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Was CERSEI Joffrey's True Murderer?


HouseRowsdower

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43 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

I'm not making things up. I know they are wrong. Why are you so offensive about my feelings to this issue ? What's your problem Sir ?

Mostly people making stuff up that is directly countered by a SSM or contradicted by quotes from the book

43 minutes ago, SirArthur said:

I don't but I don't mind if you imagine why i see things the way I see them. Please, continue on. It's amusing how you try to figure out plotholes in my observations. See there are patterns in fantasy storys. I have a pattern problem, not a story problem. 

The problem with the pattern, as far as I can discern, is that it doesn't exist. Or in similar parlance, reinventing the wheel so that half is triangular and the other half square, only to get huffy when people point out that a round wheel: a) already exists and b ) works far better

 

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3 hours ago, HouseRowsdower said:

I would like to apologize first off if this thread is a major rehash of something that’s been done before.  I did a short cursory search through the forums and didn’t see it, so I decided to start my own thread for discussion.

 

Whilst in the midst of re-reading the series, I was struck by something when I reached The Purple Wedding.  Specifically, the moment that Joffrey began showing symptoms of poisoning.  Now, we know that the Strangler begins working immediately.  When Maester Cressen tries to kill Melisandre in ACOK Prologue, he is rendered unable to speak immediately after drinking the poisoned wine and can’t reply to Mel’s comment.

Now, let’s fast forward to Joffrey and Margaery’s wedding.  Tyrion has been turned into the royal cupbearer, and refills the royal chalice, which Joffrey drinks from heavily.  He then directs another jape at Tyrion concerning his pie, and takes a bite.  Only after eating a large bite of TYRION’S piece of pie does he immediately start choking and take another drink of wine to combat it, which of course fails.  Joffrey then dies.  Cersei immediately has the KG arrest Tyrion for Joffrey’s death, calling it poisoning.

At this point, Tyrion and Cersei had already had their exchange where he said that when she is at her happiest, all her joy would turn to ash in her mouth, etc.  And as we all know, the depths of Cersei’s paranoia and misunderstandings know no bounds, so her jumping to this conclusion is definitely not out of character for her.  However, I think that the real reason she was so quick to jump on everything was to prevent a closer examination of events.  This examination would determine that the poisoning occurred when Joff ingested the PIE, not the wine.  This means that TYRION was the target of the poison, not Joffrey. 

And who would want Tyrion dead?  Many people, but Cersei tops that list.  By the same token, Tyrion’s disdain for Joffrey was not exactly secret, and that coupled with the overt antagonism displayed at the wedding itself leaves Tyrion as a believable suspect.

Now, later we do get Littlefinger’s admission that he and Olenna carried out the plot.  However, as of yet we have no statement from Olenna confirming LF’s story.  Littlefinger’s duplicitous nature most certainly wouldn’t preclude him from fabricating a series of events in order to retain Sansa’s trust in him after he’s spirited her away from KL in the confusion.  He needed to disarm her somehow to get her to trust and go with him.

So, although there is a strong possibility that LF was telling the truth, and there is also the possibility that Joffrey just choked like a little bitch, I personally find it likely (and poetic in fact) that Cersei poisoned Joffrey in an attempt to poison Tyrion, and continued her ways of fulfilling all the prophecies and predictions about her misery herself without anyone else’s help.

Thoughts?

Cersei's motivations for killing Tyrion are not as strong as Littlefinger's and Lady Olenna's. Other posters have already listed LF's reasons, so here are Lady O's:

Tyrion is now married to Sansa and Sansa is the last surviving child of the last undisputed Lord of Winterfell. That means if Tyrion fathers a son on Sansa, that child will be the next Lord of Winterfell and Tyrion will serve as Lord Regent until he comes of age. This would be devastating for House Tyrell. If you look at history, Highgarden has been the hegemon in the realm for thousands of years, first under the Gardners, then under the Tyrells. It has maintained this power largely through marriage alliances, primarily with the Redwynes and Hightowers. At the start of the Five Kings War, other houses were able to field between 12,000 and 20,000 men; Hightower sent upwards of 80,000.

