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Did LF murder Joff to revenge Cat?


purple-eyes

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My point is that he is not strong enough to lift with one arm a chalice that is nothing but solid gold cup (no stem or base), that is three-quarters full of wine -- perhaps four gallons or more. So obviously, much of the height of the chalice is in the stem while the cup itself holds only three or four times more than a regular goblet. Therefore, we can conclude that the poison that killed Joffrey was not significantly more diluted than the poison that killed Cressen. Joffrey had more wine, but he also had a full crystal, whereas Cressen had only half a cup, but only a "flake" of a crystal.

But again, these are the kinds of silly arguments that arise in this issue because it doesn't matter whether one poison was more diluted or not. Dilution does not delay the onset of a contact poison like the Strangler, it merely weakens its potency. The symptoms would arrive just as quickly, but not as severely. To think otherwise would have the poison somehow prevented from penetrating the tissue while it just meanders around the throat for 20 seconds (this is wine we're talking about, not molasses), or it enters the throat in a diluted state and then somehow reconcentrates itself back into lethal form. Neither conclusion is supported by fact or text. So if you want to invent fictional or magical properties for the Strangler or some kind of delaying agent, go right ahead, but recognize that you are creating your own facts to support a preferred conclusion rather than assessing the facts as they are to arrive at the most logical answer.

With Tyrion gagging and clawing for breath, all eyes would have been on him, not Sansa. So she would have been whisked away just as easily as with Joffrey. Once it was discovered she was missing, of course, she becomes the prime suspect. 

John I have seen you fight this tooth and nail in several threads but I forgot who is poisoning Tyrion and why?

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The soft palate is very porous tissue. It doesn't matter how old it is. It's not like Cressen has an extra layer of hard, leathery skin in his throat.

Cressen takes the sip and Mel says "He does have power here my lord, and fire cleanses." I give that sentence five seconds, tops. Cressen tries to speak and he can't, his throat is closed.

Joffrey is taking multiple chugs while Margey says “My lord, we should return to our places. Lord Buckler wants to toast us.” That is several doses of poison over a sentence that is at least a third longer, but still no reaction from Joff. Then we have:

“My uncle hasn’t eaten his pigeon pie.” Holding the chalice one-handed, Joff jammed his other into Tyrion’s pie. “It’s ill luck not to eat the pie,” he scolded as he filled his mouth with hot spiced pigeon. “See, it’s good.” Spitting out flakes of crust, he coughed and helped himself to another fistful. “Dry, though. Needs washing down.” Joff took a swallow of wine and coughed again, more violently. “I want to see, kof, see you ride that, kof kof, pig, Uncle. I want. ..” His words broke up in a fit of coughing.

I estimate that whole scene at about 10 to 15 seconds, so the entire lapse between Joffrey's initial ingestion and the point at which he cannot speak --the same criteria we are using to measure the Cressen poisoning -- is about 15 to 20 seconds. It's not an extremely long time, but we are talking about metabolic processes here, and the fact is that the poison works three times slower in Joffrey's case than Cressen.

No, weakened does not mean slower, it means less potent. Since we know the Strangler is a contact poison, we can compare it to other contact poisons that we know of. I use ammonia, but you can substitute bleach or battery acid or whatever. If you drank a shot of ammonia, it would burn your throat instantly and probably kill you. If you poured the shot into a large glass of water and then chugged it down in multiple gulps, it would still burn you just as quickly, although not as bad, and you might even survive. If you placed a drop of ammonia in a large glass of water and drank that, you might not even notice the burn, but then the ammonia will not reconcentrate itself inside you body to come back and burn you.

So, no, diluting a poison like the Strangler will not delay the onset of the attack, it will only lessen the severity.

But if it lessens the severity, you'll need to ingest more of it in order to reach the same effects of the less-diluted poison, wouldn't you? 

Hence, why Joffrey is able to speak between coughs, until his throat completely closes up.

 

Sorry, double-check again. Red when dumped on Tyrion, purple when running down Joff's chin, red when Joff drops the chalice and it spills all over the dais, then "deep purple" at the end. I explain it as mostly red wine when Joffrey drops the cup, but the poison-laced pie that he barfed into the cup turned the last half-inch into purple by the time the scene ended. If the wine was supposed to be good and poisoned as early as the close of the cutting ceremony, why did it not appear the same deep purple all the way through the scene?

You are right, in between the two purples, there's one mention of red wine. I missed that one.

 

How do you imagine poisoning the pie works? The poison isn't a fluid, but a solid matter. In wine, it dissolves, apparently, but on a pie, that wouldn't be the case. So you'd need to crush the gemstone, but there's no way to do that secretly, I think, with a room so filled with people, nor would it be certain that such would not be seen on the pie, powder on a pie where no powder should be, with a slightly purple colour.

Additionally, for Olenna (or any other Tyrell) to actually poison the pie, she'd have to have been standing amongst the servants.. Which would be out of place, for one of such high birth, and thus, not go unnoticed. Nor could she have known which servant was going to bring a piece to Tyrion.

I was responding to the part about a three-foot cup that only holds 1.1 liters. You know that it's not all cup, right? There's a base and a stem too. The cup itself couldn't logically hold more than 1.5 liters or else it would be too heavy for Joffrey to lift, let alone up-end and chug from without spilling wine all over himself. And how is Margy supposed to drink from this giant, heavy cup that has several gallons of wine sloshing around in it?

You were quoting me, but seemed to be responding to the contents of another poster's post, which is why I got confused.

 

All I go on, is the text. An entire flagon can go into that calice. And according to wikipedia, a flagon typically is 1,1 liters. perhaps GRRM uses smaller flagons. Perhaps not. Perhaps he uses different sizes. I don't know. But because he doesn't specify, all I have to base my statement on is the general, typical, flagon. All I know is that typically, according to wikipedia, a flagon is 1.1 liters, so that is all I can tell you about it.

Despite it's size, Joffrey is able to hold it (with two hands), whilst it is filled with an entire flagon of wine, and with one hand when the calice contains sightly less. GRRM wrote it so, so no matter how we would imagine it looks, that is what is happening. 

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An accident? I doubt it.

Tywen owed one to Joffrey (Please reread the books), and a Lannister always pays his debts.

Please read my above posts. The poison could not have been in the wine because it works in a matter of seconds and Joffrey would have been on the floor choking by the time he finished that first long drink after the cutting ceremony. He doesn't start choking until after he eats the pie.

Before you start talking about diluted wine and why would anyone want to kill Tyrion, please scroll up and see all my answers to these questions.

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John I have seen you fight this tooth and nail in several threads but I forgot who is poisoning Tyrion and why?

Littlefinger needs to get rid of Tyrion because, as Master of Coin, Tyrion is on the verge of unravelling all of LF's shenanigans with the crown's gold, probably half of which is currently sitting in LF's vault in the Iron Bank. LF has been trying to get rid of Tyrion since the beginning of Thrones, and was probably the one who ordered Mandon Moore to off him on the Blackwater, not Cersei.

The Tyrells need to get rid of Tyrion because he is only one drunken tumble away from fathering the next Lord of Winterfell on Sansa. Remember, for thousands of years Highgarden has been the hegemon in their part of the realm -- primarily due to the extensive intermarriages between Tyrell (or Gardner), the Hightowers and the Redwynes. Nobody could marshal an army as large as Highgarden, as we saw at the beginning of the Wot5K. Meanwhile, Casterly Rock was relatively weak in comparison, and for a good chunk of Lady O's life was run be kindly old Tytos. Now, however, Mad Dog Tywin is in charge -- you know, the guy who burns rival lands from horizon to horizon, razes castles into dust and utterly destroys the entire houses of lords who defy him. Tywin already has blood ties to the stormlands and the crownlands through his grandchildren, plus the Neck through his sister, and has taken military control of the Riverlands. His grandson as Lord of Winterfell would give Tywin control of more than half the kingdom and would allow him to field an army that would dwarf anything that Highgarden would muster. Their two realms share a 300-league, ill-defined border, so conflict is inevitable. The Reach on fire with Highgarden a smoking ruin: this is what keeps Lady O up at night, not whether Margy gets a black eye from Joffrey.

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But if it lessens the severity, you'll need to ingest more of it in order to reach the same effects of the less-diluted poison, wouldn't you? 

Hence, why Joffrey is able to speak between coughs, until his throat completely closes up.

 

You are right, in between the two purples, there's one mention of red wine. I missed that one.

 

How do you imagine poisoning the pie works? The poison isn't a fluid, but a solid matter. In wine, it dissolves, apparently, but on a pie, that wouldn't be the case. So you'd need to crush the gemstone, but there's no way to do that secretly, I think, with a room so filled with people, nor would it be certain that such would not be seen on the pie, powder on a pie where no powder should be, with a slightly purple colour.

Additionally, for Olenna (or any other Tyrell) to actually poison the pie, she'd have to have been standing amongst the servants.. Which would be out of place, for one of such high birth, and thus, not go unnoticed. Nor could she have known which servant was going to bring a piece to Tyrion.

You were quoting me, but seemed to be responding to the contents of another poster's post, which is why I got confused.

 

All I go on, is the text. An entire flagon can go into that calice. And according to wikipedia, a flagon typically is 1,1 liters. perhaps GRRM uses smaller flagons. Perhaps not. Perhaps he uses different sizes. I don't know. But because he doesn't specify, all I have to base my statement on is the general, typical, flagon. All I know is that typically, according to wikipedia, a flagon is 1.1 liters, so that is all I can tell you about it.

Despite it's size, Joffrey is able to hold it (with two hands), whilst it is filled with an entire flagon of wine, and with one hand when the calice contains sightly less. GRRM wrote it so, so no matter how we would imagine it looks, that is what is happening. 

No, again, think of ammonia. If you drink multiple chugs of diluted ammonia, the burn will never be as severe as if you drank a single shot of undiluted ammonia because you are introducing the same concentration over the area multiple times. The only way that could happen is if somehow the diluted poison were to reconcentrate itself once inside the body. You could make this argument if the Strangler worked by entering the bloodstream and accumulated in the throat over time, but clearly it does not. Your basing your assumption on imaginary properties for the Strangler that are demonstrated nowhere in the text and do not exist in real life.

Pigeon pie is not chicken pot pie. It is hot, moist and dark in color. What is the first thing Joffrey notices after he takes a bite? "A bit dry though. Needs washing down." So right there we have evidence that the crystal is absorbing all the available moisture in the pie to begin the dissolution process. Then there are a few little coughs, and what does Joffrey do then? He drinks a slug of wine. Now you have wine, pie and crystal all in his mouth and washing down his throat, and exactly five seconds later -- just like Cressen -- Joffrey starts gagging.

Also note that the pie is served within seconds of the pigeon release. So obviously there is a servant right behind the head table waiting to serve the pie. Who else is in the immediate area? Lady O, who is leaning on her cane, thus standing, and close enough for Tyrion to hear over all the laughter and celebration, so she is very close. Short little Lady O, a servant holding a plate of pie about waist high and looking up at pigeons flying around the rafters. She knows exactly where she needs to be to deploy the poison and she even has a high probability of tucking it right where Tyrion is likely to take his one and only bite: the pointy end. Certainly much more plausible than predicting all the twists and turns that the chalice had to take in order to put it right in front of Garlen at the exact moment that he has even the slightest chance of doing the deed without being seen -- and even then, a huge risk to take in front of 200 pairs of eyes or more. If just one person had seen...

