it.

Regardless on the discussion whether it was Gerion or Olenna, whether it was the lemon cream, the pie or the wine that actually poisoned him, you can't dismiss that Sansa was given a hairnet with poisonous gems, so that she would unwittingly smuggle usable poison in the hall of the wedding feast.

Luckily for whatever actually ended up killing Joffrey, no maester has enough surgeon skills to perform a tracheotomy. Because that would actually have saved Joffrey.

Indeed Baelish was moving the pieces into place way in advance which gives a lot more credence he had a hand in it.

9 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

Because, as GRRM discussed in his interview post-"The Lion and the Rose", the Tyrell plan was that Joffrey's death would be passed off as choking, and that if people didn't buy that, then Sansa would take the fall because she had the poison on her.  The hairnet was essential to Olenna's plan because Sansa was the fall guy, if need be.

This theory has all kinds of problems, but the simplest way to debunk it is that Littlefinger knew that Joffrey was dead once Sansa stepped onto his ship, and there's no way for him to know that unless Joffrey was the intended target, because nobody could have told him.

Any chance of getting a link to the interview?

8 hours ago, Scorpion92 said:

Yeah, a good food for thought.

Olenna and Littlefinger alliance just begs questions on how they approached each other regarding this plot. 

And Littlefinger actually targeting Tyrion instead of Joffrey makes a lot of sense, since there is a consistent efforts from Lord Baelish's side to take out the Imp several times.

Baelish has been working with House Tyrell for longer than most people suspect IMO. He was friendly with Renly and Loras. I am becoming more certain that the "Antler Men" were supposed to open the gates for Renly and not Stannis. Unfortunately Renly got shadow babied and Baelish left town to parley with the Tyrells. Also people forget that he did a great deal to help undermine House Florent which makes them join Stannis, which ends up with them being attained and Garlan Tyrell being awarded Brightwater Keep.

Also Baelish has tried to kill Tyrion several times so I wouldn't be surprised if the poison was intended for him but he was beautifully set up as the fall guy.

[Colonel Green]

3 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

And maybe he will never reveal the answer but wanted to make it ambiguous on purpose.

Thing is, there isn't anything in the books establishing this supposed ambiguity.  It's a theory that only floats around certain boards like this. If GRRM wanted what happened to be ambiguous, there'd be some actual speculation about it in the books.

1 minute ago, Lord Wraith said:

Any chance of getting a link to the interview?

http://ew.com/article/2014/04/13/george-r-r-martin-why-joffrey-killed/

Quote

For me, one of the most brilliant things you did is that you kill off these major characters at a wedding, and then you kill off another major character a few chapters later — at another wedding! I never would have predicted that, precisely because of how much you like to vary things.

Martin: I don’t know how it comes across in the show, because I haven’t actually seen it yet, but the poison that is used to kill Joffrey is one that I introduce earlier in the books and its symptoms are similar to choking. So a feast is the perfect time to use this thing. I think the intent of the murderer is not to have this become another Red Wedding—the Red Wedding was very clearly murder and butchery. I think the idea with Joffrey’s death was to make it look like an accident — someone’s out celebrating, they haven’t invented the Heimlich maneuver, so when someone gets food caught in his throat, it’s very serious. I based it a little on the death of Eustace, the son of King Stephen of England. Stephen had usurped the crown from his cousin, the empress Maude, and they fought a long civil war and the anarchy and the war would be passed down to second generation, because Maude had a son and Henry and Stephen had a son. But Eustace choked to death at a feast. People are still debating a thousand of years later: Did he choke to death or was he poisoned? Because by removing Eustace, it brought about a peace that ended the English civil war. Eustace’s death was accepted [as accidental], and I think that’s what the murderers here were hoping for — the whole realm will see Joffrey choke to death on a piece of pie or something. But what they didn’t count on, was Cersei’s immediate assumption that this was murder. Cersei wasn’t fooled by this for a second. She doesn’t believe that it was an accidental death. You saw the scene filmed, does it come across as he could possibly be just choking or is it very clear he’s been poisoned?

