Did LF murder Joff to revenge Cat?

[John Doe]

Really? You do? I think you are the very first person to ever agree with me on this. What a great day!

It really does seem like a dangerously convoluted plan. I'll have to re-read the wedding to be sure.

[John Suburbs]

It really does seem like a dangerously convoluted plan. I'll have to re-read the wedding to be sure.

Reread the Cressen poisoning first in the aCoK prologue. Notice how quickly he goes from ingestion to incapacitation -- five seconds, maybe eight if Mel is a really slow talker.

Then notice how Joff takes chug after chug after chug of supposedly poisoned wine, then starts up with Tyrion again, grabs pie, taunts Tyrion again, eats pie, taunts Tyrion some more, and only then do we see the first real evidence that anything is wrong -- a tiny coff. Then he drinks more wine, coffs again a little harder, another drink and then the real gagging starts. This is probably four or five times longer than Cressen.

What could explain this? Was the poison more diluted in Joffrey's chalice than in Cressen's cup? Not as much as you might think. Cressen placed a "flake" of crystal in a normal goblet of wine, while Joffrey had an entire crystal in a chalice that Tyrion had filled three quarters full that Joffrey then reduce by a large but unknown amount. So there was probably more wine with Joffrey, but there was more poison as well. The chalice, BTW, could not hold all that much more wine than a normal goblet, otherwise Joffrey would never be able to lift it one-handed. Gold is heavy, and so is wine.

Also, everyone should recognize how the Strangler works: it hits the muscles of the throat or the larynx and takes affect immediately on contact. It does not enter the stomach, become absorbed into the bloodstream, circulate throughout the body and then back to the throat. If it did, it would take about a minute to work, not mere seconds. So if this is the case, then diluting the Strangler will not delay the onset of the attack, it will just reduce the severity. Imagine drinking a shot glass full of ammonia. It would burn your throat instantly, and probably kill you. If you poured the shot into a large glass of water, it would still burn you instantly but not as badly, and you might even survive. If you placed a tiny drop of ammonia into the water and drank it, the affect would be so weakened that you might not even notice, but any ammonia molecule that touches tissue would still have an instant affect. This is not the case with Joffrey, though; once the poison hits, it hits hard.

Could Joffrey's Strangler have been a weaker, slower version? Unlikely. Cressen describes a very long, precise manufacturing process that must be followed exactly. This suggests the resulting poison is either highly potent or an utter failure.

Could there have been some kind of delaying agent added to Joffrey's crystal? Possibly, but there is no mention of such a thing anywhere in the book, and why on earth would anyone need to delay a poisoning from five seconds to 25 seconds?

And the coup de grace: the words of the victim himself, who can feel solids and liquids in his own mouth and knows which one is causing him trouble: "It's the pie, kof, the pie..."

[The Arthur Smith]

Doubted it. Joffrey has nothing to do with the Red Wedding. Tywin pretty much orchestrated the murder.

[Lord Wraith]

Doubted it. Joffrey has nothing to do with the Red Wedding. Tywin pretty much orchestrated the murder.

Really how do you figure that?

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

Then notice how Joff takes chug after chug after chug of supposedly poisoned wine, then starts up with Tyrion again, grabs pie, taunts Tyrion again, eats pie, taunts Tyrion some more, and only then do we see the first real evidence that anything is wrong -- a tiny coff. Then he drinks more wine, coffs again a little harder, another drink and then the real gagging starts. This is probably four or five times longer than Cressen.

This is the passage

The king’s chalice was on the table where he’d left it. Tyrion had to climb back onto his chair to reach it. Joff yanked it from his hands and drank long and deep, his throat working as the wine ran purple down his chin. “My lord,” Margaery said, “we should return to our places. Lord Buckler wants to toast us.”
“My uncle hasn’t eaten his pigeon pie.” Holding the chalice onehanded, 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.

Margaery speaks to him as he's still drinking. He has time to say one sentence, whilst eating the pie, and immediately starts coughing. The couching is the poison taking effect, isn't it? 

So perhaps, Joffrey's poisoning takes place slightly slower than Cressen's  (though the coughing for both seems to start at a similar moment, Joffrey's might lasts longer, possibly due to his health; difficult to say how long Cressen took to fall on his knees, and how long he was still conscious).. I don't think the speed of it taking effect is a hint.

 

What could explain this? Was the poison more diluted in Joffrey's chalice than in Cressen's cup? Not as much as you might think. Cressen placed a "flake" of crystal in a normal goblet of wine, while Joffrey had an entire crystal in a chalice that Tyrion had filled three quarters full that Joffrey then reduce by a large but unknown amount. So there was probably more wine with Joffrey, but there was more poison as well. The chalice, BTW, could not hold all that much more wine than a normal goblet, otherwise Joffrey would never be able to lift it one-handed. Gold is heavy, and so is wine.