For most of Lady O's life, meanwhile, the westerlands were a relatively weak power to the north that served mostly as a hedge against the Iron Men. But suddenly, kindly old Lord Tytos, who pretty much wanted to just get along with everybody, was dead, replaced by a heartless, Machiavellian warlord who didn't just bring rival houses to heel and raise them up again but burns their lands, sacks their cities, murders their smallfolk, razes their castles and kills every last member of the house right down to the livery boy. And since his ascension as the new lord, Tywin has managed to extend his influence, using a combination of conquest and marriage, to include the stormlands, the crownlands and the riverlands, not to mention the Iron Throne itself. Add the north to that power bloc and it won't be long before Casterly Rock is able to muster an army that would dwarf anything that Highgarden could field -- and since the two realms share a loosely defined border about 100 leagues or more, conflict is inevitable.

This is what the Game of Thrones is all about -- building and maintaining power. So while Joffrey's marriage to Margaery fulfills the Tyrell's decade-long goal to link their house to the Iron Throne, and there is absolutely no indication that Lady O or Margaery are worried about Joffrey, or that Joffrey is hostile to Margy in any way, or that there is any reason for him to be hostile, then it should be clear to everyone that this was a GoT-inspired power-move on the part of Lady O to prevent a warmongering madman from gaining a military advantage over her house and deposing Highgarden as the first-among-equals in the kingdom. Certainly, this is a far more serious concern than whether Joffrey will maybe someday give Margaery a black eye and a few bruises.

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3 hours ago, Prince of the North said:

Martin himself put this "question" well and truly to bed long ago.

And, no, Martin is not lying or being coy when he says "and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal".  In my opinion, that's just him acknowledging that even he doesn't have everything in ASoIaF planned out fully yet.  Anyway, the true answer is in Martin's explanation of what he "wants readers to wrestle with, and to debate."  

Everyone can read Martin's own words on the subject...and make up their own mind.

This is silly. If everything about the PW has been explained and there are no more secrets to reveal, then he would just say, "In the books, Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns using poison from Sansa's hairnet" regardless of whether this were to somehow affect the future in some unknown way.

The simple fact that he couches the whole thing with "I make no promises" and "I may have more secrets to reveal", plus the bit about what the "careful reader would conclude" ought to be proof positive that there is more to this than meets the eye.

Honestly, if someone asked you what you did today and all you did was eat breakfast and binge GoT, would you start out by saying, well I make no promises because I might reveal more to you later, but a careful observer would say that I just ate and watched TV? Of course not.

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1 hour ago, SirArthur said:

I'm not making things up. I know they are wrong. Why are you so offensive about my feelings to this issue ? What's your problem Sir ?

 

I don't but I don't mind if you imagine why i see things the way I see them. Please, continue on. It's amusing how you try to figure out plotholes in my observations. See there are patterns in fantasy storys. I have a pattern problem, not a story problem. 

Don't let them get to you. There is a whole cabal of posters here who think they have the whole story figured out and that if something has not been conclusively proven at this point than it cannot possibly be real. It's extremely limited thinking given all the times that Martin has ripped our perceptions away in the past, but what can you do?

Also, you'll note that they never contribute original ideas or explanations themselves. They just enjoy telling people how wrong they are.

 

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38 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

there is absolutely no indication that Lady O or Margaery are worried about Joffrey, or that Joffrey is hostile to Margy in any way, or that there is any reason for him to be hostile,

"We have heard some troubling tales, however.  Is there any truth to them?  Has this boy mistreated you?"  Olenna to Sansa - ASOS Sansa I.  If this isn't showing concern about Joffrey, I don't know what is.  Most of their conversation is concern about Joffrey, and Sansa's statements and actions wouldn't have eased their minds any.  The simple fact that she was terrified to even talk to them would be worrisome.  

Note that this is different from assessing whether Joffrey was actually a threat to Margaery.  The evidence is unclear there.  But the Tyrells surely had ample reason for concern.