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/george-r-r-martin-on-who-killed-joffrey-20140414

Quote

That killing apparently happens early in this fourth season. The Song of Ice and Fire books, of course, are well past the poisoning of King Joffrey. 
Martin: In the books — and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal — the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa’s hair net, so that if anyone actually did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it.

These two 2014 interviews, read together, provide a good sense of what the Tyrells thought the plan was, and represent a late addition to putting together the full scheme in the book that was first published in 2000.  Particularly notable is the detail of the choking, which I don't think fans had seriously thought about as the Tyrells' Plan A prior to that point, but looking back it makes certain bits of dialogue, such as Lady Alerie's immediately declaring that Joffrey must have choked, more notable.

It also clarifies other things, like why the Tyrells didn't just ask for Sansa's hand in marriage upfront when Tywin admits they can't be denied anything they ask for -- they were waiting to see whether Joffrey's death triggered Plan A (choking) or Plan B (Sansa takes the fall).  If the latter, no need to fret about Sansa being betrothed to a Tyrell.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

8 minutes ago, Colonel Green said:

Thing is, there isn't anything in the books establishing this supposed ambiguity.  It's a theory that only floats around certain boards like this. If GRRM wanted what happened to be ambiguous, there'd be some actual speculation about it in the books.

http://ew.com/article/2014/04/13/george-r-r-martin-why-joffrey-killed/

http://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/george-r-r-martin-on-who-killed-joffrey-20140414

These two 2014 interviews, read together, provide a good sense of what the Tyrells thought the plan was, and represent a late addition to putting together the full scheme in the book that was first published in 2000.  Particularly notable is the detail of the choking, which I don't think fans had seriously thought about as the Tyrells' Plan A prior to that point, but looking back it makes certain bits of dialogue, such as Lady Alerie's immediately declaring that Joffrey must have choked, more notable.

It also clarifies other things, like why the Tyrells didn't just ask for Sansa's hand in marriage upfront when Tywin admits they can't be denied anything they ask for -- they were waiting to see whether Joffrey's death triggered Plan A (choking) or Plan B (Sansa takes the fall).  If the latter, no need to fret about Sansa being betrothed to a Tyrell.

After reading those links, I think it's pretty clear Olenna took poison from the hairnet and used it to kill someone and wanted Sansa blamed, but it is unclear who the target was.

[Colonel Green]

4 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

After reading those links, I think it's pretty clear Olenna took poison from the hairnet and used it to kill someone and wanted Sansa blamed, but it is unclear who the target was.

Seeing as Littlefinger knew that Joffrey was dead and there was no way for him to know that if Joffrey wasn't the target, it was Joffrey.

The evidence for the Tyrells plotting to kill Joffrey is laced throughout Sansa's early chapters, there to be assembled into a coherent motivation and plan in retrospect.  It feeds into Sansa's own growing insight into the game, as I noted earlier.  There's no reason at all to make Tyrion's death such a big production at that particular moment, either.  Nor, given when the hairnet was put in play, is there any sense in it being Tyrion, since the Tyrells had no motivation to kill him at that point, nor would Littlefinger have had any reason to expect they would.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

1 minute ago, Colonel Green said:

Seeing as Littlefinger knew that Joffrey was dead and there was no way for him to know that if Joffrey wasn't the target, it was Joffrey.

The evidence for the Tyrells plotting to kill Joffrey is laced throughout Sansa's early chapters, there to be assembled into a coherent motivation and plan in retrospect.  It feeds into Sansa's own growing insight into the game, as I noted earlier.  There's no reason at all to make Tyrion's death such a big production at that particular moment, either.

Maybe he had a prophetic vision that Joffrey would die. Maybe he could hear the bells. Maybe someone else rowed out to the ship and informed him before Dontos and Sansa headed out there.

[Trigger Warning]

2 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Maybe he had a prophetic vision that Joffrey would die. Maybe he could hear the bells. Maybe someone else rowed out to the ship and informed him before Dontos and Sansa headed out there.

Or maybe all the textual evidence indicating that Joffrey was the target is right and all the non existent textual evidence suggesting that someone else was the target is wrong. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

1 minute ago, Trigger Warning said:

Or maybe all the textual evidence indicating that Joffrey was the target is right and all the non existent textual evidence suggesting that someone else was the target is wrong. 