OK, again, 1.1 liters, which is about five normal glasses. Tyrion fills the chalice about three quarters full (and it doesn't even say that he emptied a flagon into the chalice, just that he grabbed a flagon from a serving girl), so we're down to about 3.5 glasses. Then Joffrey takes a long chug before the cutting and leaves the chalice on the table. So we could be down to two glasses at this point. Then nobody is seen touching the chalice until Tyrion hands it to him after the cutting. So even if we estimate that there are three full glasses of wine in the chalice compared to the half-glass for Cressen, we still have a full crystal for Joffrey vs. only a "flake" for Cressen, so any dilution factor is not going to be very pronounced -- and again, dilution would not delay the attack, only lessen its severity.

And, yes, we also have the changing color. If the poison was in the chalice as early as the cutting, then the wine should have been thoroughly poisoned with the same "deep purple" color throughout the entire scene. It wasn't, ergo the wine that Tyrion sees at the bottom of the glass has a high concentration of poison that can only have been caused by a recent introduction of poison to that last half-inch of wine. And the only way that could have happened is when Joff barfed up the contents of his mouth back into the chalice just before he died.

Come on. The physical evidence alone should be enough to dispute the wine theory. But then you have an added kicker, the victim himself: "It's the pie, kof, the pie..." Here you have the most direct POV possible, the one who can feel what's going on inside his mouth and who can tell the difference between solids and liquids and he is telling you what is causing him distress, the pie.

 

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Littlefinger needs to get rid of Tyrion because, as Master of Coin, Tyrion is on the verge of unravelling all of LF's shenanigans with the crown's gold, probably half of which is currently sitting in LF's vault in the Iron Bank. LF has been trying to get rid of Tyrion since the beginning of Thrones, and was probably the one who ordered Mandon Moore to off him on the Blackwater, not Cersei.

The Tyrells need to get rid of Tyrion because he is only one drunken tumble away from fathering the next Lord of Winterfell on Sansa. Remember, for thousands of years Highgarden has been the hegemon in their part of the realm -- primarily due to the extensive intermarriages between Tyrell (or Gardner), the Hightowers and the Redwynes. Nobody could marshal an army as large as Highgarden, as we saw at the beginning of the Wot5K. Meanwhile, Casterly Rock was relatively weak in comparison, and for a good chunk of Lady O's life was run be kindly old Tytos. Now, however, Mad Dog Tywin is in charge -- you know, the guy who burns rival lands from horizon to horizon, razes castles into dust and utterly destroys the entire houses of lords who defy him. Tywin already has blood ties to the stormlands and the crownlands through his grandchildren, plus the Neck through his sister, and has taken military control of the Riverlands. His grandson as Lord of Winterfell would give Tywin control of more than half the kingdom and would allow him to field an army that would dwarf anything that Highgarden would muster. Their two realms share a 300-league, ill-defined border, so conflict is inevitable. The Reach on fire with Highgarden a smoking ruin: this is what keeps Lady O up at night, not whether Margy gets a black eye from Joffrey.

I can agree with most of this. Especially the bit with Mandon Moore.

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No, again, think of ammonia. If you drink multiple chugs of diluted ammonia, the burn will never be as severe as if you drank a single shot of undiluted ammonia because you are introducing the same concentration over the area multiple times. The only way that could happen is if somehow the diluted poison were to reconcentrate itself once inside the body. You could make this argument if the Strangler worked by entering the bloodstream and accumulated in the throat over time, but clearly it does not. Your basing your assumption on imaginary properties for the Strangler that are demonstrated nowhere in the text and do not exist in real life.

I see a difference, though, between a substance that burns, and a substance that makes the muscles clench.

Pigeon pie is not chicken pot pie. It is hot, moist and dark in color. What is the first thing Joffrey notices after he takes a bite? "A bit dry though. Needs washing down." So right there we have evidence that the crystal is absorbing all the available moisture in the pie to begin the dissolution process. Then there are a few little coughs, and what does Joffrey do then? He drinks a slug of wine. Now you have wine, pie and crystal all in his mouth and washing down his throat, and exactly five seconds later -- just like Cressen -- Joffrey starts gagging.

Also note that the pie is served within seconds of the pigeon release. So obviously there is a servant right behind the head table waiting to serve the pie. Who else is in the immediate area? Lady O, who is leaning on her cane, thus standing, and close enough for Tyrion to hear over all the laughter and celebration, so she is very close. Short little Lady O, a servant holding a plate of pie about waist high and looking up at pigeons flying around the rafters. She knows exactly where she needs to be to deploy the poison and she even has a high probability of tucking it right where Tyrion is likely to take his one and only bite: the pointy end. Certainly much more plausible than predicting all the twists and turns that the chalice had to take in order to put it right in front of Garlen at the exact moment that he has even the slightest chance of doing the deed without being seen -- and even then, a huge risk to take in front of 200 pairs of eyes or more. If just one person had seen...

OK, again, 1.1 liters, which is about five normal glasses. Tyrion fills the chalice about three quarters full (and it doesn't even say that he emptied a flagon into the chalice, just that he grabbed a flagon from a serving girl), so we're down to about 3.5 glasses. Then Joffrey takes a long chug before the cutting and leaves the chalice on the table. So we could be down to two glasses at this point. Then nobody is seen touching the chalice until Tyrion hands it to him after the cutting. So even if we estimate that there are three full glasses of wine in the chalice compared to the half-glass for Cressen, we still have a full crystal for Joffrey vs. only a "flake" for Cressen, so any dilution factor is not going to be very pronounced -- and again, dilution would not delay the attack, only lessen its severity.

And, yes, we also have the changing color. If the poison was in the chalice as early as the cutting, then the wine should have been thoroughly poisoned with the same "deep purple" color throughout the entire scene. It wasn't, ergo the wine that Tyrion sees at the bottom of the glass has a high concentration of poison that can only have been caused by a recent introduction of poison to that last half-inch of wine. And the only way that could have happened is when Joff barfed up the contents of his mouth back into the chalice just before he died.

You tell me that the pie is moist, but the only description we get is that it is dry, which seems contradictory. And while it seems that the Strangler can dissolve in fluid, I can't believe that sprinkling a little bit of it on the pointy end of the pie will make the entire thing dry. That sounds like a stretch, to me.

As to the changing of the colour. The wine was running purple over his chin before he even touched the pie. So the spewing back of the wine and pie is not the reason as to its colour.

The thing is, that the severity is lessened. The first little bit of wine is only enough for a few coughs. It's the next few chugs of wine that bring on the more heavier coughing, closing the throath. 

Olenna was standing when Joffrey was insulting Tyrion the first time. Was she standing all that time? Unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. Nor could she possibly have known, as I said before, which piece of pie would go to Tyrion. 

 

With the poison in the wine, there are multiple people who could put it in. Olenna, Garlan, Margaery. Who knows who more might have been involved of the Tyrells. And they have reason to be close to that calice, with Margaery drinking from it. With multiple people able to put in the poison, they'd have the best chance of succeeding. And with Margaery drinking from that calice, no one would suspect them.

 

Come on. The physical evidence alone should be enough to dispute the wine theory. But then you have an added kicker, the victim himself: "It's the pie, kof, the pie..." Here you have the most direct POV possible, the one who can feel what's going on inside his mouth and who can tell the difference between solids and liquids and he is telling you what is causing him distress, the pie.

But it isn't enough.

Considering the reasoning behind this..

Littlefinger needs to get rid of Tyrion because, as Master of Coin, Tyrion is on the verge of unravelling all of LF's shenanigans with the crown's gold, probably half of which is currently sitting in LF's vault in the Iron Bank. LF has been trying to get rid of Tyrion since the beginning of Thrones, and was probably the one who ordered Mandon Moore to off him on the Blackwater, not Cersei.

The Tyrells need to get rid of Tyrion because he is only one drunken tumble away from fathering the next Lord of Winterfell on Sansa. Remember, for thousands of years Highgarden has been the hegemon in their part of the realm -- primarily due to the extensive intermarriages between Tyrell (or Gardner), the Hightowers and the Redwynes. Nobody could marshal an army as large as Highgarden, as we saw at the beginning of the Wot5K. Meanwhile, Casterly Rock was relatively weak in comparison, and for a good chunk of Lady O's life was run be kindly old Tytos. Now, however, Mad Dog Tywin is in charge -- you know, the guy who burns rival lands from horizon to horizon, razes castles into dust and utterly destroys the entire houses of lords who defy him. Tywin already has blood ties to the stormlands and the crownlands through his grandchildren, plus the Neck through his sister, and has taken military control of the Riverlands. His grandson as Lord of Winterfell would give Tywin control of more than half the kingdom and would allow him to field an army that would dwarf anything that Highgarden would muster. Their two realms share a 300-league, ill-defined border, so conflict is inevitable. The Reach on fire with Highgarden a smoking ruin: this is what keeps Lady O up at night, not whether Margy gets a black eye from Joffrey.

Even without Tyrion, the Lannisters have control over the Stormlands (through Cersei's children), Westerlands (Tywin), riverlands (Genna + Littlefinger), and crownlands (Joffrey).  While the North would add a lot, the damage is already done by that.

And the only thing holding everything together, is Tywin. If Tywin dies, it is up to Cersei/Joffrey and Tyrion to keep control, and let it be clear during their time at court that Tyrion and Joffrey, and Tyrion and Cersei, do not get along. If Tywin dies on short notice, the alliance he has build this way dies with him. Killing Tyrion changes nothing to this. In fact, it currently would make the chance of a Lannister heir by Sansa even greater, because with Tyrion dead, Sansa would immediately be married off again, and I don't think anyone else would dare say no to Tywin if commanded to consummate the marriage.

Nor should a burning Reach be Olenna's concern anymore... After all, House Tyrell has just married the Iron Throne. If Joffrey was supposed to live, the Reach would have been quite secure in their position for decades to come. 

 

And let's not forget, Olenna was working with LF here, and the plan was clearly already in motion since the afermath of the Blackwater.. A time where Sansa and Tyrion were not married, and such a marriage was not yet even spoken of. No reason, at that point in time, to already assume that Tywin shall be in control of the North by having Tyrion father a son on Sansa.

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I see a difference, though, between a substance that burns, and a substance that makes the muscles clench.

You tell me that the pie is moist, but the only description we get is that it is dry, which seems contradictory. And while it seems that the Strangler can dissolve in fluid, I can't believe that sprinkling a little bit of it on the pointy end of the pie will make the entire thing dry. That sounds like a stretch, to me.

As to the changing of the colour. The wine was running purple over his chin before he even touched the pie. So the spewing back of the wine and pie is not the reason as to its colour.

The thing is, that the severity is lessened. The first little bit of wine is only enough for a few coughs. It's the next few chugs of wine that bring on the more heavier coughing, closing the throath. 

Olenna was standing when Joffrey was insulting Tyrion the first time. Was she standing all that time? Unlikely. Possible, but unlikely. Nor could she possibly have known, as I said before, which piece of pie would go to Tyrion. 

 

With the poison in the wine, there are multiple people who could put it in. Olenna, Garlan, Margaery. Who knows who more might have been involved of the Tyrells. And they have reason to be close to that calice, with Margaery drinking from it. With multiple people able to put in the poison, they'd have the best chance of succeeding. And with Margaery drinking from that calice, no one would suspect them.