The goblet could contain the contents of an entire flagon of wine. I'm not sure how large GRRM's Westerosi flagons typically are, but wikipedia puts the content of a flagon at 1.1 liters.

 

Also worth noting is that Joffrey, both at the start of his wedding feast, and when he arrives to pour the wine over Tyrion's head, is drinking red wine. Yet the wine he drinks just before he's choking, is purple..

[John Suburbs]

This is the passage

The king’s chalice was on the table where he’d left it. Tyrion had to climb back onto his chair to reach it. Joff yanked it from his hands and drank long and deep, his throat working as the wine ran purple down his chin. “My lord,” Margaery said, “we should return to our places. Lord Buckler wants to toast us.”
“My uncle hasn’t eaten his pigeon pie.” Holding the chalice onehanded, 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.

Margaery speaks to him as he's still drinking. He has time to say one sentence, whilst eating the pie, and immediately starts coughing. The couching is the poison taking effect, isn't it? 

So perhaps, Joffrey's poisoning takes place slightly slower than Cressen's  (though the coughing for both seems to start at a similar moment, Joffrey's might lasts longer, possibly due to his health; difficult to say how long Cressen took to fall on his knees, and how long he was still conscious).. I don't think the speed of it taking effect is a hint.

 

The goblet could contain the contents of an entire flagon of wine. I'm not sure how large GRRM's Westerosi flagons typically are, but wikipedia puts the content of a flagon at 1.1 liters.

 

Also worth noting is that Joffrey, both at the start of his wedding feast, and when he arrives to pour the wine over Tyrion's head, is drinking red wine. Yet the wine he drinks just before he's choking, is purple..

You're not comparing apples to apples in the two poisonings.

Cressen shoots down the last sip of wine in an instant. Then Mel says her bit about the red god has power, etc., -- maybe a five-second sentence -- and then Cressen cannot speak. Not just a little cough, but he cannot speak.

Joffrey takes multiple chugs of wine -- "his throat working," etc. -- while Margy says her bit about the toast. So it is at this point that Joff's throat has been in contact with the poison at least as long as Cressen's, and yet there is no reaction from Joff. Then it goes on as you described, and it isn't for another half-dozen seconds or so -- during which he eats the pie -- and all we get is a little cough. Then he speaks some more, eats more pie, speaks some more, drinks more wine, and only then do we start to see the violent coughing. Notice, however, that once the poison is in his mouth via the pie and then Joffrey drinks the wine, the real trouble begins in approximately five seconds -- exactly like Cressen.

 

OK, let's go with 1.1 liters of wine, which is roughly five normal glasses. I think that's a little high because we have skinny little Joffrey hoisting the chalice with one hand -- gold is already heavy and now we have another three or four lbs of wine in there.  So we have Tyrion filling it three-quarters full, which drops it down to 3.75 glasses, then Joffrey taking a long drink, which probably brings it below three, or even less. Cressen's normal cup (actually Davos') was half full, so sure, we could be talking about 12 times more wine in the chalice than the cup. Against that, we have a "flake" of crystal vs. an entire crystal, which is an indeterminate amount but easily conceivable as 1/12 or even less. So more wine, but more poison too.

And as I explained above, a contact poison like the Strangler is not delayed by higher dilution, only weakened. So the whole argument about more wine in the chalice is irrelevent

 

As for the color, sure we have red in the cup, and then purple running down his chin. Then it is red again on the dais and finally purple when Tyrion looks at it. So if you assume that the purple on Joff's chin is actually poison and not the affect of a thin trail of wine running down his pale white skin, how does the wine go back to red when it spills out and then back to purple at the end of the scene? 

[Ferocious Veldt Roarer]

 

OK, let's go with 1.1 liters of wine, which is roughly five normal glasses.

A fun exercise for you: try to draw a cup, three feet tall, that holds only a liter of liquid, and doesn't look completely ridiculous.

I think that's a little high because we have skinny little Joffrey

And here you're just blatantly making stuff up. Joffrey was many things, "little" was not one of them.

[John Suburbs]

 

Good gravy, do you imagine the chalice is three-feet of nothing but cup? Do you have any idea how heavy gold is? And now you want to add five gallons of wine and still have Joffrey hoisting it one-handed, tipping it end-up and not spilling wine all over himself? Please get real. The chalice has a base and then a long stem and a cup large enough to hold a reasonable amount of wine for two people to drink toasts from.