Oops, I guess we have been having a discussion about non existent things. Darn it!

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

15 hours ago, sweetsunray said:

Sansa says Joffrey choked on pie, and LF corrects her he was poisoned and that she helped doing it. He then asks her whether there wasn't a moment where Olenna fidgeted with her hairnet. By then Dontos is already long shot dead, who was at the feast all the time with Sansa, while LF was waiting out in the bay on his boat. And LF tells her this on the ship.

Apologies if somebody else has already corrected these mistakes - I don't have time to read the whole thread right now, although I'll definitely be weighing in later.

But Sansa already thinks Joffrey was poisoned with a stone from her hairnet, even before she meets with Dontos. Further, while Littlefinger says that Joffrey's dead, it's Sansa that tells him Joffrey was poisoned. This conversation happens on the ship.

Later, at Littlefinger's castle, they speak again, and he mentions the hairnet and asks if anybody fidgeted with it, and it's Sansa that first mentions Olenna.

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

19 hours ago, WalkinDude said:

I'll try to sum it up for those who don't want to watch though.  Olenna conspiring with Little Finger in the manner LF describes to Sansa is excessive.  If Olenna was going to poison Joffrey, why would she need to hide the poison in Sansa's hair net?  Why involve Dontos and the Kettleblacks? Why not just keep the poison on her person so she wouldn't need to mess with Sansa's hairnet.  Involving everyone else was an unnecessary step  that left open too many variables and loose ends.  Preston argues it wasn't the wine that poisoned Joffrey, but the pie that was laid before Tyrion, making Tyrion the intended target.  Joffrey just happened to take the pie at the worst moment.  And LF had plenty of reason to want to kill Tyrion, his knowledge of the lie told to Catelyn about the Valyrian Steel dagger and how Tyrion played LF with Myrcella, and the most obvious of ending Sansa's marriage.

So, now Preston's digging through this site, exhuming theories from three years ago and selling them as his own?

[Lord Wraith]

7 minutes ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

So, now Preston's digging up through this site, exhuming theories from three years ago and selling them as his own?

His tinfoil roll had to run out eventually?? I think his Patreon voters may have chosen it but IDK. He could have at least mentioned that someone else had already thought it up.

[sweetsunray]

4 hours ago, Illyrio Mo'Parties said:

Apologies if somebody else has already corrected these mistakes - I don't have time to read the whole thread right now, although I'll definitely be weighing in later.

But Sansa already thinks Joffrey was poisoned with a stone from her hairnet, even before she meets with Dontos. Further, while Littlefinger says that Joffrey's dead, it's Sansa that tells him Joffrey was poisoned. This conversation happens on the ship.

Later, at Littlefinger's castle, they speak again, and he mentions the hairnet and asks if anybody fidgeted with it, and it's Sansa that first mentions Olenna.

She begins to suspect it whenshenotices a gem is gone and that there's a smudge and as soon Dontos appears she confronts him about it, who doesn't fully confirm it. When she hears Tyrion was arrested she wonders whether Tyrion was the culprit. They leave, go down the cliff, row for LF's ship, Dontos is killed, LF knows Joffrey is dead and how her disappearance will make her suspect, how he hired Dontos and he chose the godswood for her to meet with Dontos, the dancing bear and the dwarfs. Sansa relays "they think Tyrion poisoned Joffrey." Sansa then thinks that Dontos was the one who did the poisoning. And on the day of their arrival at his tower, LF tells her that someone readjusted her hairnet for her. And Sansa realizes it was Olenna. At which point, LF tells her about the period when LF brokered the marriage deal between Marg and Joff at Bitterbridge. 

[Eiko Dragonhorn]

Preston argues a plot is too convoluted...

Tu quoque, Preston. Tu quoque.

[Colonel Green]

9 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Maybe he had a prophetic vision that Joffrey would die. Maybe he could hear the bells. Maybe someone else rowed out to the ship and informed him before Dontos and Sansa headed out there.

Littlefinger doesn't have prophetic visions.  The text indicates he was well out of range of the bells.  And there is no textual support at all for the idea that somebody else was rowing out in advance, nor any reason why Littlefinger would bother with that.