 

But it isn't enough.

Considering the reasoning behind this..

 

Even without Tyrion, the Lannisters have control over the Stormlands (through Cersei's children), Westerlands (Tywin), riverlands (Genna + Littlefinger), and crownlands (Joffrey).  While the North would add a lot, the damage is already done by that.

And the only thing holding everything together, is Tywin. If Tywin dies, it is up to Cersei/Joffrey and Tyrion to keep control, and let it be clear during their time at court that Tyrion and Joffrey, and Tyrion and Cersei, do not get along. If Tywin dies on short notice, the alliance he has build this way dies with him. Killing Tyrion changes nothing to this. In fact, it currently would make the chance of a Lannister heir by Sansa even greater, because with Tyrion dead, Sansa would immediately be married off again, and I don't think anyone else would dare say no to Tywin if commanded to consummate the marriage.

Nor should a burning Reach be Olenna's concern anymore... After all, House Tyrell has just married the Iron Throne. If Joffrey was supposed to live, the Reach would have been quite secure in their position for decades to come. 

 

And let's not forget, Olenna was working with LF here, and the plan was clearly already in motion since the afermath of the Blackwater.. A time where Sansa and Tyrion were not married, and such a marriage was not yet even spoken of. No reason, at that point in time, to already assume that Tywin shall be in control of the North by having Tyrion father a son on Sansa.

OK, let's assume that the Strangler works as you say: as Joffrey takes chug after chug, it builds up in his throat to achieve a lethal dose. Why on earth would Lady O first present the chalice to Joffrey as a gift and then use it to deliver the poison? No one can know that he is going to be chugging wine at the crucial moment. The expectation is that there will be a toast at the cutting -- which there was -- and Joffrey will take a normal sip in response. If all that is going to do is produce a simple cough, then not only are you purposely creating a situation in which the poison will not kill your target, but now you are putting Margaery -- the pride and joy of your house and the key to your future security -- at risk. This simply cannot be the plan.

Pigeon pie is a meat based pie. Of course it's moist. What kind of meat pie is dry? No need to crush up the crystal or do anything at all. Just tuck it into the pointy end when the servant is looking up and let it go to work.

If the poison was in the wine as early as the cutting, then it would have been thoroughly dissolved by the time Joffrey finished drinking. That means it should have maintained a consistent color all the way through. How did the last half-inch of wine become so super-poisoned to appear "deep purple" at the end of the scene when it should have been completely dissolved before Joff even uttered his first cough?

The last known position of Lady O was standing nearby as the pie was being brought in. Why is it so strange that an old woman, who has been sitting for hours, would choose to stand for a few minutes to get circulation back into her legs? Yes, she knows exactly which piece is for Tyrion because the servant is standing there holding it the entire time. How else do you think it was served so quickly? Reread the scene: It goes cut, pigeons, ooh, music, twirl and pie -- all in a matter of seconds. Also remember that it is the Tyrells who are providing the food, so it would be very easy for Lady O to arrange this little detail.

Not only are there multiple people who could do the wine, it is absolutely necessary to involve multiple people to do the wine. Nobody knows exactly where the wine will be at the exact moment that it has even the slightest chance of being poisoned successfully. It could have remained right at Joffrey's place, right next to Tywin and Cersei the whole time, which means Mace and Alerie have to be in on it. Would you trust Mace to do the deed with Tywin sitting right there? It could have been with Joff on the dais, which means Margaery is now involved. As it turned out, it wound up in the unlikely place right in front of Garlen, so he and Leonette are co-conspirators. Loras might have a chance as well, and literally dozens of non-family members would have to be in on it to cover all the possible locations that the chalice could be. And every additional person who is in on the plot increases the chances that a little bird is going to overhear a conversation or that the plan is exposed in some other way. Plus you make it necessary for Lady O to either a) squirrel herself away somewhere so she can cut the crystal up into dozens of tiny shards to give out to each potential poisoner, or b ) scurry around the high table shadowing the chalice wherever it goes so she could hand the crystal off to whomever is closest. Both scenarios are utterly ridiculous, and they place not only Lady O's life in jeopardy but the entire Tyrell family. Again, this simply cannot be the plan, especially coming from Littlefinger who would be safely aboard ship in the bay while all that Lady O holds dear is trapped in the throne room surrounded by Lannister guards.

Yes, Tywin already has extensive holdings beside the north, but the north is the largest realm in the kingdom with virtually limitless supplies of wood, stone, fur and all the other resources needed to support an army -- plus it has a port on the narrow sea that brings untold wealth to whomever controls it via the rapid trade with Essos. Right now, both CR and Highgarden have to sail all the way around Dorne to reach the riches of the free cities. And just because they cannot completely undo everything that Tywin has done in the past year at once, you say the Tyrells will simply do nothing and let him double is power? Please.

There is no reason to think Tywin is going to die. He is still relatively young and in perfect health. Sansa vanishes after the wedding, so Tywin will not be able to marry her to another Lannister. Once the Willas plan went bust, Lady O weighed her choices and decided that it was better that Sansa go with Littlefinger than with Tywin. Lannister power is an immediate threat right on their doorstep, a Vale-North power bloc is concerning, but not a crisis.

No, the Reach is not secure. With Tommen on the throne, Tywin as hand and controlling half the kingdom, and Cersei as regent, then practically every land dispute that is placed before the king will be decided for Casterly Rock. So little by little, Highgarden is diminished while CR is strengthened. If the Tyrells decide they've had enough, they will be fighting the combined power of Winterfell, the Twins, CR, Storms End and the crown, and probably the Dornish who would love nothing better than to give their historical enemy a good hard spear-thrust up the backside. 

And what makes you think LF and Lady O were planning the assassination as early as the Blackwater? Here are two people who barely know each other, they might even have met for the first time at Bitterbridge. They've just completed a military alliance that binds Highgarden to the Iron Throne, and now you have them immediately entering into a conversation about committing the ultimate treason by killing the king? How could they possibly trust each other with such a dangerous idea? And why would they bother giving the poison to Sansa at this point. Why not just give it to Lady O?

 

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OK, let's assume that the Strangler works as you say: as Joffrey takes chug after chug, it builds up in his throat to achieve a lethal dose. Why on earth would Lady O first present the chalice to Joffrey as a gift and then use it to deliver the poison? No one can know that he is going to be chugging wine at the crucial moment. The expectation is that there will be a toast at the cutting -- which there was -- and Joffrey will take a normal sip in response. If all that is going to do is produce a simple cough, then not only are you purposely creating a situation in which the poison will not kill your target, but now you are putting Margaery -- the pride and joy of your house and the key to your future security -- at risk. This simply cannot be the plan.

What would it matter which calice the poison was in? As long as it was the one Joffrey was drinking from, it was just fine. And perhaps, it was given because of its size.. A 13 year old boy at the eve of his wedding, one might expect him to drink a lot, and the bigger the cup he's drinking from, the more he's like to drink (and the more wine you have to poison, of course).

 

Pigeon pie is a meat based pie. Of course it's moist. What kind of meat pie is dry? No need to crush up the crystal or do anything at all. Just tuck it into the pointy end when the servant is looking up and let it go to work.

The one Joffrey puts in his mouth. Clearly. He says so himself.

 

If the poison was in the wine as early as the cutting, then it would have been thoroughly dissolved by the time Joffrey finished drinking. That means it should have maintained a consistent color all the way through. How did the last half-inch of wine become so super-poisoned to appear "deep purple" at the end of the scene when it should have been completely dissolved before Joff even uttered his first cough?

I don't know. But if Joffrey ate the bite of pie with the poison in it, the flakes of pie he later spewed out (from the following few bites) would not have contained the poison anymore, nor have achieved the same affect.

Nor would the poison, I suppose, dissolve that quickly.

 

The last known position of Lady O was standing nearby as the pie was being brought in. Why is it so strange that an old woman, who has been sitting for hours, would choose to stand for a few minutes to get circulation back into her legs? Yes, she knows exactly which piece is for Tyrion because the servant is standing there holding it the entire time. How else do you think it was served so quickly? Reread the scene: It goes cut, pigeons, ooh, music, twirl and pie -- all in a matter of seconds. Also remember that it is the Tyrells who are providing the food, so it would be very easy for Lady O to arrange this little detail.

Unless there's a servant for each guest in the hall, there was no way there was a specific servant standing behind Tyrion to specifically serve him and only him a piece of pie. 

More likely, there was a table behind them with a tray with the pieces of pie cut on it, leading to the servants being able to quickly provide all guests with a piece of pie. 

 

Not only are there multiple people who could do the wine, it is absolutely necessary to involve multiple people to do the wine. Nobody knows exactly where the wine will be at the exact moment that it has even the slightest chance of being poisoned successfully. It could have remained right at Joffrey's place, right next to Tywin and Cersei the whole time, which means Mace and Alerie have to be in on it. Would you trust Mace to do the deed with Tywin sitting right there? It could have been with Joff on the dais, which means Margaery is now involved. As it turned out, it wound up in the unlikely place right in front of Garlen, so he and Leonette are co-conspirators. Loras might have a chance as well, and literally dozens of non-family members would have to be in on it to cover all the possible locations that the chalice could be. And every additional person who is in on the plot increases the chances that a little bird is going to overhear a conversation or that the plan is exposed in some other way. Plus you make it necessary for Lady O to either a) squirrel herself away somewhere so she can cut the crystal up into dozens of tiny shards to give out to each potential poisoner, or b ) scurry around the high table shadowing the chalice wherever it goes so she could hand the crystal off to whomever is closest. Both scenarios are utterly ridiculous, and they place not only Lady O's life in jeopardy but the entire Tyrell family. Again, this simply cannot be the plan, especially coming from Littlefinger who would be safely aboard ship in the bay while all that Lady O holds dear is trapped in the throne room surrounded by Lannister guards.

And there is no reason to assume that there was only one person involved. Mace and Alerie don't need to have been involved. If anyone had reason to grab that calice, it would have been Margaery. Olenna, Garlan, and Margaery, they are the three I see as having been involved. 

 

Yes, Tywin already has extensive holdings beside the north, but the north is the largest realm in the kingdom with virtually limitless supplies of wood, stone, fur and all the other resources needed to support an army -- plus it has a port on the narrow sea that brings untold wealth to whomever controls it via the rapid trade with Essos. Right now, both CR and Highgarden have to sail all the way around Dorne to reach the riches of the free cities. And just because they cannot completely undo everything that Tywin has done in the past year at once, you say the Tyrells will simply do nothing and let him double is power? Please.

There is no reason to think Tywin is going to die. He is still relatively young and in perfect health. Sansa vanishes after the wedding, so Tywin will not be able to marry her to another Lannister. Once the Willas plan went bust, Lady O weighed her choices and decided that it was better that Sansa go with Littlefinger than with Tywin. Lannister power is an immediate threat right on their doorstep, a Vale-North power bloc is concerning, but not a crisis.

No, the Reach is not secure. With Tommen on the throne, Tywin as hand and controlling half the kingdom, and Cersei as regent, then practically every land dispute that is placed before the king will be decided for Casterly Rock. So little by little, Highgarden is diminished while CR is strengthened. If the Tyrells decide they've had enough, they will be fighting the combined power of Winterfell, the Twins, CR, Storms End and the crown, and probably the Dornish who would love nothing better than to give their historical enemy a good hard spear-thrust up the backside. 