And again, the amount of wine does not affect the speed at which the poison takes affect in any way. I can only lessen the severity of the attack. Please see my earlier post.

Yes, Joffrey is a slight, skinny, pale 14yo boy. Nowhere in the story will you find descriptions of Joffrey's rippling arms and bulging shoulders.

[Seaworth'sShipmate]

If vengence played any part in LF's reasoning, it was purely coincidental to the larger goal.

He mainly got rid of Joffrey because he was a threat to the stability of the realm, and thus to LF's goals.

[the trees have eyes]

 

Good gravy, do you imagine the chalice is three-feet of nothing but cup? Do you have any idea how heavy gold is? And now you want to add five gallons of wine and still have Joffrey hoisting it one-handed, tipping it end-up and not spilling wine all over himself? Please get real. The chalice has a base and then a long stem and a cup large enough to hold a reasonable amount of wine for two people to drink toasts from.

And again, the amount of wine does not affect the speed at which the poison takes affect in any way. I can only lessen the severity of the attack. Please see my earlier post.

Yes, Joffrey is a slight, skinny, pale 14yo boy. Nowhere in the story will you find descriptions of Joffrey's rippling arms and bulging shoulders.

Joffrey slght and skinny?

In AGOT Jon is dismayed that Joffrey, though younger, is already taller than both he and Robb.  Pretty sure that Tyrion, watching Joff sweep Marge off her feet effortlessly in ASOS, grumbles to himself that Joff will be as tall and strong and Jaime.  Joffrey seems healthy and robust and to be tall and strong for his age, not surprising as he takes after his father physically - a man who was in the KG at 17 and considers only the Cleganes and Strongboar Crakehall to be stronger than his two-handed adult self.  I don't mean to nitpick but Joffrey is no Robert Arrynesque weakling, he's a young Jaime physically (and a young Cersei psychologically).

[Rhaenys_Targaryen]

You're not comparing apples to apples in the two poisonings.

Cressen shoots down the last sip of wine in an instant. Then Mel says her bit about the red god has power, etc., -- maybe a five-second sentence -- and then Cressen cannot speak. Not just a little cough, but he cannot speak.

Joffrey takes multiple chugs of wine -- "his throat working," etc. -- while Margy says her bit about the toast. So it is at this point that Joff's throat has been in contact with the poison at least as long as Cressen's, and yet there is no reaction from Joff. Then it goes on as you described, and it isn't for another half-dozen seconds or so -- during which he eats the pie -- and all we get is a little cough. Then he speaks some more, eats more pie, speaks some more, drinks more wine, and only then do we start to see the violent coughing. Notice, however, that once the poison is in his mouth via the pie and then Joffrey drinks the wine, the real trouble begins in approximately five seconds -- exactly like Cressen.

I don't think the difference in time is as different as you think it is. And I acount for the fact that Cressen is much older, and his health is much poorer, and so, I wouldn't find it odd if the poison takes effect on him much sooner than it does Joffrey, should the timing in between the two ingesting it up to both of them being unable to speak be different.

 

OK, let's go with 1.1 liters of wine, which is roughly five normal glasses. I think that's a little high because we have skinny little Joffrey hoisting the chalice with one hand -- gold is already heavy and now we have another three or four lbs of wine in there.  So we have Tyrion filling it three-quarters full, which drops it down to 3.75 glasses, then Joffrey taking a long drink, which probably brings it below three, or even less. Cressen's normal cup (actually Davos') was half full, so sure, we could be talking about 12 times more wine in the chalice than the cup. Against that, we have a "flake" of crystal vs. an entire crystal, which is an indeterminate amount but easily conceivable as 1/12 or even less. So more wine, but more poison too.

And as I explained above, a contact poison like the Strangler is not delayed by higher dilution, only weakened. So the whole argument about more wine in the chalice is irrelevent

Wouldn't "weakened" be similar to "delayed" in function? If the function is weaker, you need to ingest more to reach the same effect as ingesting a smaller amount would in a much smaller amount of wine. Hence, it will take longer until you see the same effects, because first you need to ingest more.

 

 

As for the color, sure we have red in the cup, and then purple running down his chin. Then it is red again on the dais and finally purple when Tyrion looks at it. So if you assume that the purple on Joff's chin is actually poison and not the affect of a thin trail of wine running down his pale white skin, how does the wine go back to red when it spills out and then back to purple at the end of the scene? 

I reread the passage a few days ago, though I don't have time right now to go back and double check it. But if I am recalling it correctly, first, it is mentioned at the start of the feast that red wine is being served (no mention of purple wine being made). Next, Joffrey has red wine in his calice, which he had been drinking, and which he empties over Tyrion's head. While the calice is filled for him, he doesn't drink from it, but instead leaves it to go to the pie.

