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John Suburbs

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  1. Could be a couple of things. One, Ned may have started the Wylla tale before anyone connected him to Ashara, or maybe before she even died. In hindsight, it ties in with their dance at Harrenhal, and people just filled in the imaginary details on their own. And second, whether it was intentional or by accident, the Ashara story provides an important psychological slight-of-hand to cover up the real story. If people think they have already caught Ned in a lie over his version or events, they aren't likely to think any deeper about it. It's a two-layered deception that satisfies the emotional need for people to suspect some hidden truth, while at the same time letting them snicker over someone who pretends to be so highly moral and honorable but in reality is just like everyone else. If Ned had just gone with the Ashara lie, some people might suspect that was a lie, and that might lead them to the real truth.
  2. I'm sorry, but Timmet is no way, no how ever going to become Lord of the Vale. I see this idea all the time, and even if he does have a blood tie to some Arryn or another, the Vale lords will never bend the knee to a half-crazed wild man. And since there is no possibility that he could claim the title by right of conquest, it's simply a non-starter. The entire noble hierarchy of the Vale would have to collapse for that to happen.
  3. My two cents: Even if Illyrio is a Blackfyre, or not, his real target is the Iron Bank, not the Iron Throne. So the goal is actually to devolve Westeros back into seven independent kingdoms, destabilizing the bank's finances so he can orchestrate a panic that sends it into insolvency. Then Pentos emerges as the top merchant city on the Narrow Sea, with him making an even fatter pile dominating trade, including slaves -- with his partner, Littlefinger, controlling all the key ports on the Westerosi side.
  4. I've seen some people argue that all of the PoVs are the result of future Bran looking at the past through that person's mind with his uber-greenseer powers. So at the beginning, the chapters are named because he knows the person he is channeling, including himself. Toward the end, he doesn't necessarily know who they are, so you get The Windblown and the Soiled Knight, etc. I can't say I totally buy into it, since he ought to know who Alayne and Cat of the Canals are, but it's an intriguing idea.
  5. Oh I don't know about that. He's a pretty sharp guy. I can't believe lock technology in this society was all that complicated. And I think he was testing Arya's mettle and character the whole time, including the fire. It was her actions, after all, that led to his story about returning three lives to the red god (which is utter nonsense, btw), which brought her to the HoBaW. But he's a mysterious character, so who knows?
  6. I don't see why Varys would want Ned killed. He's trying to slow things down in Westeros, per Illyrio's request, and killing Ned would have the opposite effect. My suspicion is that if he was in the cells to kill Ned, that would be at Littlefinger's direction. Petyr most definitely does not want Ned repeating the tale of their last conversation, the one where he counseled Ned to bend the knee to Joffrey for now and then expose him at a more convenient time later. Once Jaq was on the way to the Wall, of course, he could split at any time, but he didn't probably because he puzzled out who Arya was right away and immediately sensed that she might make a good acolyte in the House of Black and White. At this point, I don't see why anyone would have the slightest interest in Jon.
  7. I just look at all the secret identities that we do know about to conclude that there are likely many more that we don't: Sansa -- Alayne Arya -- Weasel, Cat, Blind Beth, No One, Mercy . . . Tyrion -- Hugor Hill Catelyn -- Lady Stoneheart Theon -- Reek Reek -- Ramsay Mance -- Abel Mance's baby -- Gilly's baby Gilly's baby -- Mance's baby Jaquen -- The Alchemist, No One And many more who are using aliases even though we don't know their true identities: Septa Lemore The Sailor's Wife The Dusky Woman The Hooded Man In times of war, your real name can get you killed, especially if you are highborn. That's just as true now as it was in 282.
  8. Arryn was definitely investigating Robert's bastards with Stannis, and Stannis intended to use them to "prove" Cersei's incest with Jaime. So Arryn knew what Stannis thought, but neither of them knew for certain whether it was true or not, nor can they ever hope to prove it without a confession from either Cersei or Jaime or both. But Arryn's murder was committed for multiple reasons. Lysa, who did the actual deed, did it to keep her Sweetrobin by her side and to rid herself of her aged, foul-breathed husband so she could be with her one true love: Petyr. Petyr, however, did it, and then had Lysa send the letter to Cat, to sow discord between wolf and lion.