[WalkinDude]

Doesn't Littlefinger warn Sansa and Dontos to be quiet because sound carries over water?  But bells from KL wouldn't reach him miles away?

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, Colonel Green said:

Littlefinger doesn't have prophetic visions.  The text indicates he was well out of range of the bells.  And there is no textual support at all for the idea that somebody else was rowing out in advance, nor any reason why Littlefinger would bother with that.

And on top of that, Dontos could not have worked on his own. Nor did he work for the Tyrells. If that had been the case, Tywin wouldn't have learned about Olenna's proposal to wed Sansa to Willas. LF knows where Sansa met with Dontos, etc. So, the Dontos and LF cooperation was a sure thing.

[sweetsunray]

1 minute ago, WalkinDude said:

Doesn't Littlefinger warn Sansa and Dontos to be quiet because sound carries over water?  But bells from KL wouldn't reach him miles away?

The rower says "No talking". The rower is not LF. And the rower starts from the cliff at KL. Sound does carry over water up to a distance when there's no wind, and since it's misty, there's no wind. There would be more ships in the bay. The mist gives them a cover. But the rower cannot risk nearby ships to hear people talking in the mist. So, he wants the silence for nearby people, not because someone will still hear them from the city an hour later. That said, I would think they might have heard some bells tolling if they listened carefully on LF's ship, but bells can be rung for several reasons and several people.

[The Ned's Little Girl]

15 minutes ago, WalkinDude said:

Doesn't Littlefinger warn Sansa and Dontos to be quiet because sound carries over water?  But bells from KL wouldn't reach him miles away?

No, it isn't Littlefinger. It's the guy who is rowing the boat.

Edited to add: Here's a quote from the chapter. "The shore fell away, the fog grew thicker, the sound of the bells began to fade. Finally even the lights were gone, lost somewhere behind them." Four paragraphs later: "Abashed, Sansa bit her lip and huddled down in silence. The rest was rowing, rowing, rowing."

With the addition of it being fully dark when she exited from the city and signs of dawn beginning when she arrives, coupled with the "rowing, rowing, rowing" I think it's pretty clear that the trip out to Littlefinger's ship took a very long time.

 

[Illyrio Mo'Parties]

Alright, let's do this:

10 hours ago, Lord Wraith said:

Also Baelish has tried to kill Tyrion several times so I wouldn't be surprised if the poison was intended for him but he was beautifully set up as the fall guy.

I think there's room to doubt that Tyrion was set up as the fall guy. We can all agree that (1) Littlefinger arranged the jousting dwarves to (2) provoke conflict between Tyrion and Joffrey. But having provoked such a conflict, how can Littlefinger be certain how things will shake out? Joffrey could just as easily have ordered Tyrion out of the room as make him his cupbearer. And Tyrion could well have stormed out - as he very nearly did. So if Littlefinger was counting on Tyrion either (a) being accused of poisoning Joffrey, or (b) getting poisoned, then why would he do anything that risks Tyrion leaving the room?

13 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

I don't know where you are getting "several hours" from. They rowed for an unspecified amount of time. And even if LF couldn't hear the bells, maybe he just had another spy in KL, someone who could actually watch the execution of the plan and report back to LF, and said spy could make it back to the ship way faster than Dontos and Sansa because he wouldn't need to waste time sneaking out of the castle and climbing down a cliff.

Agreed. Arguably, this wouldn't be playing fair on GRRM's part, but he could easily insert a one-line fix in a future book that established the presence of a second Littlefinger agent.

Bear in mind also that Sansa goes from the wedding to her chambers to the godswood, waits a while for Dontos, then sneaks out of the city on foot, climbs down a cliff, walks to the boat, all before she reaches Oswell. There could easily have been a second boat for a second agent - and there could easily have been plenty of time for the sound of bells to reach Littlefinger before easing off around dawn.

Hell, George could even have some kind of light signalling going on between the boat and a third party. He's left himself plenty of room.

