Season 4 Impressions

[Ser Desmond Wine's Bane]

It's really not.

We can only say that because it was revealed in the books. Unfortunately the show watchers haven't been granted the opportunity

[Ran]

Sure it is. Without the dagger, no Catelyn Stark going south, no Littlefinger worming his way into their confidences, no Tyrion being seized, no Bronn joining Tyrion, no Podrick, no Jaime attacking Ned, no Beric Dondarrion getting killed and revived, maybe no War of the Five Kings at all, and on and on and on.

A huge chain of events vanish into the ether, to be replaced by an unknowable and different chain of events. So it's pretty important to understanding everything that happened just the way they happened because of a 12-year-old boy's (older on the show, of course) capricious hero-worship of his father. Perhaps for others it's something to shrug about, bouncing off their impenetrable thoughts with no consequence, but plenty of people can read it and marvel at the irony and tragedy of it all.

Without knowing the detail, it's just this MacGuffin event that is there without any grounding in anything, just random "Lets throw it at at the wall" nonsense.

(I'm not saying they have to reveal it now. They have opportunities still. But I do think it kind of has to be revealed at some point, because otherwise it falsifies the narrative by taking away the essentials of cause-and-effect. "Why did someone try to kill Bran?" "Because Joffrey was trying to live up, in his twisted way, to the ideals his believed-father espoused." vs. "Why did someone try to kill Bran?" "Dunno.")

There's certainly room for loose ends in a narrative as it draws to a conclusion -- not all mysteries need answers. But this particular one, given just how much of a catalyst it is for everything that transpires up to now, should get appropriate closure.

[Newstar]

Sure it is. Without the dagger, no Catelyn Stark going south, no Littlefinger worming his way into their confidences, no Tyrion being seized, no Bronn joining Tyrion, no Podrick, no Jaime attacking Ned, no Beric Dondarrion getting killed and revived, maybe no War of the Five Kings at all, and on and on and on.

A huge chain of events vanish into the ether, to be replaced by an unknowable and different chain of events. So it's pretty important to understanding everything that happened just the way they happened because of a 12-year-old boy's (older on the show, of course) capricious hero-worship of his father. Perhaps for others it's something to shrug about, bouncing off their impenetrable thoughts with no consequence, but plenty of people can read it and marvel at the irony and tragedy of it all.

Without knowing the detail, it's just this MacGuffin event that is there without any grounding in anything, just random "Lets throw it at at the wall" nonsense.

(I'm not saying they have to reveal it now. They have opportunities still. But I do think it kind of has to be revealed at some point, because otherwise it falsifies the narrative by taking away the essentials of cause-and-effect. "Why did someone try to kill Bran?" "Because Joffrey was trying to live up, in his twisted way, to the ideals his believed-father espoused." vs. "Why did someone try to kill Bran?" "Dunno.")

There's certainly room for loose ends in a narrative as it draws to a conclusion -- not all mysteries need answers. But this particular one, given just how much of a catalyst it is for everything that transpires up to now, should get appropriate closure.

Sun put it more concisely: it's really not an important detail. You've shown just why yourself. Does the answer to the question "Why did someone try to kill Bran?" have any bearing whatsoever on the story? The answer as we know is "No," which is your answer right there.

The fact of the assassination, as a catalyst, matters for the story. The reason behind it as revealed does not. You might think it's important, but others have pointed out its irrelevance to the story, something the show writers have picked up on. I'd say they have the right of it here.

I'm frankly surprised you're so impressed with the Joffrey resolution. It's actually pretty poor storytelling.

[Ser Desmond Wine's Bane]

It's actually pretty poor storytelling.

It is either pretty poor or (given that by the time it is revealed it has become irrelevant despite the deaths that resulted) it is inspired. To me, it made me reassess the whole story when I found it. "That currently appears unimportant, when it seemed all-encompassing before. GRRM yank my chain about it? Is he yanking my chain now?"

I suspect it is poor but I did find it food for thought and it caused me think closely about all the events from that point forward to be wary of more GRRM trickery.

[Sun]

The reason for the act itself is irrelevant, it's the reaction to it that is important, especially since the reason is childish (also adds nothing to our knowledge of Joff) and the perpetrator is now dead. The only purpose that the revelation can serve, beyond sating mild curiosity, is to colour the whole sequence of events with a light hue of irony, that is it! It's neither important nor is it original, irony being a hue that shrouds almost all wars.

[King Tommen]

It's awful storytelling in that if we are to believe that Joffrey took it upon himself to do the deed and he happened to pick the one dagger that LF had once owned and happened to lose to Robert.

We are supposed to believe that Littlefinger, the mastermind who is intent on attempting to start all this chaos and bring all of these families into conflict, owned the murder weapon in question but had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination that starts everything. It was just one big massive coincidence.

Not to mention that Joffrey had no good reason to do the deed as he is a sociopath who doesn't care about the welfare of others and so would only do it to gain the favour of Robert, but he can't even take credit for it with Robert because the whole thing has to remain a secret so it accomplished exactly zero.