  9. Of course we do. He drank long and deep, tipping the chalice up end. So even if for some inexplicable reason the crystal does sink right to the bottom and sits there, it would be the first thing down his throat when he drank. If he took a tiny sip and then put it down you might have a point, but he didn't. Sorry, but this is what I mean about imaginary facts. The very idea that a crystal that does not dissolve near-instantly is ludicrous. Nobody would place any value on it at all if it worked this way, and certainly the preferred method of deployment would not be in crystal form, but as a powder. Plus we have this added problem: did the poison enter the chalice before Tyrion filled it, or after? How could anyone have possibly done this in the brief moment it took Tyrion to hand it to Joffrey, with literally every eye in the room directly on them. The only way this could be remotely possible is if someone did it while it was under the table -- again, without anyone noticing. But even then, Tyrion pours in the new wine, stirring the whole thing up. And this after it had been sitting in whatever residual wine was left over when Joffrey dumped it on Tyrion. And still you imagine that the crystal is not dissolving and filling the entire contents with poison? Yes, the deep color at the end of the scene, after Joffrey had barfed it all into the chalice. Before that it was just purple -- thin sheets of red wine running down his chin will look purple. Again, that is just the plain fact. No, it is not plausible. They would be on super fast-forward for all of this to happen in 12 seconds. But regardless, there is no denying that Joffrey's sequence from drinking his wine to losing his ability to speak is multiple times longer than Cressen's, despite supposedly taking multiple huge gulps of more heavily poisoned wine. It is undeniable that if the two scenes played out side by side, Cressen would have been on his knees by the time Margy was half-done with her line about Lord Buckler's toast. And this doesn't even get us close to the first tiny kof, let alone the point where Joffrey tried to speak but "his words broke up in a fit of coughing" -- which is the same as "the words caught in his throat." And this happens in virtually the exact time frame after Joffrey finally passes the pie into his throat. Just a coincidence? And this whole argument is moot because even if, despite the clearcut evidence that neither wine nor alcohol is necessary, we still hold to this theory, just look at the text. The first series of huge chugs showed no reaction at all, but the pie showed an immediate one, and then the actual choking was precipitated with another drink of wine. So there is your wine, right there in Joffrey's throat -- but only when combined with the pie do we see a more pronounced reaction from just the pie alone. And, of course, throughout this whole time, we see Joffrey with just wine in his throat and he has no problem, then just pie in his mouth and he immediately start's koffing, and states clearly and unambiguously that this is caused by the pie, then he has both wine and pie in his throat, and only then does he start choking, and he even tells us again, point blank: it's the pie, kof, the pie. Honestly, how much more hard evidence do you need? This is like of Sherlock Holmes walked into the parlor to find the lord of the manner with a knife in his belly, and with his dying breath has says it was the maid, the maid, but still insisting that the murderer had to be the butler. Of course the setting is still there. The poison was in the crystal, not the hairnet. There is nothing about it being tiny or blurred or indistinct -- just a dark smudge. Nothing else but the crystallized strangler can do this, and this disproves the fallacy that wine or alcohol is necessary to dissolve it. Sorry, but this is just another example of making up facts to fit a conclusion. The very rationale of using a slow-dissolving crystal to assassinate high-value targets disproves this. So stand by your assertion, but it's still wrong. Yes, Littlefinger's men told the truth, but Littlefinger himself lied, directly to their faces, putting Margaery in this mortal danger. And then he never even confessed this lie, they learned it from Sansa. So would you trust the liar who did this to you and yours when he later comes to you and says, "gee I'm sorry, let me make it right because I feel so bad for what I've done . . ." And then it turns out that his "plan" is to first provide a single giant chalice for both Joffrey and Margaery to share, then somehow drop a crystal into this thing that is four or five times taller than a normal glass, and all glittering and golden to draw attention to itself, like a giant fishing lure, and then somehow wait for the perfect moment where they can not only make this swift move up to the rim directly in front of a thousand witnesses but also somehow arrange it so that both the victim and the patsy create the circumstances that permit both the murder and the frame-up -- all the time knowing that if just one person sees this they are in for a death that only the mind of Joffrey Baratheon can conceive. Oh, and where is the known liar and double-crosser while Olenna and her family are surrounded by Lannister guards and taking this enormous risk? Why, he's safe and sound on his boat, way out in the bay, waiting to collect his prize -- or split to Braavos at the first sign of trouble. Honestly, how is it possible for anyone to read the Lady Olenna that's on the page and conclude that she is this much of a gullible simp? I guess it's easy when you can just ignore the actual facts and make up your own.