That doubling of power only came after Olenna tried and failed to sneak Sansa off to Highgarden. Considering the moment the poison was exchanged, when the Tyrells had just sworn their loyalty to Joffrey, the fear of a burning Reach did not feature in their plans.

They wanted to sneak Sansa off themselves, marry her to Willas, and claim both the Reach and the North in one go. But until the moment that LF told Tywin about Olenna's plan, a plan that did not feature LF, the Lannisters hadn't been thinking about who to marry Sansa to. 

Holding the North is an advantage though absolutely not the same advantage for the Reach than it would have been for, say, the riverlands, purely due to the distance in between. Tywin was not trying to claim it, nor would there be any reason to think that he could, as Robb was still alive, had just married, and would be expected to father a child on his new bride soon.

The Tyrells wanted power, and that power would be achieved through the Iron Throne. No matter which King Margaery would get a child of, as long as they were married, the forces of the Westerlands and the forces of the Reach would be combined. No one said anything about the Tyrells just allowing Tywin to double his power, just because they can't undo everything at once. Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say, please.

The thing that I said was, that every alliance depends on Tywin, not Tyrion. Killing Tyrion would gain barely anything. Especially for the Tyrells. Who says Olenna knew Sansa would disappear from court? Nothing about Olenna hints that she did, and everything about LF and his methods hint towards that he never shared that particular part of his plan. No one is supposed to know that Sansa is in the Vale. That would include the Tyrells.

 

Tywin was Hand, Cersei would cease to be regent. Tywin made that quite clear. And he needs the Tyrells to be his friends, he's made that very clear as well, in private, and Olenna is clever enough to know that. Taking land from the Reach (of which there is absolutely no evidence that was what he was planning to do at all) would be the very best start to breaking the alliance he wants to keep as strong as possible, so that's not what he's going to be doing. 

 

And what makes you think LF and Lady O were planning the assassination as early as the Blackwater? Here are two people who barely know each other, they might even have met for the first time at Bitterbridge. They've just completed a military alliance that binds Highgarden to the Iron Throne, and now you have them immediately entering into a conversation about committing the ultimate treason by killing the king? How could they possibly trust each other with such a dangerous idea? And why would they bother giving the poison to Sansa at this point. Why not just give it to Lady O?

 

They probably indeed met each other for the first time at Bitterbridge. But don't forget that LF spend some time there, and that his reputation most likely was already known. Nor was Olenna a stranger to the politics of court.

But the assassination does seem to have been planned around the time of the Blackwater. After all, Sansa received the poison used to kill Joffrey shortly after the Blackwater was fought. So the rough draft of the plan would already have been made at that point. 

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What would it matter which calice the poison was in? As long as it was the one Joffrey was drinking from, it was just fine. And perhaps, it was given because of its size.. A 13 year old boy at the eve of his wedding, one might expect him to drink a lot, and the bigger the cup he's drinking from, the more he's like to drink (and the more wine you have to poison, of course).

 

Well this is getting silly. There was only one chalice, and it was purposely crafted to hold perhaps four times more wine than a regular goblet. It was the only chalice he was drinking from, it was the only one on the table where Garlen could reach it. It was the chalice that was chosen to deliver the poison. One would not expect a 13 yo boy who has just received a toast at his wedding to chug down the equivalent of a full bottle of wine in response. Either way, though, it simply adds another level of uncertainty to the plan. Maybe Joffrey will be sloppy drunk by this point, or maybe not. Maybe he will drink enough wine to kill him, or maybe not. Maybe he will be fighting with Tyrion, or maybe not. Maybe the fight will involve the chalice, or maybe not. Too many uncertainties for experienced operators like LF and LO.

The one Joffrey puts in his mouth. Clearly. He says so himself.

 

I don't know. But if Joffrey ate the bite of pie with the poison in it, the flakes of pie he later spewed out (from the following few bites) would not have contained the poison anymore, nor have achieved the same affect.

Nor would the poison, I suppose, dissolve that quickly.

 

If Joffrey expected the pie to be dry because, well, all meat pies are dry :wacko:, then why does he react like something is wrong and "it needs washing down,"? Obviously the pie is not supposed to be dry. It is because the poison is in it and its absorbing all the moisture.

Why would the flakes contain the poison? The poison is a solid crystal and is embedded in the filling while the flakes are just little pieces of crust. The poison is still in his mouth, dissolving slowly, perhaps to the point where it is no longer cystalized, just soft. Once he adds wine to the mixture and that pushes poison/pie/wine into his throat, then he starts the real coughing in approx. five seconds, just like Cressen.

Unless there's a servant for each guest in the hall, there was no way there was a specific servant standing behind Tyrion to specifically serve him and only him a piece of pie. 

More likely, there was a table behind them with a tray with the pieces of pie cut on it, leading to the servants being able to quickly provide all guests with a piece of pie. 

 

And there is no reason to assume that there was only one person involved. Mace and Alerie don't need to have been involved. If anyone had reason to grab that calice, it would have been Margaery. Olenna, Garlan, and Margaery, they are the three I see as having been involved. 

 

 

There could very well have been a servant for each guest at the head table. This is the cream of Westerosi nobility at the wedding of their king at the dawn of a new era. But a table works just as well: a nice row of pies already plated and ready to be served the instant the cutting ceremony is over. Either way, the Tyrells are in charge of the food, and it would be easy as pie (sorry) for her to ensure she knew which piece was going to Tyrion.

And what if the chalice had remained at Joffrey's place right next to Tywin and Cersie? If not Mace or Alerie, who's going to poison it then? She would need to have literally dozens of people standing at the ready to cover all the possible places the chalice could go. Even with only three our four co-consipirators, that's four times the risk that someone will talk. That's all Arianne had for her little plot and somebody talked. Somebody always talks. With the pie Lady O needs no help at all. None.

That doubling of power only came after Olenna tried and failed to sneak Sansa off to Highgarden. Considering the moment the poison was exchanged, when the Tyrells had just sworn their loyalty to Joffrey, the fear of a burning Reach did not feature in their plans.

They wanted to sneak Sansa off themselves, marry her to Willas, and claim both the Reach and the North in one go. But until the moment that LF told Tywin about Olenna's plan, a plan that did not feature LF, the Lannisters hadn't been thinking about who to marry Sansa to. 

Holding the North is an advantage though absolutely not the same advantage for the Reach than it would have been for, say, the riverlands, purely due to the distance in between. Tywin was not trying to claim it, nor would there be any reason to think that he could, as Robb was still alive, had just married, and would be expected to father a child on his new bride soon.

The Tyrells wanted power, and that power would be achieved through the Iron Throne. No matter which King Margaery would get a child of, as long as they were married, the forces of the Westerlands and the forces of the Reach would be combined. No one said anything about the Tyrells just allowing Tywin to double his power, just because they can't undo everything at once. Don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say, please.

The thing that I said was, that every alliance depends on Tywin, not Tyrion. Killing Tyrion would gain barely anything. Especially for the Tyrells. Who says Olenna knew Sansa would disappear from court? Nothing about Olenna hints that she did, and everything about LF and his methods hint towards that he never shared that particular part of his plan. No one is supposed to know that Sansa is in the Vale. That would include the Tyrells.

Your comment was why would the Tyrells bother to prevent Tywin from gaining the north when it would still leave him with the riverlands, stormlands, etc., So the answer to that question is that it would prevent Tywin from doubling the holdings he has already gained during the war. Again, Highgarden has historically dwarfed CR in money, lands, arms and everything else except gold. For this power center emerge immediately to her north, and run by a ruthless warlord like Tywin, is just about the worst thing Lady O can imagine because it shifts the balance of power clearly away from Highgarden to someone who has a history of wiping out rival houses down to the last livery boy.

For the Tyrells, the need to remove Tyrion did not emerge until after he married Sansa. By then Bran, Rickon and Arya were believed dead, Robb was dead, and Sansa is the only one who could further the Stark line. Sure, Lady O would have loved to have Sansa in Highgarden, but that plan went bust. (So much for LF and LO plotting this whole thing way back at the Blackwater). So either she made a political decision that it is better she go with LF than to Tywin, or you're right she did not know that Sansa was going to vanish at all. I tend to think she knew about that though, because otherwise she would just be married off to another Lannister.

The intent of killing Tyrion is not to destroy the alliance. The Tyrells need the alliance to bring an end to the war and to tie their house to the Iron Throne. Killing Tyrion is meant to do nothing more than prevent the Lannisters from producing a blood tie to Winterfell.

Tywin was Hand, Cersei would cease to be regent. Tywin made that quite clear. And he needs the Tyrells to be his friends, he's made that very clear as well, in private, and Olenna is clever enough to know that. Taking land from the Reach (of which there is absolutely no evidence that was what he was planning to do at all) would be the very best start to breaking the alliance he wants to keep as strong as possible, so that's not what he's going to be doing. 

Cersei remains regent and sits on the small council until the king comes of age. Joffrey would have been king in his own right the very next day with Margaery as his queen, while Cersei would have been shipped off to her next husband. But now that Tommen is king, the Tyrells have to deal with Cersei for at least another four years, while Tywin would have been off to war in a month or so. Once the war is concluded, Tywin has no real need of the alliance because his power is equal to or superior to the Reach's. As disputes over lands and mills and borders are brought to the crown for settlement, Hand Tywin and Queen Regent Cersei have all the power they need to strip Highgarden of even more power one acre at a time. If Highgarden resists, they have to fight half the kingdom or more, and Margaery's unconsummated marriage to Tommen will be annulled in a New York minute. No matter what, Highgarden loses.

They probably indeed met each other for the first time at Bitterbridge. But don't forget that LF spend some time there, and that his reputation most likely was already known. Nor was Olenna a stranger to the politics of court.

But the assassination does seem to have been planned around the time of the Blackwater. After all, Sansa received the poison used to kill Joffrey shortly after the Blackwater was fought. So the rough draft of the plan would already have been made at that point. 

Yes, Littlefinger is already planning to use the poison to create a diversion to whisk Sansa out of the capital without little birds finding out. But there is nothing to indicate that Lady O is involved at this point. This is classic Littlefinger MO: put the pieces in place before you know how to use them. He knows he needs Sansa and the poison together, but he's not supposed to be in the capital. So what can he do? Give it to Dontos? He'd sell it to buy booze or probably end up poisoning himself. The best way is to let Sansa keep it without her knowing what it is and then impress upon her that she cannot escape unless she wears it to the wedding. That way, the hairnet is nice and safe; nobody knows what it is and there is no reason why anyone would give it a second thought right up to the wedding. If Lady O had agreed to poison Joffrey way back at the Blackwater, then why not just give it to her?

And honestly, a few meetings with a notorious operator like Littlefinger and Lady O trusts him enough to commit high treason? Would you? She wouldn't think this was some kind of trap to test her loyalty? Killing the king is the most serious thing that anyone can do, with repercussions not only for yourself but your entire house. It is also a most drastic action that can only be contemplated when the stakes are extremely high and there is no other alternative. A few blacks eyes and bruises on Margaery does not rise to that level. The sunset of Highgarden's five-thousand year hegemony in the region does. 

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If Joffrey expected the pie to be dry because, well, all meat pies are dry :wacko:, then why does he react like something is wrong and "it needs washing down,"? Obviously the pie is not supposed to be dry. It is because the poison is in it and its absorbing all the moisture.