When he next turns up with Tyrion, he demands his calice, which Tyrion gives to him. Joffrey starts drinking, and only then is it mentioned that the wine on his chin is purple.

 

If I recall it correctly, we only go from red to purple, and not from red to purple to red to purple again.

 

 

Good gravy, do you imagine the chalice is three-feet of nothing but cup? Do you have any idea how heavy gold is? And now you want to add five gallons of wine and still have Joffrey hoisting it one-handed, tipping it end-up and not spilling wine all over himself? Please get real. The chalice has a base and then a long stem and a cup large enough to hold a reasonable amount of wine for two people to drink toasts from.

And again, the amount of wine does not affect the speed at which the poison takes affect in any way. I can only lessen the severity of the attack. Please see my earlier post.

Yes, Joffrey is a slight, skinny, pale 14yo boy. Nowhere in the story will you find descriptions of Joffrey's rippling arms and bulging shoulders.

I think you're quoting the wrong person here

[John Suburbs]

Joffrey slght and skinny?

In AGOT Jon is dismayed that Joffrey, though younger, is already taller than both he and Robb.  Pretty sure that Tyrion, watching Joff sweep Marge off her feet effortlessly in ASOS, grumbles to himself that Joff will be as tall and strong and Jaime.  Joffrey seems healthy and robust and to be tall and strong for his age, not surprising as he takes after his father physically - a man who was in the KG at 17 and considers only the Cleganes and Strongboar Crakehall to be stronger than his two-handed adult self.  I don't mean to nitpick but Joffrey is no Robert Arrynesque weakling, he's a young Jaime physically (and a young Cersei psychologically).

Yes, he's taller and he's slenderer, and maybe someday he will be as tall and strong as Jaime. But right now he is still a skinny boy and it is very unlikely that he could pick up three feet of solid gold cup, filled with wine, with one hand and then tip the thing up-end and chug the wine without spilling it all over himself. Come on.

 

 

[John Suburbs]

I don't think the difference in time is as different as you think it is. And I acount for the fact that Cressen is much older, and his health is much poorer, and so, I wouldn't find it odd if the poison takes effect on him much sooner than it does Joffrey, should the timing in between the two ingesting it up to both of them being unable to speak be different.

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.

Wouldn't "weakened" be similar to "delayed" in function? If the function is weaker, you need to ingest more to reach the same effect as ingesting a smaller amount would in a much smaller amount of wine. Hence, it will take longer until you see the same effects, because first you need to ingest more.

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.

I reread the passage a few days ago, though I don't have time right now to go back and double check it. But if I am recalling it correctly, first, it is mentioned at the start of the feast that red wine is being served (no mention of purple wine being made). Next, Joffrey has red wine in his calice, which he had been drinking, and which he empties over Tyrion's head. While the calice is filled for him, he doesn't drink from it, but instead leaves it to go to the pie.

When he next turns up with Tyrion, he demands his calice, which Tyrion gives to him. Joffrey starts drinking, and only then is it mentioned that the wine on his chin is purple.

 

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?

 

I think you're quoting the wrong person here

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?

[WSmith84]

The Tyrells would have to wait years for a secure throne either way. If they offed Joffrey as soon as Marg had a son, that's a big risk. Infant mortality is pretty common in Westeros. If Marg's son died and Joff was already dead, then the Tyrells have nothing. So why not just off Joff and marry Tommen, with whom Marg can have multiple kids to secure the Tyrells grasp on the throne? Either plan requires a few years.

[finger]

This is ludicrous. Have you ever seen red wine? It may be so called, but IT'S NOT RED!! Given the more probable state of the art in wine making, a good red wine's colour should be actually DARK CHERRY. Purple is not a clear concept with Grrm. For instance, Dany's eyes can be violet or purple. Depending on the light, I guess.

Forget about how Joff was killed. The relevant question is who ordered it.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that Tywin could easily control him. Not at all, and lesser and lesser. He counted on holding the power till Tommen came of age, teaching him proper in the meanwhile. It had to be hard to swallow, but he was well aware that Cersei had screwed it.

 

[John Suburbs]

The Tyrells would have to wait years for a secure throne either way. If they offed Joffrey as soon as Marg had a son, that's a big risk. Infant mortality is pretty common in Westeros. If Marg's son died and Joff was already dead, then the Tyrells have nothing. So why not just off Joff and marry Tommen, with whom Marg can have multiple kids to secure the Tyrells grasp on the throne? Either plan requires a few years.