  10. Your meaning is incorrect. As I showed you, accompany does not necessarily mean "travel with"; it can also mean "be present at." The reason you have to keep saying it in so many different ways is because what you are saying is flat wrong. So sure, we can end accompanygate on those terms. You're the one who brought up the whole accompany thing after I had already squared it with the other poster. This is 100 percent borne out by the text. It is the actual, verifiable and confirmed situation in the realm. I think you are confusing "borne out by the text" with "outright stated." But there are all kinds of truths in asioaf that are not stated, starting with RLJ. If you can't accept that, then there is nothing more to say. He is unreachable. He is at the center of the head table, right next to Cersei and the Tyrells and the king and the queen, where all eyes will be focused all night long. It would be very odd for Lady Olenna to be camped out there, in plain view of everyone, rather than way down the side, out of sight from nearly the entire room. But as I went on to explain, which you continue to ignore, is that the fact remains that killing Tywin does not solve anything right now. The point here is to keep House Lannister from getting the north. Only Tyrion's death and Sansa's extraction can do that. Lol, you haven't refuted anything. The Reach is the most powerful house, militarily and economically. It has been this way for thousands of years. They do have the largest army. They do not have any natural barriers to speak of. Tywin's command of practically the rest of the kingdom does pose a grave threat, because the Reach has no other way of defending itself. This is not rhetoric. These are facts, unambiguous, clearly stated facts right from the text. The only thing this discussion proves is that some people are better at drawing conclusions from actual facts than others. Sure, everyone can pitch their own ideas, but not their own facts. And the vast majority of facts used to support the wine are completely imaginary. So it is not just my take, it is the only conclusion drawn from actual, verifiable facts in the text, not just words. Realize that. We don't need an "additional motivation" for Petyr's self-preservation. The embezzlement alone is enough. Nobody is going to give a rat's ass if Tyrion, without proof, claims that Petyr lied about the dagger, especially when he was not even present to hear what was actually said. And since multiple people can attest to the fact that Robert won the dagger, not Tyrion, then this whole story is laughable. This is the conclusion drawn from the actual facts. We could avoid this pointless clutter if you could accept the facts as they are, not how you wished they were.
  11. Yes, Tyrion fills the chalice, Joffrey drinks deep, and then leaves it on the table, right in front of Sansa, when the big pie is wheeled in. The whole cutting ceremony takes several minutes -- probably a good five just to wheel it through the hall. So we know for a fact that there was no poison in the wine at that point. After the cutting, Joffrey is back at Tyrion and demands more wine. The chalice sat on the table, right in front of Sansa, the whole time. Tyrion has to climb into his chair to reach it, so it is at least an arm's length toward the center. Joffrey grabs it "and drank long and deep, his throat working as the wine ran purple down his chin." A lot of people go "aha, purple wine" at this mention, but that is nonsense. Red wine translucent against Joffrey's pale skin illuminated by orange torchlight reflecting off a golden chalice . . . you bet that looks purple. Numerous characters are described as having purple wine stains on their clothing and in their beards. Again, if the wine is poisoned to the point it has turned deep purple, and Joff is drinking massive gulps of it, then he would have dropped as soon as Cressen, or sooner if you believe relative concentration has anything to do with timing. But he doesn't. He shows no signs of any distress, not even the slightest peep -- until he eats the pie. Then, within seconds, he gives out the first tiny kof. Then he eats more pie and kofs again, harder. Why? Because the pie is dry, and he wants wine, which feels perfectly normal, to soothe it. And here's the kicker: when he tries to take another drink, this is the moment when the pie is finally washed into his throat. And what happens? In a matter of seconds, Joffrey tries to speak but cannot -- exactly like Cressen. So, sorry, but the facts are undeniable. With the wine, we have a wildly different timeline where the poison is acting completely opposite of what it should be doing given the comparative concentrations and dosages, but with the wine it works exactly the same, right down to the second. We are told in Cressen's POV that "dissolved in wine" it would tighten the muscles in the throat. Nowhere does he say it can only be dissolved in wine, and we can see for ourselves that it can. Remember when Sansa checks the hairnet in the goodswood. She sees a purple smudge in the empty socket. This can only be the poison because real amethysts don't leave smudges behind. So unless you can come up with a plausible explanation as to how and why someone would splash wine on Sansa's head in the brief walk from the Hand's Tower to the throneroom entrance, then the only explanation is that it started to dissolve just from the oils in her hair and the sweat from her scalp. Wine is mostly water anyway, and there is plenty of water in hot, moist pie filling. So there is no reason to conclude that it would not dissolve in pie. But even if it did not and Tyrion bit into something hard and then choked, all the better to get people to believe that he choked on a bone, right? Here is Cressen's drink after dropping the crystal in only seconds before: So right off the bat, we can see that Mel's sentence alone is about a third shorter than Margaery's. that means it you are going to cram Joffrey's entire sequence into 12 measly seconds, then Cressen's took place in less than three. That's four times shorter, all with a half swallow of wine that, sorry, cannot possible have contained all the poison while Mel got none. That would be absurd. Who would use such a thing that only kills if the victim drains their cup entirely? It would never have gotten the reputation it has, or the price it commands, if it does everything possible to avoid being consumed once it is deployed. So no, arguing that it does not dissolve near-instantly and settles into the bottom of a cup like sludge is merely making up facts to support a conclusion. The right way to do it is to look at all the actual facts objectively, and when he do this we can reach only one possible conclusion: the poison was in the pie. Not in this case. Any delay only ups the risk for Margaery. And only because they foolishly gave them a giant chalice to share and decided to use that to deliver the poison. And why would they want any concealment of the "real killer" when they are trying so desperately to pin it on Tyrion? Why wouldn't they want it to go directly from his hands to the king as quickly as possible. And the key question that no one can answer: why on earth would Lady Olenna trust Littlefinger in any of this when he was the one who deliberately lied to get Margaery into this fix in the first place? And then he never even confessed this lie; they learned it from Sansa.
