the trees have eyes

TBH, I see it more as a positive for Tywin. He can get Joffrey to dismiss / honourably discharge Jaime from the KG and lo and behold he has the heir to Casterly Rock that Aerys robbed him of so many years ago. Plus he can marry Jaime to Sansa which aggrandises his House and keeps the Tyrells from becoming too powerful. I don't think he would do Tyrion any harm but I don't think he would mourn him much. Unless Sansa herself was the poisoner (as per @Frey family reunion's thread). But how could the planners have anticipated her active involvement indeed, it's quite a gamble on their part if they did.

The seas are calm and we're set fair, cap'n, not an iceberg within a hundred miles. Erm, no, that's a wild take. It would be better off to argue than no one would notice Sansa slipping out quietly rather than keep asserting that Tyrion choking on his pie would have wedding guests trampling each other in a panic but it's up to each of us what we find plausible. It's a royal wedding feast in a feudal monarchy, the guests are the great and the good, many of them experienced in combat and messy deaths. There needs to be a big enough shock and a good enough reason for everyone to scarper. Tyrion? Tyrion is small beer (sorry, but this is an ableist society), he's the dwarf expected to ride the pig and get laughed at, not the second most revered man in the 7K as you imply. The King, on the other hand, is a whole different kettle of fish. Exactly this. Tyrion himself muses he should leave. Oberyn thanks Tyrion for being the object of suspicion, otherwise it might have been him. It's a giant round of musical chairs and no one wants to be the last one left standing and facing suspicion. With Tyrion choking, suspicion, if there is any, is on Joffrey, maybe Sansa. No one else needs to worry and no one needs to run like mad.

You're free to disagree. Would Tyrion choking cause some upset and localised disturbance? Sure. Enough for pandemonium to break out and guests to trample themselves in their rush to exit the hall? Absolutely not. Joffrey would be both amused and then annoyed that Tyrion was spoiling his wedding feast but guests would be taking their cue from the royal couple and staying put. And with Tyrin choking Sansa attempting to leave the room and then flee KL without people watching (or stopping) her or immediately searching for her is absolutely unrealistic. Only the King's death scene causes that uproar or the momentous tolling of the bells which distracts everyone from their normal routines. He's you know a person. Yes. What happened when Gregor Clegane killed Jon Arryn's squire in the Hand's Torney? Jeyne Poole ran off sobbing, every one else stayed put. He was a person too but there was no panic as people ran screaming for the exits. Feudal monarchy =/= representative democracy, people regard and react differently to the king. Perhaps you noticed the fuss and the ceremony in the UK when Queen Elizabeth passed away in 2022 and that was for a constitutional monarch who had a ceremonial function only. You are confusing a reaction to Tyrion choking to the scene of chaos when the king dies at his own wedding feast. The two are apples and oranges yet you are treating them the same. Why would people panic and run out, trampling each other, if someone choked on their food? Would you? Nope, thought not. It's regrettable even shocking but it doesn't affect you. @Alester Florent Tyrion is not a random schmuck but he is in very low standing with both Joffrey, who loathes and ridicules him at every step, and with Tywin after his threats to harm Tommen who he held as a hostage in his power struggle with Cersei. He is expected to ride a pig at Joffery's feast for the amusement of the guests and his own humiliation and has a drink poured over him by a furious king. He is very much a peripheral court character and dispensable. Nevertheless, my point, which I hope is clear, was that Sansa cannot escape unnoticed unless there is a major panic / pandemonium / stampede for the exits and this simply doesn't happen with Tyrion's death the way it does with the king's because people won't flee. The quotes I put above for the guests' reaction to Joffrey's death simply do not fit the death of Tyrion and this problem can clearly be seen in advance by any plotters.

Tyrion is small potatoes, not the people or court favourite you make him out to be. The books make this very clear. A random servant? Let's be serious. It's the King's wedding celebration in a feudal monarchy, you absolutely don't have an equivalent reaction if a servant or the king are taken ill. All men are not equal here (very much not). People around Joffrey will watch him fire his crossbow at the starving smallfolk or watch a man who denied his legitimacy be executed right in the throne room by Meryn Trant (after the battle of the Blackwater) without running for the exits. Tyrion has no friends or allies even among his own family (Bronn and Shagga don't count - the latter playing bandit in the Kingswood anyway) and he is not considered the saviour of KL, that's Tywin and the Tyrells who broke the siege. The smallfolk think things were better before he took charge, he's the twisted monkey demon mocked for collecting the dwarf's penny and absurdly grateful when Garlan pays him a compliment about the part he played in defending the city. He's also the king's detested uncle who is humiliated at every turn, doused with a chalice and ordered to ride a pig at his wedding feast. Tyrion's death is not going to cause any kind of uproar or confusion, certainly not anything remotely near enough for Sansa, his wife and a hugely valuable hostage to just float out of the Feast Room, The Red Keep and KL. Only the king's death can create enough of a stampede, a pandemonium (the author's words) to allow Sansa to be forgotten and unnoticed long enough to escape.