38 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Cersei's motivations for killing Tyrion are not as strong as Littlefinger's and Lady Olenna's. Other posters have already listed LF's reasons, so here are Lady O's:

Tywin isn't a threat to Highgarden, and isn't likely to be unless they do something stupid.  The Castameres were vassals who openly rebelled and took Lannister hostages.  The Tullys were the family of Catelyn Stark, who kidnapped his son, claiming he had tried to kill Bran.  In both cases Tywin had ample reason to act.  He overdid it, but that doesn't mean that the Tyrells have anything to worry about.

And Tyrion is slated to become the Lord Regent of the most distant, underpopulated, and unimportant region in Westeros.  And he is likely to have his hands full with his vassals, if he is allowed to take the seat at all.

Plus, defending is a  lot easier than attacking.  The Tyrells have plenty of forces at their disposal, and plenty of young marriageable family members with which to make alliances.  (Mostly collateral lines, but so are the Lannisters)

Nope.   I see no reason for the Tyrells to kill Tyrion.  As opposed to Joffrey, who, even if he isn't dangerous to Margaery, is also clearly not at all malleable, unlike his brother, who is the logical next choice.

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47 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

This is what the Game of Thrones is all about -- building and maintaining power. So while Joffrey's marriage to Margaery fulfills the Tyrell's decade-long goal to link their house to the Iron Throne, and there is absolutely no indication that Lady O or Margaery are worried about Joffrey, or that Joffrey is hostile to Margy in any way, or that there is any reason for him to be hostile,

I guess that was why GRRM has written the scene where the Queen of Thorns is relentlessly inquisitive about Joffrey's character, and had Margaery join in the conversation, visibly moved, and the two gals exchange looks: to demonstrate that they completely didn't care. Right.

Your theory makes heaps of sense.

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2 hours ago, SirArthur said:

I'm not making things up. I know they are wrong. Why are you so offensive about my feelings to this issue ? What's your problem Sir ?

\/ \/ I would reply to this but USD has already done it for me  \/ \/

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

Mostly people making stuff up that is directly countered by a SSM or contradicted by quotes from the book

Bingo 

2 hours ago, SirArthur said:

I don't but I don't mind if you imagine why i see things the way I see them. Please, continue on. It's amusing how you try to figure out plotholes in my observations. See there are patterns in fantasy storys. I have a pattern problem, not a story problem. 

you do have a story problem, so eloquently stated by USD below \/ \/ 

1 hour ago, Universal Sword Donor said:

The problem with the pattern, as far as I can discern, is that it doesn't exist. Or in similar parlance, reinventing the wheel so that half is triangular and the other half square, only to get huffy when people point out that a round wheel: a) already exists and b ) works far better

This is a wonderfully apt description of so many overboard theories I see here

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

This is silly. If everything about the PW has been explained and there are no more secrets to reveal, then he would just say, "In the books, Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns using poison from Sansa's hairnet" regardless of whether this were to somehow affect the future in some unknown way.

The simple fact that he couches the whole thing with "I make no promises" and "I may have more secrets to reveal", plus the bit about what the "careful reader would conclude" ought to be proof positive that there is more to this than meets the eye.

Honestly, if someone asked you what you did today and all you did was eat breakfast and binge GoT, would you start out by saying, well I make no promises because I might reveal more to you later, but a careful observer would say that I just ate and watched TV? Of course not.

:rolleyes:  It certainly isn't silly.  Martin very much has put this whole thing to bed once and for all.  However, I get that you desperately need Martin to be lying or obfuscating here for your Purple Wedding-related "theory" to have any chance of being taken seriously.  

As I said, everyone can read Martin's own words on the subject and make up their own minds.  

Quote

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.

The reason I bring this up is because I think that’s an interesting question of redemption. That’s more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She certainly had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Everything she’d heard about him, he was wildly unstable, and he was about to marry her beloved granddaughter. The Queen of Thorns had studied Joffrey well enough that she knew that at some point he would get bored with Margaery, and Margaery would be maltreated, the same way that Sansa had been. Whereas if she removed him then her granddaughter might still get the crown but without all of the danger. So is that a case where the end justifies the means? I don’t know. That’s what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate. 