  12. Nothing Lady Olenna says is crystal clear and unambiguous. This is the lady who says she ended her betrothal to Daeron Targaryan, not him; that her husband died because his horse just blithely walked over a cliff; that she thinks Tyrion is going to lead great hosts off to war; that she couldn't say what the stink was at Tyrin's funeral -- and that she is powerless to stop Margaery's wedding because her oaf son has made up in mind but in the next breath says she will not "give him a choice" but to ask leave for Sansa to come to Highgarden. And she isn't even going to bother telling him the real reason for this visit, which is nothing less than to marry his son and heir to a woman of her choice, not his. So spare me all this talk about what she was planning to do the day after next. She is an even bigger liar and BSer than Littlefinger. Accompany can have two meanings: to travel with someone as a companion or escort, or to be present at the same time. This is a story about all manner of things, depending on who's perspective you're looking through. And from the Tyrell perspective, the single biggest threat to their safety and security is House Lannister. Hard stop. If it is not about Tyrell vs. Lannister, then why did they kill Joffrey? Just for fun? Why was Margaery seeking to undermine Cersei and gain control of Tommen? Why did they support Renly in the first place and not turn immediately to Tywin and Joffrey? Like I said, it's not just that Tywin is unreachable, it's that his death at this time does not change anything. If he dies, a new lord will emerge at Casterly Rock, but the Lannisters will still control the north and all the other realms he has acquired over the past 15 years. Only Tyrion's death right now can make a meaningful dent in this bloc. Tywin can come later, after his fiefdom has been dismantled. Every argument I've made is sourced directly from the text. Is the Reach not the most populous zone? Does it not field the largest army, time and time again? Does it have any natural barriers like the other zones do? Has Tywin not taken over the stormlands, crownlands, riverlands, north and the Iron Throne? Did Joffrey start choking after he drank the wine, or the pie? Did the chalice remain right in front of Sansa's nose the entire time? Did Joffrey not tell us, crystal clearly and unambiguously, that "it's the pie, kof, noth, pie"? The facts are all on my side. There is nothing that supports any other explanation. Really? You think that the dagger lie is what motivates Petyr to kill Joffrey now, more than a year later, when everyone and anyone who would care about that is dead? How about the fact that Tyrion is now Master of Coin and is on the verge of unravelling Petyr's massive embezzlement of the crown's gold? Do you think the very real possibility of losing his head would be a stronger motivation? But even this pales in comparison to what Olenna is worried about. With Tywin capable of defeating the Reach army, her family, the entire Reach and her very house are in grave danger. Tywin is no ordinary lord who does battle with his foes, accepts their surrender, and then raises them up again minus some lands and a few titles. He is a ruthless warlord who wages total war to utterly exterminate houses who defy him -- even after he professes to be loyal to them. Look at what he did to the Riverlands: complete destruction; every town, village, holdfast and castle, burned; smallfolk murdered by the tens of thousands and left rotting in the mud; fields destroyed, gold, food and anything else of value plundered. The realm has not seen this kind of devastation since the Dance of the Dragons, and that includes four Blackfyre rebellions. And just look at the number of houses that he has dispossessed of their ancient seats, if not exterminated altogether: Reynes, Tarbecks, Targaryens, Starks, Tullys, Darry . . . This is what Lady Olenna fears: the Reach burned to ashes, Highgarden destroyed, her family murdered, even the little babies. Her line extinguished, for all time. This is a far greater motivation to kill Tyrion than Petyr's, who can always split to Braavos and disappear if the worst happens. Lady O will be helpless, unless she takes action now. These are the facts, my friend. Sorry.
  13. Funny, you're the second person who's suggested this. He used his exceptional juggling skills to lob it from the floor below and into the chalice without making a clink or a plop, with no possibility at all of missing. There is also the one where Petyr had a trained bird in the pie who swooped down low and snatched it off of Sansa's head to drop it in. May favorite, though, is Mel killed him through the flames all the way from Dragonstone. Can't be disproven, so it must be true.