Someone =/= The King. She isn't sneaking out, she's hidden in the crowd. This pandemonium simply doesn't happen if the target is Tyrion. Most particularly the dying man's wife trying to get away attracts attention when everyone else is staying put. I think you proved my point about subjectivity and objectivity. Maybe I do too A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII He is going to die, Tyrion realized. He felt curiously calm, though pandemonium raged all about him. They were pounding Joff on the back again, but his face was only growing darker. Dogs were barking, children were wailing, men were shouting useless advice at each other. Half the wedding guests were on their feet, some shoving at each other for a better view, others rushing for the doors in their haste to get away. A Storm of Swords - Tyrion VIII Margaery Tyrell was weeping in her grandmother's arms as the old lady said, "Be brave, be brave." Most of the musicians had fled, but one last flutist in the gallery was blowing a dirge. In the rear of the throne room scuffling had broken out around the doors, and the guests were trampling on each other. Ser Addam's gold cloaks moved in to restore order. Guests were rushing headlong out into the night, some weeping, some stumbling and retching, others white with fear. It occurred to Tyrion belatedly that it might be wise to leave himself. Word

@Sandy Clegg @CamiloRP I think it's okay to not like a theory for subjective rather than objective reasons but it's quite amusing that this list of theories turned into a rather in depth debate about the merits of one or two. It's fiendishly difficult to disprove something, particularly when the evidence is a pov narrated work of creative fantasy and some people require forensic, water tight rebuttals of their takes on things and if that's not forthcoming they'll insist GRRM is going to reveal what they have been saying at some future point. So, I'll just make one observation rather than wading into this again. Sansa can and does escape in the general panic to flee the hall after Joffrey's death, quite literally swept up and unnoticed in the crowd and the confusion. If the planned victim is Tyrion, the husband she is sat beside and no stampede for the exit ensues, how does she escape unnoticed?

But why would she hand over her child to Ned and why would Ned pass the child off as his bastard rather than his brother's bastard to the detriment of his marriage and reputation? And what did he promise Lyanna? How is this better? There is no evidence for it at all.

I think this is probably back to front. The CotF worshipped the weirwoods because they formed a symbiotic-cultural relationship with them some time in their past with the Singers or other Children being enthroned in the weirwood roots to form the ancestral memory / cultural repository of the community. There is no need for sacrifices to feed the weirwoods because the enthroned Singers are in effect that sacrifice but in a symbiotic rather than predatory relationship. Other Singers might briefly pass a second life or the shadow of one in the ravens that were originally used as messenger birds by the CotF. The First Men warred with the CotF and cut down the weirwoods as they knew they were important to their enemy and the source of their power. Eventually some humans converted to worshipping the weirwoods and they seem to have adopted or perhaps adapted human sacrifice (the Ironborn offer victims to The Drowned God, the Red Priests to R'hllor, so it's quite possible the First Men practiced human sacrifice before encountering the CotF) but in a sense by mimicking what they thought the Cotf were doing, or by "honouring the Gods" the only way they knew how. But misunderstanding the practices of the CotF does not give The First Men the ability to create new (resurrected) "life" or a sacrificial victim the ability to become a warg and "live" a second life. Cultural imitation or misplaced rites of worship by early First Men, magical Starks or otherwise, did not create The Others.

I'm no expert but the GRRM described it as bigger than Bran's pony. Is Bran's pony small because he's still quite young or is it typical for whatever breed of pony it might be? We can't really know. Asking the internet, that most reliable and constant of sources, how much a pony weighs I found 1) Ponies are smaller [than horses] and can range from a Shetland pony at 180–200kg to a larger breed like the fell pony at 350–450kg (Town and Country) and 2) ponies usually weigh between 771 lbs to 992 lbs (350 kg to 450 kg) (Equishop). We can try and translate that to a wolf's physique but it's not something we'll ever be able to compare against the notional cave lion of Westeros as we don't actually know the size of either. It's fun to speculate but up in the air. Unless Nymeria meets one at some point

Yes, at least that is what Tywin tells Tyrion but what I was deriding was this line of thinking about The Red Wedding: "Cat killed Aegon Frey and they killed her for it. It was even. She then comes back and starts killing more. Her sins increase and so does her punishment.". It's like The Red Wedding never happened and Cat just killed poor Jinglebell out of the blue and is now sinning against the noble and innocent House Frey for just no fathomable reason whatsoever. Just totally wild, right, how can we make sense of this?