  ...eh, originally, I was going to go into more detail...but there's really no need.

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14 minutes ago, Dorian Martell's son said:

you do have a story problem, so eloquently stated by USD below \/ \/ 

Because someone mentioned some unrelated squaring the circle issue I have a story problem ? That gets really deep here. 

The best part is that he doesn't even read that I have a pattern problem and has to turn his anlogy around to even fit remotely. What he should have written was, that my round template can sometimes be a square or a circle. 

Let's call it 

Quote

 a wonderfully apt description

Bravo sir. You have outdone yourself. And you do not even know my problem. 

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Don't let them get to you. There is a whole cabal of posters here who prefer rational thinking about a piece of literature as opposed to baseless specualtion and fan fic.  It's extremely limited thinking given all the times that Martin has ripped our perceptions away in the past, but what can you do?

There, I fixed it for ya

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Also, you'll note that they never contribute original ideas or explanations themselves. They just enjoy telling people how wrong they are.

Well, with nearly a decade between book releases, everything has already been discussed. Sure, there are some bits that are missed, but really, you need to ignore what is written on the page and start writing your own story to get to Illyrio hiring the catspaw, or mance ditching the watch to go to the harrenhal tourney, then returning to the watch so he could meet ned in person years later, or Euron, Dario and Benjen being literally everyone else. But hey, ignore the whole book, and the gravity of events, and then Mance could be Rhaegar! even though he met Ned, in winterfell, 5 years after Rhaegar died. Oh yeah, and Jon is not Rhaegar and Lyanna's son either 

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I don't see GRRM's explanation as being mutually exclusive to there being additional factors. There are oddities about the Purple Wedding which aren't explained well (or at all) by the explanation as given. 

 

1. The chalice from the Tyrells is HUGE. It's repeated that Joff needs two hands to lift it. Then suddenly he only needs one hand. Why? I don't see 1/4 of a flagon as being the difference maker. Why is how Joff holds the chalice so important as to bear repeating? Note that Tyrion is quite strong for being a dwarf - his battle scenes can't be explained any other way. 

ASOS Sansa IV

Lord Mace Tyrell came forward to present his gift: a golden chalice three feet tall, with two ornate curved handles and seven faces glittering with gemstones. "Seven faces for Your Grace's seven kingdoms," the bride's father explained. He showed them how each face bore the sigil of one of the great houses: ruby lion, emerald rose, onyx stag, silver trout, blue jade falcon, opal sun, and pearl direwolf.

"A splendid cup," said Joffrey, "but we'll need to chip the wolf off and put a squid in its place, I think."

Sansa pretended that she had not heard.

"Margaery and I shall drink deep at the feast, good father." Joffrey lifted the chalice above his head, for everyone to admire.

"The damned thing's as tall as I am," Tyrion muttered in a low voice. "Half a chalice and Joff will be falling down drunk."

Good, she thought. Perhaps he'll break his neck.

------------------------------------------------ 


"Let the cups be filled!" Joffrey proclaimed, when the gods had been given their due. His cupbearer poured a whole flagon of dark Arbor red into the golden wedding chalice that Lord Tyrell had given him that morning. The king had to use both hands to lift it. "To my wife the queen!"

Joffrey was snorting wine from both nostrils. Gasping, he lurched to his feet, almost knocking over his tall two-handed chalice. "A champion," he shouted. "We have a champion!" The hall began to quiet when it was seen that the king was speaking. The dwarfs untangled, no doubt anticipating the royal thanks. "Not a true champion, though," said Joff. "A true champion defeats all challengers." The king climbed up on the table. "Who else will challenge our tiny champion?" With a gleeful smile, he turned toward Tyrion. "Uncle! You'll defend the honor of my realm, won't you? You can ride the pig!"

Tyrion turned in his seat. Joffrey was almost upon him,
red-faced and staggering, wine slopping over the rim of the great golden wedding chalice he carried in both hands. "Your Grace," was all he had time to say before the king upended the chalice over his head. The wine washed down over his face in a red torrent. It drenched his hair, stung his eyes, burned in his wound, ran down his cheeks, and soaked the velvet of his new doublet. "How do you like that, Imp?" Joffrey mocked.