That's not what I said at all. You asked what kind of a meat pie is dry. The one being served was, clearly. Does that mean that al meat pies are always dry? No. But luckily, that was not what I claimed at all.

And again, a bit of poison in the tip of the pie (as per your claim) will not make the entire slice dry. Yet, that does appear to be the case with the pie on Tyrion's plate.

 

Why would the flakes contain the poison? The poison is a solid crystal and is embedded in the filling while the flakes are just little pieces of crust. The poison is still in his mouth, dissolving slowly, perhaps to the point where it is no longer cystalized, just soft. Once he adds wine to the mixture and that pushes poison/pie/wine into his throat, then he starts the real coughing in approx. five seconds, just like Cressen.

You were claiming the pie he barfs out into the cup colours the wine purple in the end of the scene (which still doesn't explain it having been purple before, though). And the flakes are the only pieces of pie he's mentioned to be coughing back up. The rest that he spews out later is only wine, no more pie.

 

There could very well have been a servant for each guest at the head table. This is the cream of Westerosi nobility at the wedding of their king at the dawn of a new era. But a table works just as well: a nice row of pies already plated and ready to be served the instant the cutting ceremony is over. Either way, the Tyrells are in charge of the food, and it would be easy as pie (sorry) for her to ensure she knew which piece was going to Tyrion.

And what if the chalice had remained at Joffrey's place right next to Tywin and Cersie? If not Mace or Alerie, who's going to poison it then? She would need to have literally dozens of people standing at the ready to cover all the possible places the chalice could go. Even with only three our four co-consipirators, that's four times the risk that someone will talk. That's all Arianne had for her little plot and somebody talked. Somebody always talks. With the pie Lady O needs no help at all. None.

The plates could all very well have been filled. There's no problem with that. But still, Olenna could not have known which plate would go to Tyrion. There's no way around that. Nor would pressing such a crystal into the pie be helpful, because either it is still visible, or, in the case that the pie is indeed dark enough for the crystal not to draw notice, it won't dissolve if Tyrion was supposed to eat from it immediately - which is what, indeed, was supposed to happen.

What's the problem with the calice? The calice might be on several locations during the night, but there were plenty of courses left during which Joffrey could have been poisoned, and what's more, the easy thing about reaching the calice is, those select few who would be involved, can easily walk up to it. Margaery can even press it in his hand while Garlan asks for a toast, if they can't find another moment, for example.

The only people who would necessarily know are Olenna and Margaery, and none of them has any reason to talk. Garlan is a good candidate of having known the plan as well, and he, just like his grandmother and sister, has absolutely no reason to talk about the plan..

 

Your comment was why would the Tyrells bother to prevent Tywin from gaining the north when it would still leave him with the riverlands, stormlands, etc., So the answer to that question is that it would prevent Tywin from doubling the holdings he has already gained during the war. Again, Highgarden has historically dwarfed CR in money, lands, arms and everything else except gold. For this power center emerge immediately to her north, and run by a ruthless warlord like Tywin, is just about the worst thing Lady O can imagine because it shifts the balance of power clearly away from Highgarden to someone who has a history of wiping out rival houses down to the last livery boy.

For the Tyrells, the need to remove Tyrion did not emerge until after he married Sansa. By then Bran, Rickon and Arya were believed dead, Robb was dead, and Sansa is the only one who could further the Stark line. Sure, Lady O would have loved to have Sansa in Highgarden, but that plan went bust. (So much for LF and LO plotting this whole thing way back at the Blackwater). So either she made a political decision that it is better she go with LF than to Tywin, or you're right she did not know that Sansa was going to vanish at all. I tend to think she knew about that though, because otherwise she would just be married off to another Lannister.

The intent of killing Tyrion is not to destroy the alliance. The Tyrells need the alliance to bring an end to the war and to tie their house to the Iron Throne. Killing Tyrion is meant to do nothing more than prevent the Lannisters from producing a blood tie to Winterfell.

Cersei remains regent and sits on the small council until the king comes of age. Joffrey would have been king in his own right the very next day with Margaery as his queen, while Cersei would have been shipped off to her next husband. But now that Tommen is king, the Tyrells have to deal with Cersei for at least another four years, while Tywin would have been off to war in a month or so. Once the war is concluded, Tywin has no real need of the alliance because his power is equal to or superior to the Reach's. As disputes over lands and mills and borders are brought to the crown for settlement, Hand Tywin and Queen Regent Cersei have all the power they need to strip Highgarden of even more power one acre at a time. If Highgarden resists, they have to fight half the kingdom or more, and Margaery's unconsummated marriage to Tommen will be annulled in a New York minute. No matter what, Highgarden loses.

Yes, Littlefinger is already planning to use the poison to create a diversion to whisk Sansa out of the capital without little birds finding out. But there is nothing to indicate that Lady O is involved at this point. This is classic Littlefinger MO: put the pieces in place before you know how to use them. He knows he needs Sansa and the poison together, but he's not supposed to be in the capital. So what can he do? Give it to Dontos? He'd sell it to buy booze or probably end up poisoning himself. The best way is to let Sansa keep it without her knowing what it is and then impress upon her that she cannot escape unless she wears it to the wedding. That way, the hairnet is nice and safe; nobody knows what it is and there is no reason why anyone would give it a second thought right up to the wedding. If Lady O had agreed to poison Joffrey way back at the Blackwater, then why not just give it to her?

And honestly, a few meetings with a notorious operator like Littlefinger and Lady O trusts him enough to commit high treason? Would you? She wouldn't think this was some kind of trap to test her loyalty? Killing the king is the most serious thing that anyone can do, with repercussions not only for yourself but your entire house. It is also a most drastic action that can only be contemplated when the stakes are extremely high and there is no other alternative. A few blacks eyes and bruises on Margaery does not rise to that level. The sunset of Highgarden's five-thousand year hegemony in the region does. 

No, I'm talking about the fact that there is no reason for the Tyrells to poison and kill Tyrion in order to keep the North away from Tywin, because 1) Sansa would still be in Lannister hands, and with Olenna's plan leaked to Tywin, there's no chance of her ever going to Highgarden, 2) Tywin has plenty of family members to marry her off to within days of Tyrion's death, 3) Tyrion's death would not benefit the Tyrell's political strength at all.

Half the Small Council is made up by Tyrell's or Tyrell-bannermen. The Queen will be a Tyrell, and the future King will be half a Tyrell. If Tywin tries to take lands from the Reach, he'll meet fierce opposition, and he can't afford to offend the one Kingdom that can actually beat him in the field, if it's one against one. Especially with most of the riverlands and the north, and entire Dorne, having a rather large dislike for the Westerlands.

Olenna's plan for Sansa had got nothing to do with her plan to kill Joffrey.

LF makes quite a point about keeping your enemies confused about knowing where you are. Keeping Sansa's location a secret is quite important for him. Why share such valueble information with Olenna? Makes no sense. 

 

Nor would Cersei remain Joffrey's regent. Tywin wants to send her back to CR, or marry her off and send her to her new husband, but he clearly wanted her away. He expresses that clearly shortly before his own death. 

Nor would Tywin be expected to be off at war within a month. There's no such talk, as far as I recall.. 

The reason to give Sansa the poison was to ensure that whoever would actually slip Joffrey the poison, it could not be traced back to said person. It kind of doesn't help you if you are caught with poison in your pocket just after the King drops dead to the floor.

It's all there. Olenna inquiring about Joffrey's true nature, her hinting about men dropping dead at weddings. 

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On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 5:31 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

That's not what I said at all. You asked what kind of a meat pie is dry. The one being served was, clearly. Does that mean that al meat pies are always dry? No. But luckily, that was not what I claimed at all.

And again, a bit of poison in the tip of the pie (as per your claim) will not make the entire slice dry. Yet, that does appear to be the case with the pie on Tyrion's plate.

 

You were claiming the pie he barfs out into the cup colours the wine purple in the end of the scene (which still doesn't explain it having been purple before, though). And the flakes are the only pieces of pie he's mentioned to be coughing back up. The rest that he spews out later is only wine, no more pie.

 

Joffrey notices that the pie is dry. The only reason he mentions this is that the pie is not supposed to be dry. If it was perfectly normal for pigeon pie to be dry, he wouldn't notice it. He also says the pie "is a bit dry", so no one is claiming that the entire slice is dry, just a bit of it -- the bit with the poison.

Sorry, your reaching with all of this. Red wine running in thin sheets over pale skin is going to look purple. Nothing more than that. But wine that is supposed to be "deep purple" from having been poisoned several minutes ago should appear the same deep purple all the way through, not just at the last minute. Obviously the purple half-inch at the end of the scene had poison in it while the wine that spilled from the cup onto the dais did not, otherwise it would have been the same deep purple. So the only way to explain this is that the wine that went from Joffrey's mouth back into the chalice had a high dose of poison in it, and the only way that could happen is if it was poisoned in Joffrey's mouth before he drank the wine.

 

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 5:31 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

The plates could all very well have been filled. There's no problem with that. But still, Olenna could not have known which plate would go to Tyrion. There's no way around that. Nor would pressing such a crystal into the pie be helpful, because either it is still visible, or, in the case that the pie is indeed dark enough for the crystal not to draw notice, it won't dissolve if Tyrion was supposed to eat from it immediately - which is what, indeed, was supposed to happen.

What's the problem with the calice? The calice might be on several locations during the night, but there were plenty of courses left during which Joffrey could have been poisoned, and what's more, the easy thing about reaching the calice is, those select few who would be involved, can easily walk up to it. Margaery can even press it in his hand while Garlan asks for a toast, if they can't find another moment, for example.

The only people who would necessarily know are Olenna and Margaery, and none of them has any reason to talk. Garlan is a good candidate of having known the plan as well, and he, just like his grandmother and sister, has absolutely no reason to talk about the plan..

 

Yes she could have, easily. She is the one providing all the food. This would be the least difficult part of the plan. A tiny crystal inside a dark pie filling would not be noticed by anyone. And even it was still hard when Tyrion bit it, so what? The first thought would be a bone or something, not poison. And by the time he knew what was happening, it would be too late. Everyone else would think he is choking on a bone, and since there is no reason to suspect otherwise, and nobody would really care that Tyrion was dead anyway, no compelling reason to conduct an autopsy.

So this is your idea of a plan?: careful plotting for months to involve all of these players and their roles, then disguise the poison for no apparent reason forcing a tricky sleight of hand to access it, and then as soon as all that is done Lady O is just going to wing it from there? Don't worry, says Littlefinger, some kind of opportunity will present itself, just make sure you and Margaery and Mace and Garlen and Loras and Leonette and Alerie and umpteen servants and retainers and other trustworthy people are in place to seize the moment. Utter nonsense.

There are all kinds of reasons for all of these people to talk about the plan. They are all about to commit regicide -- the most serious crime there is. And they will all be surrounded by Lannister guards and gold cloaks, so you can bet your boots that they will be talking about it, frequently, if only to express their mounting fear over this half-assed plan and all its unknown factors as the day draws near. And if there is even a whisper anywhere near the Red Keep, guess who finds out about it? 