  14. Sorry, but no. You are the one who's twisting here. She adds, "when the men are off making war", which is most certainly not happening the day after next. This is how you can always spot a liar, when they say one thing and then immediately contradict it. It's just like she plays the poor helpless grandma unable to stop Mace from having his wedding, and then in the next breath she is not going to give him a choice but to ask for Sansa to come to Highgarden -- and she is not even going to tell him the reason for this visit, which is nothing less than to marry his son and heir to a woman of her choice, not his. In what possible, conceivable scenario could Lady Olenna expect Sansa to be married to Tyrion at this point in time? The hairnet was delivered the day after the battle, when Tyrion is presumed dead by everyone. Before that, he may be acting Hand but he is also a dwarf and is not considered to be a suitable match for Lollys Stokeworth, let alone Sansa Stark, who, by the way, is not even heir to Winterfell by then. It was only when Robb died and Sansa married Tyrion that he became the target. It's the only explanation that makes any sense at all. Lady Olenna is playing the game of thrones, and Tywin getting the north is the single-most devastating move against Highgarden since the Dawn Age. And sorry, but the whole idea of trusting Sansa to do this is a non-starter, especially, as you say, she didn't decide to actually do this until she saw, or didn't see, Ice. She is far too unstable, and this is a job that requires courage, mental fortitude and most of all, discretion. It's not a game for children. So I'm taking a hard pass on all of this. We will find that Olenna did the pie because Tyrion was the immediate threat, for the exact reasons I've stated. This is how the game is played.
  15. Again, no. If the strangler sinks to the bottom and just sits there dissolving, then it would do the same when Mel tipped the goblet up to drain all but the last inch. My suspicion is that Mel did not suffer any effects because she is already dead. It's the same reason she doesn't eat or sleep. Likewise, Joffrey tipped the chalice up-end. Tyrion sees his throat working and the rivulets running down his neck. So why does the crystal sink rapidly in one situation, but not another? At the end of the scene, of course, Tyrion sees "deep purple" wine. But realize what has taken place in this time: Joffrey tried to take a second drink but barfed up the contents of his mouth into the chalice just before dropping it. So the dregs held wine, pie and poison (probably the bulk to the dissolved crystal), all of which would turn it an unnatural color. If the wine had been poisoned before that, then the "deep purple" wine is what Joffrey would have been drinking, which means he was not only getting a more concentrated dose than Cressen's normal-looking wine, but he is consuming vastly greater quantities as well -- multiple huge chugs, one after another after another . . . And even after all this, it still took about 30 seconds to get to the first tiny kof, and then another 15 or so for the actual choking. Cressen was on his knees after a single half-swallow in about eight, maybe ten, seconds. Plus, when you look into the actual science, relative concentration of a contact poison like the strangler would have no bearing on the timing of the attack, just the intensity. If you swallowed a shot of ammonia, it would burn you instantly, and you might die. If you poured it into a large glass of water, it would still burn instantly, but not as badly. If you placed a tiny drop of ammonia into a large glass of water, it might not burn at all, but then the drop won't reconcentrate itself once inside your body to come back and burn your throat. That's not the way human, or animal, physiology works -- and Martin, the only writer to put zombies on the page who understands what happens in the hands and feet when the heart stops beating, would certainly know this. And we know for a fact that he does because he has Qyburn explain this exact thing to Cersei early in Feast. And the idea that this highly lethal, extremely rare and very expensive poison would just sit at the bottom of a cup, flagon, or chalice, taking its sweet time to dissolve, is a non-starter. If that's the way it worked, then deploying it in crystal form would be the last thing anyone would do. They would crush it into a powder so the evidence of foul play is removed immediately. So when we look at all the actual facts, not the imaginary ones, the answer is crystal clear (sorry): Lady Olenna did the pie all by herself -- no friends, no family, no trusted servants. A quick pinch, out of sight from everyone, and it was done. This is why the pie was "a bit dry", because the crystal had drawn in the available moisture as it dissolved, and it's why Joffrey literally tells us, "it's the pie, kof, pie."
  16. Just think all of this through and you'll see how ridiculous it is. How is anyone supposed to prevent Margaery from drinking even in the unlikely event Joffrey drinks first. What is she going to do for the next 30 seconds or so until Joffrey drops, only to be standing there holding the chalice with a dead king on the floor? Melisandre was immune to the wine by some magical power. My suspicion is that she is already dead. But clearly she did not have any normal resistance to a poison the killed Cressen in a matter of seconds. But supposed Margaery did have an antidote, and she drinks, only to have Joffrey die and she lives? Who else but her can be the poisoner now? And in the worst case scenario, she drinks first and then Joffrey dies. Then there is no question who poisoned the king, even if in the utterly unpredictable and unforeseeable event that Tyrion did pour the wine. There are literally a thousand pairs of eyes in the room, 99 percent of which are facing the head table, plus servants, guards and who knows how many little birds in the rafters. It's not a matter of seeing the crystal. The odds of no one see this rapid and sudden movement to the rim of the chalice are infinitesimally small, so this is about as extreme a risk as humanly possible. And whoever gets stuck with this task at the very last minute, because it could not be Olenna, would have to screw up their courage to commit regicide with little to no preparation, knowing that if they are spotted by just one person looking their way they are in for a kind of death that only the mind of Joffrey Baratheon can imagine. Wrong. The circumstances matter a great deal. Remember, this is not just a murder, but a murder and a frame-up. This entire intricate dance with the chalice must go off perfectly or else all the risks they are taking are pointless: Joffrey lives and murders Margaery that very night, and Sansa is still married to Tyrion, still in King's Landing, and Tywin still has the north. And all of this is only necessary because for some reason Littlefinger wanted to scotch the Willas plan which wasn't going to happen until after the wedding, after he had already made off with Sansa.