The sigils are evocative and have stories attached to them relating to the House, it's history and it's place in it's ancestral lands (Grapes for Redwynes, Towers for Freys or Hightowers, the leaping trout of the Tullys of Riverrun, the Giant of The Umbers, the Falcon of the Arryns, etc...). Any power hierarchy is a droll but meaningless kind of user-driven game of top trumps or more likely, a kind of e-sports team cheering exercise (our sigil is way better than yours, mwahaha, losers!). The Rose of the Tyrells and the Green hand of the Gardeners are far less imposing than more martial sigils and that has no bearing on relative power. Different regions have different traditions too: the North has a lot of animal symbols in it's heraldry - Bull Moose of Hornwoods, Direwolf of Starks, Bear of Mormonts - while the Reach has a lot of farming / growing symbols - Golden Rose of Tyrells, Grapes of Redwyne, Red / Green Apples of the Fossoways. Obviously the Reach is larger and more powerful militarily; all the sigils do is give a bit of texture and colour to the landscape and history.

Please, everyone knows Benjen is Daario . But, seriously, nice post and welcome! The only areas I would differ is that 1) I think Tyrion being romantically involved with Penny is the best thing that could happen to him (so it won't) as it would allow him a meaningful relationship instead of pursuing an obsession over a traumatised Tysha, a bitter enmity against Cersei or lusting after teen Dany (likely his next development) and 2) although I don't subscribe to it I think there is a smidgeon of a possibility that Sansa poisoned Joffrey. I think every culture would have myths and legends about a second moon if there really had been one in the timeframe of human memory. IIRC the in world evidence for the second moon is an argument between Dany's handmaids which boils down to "strawhead" slave Doreah saying the second moon hatched the dragons while the Dothraki pair Irri and Jiqhui laugh at her ignorance and say the sun and moon are husband and wife. I don't think we're meant to give either story any credence. If GRRM has added more in his published pseudo-histories and mythos then there might be something to it but if not it feels like an intelligent but unsupported hypothesis.

Lord, I'm torn on this. Part of me says it's clearly the bantam rooster of House Swyft, followed narrowly by the white lamb of House Stokeworth. But another part of me thinks the purple unicorn of House Brax might just style out the win from the pink maiden of House Piper.

She doesn't understand the long term effects on Robert (and nor do we) as they aren't explained beyond "it remains in the flesh". She clearly believes the unspecified risk to him is outweighed by the short term benefit of getting him down the mountain (and a possible second dose to get him through the feast). She clearly understands the importance of him getting down the mountain alive and not having a fit in front of his bannermen (from whom he is all but hidden at The Eyrie in the normal course of events) but at no point in any of this is she dosing him because she feels threatened and sees dosing him a way of keeping herself safe. And her safety relies on keeping him alive and LF in power as his protector, surely. Colemon can refuse and say it's too risky and then explain why. If she told him to give Robert The Tears of Lys or The Strangler he would say no. It's true that he agrees against his better judgment because he understands the medical risks and she doesn't but he does agree. She leaves after he agrees to two doses, the point he makes is there must be no further doses after that for a period of six months. And no one is there to guide his hand to administer it. If he really thinks it's too dangerous he can opt not to. In terms of short term safety for herself I suppose, yes, you could argue that she would not have got him across the ice bridge without fitting without sweetsleep so she was percipient to push Colemon for the first dose. Otherwise they would both be dead. That's the kind of circumstance that might warrant a further does of sweetsleep within six months despite Colemon's warnings. What happens in this hypothetical situation is all in the future. Beyond that I guess we'll agree to disagree.

My man, read the passages again and show me where Colemon tells Sansa that giving Robert sweetsleep is endangering his life. What he tells her is that "it remains in the flesh" and that he must not be prescribed more until six months have elapsed, after the two doses which he agrees to, sets the dosage of and administers himself. This after he has questioned Sansa on Robert's physical condition - nosebleeds - to determine whether it is safe to administer these two doses. Presumably he reviews Robert's physical condition before the feast to decide whether the second dose is safe or even necessary at all. What Sansa knows is that sweetsleep has both benefits and side effects. What a thirteen year old knows of the dangers is what Maester Colemon tells her, which is precious little, other than that they must be careful not to administer too much or too often. To say she knowingly endangers his life is wrong. To say so while ignoring her leading him over the ice bridge on the descent that same day is myopic. It's really not. He warns vaguely of side effects but not specifics and not clearly and he agrees to two doses, saying there must be no more after that for six months. If it's going to risk killing him Colemon would come right out and say it, surely? If on the other hand you subscribe to the view that Colemon knows he is killing him then by all means argue that Colemon doesn't want to implicate himself and suspects that "Alayne" is in on it too but pretending ignorance so Colemon can be framed for doing it while the instigators, LF / "Alayne"', plead ignorance and assert that he is the maester responsible for Robert's care. In other words they are dancing round each other in this scene. But from her pov what she knows of sweetsleep and how it works (hell, what we know) is very little, nothing at all really until Colemon gives a veiled and partial disclosure. Thirteen year old Sansa, given the responsibility of getting Robert down the mountain and looking his best for his bannermen, has a powerful medicine that can help with all that and some vague warnings about not prescribing too much or too often - and a maester who agrees to two doses rather than telling her he won't do that because of a lethal risk to Robert. If he ever tells her that then there's a conversation to be had. But right now it's like milk of the poppy, something to be given in certain circumstamnces but not too much or too often.