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 5:31 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No, I'm talking about the fact that there is no reason for the Tyrells to poison and kill Tyrion in order to keep the North away from Tywin, because 1) Sansa would still be in Lannister hands, and with Olenna's plan leaked to Tywin, there's no chance of her ever going to Highgarden, 2) Tywin has plenty of family members to marry her off to within days of Tyrion's death, 3) Tyrion's death would not benefit the Tyrell's political strength at all.

Half the Small Council is made up by Tyrell's or Tyrell-bannermen. The Queen will be a Tyrell, and the future King will be half a Tyrell. If Tywin tries to take lands from the Reach, he'll meet fierce opposition, and he can't afford to offend the one Kingdom that can actually beat him in the field, if it's one against one. Especially with most of the riverlands and the north, and entire Dorne, having a rather large dislike for the Westerlands.

Olenna's plan for Sansa had got nothing to do with her plan to kill Joffrey.

LF makes quite a point about keeping your enemies confused about knowing where you are. Keeping Sansa's location a secret is quite important for him. Why share such valueble information with Olenna? Makes no sense. 

 

There is no way Lady Olenna would kill the king and then leave Sansa in the capital. For one, as you said, it would simply mean she would be married to another Lannister. So the only way she gets what she wants is for Littlefinger to take her. Again, this is her best option she has at this point because she has no hope of getting her herself. To LF, it doesn't matter if LO knows where Sansa is because they're both knee-deep in the mud together So what is Lady O going to do, tell the queen? All that will get her is her own head on a spike. 

The small council is there to advise. The laws are made by the king or, if the king is underage, by his regent, which in Tommen's case is Cersei. With the riverlands and the north under his control, it won't matter who has a distaste for whom, and with Casterly Rock now on an equal footing with Highgarden, Tywin doesn't need to worry about a military response from the Tyrells.

And please read the World Book: Dorne and the Reach are the historic enemies, not Dorne and the westerlands. It was the Dornish who sacked and burned Highgarden during the Gardner years and then went on to raze Oldtown. The very reason the Gardner/Tyrells, the Redwynes and the Hightowers joined their families in the first place was to form a united bloc against Dorne.

 

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 5:31 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:
Nor would Cersei remain Joffrey's regent. Tywin wants to send her back to CR, or marry her off and send her to her new husband, but he clearly wanted her away. He expresses that clearly shortly before his own death. 

Nor would Tywin be expected to be off at war within a month. There's no such talk, as far as I recall.. 

The reason to give Sansa the poison was to ensure that whoever would actually slip Joffrey the poison, it could not be traced back to said person. It kind of doesn't help you if you are caught with poison in your pocket just after the King drops dead to the floor.

Exactly, with Joffrey as king, Cersei is shipped off to her next husband and Tywin marches off to war in a few months. With Tommen, the Tyrells have to deal with Cersei ruling the capital for another four years while Margy twiddles her thumbs as Queen-in-waiting.

No talk of war? Are you serious? What book are you reading? The most dangerous military commander is still at large and is holed up at Dragonstone. They have to move out right after the wedding in order to prevent Stannis from slipping away, which he did. LOL, no talk of war.

And exactly why would Lady O still be carrying the poison in her pocket after the king has just dropped dead on the floor? You're not even making sense now. The whole hairnet thing simply adds another layer of risk for Lady O and LF because if Sansa does not get away and is somehow linked to the killing, then before the hot poker gets even close to her pretty little eye the first name she is going to give up is Dontos who, if LF has the wits the gods gave a goose, will be dead by now. But there is no way in hell Tywin is going to believe that this little girl and her drunken fool of a knight acquired the most rare and expensive poison in the world all by themselves and then fashioned a special hairnet with a trick clasp so that, instead of just carrying it inside one of her own pockets, she could parade it through the throne room for all to see.

So obviously, the hairnet is intended for someone else to take the poison. That leads to the next obvious question, who else touched the hairnet that day, sweetling? The first answer is Shae, which is not unusual being Sansa's handmaiden helping her dress for the occasion. Anyone else? and Bingo, Lady O said the wind was at my hair, but come to think of it there was no wind that day, and isn't the whole purpose of a hairnet to keep the hair in place even if the wind is blowing?

Now the jig is up, and once they have Lady O, they have LF. So it's bye-bye lordships, bye-bye dynastic plans that were decades in the making, bye-bye to all the money you've embezzled and hello to a life on the run.

On ‎1‎/‎16‎/‎2016 at 5:31 PM, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

It's all there. Olenna inquiring about Joffrey's true nature, her hinting about men dropping dead at weddings. 

I'll admit, that conversation between Lady O and Sansa had me stumped for a while, until I started looking at it from Lady O's perspective. What, exactly, does Sansa tell LO about Joffrey that she shouldn't already know at this point? That he's a monster? Joffrey admitted publicly that he took Ned's head despite the wishes of his mother, his small council and his betrothed. So right off the bat, she knows he is beyond the control of all the adults in his life. He also has no regard for the church and has no head for geopolitics or the consequences of his actions.

Is Lady O unaware of the beatings he gave Sansa? No, the final one, after the battle of Oxcross, took place in the baily in front of multiple lords and ladies, so that story is well-known by now. Before that, Sansa appears in court with black eyes and bloody lips, so even if that did happen behind closed doors, who else could be responsible? If some other lord had done that to her he would be executed. Remember, she is still the king's betrothed at this point.

So what was the point of that interview, if Lady O knows all these things about Joffrey. Well, she does not know much of anything about Sansa, does she. Is she smart? Dumb? Wilfull? Does she care about people? Will she risk her own safety, or even her life, in order to help a perfect stranger? It was during that interview that Sansa summoned up the courage to speak honestly about the king, even though she had no reason to trust any of the Tyrells and every reason not to, and even though it could very well have scotched the Joffrey-Margaery engagement and thrown her right back into Joffrey's clutches. And it was shortly after that that the Willas proposal was put on the table.

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2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Joffrey notices that the pie is dry. The only reason he mentions this is that the pie is not supposed to be dry. If it was perfectly normal for pigeon pie to be dry, he wouldn't notice it. He also says the pie "is a bit dry", so no one is claiming that the entire slice is dry, just a bit of it -- the bit with the poison.

Sorry, your reaching with all of this. Red wine running in thin sheets over pale skin is going to look purple. Nothing more than that. But wine that is supposed to be "deep purple" from having been poisoned several minutes ago should appear the same deep purple all the way through, not just at the last minute. Obviously the purple half-inch at the end of the scene had poison in it while the wine that spilled from the cup onto the dais did not, otherwise it would have been the same deep purple. So the only way to explain this is that the wine that went from Joffrey's mouth back into the chalice had a high dose of poison in it, and the only way that could happen is if it was poisoned in Joffrey's mouth before he drank the wine.

Let me emphasize this. I never said that meat pie in Westeros is supposed to be dry. Have I made myself clear now? But that pie is supposed to be moist, doesn't mean that a baker can't make a mistake and bake a pie that turns out dry. And that is the point I have been making for I don't know how many posts now.

If only the first part of the pie was dry, Joffrey wouldn't have attributed the coughing to the pie, since he's eaten quite a lot of it by the time he's no longer capable of drinking.

And no, I'm not reaching with this. Red wine doesn't turn purple before turning red again before once more turning purple. Red wine is red, whether it is in your cup, or on your chin.

 

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2 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

Let me emphasize this. I never said that meat pie in Westeros is supposed to be dry. Have I made myself clear now? But that pie is supposed to be moist, doesn't mean that a baker can't make a mistake and bake a pie that turns out dry. And that is the point I have been making for I don't know how many posts now.

If only the first part of the pie was dry, Joffrey wouldn't have attributed the coughing to the pie, since he's eaten quite a lot of it by the time he's no longer capable of drinking.

And no, I'm not reaching with this. Red wine doesn't turn purple before turning red again before once more turning purple. Red wine is red, whether it is in your cup, or on your chin.

 

But you keep saying the pie just happened to be dry without acknowledging even the possibility that it was dry because of the poison. The poison absorbs moisture in order to dissolve. Meat pies are not normally dry, and this one was baked by a master baker who works for the king no less. Therefore it stands to reason that the poison was drying out the pie, especially considering all of the hard evidence that disproves the poison being in the wine.

Yes, you are reaching. Pour a glass of red wine and hold it up to the light. It looks red. Take a drop and let it run down a white surface. Lo and behold, it looks purple, or at the very least, not the deep red of the full glass. Spill the glass on the floor and it will still look red, unless it is a white floor and the wine disperses to a thin layer, then it may look purple.

Drop some blue food coloring in the wine to turn it a deep purple. Then place a drop of that on a white surface and it will still look purple, or maybe even a little bluish, but not red. Spill it on the white floor and it will still look purple, perhaps lighter on the edges than in the center.

So no, red wine does not change color, but neither does purple wine. If the wine is supposed to be thoroughly poisoned by the end of the cutting, then it would be the same deep purple all the way through -- in the chalice, running down his chin, on the floor. That the thin film of red wine appears purple to Tyrion when on Joffrey's chin is easily explainable no matter how desperate you are to deny the facts. But the fact that it is red again on the dais and then deep purple at the end is only possible if wine was poisoned late in the scene, and the only way that can happen is from the contents of Joffrey's mouth. I have yet to hear you put up another explanation for this.

Sorry if the facts are tripping you up, but this is what inevitably happens when people insist that the impossible is possible and the extremely likely is impossible.

 

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22 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

But you keep saying the pie just happened to be dry without acknowledging even the possibility that it was dry because of the poison. The poison absorbs moisture in order to dissolve. Meat pies are not normally dry, and this one was baked by a master baker who works for the king no less. Therefore it stands to reason that the poison was drying out the pie, especially considering all of the hard evidence that disproves the poison being in the wine.

Yes, you are reaching. Pour a glass of red wine and hold it up to the light. It looks red. Take a drop and let it run down a white surface. Lo and behold, it looks purple, or at the very least, not the deep red of the full glass. Spill the glass on the floor and it will still look red, unless it is a white floor and the wine disperses to a thin layer, then it may look purple.

Drop some blue food coloring in the wine to turn it a deep purple. Then place a drop of that on a white surface and it will still look purple, or maybe even a little bluish, but not red. Spill it on the white floor and it will still look purple, perhaps lighter on the edges than in the center.

So no, red wine does not change color, but neither does purple wine. If the wine is supposed to be thoroughly poisoned by the end of the cutting, then it would be the same deep purple all the way through -- in the chalice, running down his chin, on the floor. That the thin film of red wine appears purple to Tyrion when on Joffrey's chin is easily explainable no matter how desperate you are to deny the facts. But the fact that it is red again on the dais and then deep purple at the end is only possible if wine was poisoned late in the scene, and the only way that can happen is from the contents of Joffrey's mouth. I have yet to hear you put up another explanation for this.

Sorry if the facts are tripping you up, but this is what inevitably happens when people insist that the impossible is possible and the extremely likely is impossible.

 

I am not reaching, and no, the facts are not tripping me up.

Putting the poison in the wine would have been easier than putting it in the pie. The way I see it, that is a fact, because the calice was left unsupervise, whereas the pie would have had servants around it at the time of cutting and serving - and I'm speaking about the one actually being served, not the one Joffrey and Margaery were cutting.

We have purple wine, which is then red, and then purple again. Red wine dripping over one's chin looks red, not purple. In fact, we even have this

He needed wine. A lot of wine. He seized the flagon with both hands and raised it to his lips. The wine ran red. Down his throat, down his chin. It dripped from his beard and soaked the feather bed. In the candlelight it looked as dark as the wine that had poisoned Joffrey.