If this didn't happen in the books and D&D had it play out this way on the show, they would be absolutely raked over the coals. It's terrible writing and best not revisited unless they wanted to completely change the events, because Joffrey doing it makes no sense on any level either dramatically or by way of internal logic.

[Ignorant Bog Woman]

It's awful storytelling in that if we are to believe that Joffrey took it upon himself to do the deed and he happened to pick the one dagger that LF had once owned and happened to lose to Robert.

We are supposed to believe that Littlefinger, the mastermind who is intent on attempting to start all this chaos and bring all of these families into conflict, owned the murder weapon in question but had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination that starts everything. It was just one big massive coincidence.

Not to mention that Joffrey had no good reason to do the deed as he is a sociopath who doesn't care about the welfare of others and so would only do it to gain the favour of Robert, but he can't even take credit for it with Robert because the whole thing has to remain a secret so it accomplished exactly zero.

If this didn't happen in the books and D&D had it play out this way on the show, they would be absolutely raked over the coals. It's terrible writing and best not revisited unless they wanted to completely change the events, because Joffrey doing it makes no sense on any level either dramatically or by way of internal logic.

I guess Littlefinger would've been too obvious. Perhaps George's strategy of constantly subverting reader expectations isn't a foolproof way to tell a story? If they do close this case on the show, I hope the knife ends up pointing towards Baelish. I can't think of a way to get that across though.

[franko99]

It's awful storytelling in that if we are to believe that Joffrey took it upon himself to do the deed and he happened to pick the one dagger that LF had once owned and happened to lose to Robert.

We are supposed to believe that Littlefinger, the mastermind who is intent on attempting to start all this chaos and bring all of these families into conflict, owned the murder weapon in question but had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination that starts everything. It was just one big massive coincidence.

Not to mention that Joffrey had no good reason to do the deed as he is a sociopath who doesn't care about the welfare of others and so would only do it to gain the favour of Robert, but he can't even take credit for it with Robert because the whole thing has to remain a secret so it accomplished exactly zero.

If this didn't happen in the books and D&D had it play out this way on the show, they would be absolutely raked over the coals. It's terrible writing and best not revisited unless they wanted to completely change the events, because Joffrey doing it makes no sense on any level either dramatically or by way of internal logic.

QFT :agree:

[oierem]

It's awful storytelling in that if we are to believe that Joffrey took it upon himself to do the deed and he happened to pick the one dagger that LF had once owned and happened to lose to Robert.

We are supposed to believe that Littlefinger, the mastermind who is intent on attempting to start all this chaos and bring all of these families into conflict, owned the murder weapon in question but had absolutely nothing to do with the assassination that starts everything. It was just one big massive coincidence.

Not to mention that Joffrey had no good reason to do the deed as he is a sociopath who doesn't care about the welfare of others and so would only do it to gain the favour of Robert, but he can't even take credit for it with Robert because the whole thing has to remain a secret so it accomplished exactly zero.

If this didn't happen in the books and D&D had it play out this way on the show, they would be absolutely raked over the coals. It's terrible writing and best not revisited unless they wanted to completely change the events, because Joffrey doing it makes no sense on any level either dramatically or by way of internal logic.

I totally agree. HOWEVER, if they never resolved that mystery if would be a too much of a loose end (btw, I have to say that Martin tends to leave too many things without ever answering them properly).

The best solution to make the revelation somewhat more important is to make Littlefinger responsible of the attack and reveal it in the finale with all the rest of the revelations. After all, if we should end the season thinking "wow, Littlefinger was behind the whole things", they can include this detail in a way that contributes to that revelation.

[Ran]

Tommen,

It's actually immaterial whether Littlefinger personally owned the dagger. That bit doesn't actually matter at all if you look at it. All that matters is that the dagger leads to Catelyn coming to King's Landing, which leads to her falling into Littlefinger's hands. I imagine if it were a completely random dagger, Littlefinger might well still have claimed it was his own just to sell the idea that he's speaking truthfully when he then pins the blame on Tyrion.

That Joffrey took the sharpest, "coolest" knife doesn't seem so odd, on the other hand.

The reasons for why Joffrey did it are actually quite explained. It's not to gain favor from Robert, really: it's that Robert said that if they were strong enough, they'd do it, but... obviously they weren't. So Joffrey was moved to prove to himself he was strong enough. It's not about Bran's welfare, it's living up to an image partially constructed through association with Robert. Which GRRM sets up just a bit in the earlier chapter where his telling Tywin that he hid under Casterly Rock and so on is construed as something he picked up from his "father". It nicely ties together.

oierem,

What's funny about this is that as far as I know, I originated the theory that Littlefinger was up to it, as part of my "Grand Unified Conspiracy Theory" (GUCT for short), so you'd think I'd think it terrific if they went that way. But I don't think the idea is in any way better than the actuality. It's cleverer, yes, everyone loves scheming scheminess, but there's very little weight to it since we already know Littlefinger is indeed behind a lot of things (death of Jon Arryn, sending the message falsely pointing the finger at the Lannisters). Joffrey doing it enhances our knowledge of him, and ties it all into an extreme, thoughtless capriciousness. Which, in a way, sort of explains a lot about the war -- a lot of short-sighted xbehavior from all involved, motivated by one youth's reckless, cruel deed.