"It's not meant to be an honor!" Joffrey screamed. "Bend down and pick up my chalice." Tyrion did as he was bid, but as he reached for the handle Joff kicked the chalice through his legs. "Pick it up! Are you as clumsy as you are ugly?" He had to crawl under the table to find the thing. "Good, now fill it with wine." He claimed a flagon from a serving girl and
filled the goblet three-quarters full. "No, on your knees, dwarf." Kneeling, Tyrion raised up the heavy cup, wondering if he was about to get a second bath. But Joffrey took the wedding chalice one-handed, drank deep, and set it on the table. "You can get up now, Uncle."

"My uncle hasn't eaten his pigeon pie." Holding the chalice one-handed, Joff jammed his other into Tyrion's pie.

 

2. Why do we hear 3 times that the wine (not the wine poured by Tyrion) stings his eyes badly? I've not heard of beer or wine affecting the eyes like this. And over a 77-course meal, you don't serve strong wine unless you want to make a mess of it all. The guests were all forbidden to leave the room during the reception. 

Tyrion turned in his seat. Joffrey was almost upon him, red-faced and staggering, wine slopping over the rim of the great golden wedding chalice he carried in both hands. "Your Grace," was all he had time to say before the king upended the chalice over his head. The wine washed down over his face in a red torrent. It drenched his hair, stung his eyes, burned in his wound, ran down his cheeks, and soaked the velvet of his new doublet. "How do you like that, Imp?" Joffrey mocked.

Tyrion's eyes were on fire. He dabbed at his face with the back of a sleeve and tried to blink the world back into clarity. "That was ill done, Your Grace," he heard Ser Garlan say quietly.

Tyrion's eyes still stung from the wine. He blinked and looked again. Ser Ilyn's greatsword was as long and wide as Ice, but it was too silvery-bright; Valyrian steel had a darkness to it, a smokiness in its soul. Sansa clutched his arm. "What has Ser Ilyn done with my father's sword?"

3.  Trying to suck a RIVER is a damned odd choice of words for a guy who can't breath AIR. 

A fearful high thin sound emerged from the boy's throat, the sound of a man trying to suck a river through a reed; then it stopped, and that was more terrible still.

 

4.  Jaime calls out Tywin's explanation as BS. This plan would be very uncharacteristic of him. Stupid. And Tywin knows well that poisoning wine well into a massive meal doesn't guarantee that someone will eat on cue to make it look like choking. Renly's death is brought up repeatedly in conjunction with Joff and Jaime brings it up again here. Notice Tywin immediately changes the subject from sorcery. Also note that Tywin took Ilyn's sword thus he likely was the one to replace it. The one with the runes and dragonglass which happen to be strongly linked to magic in the books. 

ASOS Jaime VII

"Unless it's a new hand, let it wait." Jaime took the chair across from him. "How did Joffrey die?"

"Poison. It was meant to appear as though he choked on a morsel of food, but I had his throat slit open and the maesters could find no obstruction."

"Cersei claims that Tyrion did it."

"Your brother served the king the poisoned wine, with a thousand people looking on."

"That was rather foolish of him."

"I have taken Tyrion's squire into custody. His wife's maids as well. We shall see if they have anything to tell us. Ser Addam's gold cloaks are searching for the Stark girl, and Varys has offered a reward. The king's justice will be done."

The king's justice. "You would execute your own son?"

"He stands accused of regicide and kinslaying. If he is innocent, he has nothing to fear. First we must needs consider the evidence for and against him."

Evidence. In this city of liars, Jaime knew what sort of evidence would be found. "Renly died strangely as well, when Stannis needed him to."

"Lord Renly was murdered by one of his own guards, some woman from Tarth."

