Magnar, P.I.

Re-listening to chapter 2 of Fire and Blood and apparently all of Lord Mertyn’s household was killed by a single cask of wine during the first Dornish War. Yep, poisoning sure is difficult and rare in this story…

Well, not quite. In HOTD Viserys points out that Otto was the primary benefactor of Baelon’s death. He immediately became Hand, and Baelon’s more tractable and less-competent son became the (presumptive) new heir of the Old King. Otto was already at court, so the Hightowers could have been scheming to get close to the crown at this point. Viserys stops short of accusing Otto of having anything to do with the death (and it is the show, not the books) but regardless, that is certainly a plausible motivation for murder

Well but the only indication we have either way is a biased Maester, centuries later. Meanwhile we’ve seen Maesters poison people and do cover ups in the main story already, with insider testimony that such conspiracies go back centuries. I think a certain amount of skepticism is healthy here.

Well the showrunners seem to have been given a bunch of info by GRRM so I don't know why we would completely discount it as definitely not having to do anything. And yes, Melisandre is fine in the books but Cressen did attempt to poison her. lol how many poisonings do you need? And that was literally just off the top of my head, Lord Varys just added some strong possibilities to the list. And Mysaria in particular would have had awesome access as Mistress of Whispers. No, it's super clear that lots of people get poisoned, even more are suspected by characters in the story of having been poisoned, and even more on top of that are written in a way that encourages readers to think maybe they were poisoned... but ok, I guess poisoning is suddenly super hard and unlikely in this one specific instance Dr. Google says that infection, blockage and pressure buildup can cause the appendix to burst. That 1000% sounds like some of the poisons already introduced to the story, particularly the Strangler. So I'm going to keep that one in the "highly suspicious" category, thank you!

Lol people get poisoned left and right in the books and show. Off the top of my head Jon Arryn, Joffrey, Olenna, the Mountain, Melisandre, Aegon II, Ulf the White, and a whole pack of Ironborn at Moat Cailin are explicitly poisoned. Two of those guys were kings at the time they were poisoned, another was Hand, another was the ruling lady of her house. Septon Moon would have been poisoned if he hadn't gotten the Lorena Bobbit treatment. It seems Tywin had been poisoned before Tyrion shit-shot him, and Jon seems to have been at least drugged before getting For-The-Watched. Androw Farman himself took out a whole slew of people with the same poison, by himself and one after another, and all he had to do to delay suspicion was kill the maester early on. That fact, along with Maester Cressen's attempt to poison Mel, raises suspicions of poisoning over a number of other deaths, including Viserys' dad Balon, Jaehaerys' daughter Daenarys, and all the Targs who died "in the Spring." And again that's just off the top of my head, I'm guessing I forgot more than a few between all of the books and both shows, especially since I didn't bother to look anything up. The point is- people be getting poisoned. Furthermore poisoning is explicitly stated to be a "woman's weapon" (in the books if not both) so when Mysaria reaches her full power level as Mistress of Whisperers I wouldn't be surprised to find this in her arsenal.

Oooh Paris said that? Ok that is interesting…

I know, all that’s been posted in this thread already, but the 1 in 100 seems like an exaggeration. Did “God” even say it or was just the poster paraphrasing? I skimmed through your link a couple times and didn’t find the RLJ stuff

I don’t think only 1 in 100 readers came up with R+L=J, that can’t be right can it? I thought of it half way into my first reading of AGoT so I may be biased, but it all seems pretty standard Luke Skywalker stuff to me…

Self-cancelled

Mostly agree, although I didn’t love her acting S4-7 (I blame D&D) but I was actually impressed with her in the final season. Stupid as the writing was, if you ignore everything but her face you can buy it.

Not crazy at all! This occurred to me as well, though not as fully as a certain YouTuber who discusses this quite explicitly in a number of his "tinfoily" videos...