That said, if they decide to hand it to Littlefinger, I stand by my call for royalties. ;)

[Lord Varys]

Thinking that TV Joff was actually much older and (somewhat) eager to challenge Tywin, it would have been a nice take if they had Joff real his involvement in the attempt on Bran in a speech - either to the public, during the wedding, saying something like 'I not only finished this war, I started it!' - or in another attempt to hurt Sansa/Tyrion.

But I agree that it could still be revealed in a Jaime/Cersei/Tyrion conversation. It's easily imaginable that Cersei, too, guessed who was behind the whole thing in the show.

[King Tommen]

I would be all for it being somehow mastermined by LF. That at least makes sense, no matter what kind of logic holes you have to jump through to have him be that omnipresent at that time.

To me (and maybe Ran you've asked him about this) it appears as if George either had another idea in mind while writing AGoT or hadn't yet figured out exactly who was behind it at that point. I can't understand how, if you knew Joffrey was going to be the one revealed to be the perpetrator, that absolutely nothing was written prior to ASoS that would indicate that, even on a re-read.

And if LF was in no way complicit, I REALLY don't understand why Martin had him admit that it still was his original blade, he just lost it to Robert instead of Tyrion. That makes things needlessly complicated and points to a massive coincidence whereby the guy you would expect to have the most to gain from this assassination plot owned the dagger in question but had nothing to do with it being involved. I don't understand why him just straight up lying to Cat and Ned about the blade belonging to Tyrion wasn't sufficient. He doesn't require any knowledge about the origin of the blade to point them in that direction.

[tyrell19]

I think we have to appreciate the shows narrative and the books narrative are different. Jack Gleeson played Joffrey as someone corrupted by the crown (yes he had dickish moments before) where as in the books he was always pretty rotten showed by his scene with Robb in Winterfell. Yes I would love them to follow the books but as long as they eventually answer who sent the dagger I will be satisfied

[Ran]

The Joff of S1 and the Joff of AGoT is pretty much exactly the same character, though, despite being a couple of years older. They give him pretty much all the same bad behavior.

That's making the assumption that they aren't sticking to Joffrey being behind it. I think they are. There's at least one other canonical way of revealing it (Jaime and Cersei discussion in ASoS) and I'm sure they can work out other ways to do it if they want to tweak things. I'm very doubtful they're going to leave it a loose end or attribute it to someone else (re: Littlefinger, royalty checks, etc.)

I suppose we'll just have to wait and see whether they think "Joffrey did it" is bad storytelling or not.

[Mithras]

This dagger mess-up is seen by Jaime as a passable motivation for Tyrion to poison Joffrey but Cersei refuses to think about any motivation of Tyrion. I think the dagger will come up in future episodes.

[Swordofthemornin]

So far so good

[Lord Varys]

I don't see anyone but Joffrey involved in that fucked-up way to kill Bran. Even back during AGoT one can deduce that neither Jaime nor Cersei would do something this stupid, and the best suspect, Tyrion, did not do it.

And anyone else would have acted differently, especially if Littlefinger had been involved. There is a very good chance that Littlefinger would have hired a guy who had actually done the deed, and not fucked it up. And that, in turn, may have resulted in Ned resigning as Hand of the King as soon as he learned of it, rather than going along with the investigation of Jon Arryn's death.

Littlefinger could only capitalize on that development because Cat rushed to KL. She would not have done that, I think, if Bran had died.

Anyway, I agree that there is still potential for them to touch on that particular subject, but I'd prefer it if don't, if they come up with a 'better explanation' than GRRM.

I'm pretty sure there will be much talk between Jaime/Tyrion, Cersei/Tyrion, and possibly even Tywin/Tyrion while he is jail. Enough time to discuss Tysha, Joffrey, and other things. Not to mention the trial itself...

[Beric175]

I agree with the sentiment that the dagger line would have been superfluous. The important thing is that someone tried to kill Bran, leading Catelyn to suspect the Lannisters. The motivations behind the assassination attempt are entirely irrelevant because it does not lead to much else besides giving us insight into Joffrey, the weak, cruel boy-king, not much else and noone finds him interesting enough to want to know about his daddy issues.

[Ran]

Well, glad to know someone can speak for everybody who watches the show...

Oh, wait. No, some people are interested in such things. Like GRRM. And for that matter David Benioff, who like GRRM wanted Joffrey's death, for example, to be as much as about the suddenness of his mortality, the grief of his mother, and so on, and not just present something just for the shock.

I'd be surprised if they never got around to explaining the fact that Joffrey did it. It's to essential an event to leave it unmotivated.

[Konradsmith]

Well Tyrion will have a lot of ruminating in his cell screentime this year. And Jaime will visit him at least once serving in Kevan's capacity. I think there or in a Jaime and Cersei scene, someone will address the issue of the dagger.