Red wine, running red, not purple. And in a specific light, looking just as the wine Joffrey was drinking just before he died.

The assumption that the Strangler turns the wine purple is just that - an assumption. Not one to make or break a theory.

Every baker can screw up and accidentally make a dry pie. The fact that Joffrey believes he's choking because of the pie, despite the fact that he will have finished most of the slice, by the looks of it (stuffing handsfull into his mouth), heavily implies that the entire thing was dry. Again, not something done at such a speed by such a little bit of poison in the tip of the slice.

 

I've asked you about the motivation. Who would want to poison Tyrion? Why? And the explanation you gave, while detailed, is not supported by the text. And by that, I'm not talking about a history lesson. I'm talking about Olenna or any other Tyrell actually expressing even the slightest bit of fear for any of the things you imply Olenna fears.

Meanwhile, the explanation for Olenna trying to kill Joffrey, is supported by text.

My son ought to take the puff fish for his sigil, if truth be told. He could put a crown on it, the way the Baratheons do their stag, mayhap that would make him happy. We should have stayed well out of all this bloody foolishness if you ask me, but once the cow’s been milked there’s no squirting the cream back up her udder. After Lord Puff Fish put that crown on Renly’s head, we were into the pudding up to our knees, so here we are to see things through. And what do you say to that, Sansa?

Involving herself in the game for the throne was not what Olenna wanted, but Mace involved them anyway, because he's the head of the house, and he can do so. Olenna, right now, can only do whatever is in her power to see to it that everything works out as good as possible, considering the position Mace put them in.

Have no fear, Lord Puff Fish is determined that Margaery shall be queen. And the word of a Tyrell is worth more than all the gold in Casterly Rock. At least it was in my day. Even so, we thank you for the truth, child.

The thing is, though, that in order to make Margaery the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, they need a King... But they don't necessarily need Joffrey.

Margaery is Olenna's protegé. And Olenna would want for her granddaughter to see all through as best as possible. She seems to be in it for the long run, not a short-term gain. Joffrey might be able to provide an heir faster, but Olenna is old (past seventy), and Tywin is too (closing in on 60). Tywin won't always be around to hold Joffrey back, and it is getting harder for him already. 

Which King is better to marry your daughter to? A King who the kingdom views as cruel, and against who half the kingdoms is rebelling? Or a king who can be easily influenced due to his youth, and who is, by all accounts, peaceful? Both boys come with the same advantage in terms of military power. The only thing one needs to do is wait a few years until Tommen can father an heir. But there is no reason to worry. Once Margaery is married to Tommen, Highgarden is settled at court. Trying to break the marriage apart (like Cersei is trying to do) will break the alliance, and that is in the disadvantage of House Lannister, not House Tyrell. 

“Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher’s boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He’s evil and cruel, my lady, it’s so. And the queen as well.”
Lady Olenna Tyrell and her granddaughter exchanged a look. “Ah” said the old woman, “that’s a pity.”

It's a pity that the rumours about Joffrey (spread by Littlefinger - When I came to Highgarden to dicker for Margaery’s hand, she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions about Joffrey’s nature. I praised him to the skies, to be sure... whilst my men spread disturbing tales amongst Lord Tyrell’s servants. That is how the game is played.) are true, as that complicates matters, but it is not the end of their plans.

Margaery marries Tommen. Tywin would never have dared to try and break up that marriage the way Cersei did... And if you look at the problems Cersei is causing, it seems to be clear as to why.

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On 2.1.2016 at 3:09 AM, purple-eyes said:

I know LF is trying to mess up the court. 

But it took a lot of effort to murder the king And it is very risky. Joff is grandson of tywin. 

And tywin planned or allowed the red wedding then Cat was killed. 

Did LF do this partially to revenge her death?

Those who killed Joffrey did Tywin a big favour. Joffrey was only a loose canon on deck for Tywin. Littlefinger knew this. If he would have wanted to hurt Tywin he would have plotted to kill Jaime. That's the only living person Tywin realy cared for. Maybe Cersai, too, but to a lesser extent. 

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22 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

I am not reaching, and no, the facts are not tripping me up.

Putting the poison in the wine would have been easier than putting it in the pie. The way I see it, that is a fact, because the calice was left unsupervise, whereas the pie would have had servants around it at the time of cutting and serving - and I'm speaking about the one actually being served, not the one Joffrey and Margaery were cutting.

We have purple wine, which is then red, and then purple again. Red wine dripping over one's chin looks red, not purple. In fact, we even have this

He needed wine. A lot of wine. He seized the flagon with both hands and raised it to his lips. The wine ran red. Down his throat, down his chin. It dripped from his beard and soaked the feather bed. In the candlelight it looked as dark as the wine that had poisoned Joffrey.

Red wine, running red, not purple. And in a specific light, looking just as the wine Joffrey was drinking just before he died.

The assumption that the Strangler turns the wine purple is just that - an assumption. Not one to make or break a theory.

Every baker can screw up and accidentally make a dry pie. The fact that Joffrey believes he's choking because of the pie, despite the fact that he will have finished most of the slice, by the looks of it (stuffing handsfull into his mouth), heavily implies that the entire thing was dry. Again, not something done at such a speed by such a little bit of poison in the tip of the slice.

 

I've asked you about the motivation. Who would want to poison Tyrion? Why? And the explanation you gave, while detailed, is not supported by the text. And by that, I'm not talking about a history lesson. I'm talking about Olenna or any other Tyrell actually expressing even the slightest bit of fear for any of the things you imply Olenna fears.

Meanwhile, the explanation for Olenna trying to kill Joffrey, is supported by text.

My son ought to take the puff fish for his sigil, if truth be told. He could put a crown on it, the way the Baratheons do their stag, mayhap that would make him happy. We should have stayed well out of all this bloody foolishness if you ask me, but once the cow’s been milked there’s no squirting the cream back up her udder. After Lord Puff Fish put that crown on Renly’s head, we were into the pudding up to our knees, so here we are to see things through. And what do you say to that, Sansa?

Involving herself in the game for the throne was not what Olenna wanted, but Mace involved them anyway, because he's the head of the house, and he can do so. Olenna, right now, can only do whatever is in her power to see to it that everything works out as good as possible, considering the position Mace put them in.

Have no fear, Lord Puff Fish is determined that Margaery shall be queen. And the word of a Tyrell is worth more than all the gold in Casterly Rock. At least it was in my day. Even so, we thank you for the truth, child.

The thing is, though, that in order to make Margaery the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, they need a King... But they don't necessarily need Joffrey.

Margaery is Olenna's protegé. And Olenna would want for her granddaughter to see all through as best as possible. She seems to be in it for the long run, not a short-term gain. Joffrey might be able to provide an heir faster, but Olenna is old (past seventy), and Tywin is too (closing in on 60). Tywin won't always be around to hold Joffrey back, and it is getting harder for him already. 

Which King is better to marry your daughter to? A King who the kingdom views as cruel, and against who half the kingdoms is rebelling? Or a king who can be easily influenced due to his youth, and who is, by all accounts, peaceful? Both boys come with the same advantage in terms of military power. The only thing one needs to do is wait a few years until Tommen can father an heir. But there is no reason to worry. Once Margaery is married to Tommen, Highgarden is settled at court. Trying to break the marriage apart (like Cersei is trying to do) will break the alliance, and that is in the disadvantage of House Lannister, not House Tyrell. 

“Joffrey is a monster. He lied about the butcher’s boy and made Father kill my wolf. When I displease him, he has the Kingsguard beat me. He’s evil and cruel, my lady, it’s so. And the queen as well.”
Lady Olenna Tyrell and her granddaughter exchanged a look. “Ah” said the old woman, “that’s a pity.”

It's a pity that the rumours about Joffrey (spread by Littlefinger - When I came to Highgarden to dicker for Margaery’s hand, she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions about Joffrey’s nature. I praised him to the skies, to be sure... whilst my men spread disturbing tales amongst Lord Tyrell’s servants. That is how the game is played.) are true, as that complicates matters, but it is not the end of their plans.

Margaery marries Tommen. Tywin would never have dared to try and break up that marriage the way Cersei did... And if you look at the problems Cersei is causing, it seems to be clear as to why.

Oh come on. The wine was not unsupervised, it was sitting in plain sight at the head table in front of 200 people, and directly in front of both Sansa and Tyrion who saw nothing. Take a yardstick and stand it straight up on your dining table, then imagine people standing to your immediate right and left, including someone who is only three feet tall and looking past the chalice to see the birds, and you'll get an idea of the challenge this presents. Even if it could be done successfully, this is a huge risk to take when your entire family's heads are at stake. The pie is behind the head table in plain view of only one person, who happens to be looking upward away from both the poisoner and the pie. You say you're not reaching and then you go and say the wine was easier to poison than the pie. Big LOLz.

Next you're trying to compare large quantities of wine soaking into beards and clothing to thin rivulets running down a pale chin. At the same time, you example is by candlelight vs. the well-lit throne room:

"Although evenfall was still an hour away, the throne room was already a blaze of light."

So again, you're reaching for anything that pops into your head to support your preconceived conclusion.

And how does the fact that Joffrey puts two handfuls of pie into his mouth "heavily imply" that the whole pie is dry? What does one have to do with the other? If it's dry, why is he taking another bite? For that matter, why does the whole dry slice preclude the possibility that the poison is what is causing it? If it can perform all the other incredible feats inside his throat as you say, then it can dry out a piece of pie.

And please, look at the way Lady O orders Mace around in front of all the high lords and royals. Look at Mace's track record in battle, where his only notable achievement was actually accomplished by his bannerman. You're own quote states: "she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions". Mace would not have agreed to this alliance and this marriage if Lady O opposed it. Ergo, this marriage is happening because she wants it to. Both she and Margaery are ladies of a noble house. They know the score: ladies sometimes have to marry monsters for the good of their house.

And the evidence at the wedding is clear: Margaery is in no danger from Joff at the moment, so there is no reason to commit such a drastic act right away. In a year or two, the Tyrells will have everything they desire: a queen in her own right and heirs to the throne. Then they can get rid of Joffrey at any time and make it look like an accident much more easily.

 

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1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Oh come on. The wine was not unsupervised, it was sitting in plain sight at the head table in front of 200 people, and directly in front of both Sansa and Tyrion who saw nothing. Take a yardstick and stand it straight up on your dining table, then imagine people standing to your immediate right and left, including someone who is only three feet tall and looking past the chalice to see the birds, and you'll get an idea of the challenge this presents. Even if it could be done successfully, this is a huge risk to take when your entire family's heads are at stake. The pie is behind the head table in plain view of only one person, who happens to be looking upward away from both the poisoner and the pie. You say you're not reaching and then you go and say the wine was easier to poison than the pie. Big LOLz.

Next you're trying to compare large quantities of wine soaking into beards and clothing to thin rivulets running down a pale chin. At the same time, you example is by candlelight vs. the well-lit throne room:

"Although evenfall was still an hour away, the throne room was already a blaze of light."

So again, you're reaching for anything that pops into your head to support your preconceived conclusion.