"That woman from Tarth is the reason I'm here. I tossed her into a cell to appease Ser Loras, but I'll believe in Renly's ghost before I believe she did him any harm. But Stannis—"


"It was poison that killed Joffrey, not sorcery." Lord Tywin glanced at Jaime's stump again. "You cannot serve in the Kingsguard without a sword hand—"

ASOS Tyrion VIII

Ser Ilyn bowed before the king and queen, reached back over his shoulder, and drew forth six feet of ornate silver bright with runes. He knelt to offer the huge blade to Joffrey, hilt first; points of red fire winked from ruby eyes on the pommel, a chunk of dragonglass carved in the shape of a grinning skull.

 

 

I don't think Cersei played a part at the moment, and certainly not with the intent to kill Joff. I think what GRRM offered is what happened. But I can't ignore the other odd things going on here. 

 

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If Cersei wanted to kill Tyrion, she would have done it in some other time, not on the wedding of her son. And not by poisoning. She would have ordered to her people, to butcher Tyrion. Somewhere in secret, not in a middle of a wedding feast, witnessed by hundreds of guests.

4 hours ago, Tygett Lannister said:

LF already tried to kill Tyrion (Mandor Moore was LF's man).

Mandon Moore was Varys' man, and he wasn't going to kill Tyrion. Same as Gerold Dayne wasn't going to kill Myrcella. And LF himself previously was one of Varys' little birds. So currently he is using a slightly altered plan, originally made by Varys, in which Varys planned destabilization of 7K, to prepare it for the Sixth Rebellion of Blackfyres, and invasion of Golden Company into Westeros.

Mandon Moore, Balon Swann, Arys Oakheart, Gerold Dayne, Aurane Waters, Salladhor Saan, Jalabhar Xho, Selwyn Tarth, Leyton Hightower, Shae, Bronn - they all work/worked for Varys and Blackfyres. At least that's what I think ^_^

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5 minutes ago, Megorova said:

If Cersei wanted to kill Tyrion, she would have done it in some other time, not on the wedding of her son. And not by poisoning. She would have ordered to her people, to butcher Tyrion. Somewhere in secret, not in a middle of a wedding feast, witnessed by hundreds of guests.

Mandon Moore was Varys' man, and he wasn't going to kill Tyrion. Same as Gerold Dayne wasn't going to kill Myrcella. And LF himself previously was one of Varys' little birds. So currently he is using a slightly altered plan, originally made by Varys, in which Varys planned destabilization of 7K, to prepare it for the Sixth Rebellion of Blackfyres, and invasion of Golden Company into Westeros.

Mandon Moore, Balon Swann, Arys Oakheart, Gerold Dayne, Aurane Waters, Salladhor Saan, Jalabhar Xho, Selwyn Tarth, Leyton Hightower, Shae, Bronn - they all work/worked for Varys and Blackfyres. At least that's what I think ^_^

Mandon is clearly LF's man. Mandon was named to Kingsguard by Jon Arryn with Robert's approval but it is also said non of them actually liked him much. So best guess is Lysa asked Jon to name Mandon after LF ordered her.

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15 minutes ago, Tygett Lannister said:

Mandon is clearly LF's man. Mandon was named to Kingsguard by Jon Arryn with Robert's approval but it is also said non of them actually liked him much. So best guess is Lysa asked Jon to name Mandon after LF ordered her.

At that time LF was still working for Varys. So he asked Lysa to do this for him, because Varys ordered him to arrange this.

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1 hour ago, SirArthur said:

Because someone mentioned some unrelated squaring the circle issue I have a story problem ? That gets really deep here. 

The best part is that he doesn't even read that I have a pattern problem and has to turn his anlogy around to even fit remotely. What he should have written was, that my round template can sometimes be a square or a circle. 

Let's call it 

Bravo sir. You have outdone yourself. And you do not even know my problem. 

Here's the thing. There is no pattern.  If you cannot grok the analogy, how could you possibly see a pattern?