13 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

So what if the following scenario occurred instead: The subject of regicide would be risky to bring up, but I bet that Olenna would be willing to approach LF about the topic of killing Tyrion (or LF could have pitched the idea to Olenna). Tyrion is a pain in the ass for LF, and the Lannisters used him to take Sansa away from the Tyrells. As long as the marriage hasn't been consummated, killing Tyrion would free up Sansa to be married to Willas, and framing her for Tyrion's murder could even potentially help with that plan, since no one else would want to marry her.

I don't think so. Dontos gives Sansa the hairnet at the end of ACOK, well before her marriage to Tyrion. Plus, there's no way the Lannisters could permit Sansa to marry anybody if she was thought to be guilty of Tyrion's murder. Most likely she'd be executed, or at least given to the silent sisters. Tywin went to war over Tyrion being kidnapped, remember; he can't let it slide if he's murdered. It's a matter of family pride.

18 hours ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

How much wine was in the cup from which Cressen and Melisandre drank?

How much was in the cup from which Joffrey drank?

Are we certain of exactly how much of the strangler Cressen used?

Unless we have the answers to all three, it's kind of pointless to say Joffrey should be choking sooner from poisoned wine.

Thank you. I do understand the logic that Joffrey would take longer to die, but I think it's pretty weak if the mystery rests on the unknown mechanics of unknown quantities of fictional poison in two people of uncertain health. It's not like we can have a toxicology screening done.

 

10 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

As GRRM discussed in the interviews he gave after "The Lion and the Rose", the point of the hairnet was, from the Tyrells' perspective, that Sansa would be blamed for the murder if Joffrey's death was not accepted as having resulted from choking.

No, but I've yet to see any compelling case for what the point of this would be, and that's relevant to the discussion.  It really doesn't change much of anything.  "Littlefinger tried to kill Tyrion with poison" is really not that different from "Littlefinger tried to kill Tyrion by framing him for regicide"; both plans involve Tyrion's death, and Tyrion and Littlefinger are already considered enemies by each other.  Unlike the arguable case of the anticlimactic reveal of who sent the assassin after Bran (though Purple Wedding alternative theorists often question that too), this misunderstanding does not drive the plot in any way, so it is to all appearances a pointless deception on the author's part.

One man's pointless deception is another man's awesome twisty mystery.

13 hours ago, Colonel Green said:

To cite just one instance, this proposal totally ruins the neat way GRRM sets up the Tyrells' motives and Sansa's burgeoning political insight in ASOS Sansa II, where she correctly identifies (in a way none of the Lannisters ever do) how inherently unstable and dangerous the whole arrangement of Joffrey and Margaery marrying and Loras in the Kingsguard is.  Sansa dismisses her own speculations on the basis of Margaery's confidence, figuring the Tyrells must know what they're doing...which they do, in fact, as we later find out, because their plan is to murder Joffrey.

I don't think it invalidates Sansa's astuteness. She's still correct, after all: it was a dangerous situation. Although perhaps she was wrong to think that the Tyrells knew what they were doing.

4 hours ago, Ferocious Veldt Roarer said:

So, now Preston's digging through this site, exhuming theories from three years ago and selling them as his own?

Maybe, or maybe he came up with it by himself. I did (sort of). And bear in mind, John Suburbs's theory differs greatly in the how and the why.

 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

19 minutes ago, WalkinDude said:

Doesn't Littlefinger warn Sansa and Dontos to be quiet because sound carries over water?  But bells from KL wouldn't reach him miles away?

Let's assume he did hear the bells - and what of it? What do the bells mean, for someone who's on a ship leagues away from the Red Keep? He had planned, allegedly, for Tyrion's death, yet he assumes that it was Joffrey who snuffed it. Not the king's uncle, the member of his Small Council, the Lord of Coin - what, the bells wouldn't toll for him? Hated as he was by his family, some forms and appearances should be nevertheless maintained.

And, speaking of his family - was it necessarily Joffrey who swallowed the poison by accident? Couldn't it have been the Queen Dowager? Or the Hand, grandfather to the king, queen's father, Warden of the West? Both certainly being VIP's enough to warrant all possible official expressions of grief.

(And that's assuming the bells didn't mean, let's say, fire, or something else unrelated at all to the nuptials).