  17. So instead of providing a chalice just for Joffrey and poisoning that, they wait until they have to make up something on the spot where they have to take the incredible chance of being seen -- just one of the thousand pairs of eyes in the room as all it would take to scotch the entire thing and send them down to the black cells. And no, it was not worked out in the plan. No one could work out exactly what improbable things Joffrey and Tyrion would do to create their own murder and frame-up. And all of this was necessary because Littlefinger was trying to avoid a problem that didn't exist in the first place. Sorry, but no and no and no and no.
  18. Like I said, "whilst the men are having their war." Are the men going off to war the day after tomorrow? Not. She knows perfectly well that Sansa is leaving that night. Otherwise, there is no reason for her to risk her life, and the lives of her entire family, on this. This has every basis in text. This is literally the story itself. Highgarden has been the most powerful house throughout the ages, under both the Gardeners and the Tyrells. They can easily field twice if not three times the army as any other house, and they have the Redwyne navy as well. And the Reach has no geographic features that allow it to protect itself, like the other kingdoms do. Meanwhile, Tywin has extended his hold, through conquest and marriage, past the westerlands to the riverlands, crownlands, stormlands, the Iron Throne itself, and now the north -- well more than half the kingdom. This does give him the ability to outraise the Tyrell forces and neutralize their one and only means of defending themselves. These are the plain basic fact, explicitly spelled out in the text. Tywin is unreachable at the moment. Tyrion is vulnerable. And killing Tywin does not change the basic calculus because Casterly Rock would still remain in Lannister hands, as would the north, riverlands, stormlands, crownlands the the Iron Throne. There are no other Lannister cousins to fill Tyrion's shoes because they will have lost Sansa. Without her, they don't have the north. So my conclusion is based on the actual facts, not made up ones. Hubris has nothing to do with it.
  19. Not possible. Literally every eye in the room was trained on them as Joffrey and Tyrion were feuding over the chalice both before and after the pie ceremony. In between, it sat right in front of Sansa the whole time while the two of them were down on the floor cutting the pie. Then Joffrey is suddenly back and Tyrion brings the chalice from under the table right to Joffrey's hands. There is absolutely no way Margaery could have done it either time, and then why would she call Joffrey back to share a toast with the wine she has just poisoned? The simple fact is that the poison could not have been in the wine. If so, Joffrey would have dropped in seconds, just like Cressen. And no, greater dilution or more food in Joffrey's stomach has no bearing on timing with this kind of poison, which works directly on contact. Only the pie makes sense here. Lady O can do it all by herself, completely out of sight except for the servant holding the plate, and he can be easily distracted. Not to mention the fact that Joffrey tells us, not once but twice, that the pie is what is bothering him -- first at a perfectly lucid moment when he is koffing slightly and turns to the wine to soothe him, and then when he is full-on choking and "it's the pie, kof -- noth . . . pie."
  20. Not this kind of murder, a regicide, literally right in front of no less than a thousand witnesses. Remember, they have to not only poison the wine, but do it without being seen, by anyone. And murder conspiracies are certainly not improvised to the extent that they have absolutely no idea how to actually commit the murder. Did the Freys just wing it until the right time? No, the staged the whole thing to coincide with the bedding so they retained control of Edmure and his new heir. In just consider the fallacy of your logic here. The Tyrells were the ones who gifted the single chalice in the first place. So why wait until the 11th hour, hoping against hope that some golden opportunity presents itself, when they could have given separate chalices to Margaery and Joffrey and then just lined his with poison or stuck the crystal on the bottom with wax? So no, no other chances existed. None presented themselves in the hours prior to the pie-cutting, and the bedding is coming along at any time now. So now they are going to do it right at the most likely time that Margaery gets poisoned too? Come on.