Yes, but with Joff you could have one, two or even three sons in hand before Tommen is even old enough to marry. Even with Margy as queen to king Joffrey the Tyrells are still better off than with her as queen-in-waiting for King Tommen. As long as Tommen is underage, Cersei sits on the small council as his representative. If Joffrey had lived, Cersei would have been shipped off to her next husband within a fortnight and Margy would have become queen bitch in the Red Keep. Now, they're stuck with Cersei for another five years.

And if you think they worry that Joff would die and then Margy's son would die and they are left with nothing...well, Tommen could die too, and they'll be left with nothing.

The only reason the Tyrells could have for killing Joffrey in such a risky, public manner is if they were absolutely certain that Margy would not survive the night with him, and there is simply no reason to fear that. Joff is happy as a clam to be getting Margy instead of mopey, drippy Sansa. Look at his behavior toward her at the wedding. Margy is 17 and smoking hot. Think back on the head cheerleader (or the captain of the football team, depending on your gender) in your freshman year in high school. That's what Joffrey is marrying.

If Joffrey proves to be a problem for Margy at some point -- and there is no reason to think that he would; Sansa was alone and defenseless in KL and her brother was winning battles up north -- then there are many ways to off him and make it look like an accident. Killing him at the wedding is extremely high-risk for the Tyrells and gives them no appreciable benefit regarding the throne and the accumulation of political power. In fact, it was a huge setback.

[John Suburbs]

This is ludicrous. Have you ever seen red wine? It may be so called, but IT'S NOT RED!! Given the more probable state of the art in wine making, a good red wine's colour should be actually DARK CHERRY. Purple is not a clear concept with Grrm. For instance, Dany's eyes can be violet or purple. Depending on the light, I guess.

Forget about how Joff was killed. The relevant question is who ordered it.

I strongly disagree with the assertion that Tywin could easily control him. Not at all, and lesser and lesser. He counted on holding the power till Tommen came of age, teaching him proper in the meanwhile. It had to be hard to swallow, but he was well aware that Cersei had screwed it.

 

Nobody ordered it. It was an accident. The poison was in the pie, not the wine, and the real target was Tyrion, not Joffrey.

Tywin is not a kinslayer. He would never kill his own grandson. He didn't even kill his own dwarf son when it was considered acceptable to throw deformed children into the sea.

[the trees have eyes]

Yes, he's taller and he's slenderer, and maybe someday he will be as tall and strong as Jaime. But right now he is still a skinny boy and it is very unlikely that he could pick up three feet of solid gold cup, filled with wine, with one hand and then tip the thing up-end and chug the wine without spilling it all over himself. Come on.

 

 

I'm not particularly bothered about the size or weight of the chalice as that's all by the by.  It was obivously designed so that it would look impressive and that Joffrey - who is a youth not a fully grown man (absolutely no argument on this point) - would be able to handle it comfortably without embarrassing himself.   Tyrion handles it so if we want to quibble over the chalice we can look at Tyrion's pov descriptions but as I said I don't.  My only point was that you labeled Joffrey slight and skinny when in the text he is tall and strong which seems a reasonable expectation given his parentage and all that sword practice his station and societal expectations give him.

I don't buy your argument that Tyrion was the target - as the widow Sansa would be the focus of attention rather than able to slip away in the chaos following a royal assassination so I don't see how all that meticulous planning for her escape was going to bear any fruit with half the court rallying around her at the feast - but you argue your case well.  Which, ironically, is why your description of Joffrey stood out to me as it seems off the mark.

[John Suburbs]

I'm not particularly bothered about the size or weight of the chalice as that's all by the by.  It was obivously designed so that it would look impressive and that Joffrey - who is a youth not a fully grown man (absolutely no argument on this point) - would be able to handle it comfortably without embarrassing himself.   Tyrion handles it so if we want to quibble over the chalice we can look at Tyrion's pov descriptions but as I said I don't.  My only point was that you labeled Joffrey slight and skinny when in the text he is tall and strong which seems a reasonable expectation given his parentage and all that sword practice his station and societal expectations give him.

I don't buy your argument that Tyrion was the target - as the widow Sansa would be the focus of attention rather than able to slip away in the chaos following a royal assassination so I don't see how all that meticulous planning for her escape was going to bear any fruit with half the court rallying around her at the feast - but you argue your case well.  Which, ironically, is why your description of Joffrey stood out to me as it seems off the mark.

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. 

[finger]

Nobody ordered it. It was an accident. The poison was in the pie, not the wine, and the real target was Tyrion, not Joffrey.

Tywin is not a kinslayer. He would never kill his own grandson. He didn't even kill his own dwarf son when it was considered acceptable to throw deformed children into the sea.

An accident? I doubt it.

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