And how does the fact that Joffrey puts two handfuls of pie into his mouth "heavily imply" that the whole pie is dry? What does one have to do with the other? If it's dry, why is he taking another bite? For that matter, why does the whole dry slice preclude the possibility that the poison is what is causing it? If it can perform all the other incredible feats inside his throat as you say, then it can dry out a piece of pie.

And please, look at the way Lady O orders Mace around in front of all the high lords and royals. Look at Mace's track record in battle, where his only notable achievement was actually accomplished by his bannerman. You're own quote states: "she let her lord son bluster while she asked pointed questions". Mace would not have agreed to this alliance and this marriage if Lady O opposed it. Ergo, this marriage is happening because she wants it to. Both she and Margaery are ladies of a noble house. They know the score: ladies sometimes have to marry monsters for the good of their house.

And the evidence at the wedding is clear: Margaery is in no danger from Joff at the moment, so there is no reason to commit such a drastic act right away. In a year or two, the Tyrells will have everything they desire: a queen in her own right and heirs to the throne. Then they can get rid of Joffrey at any time and make it look like an accident much more easily.

 

No man, my point regarding Tyrion's wine was, that the light can make it look like the wine has a different colour than it actually has. The part of "as the wine that had poisoned Joffrey" being the thing that connects it to Joffrey's wine, which might have appeared to have a different colour at one point than it actually had, due to the light in the hall at that moment.

 

No one was looking at the wine. Everyone was looking at the birds. Easy to drop something in it, when no one is looking at you, and the cup is so near.

You keep saying that the pie was on the table behind them, but fact remains that no table with pie is mentioned. Yes, the servant serves the pie very quickly. Did the pie come from a table behind them, or had he been standing ready with a tray filled with plates of pie? You have no evidence that Olenna could have had access to the pie, and even if she did, as I have said so many times before, there was no possible way for her to know which specific piece of pie would be set in front of Tyrion.

Two fistfuls are almost an entire slice, if they used the average size. If only the first bite was dry, the next bite would have helped the first bite go down. Instead, it didn't, and unless Joffrey was uncapable of separating tasting moist from dry, his believe that it is the pie causing trouble would indicate that the entire thing is dry. There's certainly nothing suggesting otherwise.

"If it's dry, why is he taking another bite?" seriously?  He states the pie is dry, drinks, and takes another bite. Asking why he does that, is a question you should direct at Martin. Not me. 

I'm not talking about all kinds of incredible feats that the poison causes in his throat. What I describe is the same as what happened to Cressen. Drink the poison, you start to cough, throat begins to close, and in the end, you die. Simple. 

 

So it would be putting poison in a cup which would be nearby any of the possible people involved the entire night, versus putting the poison in a slice of pie no one could have known would end up in front of Tyrion, and which was in a servants hands, about to be served.

The wine sounds like the easy one. And the one with actual motivation.

Olenna clearly has a say over Mace. But in the end, Mace is the one who actually rules, and if he sets his mind to something, Olenna's opinion won't matter.

"Tut-tut, says my son [...]"

As to marrying monsters for the good of one's house... The monster is not the only one that they can marry Margaery to. And that makes all the difference.

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22 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No man, my point regarding Tyrion's wine was, that the light can make it look like the wine has a different colour than it actually has. The part of "as the wine that had poisoned Joffrey" being the thing that connects it to Joffrey's wine, which might have appeared to have a different colour at one point than it actually had, due to the light in the hall at that moment.

You seem to be saying that the fact that the wine appeared purple on Joffrey's chin is proof that the wine was in fact poisoned at that point. But if the poison had turned the wine purple already, how did it change back to red when it spilled on the table? Did the wine unpoison itself and then repoison again for Tyrion at the end of the scene? If unpoisoned wine must remain red in all light and against all backgrounds, then why doesn't poisoned wine have to remain purple in the same situation?

 

22 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

No one was looking at the wine. Everyone was looking at the birds. Easy to drop something in it, when no one is looking at you, and the cup is so near.

You keep saying that the pie was on the table behind them, but fact remains that no table with pie is mentioned. Yes, the servant serves the pie very quickly. Did the pie come from a table behind them, or had he been standing ready with a tray filled with plates of pie? You have no evidence that Olenna could have had access to the pie, and even if she did, as I have said so many times before, there was no possible way for her to know which specific piece of pie would be set in front of Tyrion.

Two fistfuls are almost an entire slice, if they used the average size. If only the first bite was dry, the next bite would have helped the first bite go down. Instead, it didn't, and unless Joffrey was uncapable of separating tasting moist from dry, his believe that it is the pie causing trouble would indicate that the entire thing is dry. There's certainly nothing suggesting otherwise.

"If it's dry, why is he taking another bite?" seriously?  He states the pie is dry, drinks, and takes another bite. Asking why he does that, is a question you should direct at Martin. Not me. 

I'm not talking about all kinds of incredible feats that the poison causes in his throat. What I describe is the same as what happened to Cressen. Drink the poison, you start to cough, throat begins to close, and in the end, you die. Simple. 

How could anyone possibly know that not one single person in a room of 200 or more is not going to spot movement out of the corner of their eye and see the drop? Lady Olenna is standing there and the pie is right there, waiting to be served What more evidence do you need? Regardless of whether it is being held or on a table, the poisoner only has to make sure one person is not looking at her, not 200.

On what do you base the statement "there was no possible way for her to know which specific piece of pie would be set in front of Tyrion"? As the provider of all the food at the feast, and grandmother to the bride, what is to stop her from going to the head of the waitstaff and saying: "I want all pies for the head table lined up and ready to be served the moment the ceremony is concluded."?

How does all of this dry pie theorizing of yours prove that the pie was just naturally dry and not being affected by the poison? The poison absorbs moisture; the pie is lacking moisture. Surely we have to at least consider that the poison is in the pie, especially since the color changes and time discrepancies cast doubt on the wine.

If what happened to Cressen was the same as what happened to Joffrey, then you may have an argument. But the facts are the facts: Cressen drinks and is incapacitated in seconds. Joffrey drinks and shows no affects for four or even five times as long. He does succumb within seconds of drinking wine after eating the pie, though.

22 hours ago, Rhaenys_Targaryen said:

So it would be putting poison in a cup which would be nearby any of the possible people involved the entire night, versus putting the poison in a slice of pie no one could have known would end up in front of Tyrion, and which was in a servants hands, about to be served.

The wine sounds like the easy one. And the one with actual motivation.

Olenna clearly has a say over Mace. But in the end, Mace is the one who actually rules, and if he sets his mind to something, Olenna's opinion won't matter.

"Tut-tut, says my son [...]"

As to marrying monsters for the good of one's house... The monster is not the only one that they can marry Margaery to. And that makes all the difference.

 Yes, it makes five years difference. Are you suggesting that the end-game for the Tyrells in all of this is to make Margaery a queen? That is just the means to the end. The real prize is a blood heir sitting on the Iron Throne.

In feudal societies, especially in times of war, five years is an eternity. Look at all that has happened in just the last three years. Whether you think Mace or Lady O is the decider in Highgarden, they would have to be dripping mad to reason that a possible son five years from now -- provided there isn't a death or an annulment before the marriage can be consummated -- is better than a son within the year. 

 

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On 21-1-2016 at 9:59 PM, John Suburbs said:

You seem to be saying that the fact that the wine appeared purple on Joffrey's chin is proof that the wine was in fact poisoned at that point. But if the poison had turned the wine purple already, how did it change back to red when it spilled on the table? Did the wine unpoison itself and then repoison again for Tyrion at the end of the scene? If unpoisoned wine must remain red in all light and against all backgrounds, then why doesn't poisoned wine have to remain purple in the same situation?

That's what I suggested at the beginning of this conversation. Since you pointed out that the wine is described as red in between the two descriptions of purple, that does not seem to be the case. OR, as I was pointing out by the Tyrion-quote from Dance, the wine being red as the chalice falls to the ground only seems red due to the light.

As I stated in my previous post, the poison making wine change colour was only an assumption. Not, as far as I am aware, a fact. Especially since Cressen doesn't mention such, as far as I recall.

 

On 21-1-2016 at 9:59 PM, John Suburbs said:

How could anyone possibly know that not one single person in a room of 200 or more is not going to spot movement out of the corner of their eye and see the drop? Lady Olenna is standing there and the pie is right there, waiting to be served What more evidence do you need? Regardless of whether it is being held or on a table, the poisoner only has to make sure one person is not looking at her, not 200.

Olenna standing next to the pie is not described, so that is an assumption you make. In addition, she will need to place the poison in someone's food while another person is holding that food - without the person holding the food seeing it. Moving your hand over a chalice, for example whilst grabbing it to hand it to the King, is easily done, and not at all out of the ordinary. Olenna grabbing hold of a piece of pie which is next served to another, is completely out of the ordinary.

 

On 21-1-2016 at 9:59 PM, John Suburbs said:

On what do you base the statement "there was no possible way for her to know which specific piece of pie would be set in front of Tyrion"? As the provider of all the food at the feast, and grandmother to the bride, what is to stop her from going to the head of the waitstaff and saying: "I want all pies for the head table lined up and ready to be served the moment the ceremony is concluded."?

Well, for one, it was Cersei who made the wedding arrangements. No involvement from Olenna is mentioned.

Next, she could have stated that she wanted all of those pies lined up, sure. But that doesn't mean that she could possibly have known beforehand which piece would be served to which guest, even if we look only at the head table.

 

On 21-1-2016 at 9:59 PM, John Suburbs said:

How does all of this dry pie theorizing of yours prove that the pie was just naturally dry and not being affected by the poison? The poison absorbs moisture; the pie is lacking moisture. Surely we have to at least consider that the poison is in the pie, especially since the color changes and time discrepancies cast doubt on the wine.

The poison absorbs? It seems to me that the poison dissolved. If not, putting it in the wine was a rather dumb move by Cressen. The crystal is supposed to dissolve, become part of the fluid it is in.

If it were to absorb the fluid, it could only do so within a specific range (as well, the crystal of poison would still be visible). And to say that a little bit of poison in the tip of the slice could dry out an entire slice of pie in such a short time, is, imo, not at all likely.

 

On 21-1-2016 at 9:59 PM, John Suburbs said:

If what happened to Cressen was the same as what happened to Joffrey, then you may have an argument. But the facts are the facts: Cressen drinks and is incapacitated in seconds. Joffrey drinks and shows no affects for four or even five times as long. He does succumb within seconds of drinking wine after eating the pie, though.

Difference in health of the victim, difference in ratio of poison to wine. The coughing starts at the same time for both, though.

 

On 21-1-2016 at 9:59 PM, John Suburbs said:

 Yes, it makes five years difference. Are you suggesting that the end-game for the Tyrells in all of this is to make Margaery a queen? That is just the means to the end. The real prize is a blood heir sitting on the Iron Throne.

In feudal societies, especially in times of war, five years is an eternity. Look at all that has happened in just the last three years. Whether you think Mace or Lady O is the decider in Highgarden, they would have to be dripping mad to reason that a possible son five years from now -- provided there isn't a death or an annulment before the marriage can be consummated -- is better than a son within the year. 

 

I am suggesting that the end-game for the Tyrells is to both get Margaery on the throne and their grandson by whichever King she marries, as well as having said Baratheon/Lannister King actually still rule for many years to come, without having Margaery come to harm, in addition to having the influence at court grow for House Tyrell.  And for all that, in multiple aspects I have already discussed, Tommen is a better candidate than Joffrey.

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