  21. You don't plot a regicide and leave the most crucial moment to chance. That's absurd. This "precise moment" came about completely by chance. If none of the things that led up to this moment happened, how much longer was she going to wait? It's getting late. Soon comes the bedding, and then what does she do? And at this point, Joffrey is not going to be eating anything more, save for his own pie. So now she has to poison him using the very chalice that the Tyrells provided in the first place, and is to be shared with Margaery at important events like the pie-cutting -- which in fact did happen. Do you honestly think Lady Olenna is that great a fool as to take that chance? If so, I have a lovely manse in old Valyria I would dearly love to sell you. Lol, and after prodding him to drink wine, and assuming that he will drink first, what is she supposed to do for the next 30 seconds or so until he starts choking? Hum a little tune, do a little dance, fake an epileptic seizure? No matter what she does, she either dies or becomes the prime suspect in his murder, not Tyrion. How could anyone claim he was anywhere near the chalice if it sat at Joffrey's place at the table the whole time? Did he sneak up there unnoticed by everyone at the table but spotted by someone across the room? In what way could Olenna prod Tyrion to go anywhere near it? Sorry, but this is utter nonsense. First, this improvisation is Lady Olenna's, not Littlefinger's. She is the one taking all these risks while he is safe and sound out on his boat waiting to collect his prize, or split to Braavos should anything go wrong with her "improvisations." Second, Petyr improvises when major events disrupt broad, strategic goals, not highly specific actions that lead to his death if they go wrong. And note that nothing else in this plan is improvised: the note, the initial contact with Dontos, the hairnet, the swiping of the crystal . . . It was all carefully choreographed. Except for the actual poisoning? Nope, sorry. The pie, however, leaves virtually anything to chance. She knows exactly where it will be at the exact the right moment, and she even has a high probability of knowing where he will take his one and only bite: the pointy end, which is also the easiest to poison. That's the key difference between the two: the wine needed an entire sequence of unpredictable events in order to succeed, while the pie only needed one unpredictable (wildly unpredictable), event to fail. And even then, it was not a total failure.
  22. No, she doesn't say We are leaving, she says I am leaving. She knows perfectly well that the men are not going to be off to war the day after tomorrow, just as she knows that Tyrion is not going to lead a host. So Olenna is not lying. She does want Sansa to come visit Highgarden, at some point, when the time is right and the coast is clear. Sansa is not going to be in King's Landing for an extended period of time. She is leaving, that night. She would not be doing this, and risking not only her life but the lives of her entire family, if this was not the case. Of course that's absurd. Dontos wouldn't come within a hundred yards of Lady Olenna. Petyr told her where the poison would be and how to get it, after it became clear that Olenna would do the job -- for her own reasons, not his. If Olenna was in on this all the way back in Highgarden, then there is no reason for the hairnet at all -- just find some convenient dead drop somewhere. And why would she even trust Petyr after he lied so badly about Joffrey? Sorry, but the only way any of this works out is if Olenna did not agree to become the poisoner until after Sansa had married Tyrion. Sorry, you've got it all backward. If there is no reason for Olenna to go through the with poisoning, then why is she in on this plot all the back at Highgarden? What was her reason back then? And do you honestly think that Petyr is fool enough to invite Lady O into this plot unless he is absolutely sure she is going to go through with it? There is no way he can know this way back then, but he is certain of it after Sansa's wedding -- again, because her reasons for killing Tyrion are stronger than his own. I don't think it's accurate to say he hated Tyrion. If anything, he feared him, especially now that he is Master of Coin. It does matter because it blows your whole rationale for Petyr's actions out of the water. He did not rat out the plan because Sansa's marriage might be delayed. There was no marriage at that point. He ratted out the plan to force Lady Olenna's hand -- now she has no choice but to be the poisoner other than to sit back and let Tywin take the north. Her only motivation is not to wed Sansa to Willas. Her motivation is to preserve her house, her realm and her people from the mad dog tyrant who grinds rival houses into the dirt even after he professes his loyalty to them. Look at his record: Reynes, Tarbecks, Targaryens, Starks, Tullys, Darrys, . . . This is what she fears: the Reach burned to ashes, tens of thousands of smallfolk slaughtered and left rotting in the mud, Highgarden razed to the ground, her entire family, even the little children, murdered in cold blood, her line extinguished, forever. Only killing Tyrion can turn the tide on Tywin's relentless march to complete domination over the Reach. Marrying her to Willas is out of reach at this point, and both she and Petyr know this. Of course she would. Petyr has his own motivations for killing Tyrion, namely, his head remaining on his shoulders. And the simple fact is that she is his pawn. She has no choice. Neither of them do. That's the only way a plot like this can succeed, when both parties suffer supreme consequences in failure or betrayal. There is absolutely no reason to think Olenna provided the poison. A rich lady like her, was this her one and only crystal? Cressen had six. So this whole theory is untenable. If Olenna is the poisoner and she has the poison all along, there is no reason to give it to anyone and risk being double-crossed.
  23. What other ways? At this point in the feast, nobody is eating anything, so the only other way is the chalice, or his pie. All of Joffrey's food is being served at his place at the center of the high table, right next to Cersei and Tywin. If Margaery is supposed to be prodding Joffrey in the right direction, why is she calling him back to share a toast with the wine that has just been poisoned? So no, after setting up all of this -- Dontos, the poison, the hairnet, the joust . . . -- it is inconceivable that when it comes to the most crucial point, actually getting the poison into Joffrey and no one else, the plan was for Olenna to just wing it, and hope against hope that somehow it will all fall on Tyrion even if he was nowhere near Joffrey the whole time.