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3 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Cersei's motivations for killing Tyrion are not as strong as Littlefinger's and Lady Olenna's. Other posters have already listed LF's reasons, so here are Lady O's:

Tyrion is now married to Sansa and Sansa is the last surviving child of the last undisputed Lord of Winterfell. That means if Tyrion fathers a son on Sansa, that child will be the next Lord of Winterfell and Tyrion will serve as Lord Regent until he comes of age. This would be devastating for House Tyrell. If you look at history, Highgarden has been the hegemon in the realm for thousands of years, first under the Gardners, then under the Tyrells. It has maintained this power largely through marriage alliances, primarily with the Redwynes and Hightowers. At the start of the Five Kings War, other houses were able to field between 12,000 and 20,000 men; Hightower sent upwards of 80,000.

For most of Lady O's life, meanwhile, the westerlands were a relatively weak power to the north that served mostly as a hedge against the Iron Men. But suddenly, kindly old Lord Tytos, who pretty much wanted to just get along with everybody, was dead, replaced by a heartless, Machiavellian warlord who didn't just bring rival houses to heel and raise them up again but burns their lands, sacks their cities, murders their smallfolk, razes their castles and kills every last member of the house right down to the livery boy. And since his ascension as the new lord, Tywin has managed to extend his influence, using a combination of conquest and marriage, to include the stormlands, the crownlands and the riverlands, not to mention the Iron Throne itself. Add the north to that power bloc and it won't be long before Casterly Rock is able to muster an army that would dwarf anything that Highgarden could field -- and since the two realms share a loosely defined border about 100 leagues or more, conflict is inevitable.

This is what the Game of Thrones is all about -- building and maintaining power. So while Joffrey's marriage to Margaery fulfills the Tyrell's decade-long goal to link their house to the Iron Throne, and there is absolutely no indication that Lady O or Margaery are worried about Joffrey, or that Joffrey is hostile to Margy in any way, or that there is any reason for him to be hostile, then it should be clear to everyone that this was a GoT-inspired power-move on the part of Lady O to prevent a warmongering madman from gaining a military advantage over her house and deposing Highgarden as the first-among-equals in the kingdom. Certainly, this is a far more serious concern than whether Joffrey will maybe someday give Margaery a black eye and a few bruises.

I really don't think the Tyrells give two hoots about a potential Stark-Lannister alliance as they would still be more powerful, are further cementing their own already vast power by devouring the Florent lands, and are well aware of the bitter enmity between Stark, Lannister and Tully and how easy it would be to exploit that to weaken any potential Lannister power bloc, and are quietly engaging in pushing the Lannisters out of power and intending to be the power behind the throne themselves.  Getting rid of Joffrey allows for all their plans to come to fruition through Tommen without the risk to Margaery or Loras that Joffrey represented.  

54 minutes ago, Megorova said:

If Cersei wanted to kill Tyrion, she would have done it in some other time, not on the wedding of her son. And not by poisoning. She would have ordered to her people, to butcher Tyrion. Somewhere in secret, not in a middle of a wedding feast, witnessed by hundreds of guests.

Mandon Moore was Varys' man, and he wasn't going to kill Tyrion. Same as Gerold Dayne wasn't going to kill Myrcella. And LF himself previously was one of Varys' little birds. So currently he is using a slightly altered plan, originally made by Varys, in which Varys planned destabilization of 7K, to prepare it for the Sixth Rebellion of Blackfyres, and invasion of Golden Company into Westeros.

Mandon Moore, Balon Swann, Arys Oakheart, Gerold Dayne, Aurane Waters, Salladhor Saan, Jalabhar Xho, Selwyn Tarth, Leyton Hightower, Shae, Bronn - they all work/worked for Varys and Blackfyres. At least that's what I think ^_^

It's never been entirely clear who put Mandon Moore up to the attempt on Tyrion's life - and it was an attempt on his life, only jerking away at the last minute saved him from a fatal blow and the wound was nearly fatal as it was - with Littlefinger or Joffrey being the prime suspects (in Tyrion's mind).  Both are plausible but there is precious little to connect them to it, no breadcrumb trail to follow, no suspicious behaviour or revealing comments.  We get the Queen of Thorns fiddling with Sansa's hairnet (and exposition from LF to Sansa as to the how and why of it) and Tyrion & Jaime deducing Joffrey being behind the second attempt on Bran's life but there is radio silence on Mandon Moore.

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