  24. Well, first, I checked, and I don't see any mention of bringing Sansa to Highgarden the day after the wedding. Just "soon. When you come to Highgarden after Joffrey and I are wed. My grandmother will take you." Then at the wedding, Olenna says she will be leaving "day after next." But everything has changed by then. The Willas plan was bust and now Olenna is plotting to kill Tyrion. She has no hope of getting Sansa out of the keep under normal circumstances, let alone following the sudden death of her husband. Sorry, but that's the fact. So no, the whole point of poisoning Tyrion was not to make Sansa a Tyrell, but to keep Tywin from getting the north. That's the real prize here. This is why Olenna had to be in on the escape plan, because otherwise Sansa would eventually be married off to another Lannister and the whole effort would be moot. Olenna has absolutely no hope of sneaking Sansa out herself, only Petyr can do that. And at this point it's better for him to have her than Tywin. Tywin can most certainly prevent the sudden removal of Tyrion's wife the day after his sudden and suspicious death. She is in mourning and is a prime suspect, and that suspicion will only fall on Olenna if she tries to do what she did before: bring her to Highgarden for a quickie marriage to Willas. So the whole question of insulting Mace is off the table now. Tywin has more than enough cause to deny this highly unusual request, and to keep close tabs on Sansa's whereabouts at all times. Tywin went to war when Tyrion was kidnapped -- yes, not for Tyrion's sake but for Lannister pride. So what makes you think he won't consider Tyrion's murder a matter of Lannister pride and look hard into it that too? They can see that he did not choke as easily as they did with Joffrey. Tyrion was to deliver the North to Tywin, so his death was a major setback. As Lord of Winterfell, he brings a good third of the realm under Tywin's control, and he would have no reason to press a claim to Casterly Rock, especially if, as Tywin is still planning, it goes to Jaime. Yes, Olenna would not have killed Tyrion if he was not married to Sansa, but that's because their union shifts the balance of power away from Highgarden, which held it for 10,000 years or more, to Casterly Rock. The North is what's important here, not Tyrion or Sansa. They are just means to an end: maintaining military and economic power. For Olenna, that power is not significantly enhanced if Sansa becomes the Lady of Highgarden, but it is significantly degraded if Tyrion becomes Lord of Winterfell. That's why he had to go. And also note, that this whole situation only came about because Petyr ratted out the Willas plan. So much for Olenna being "part of the plan early on." If that was the case, all he had to do when he heard about the Willas plan from Dontos was tell his co-conspirator to nip this idea in the bud or there will be no hairnet, no poisoning, no rescue, no nothing. Instead, he tells the Lannisters, knowing they will quick-marry her to one of their own, and Tyrion is the most likely groom. Now, instead of getting a maiden Sansa he gets a soiled one, by that vile imp no less. It's only when we look at it from the perspective that Olenna knew nothing about Petyr's plans, or the hairnet, or the poison, until after Sansa wed Tyrion does it all make sense. At the dinner, she was truly intending to bring Sansa to Highgarden after Margaery was safely wed. But then, due to Petr's machinations, she agreed to kill Tyrion when he became a principal threat to the Reach's security. Tyrion did not drag his feet about marrying Sansa. He questioned it briefly when he first heard about it, and then the marriage took place almost immediately. And Petyr had already told the Lannisters about the Willas plan, so any delay from that point is irrelevant to that decision. That's what prompted the marriage in the first place. The only reason for the hairnet is because Olenna was not part of the plan yet. All Petyr had at that point was Sansa and the poison. He knew he needed a distraction to get her out of the capital without a little bird seeing, but he doesn't know who the poisoner or the victim will be yet -- just that he needs all four of these elements together in order to pull this off. So where to keep the poison? He can hold it himself, but then he has to trust someone else to deliver it later, when the chaos of the battle has died down. Can he give it to Dontos? No, at best he'll sell it and go on a bender; at worst he'll rat him out. His eventual poisoner? Risky, since it could be a trap, and any poisoner capable of doing this job will rightly be suspicious for the same reason. The best thing is to give it to Sansa without her knowing what it is -- just that it is her salvation. So at least he has these two elements in place for when the job is done. Now, all he needs is a poisoner and a target, which both came into place with the marriage to Tyrion. In one stroke, Petyr created both the victim and the motivation for the poisoner to kill him for her reasons, not his.
  25. None of those witnesses would have anything to say if Tyrion was nowhere near the chalice the whole night. No amount of "adapting their stories" could overcome that. And the only reason Tyrion was able to touch the chalice is the lengthy series of completely unpredictable split-second decisions both he and Joffrey made after the dwarf joust. If just one of those things failed to happen, the frame-up simply could not happen. Yes, Joffrey and Tyrion have bad blood between them, and the joust might, emphasis on might, bring that out. But to then know for sure that the chalice will be brought into it, and the Joffrey will place the chalice in the exact place at the exact time it needed to be poisoned is simply impossible. And as we can see from the text, no one, not even Garlan, was close enough to do it without Sansa noticing, let alone the thousand people who are facing it from the other side of the table.
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