The Great Purple Wedding Irony: Tyrion Sabotaged His Own Trial

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Hello folks. I have been very busy at my new job since posting my giant COTF Master Plan essay a while ago, so it has been rather slow going working on my current follow up essay, which focuses on the origins of the NW and Winterfell, and what is in the lower levels of the WF crypts (spoiler: it's Night's Queen, enthroned like BR in the roots of the WF weirwood).

But it's the weekend, and I miss discussing theories with the wonderful people here, so I just wanted to do a relatively short post about the PW, because it is so ironic and funny and amusing, I want to read other people's opinions. Here we go!

The Great Irony

The irony and sabotage I am referring to is Tyrion's tragic act of pouring the last of the wine on the floor, wine that was not poisoned and could have easily been used to exonerate Tyrion! Oh my, isn’t that just so sad and ironic?

Just to drive that point home, obviously if the wine wasn’t poisoned, then everyone would assume (correctly) that the source of the poison was the pie, Tyrion’s pie, pie that Tyrion would never have poisoned in order to kill Joffrey. No one could have predicted that Joff would eat Tyrion’s pie, and so no one could have reasonably accused Tyrion of being the poisoner, regardless of any other evidence or Cersei rigging the trial. So if Tyrion had simply drank the wine instead of pouring it out, he would have been proclaimed innocent. Obviously drinking the suspicious wine would be stupid and he probably would have given it to a small animal or something first, but you get my point.

Now, I am intending for the main purpose of this thread to be to discuss that hilarious irony, and maybe look for parallels where GRRM has done similar things elsewhere in the story. But I anticipate that many people will simply want to comment and argue that, NO, the wine was poisoned. Silly silly 40K Skeletons .

Well alright then. I will briefly summarize why I personally think it was clearly the pie that was poisoned.

ETA: Just to clarify, I think the servant who was responsible for distributing the lemon cream was the poisoner. He likely spooned out Tyrion's portion of lemon cream, took the poison out of his pocket, placed the poison in the dollop of cream, and placed the dollop of cream on Tyrion's pie. And he had ample opportunity to do this because everyone was watching Joff and Marg or those thrice-damned doves.

A Comically Stupid Kingsguard Investigation

The primary piece of evidence, and really the only one we need to form the initial conclusion (that the pie was poisoned), is the KG discussion of the poison from ASOS Jaime VIII:

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"Did my brother do this thing?" he asked them bluntly. "Did Tyrion poison my nephew?"

Ser Balon shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Ser Boros made a fist. Ser Osmund gave a lazy shrug. It was Meryn Trant who finally answered. "He filled Joffrey's cup with wine. That must have been when he slipped the poison in."

"You are certain it was the wine that was poisoned?"

"What else?" said Ser Boros Blount. "The Imp emptied the dregs on the floor. Why, but to spill the wine that might have proved him guilty?"

"He knew the wine was poisoned," said Ser Meryn.

Ser Balon Swann frowned. "The Imp was not alone on the dais. Far from it. That late in the feast, we had people standing and moving about, changing places, slipping off to the privy, servants were coming and going... the king and queen had just opened the wedding pie, every eye was on them or those thrice-damned doves. No one was watching the wine cup."

"Who else was on the dais?" asked Jaime.

Ser Meryn answered. "The king's family, the bride's family, Grand Maester Pycelle, the High Septon . . ."

"There's your poisoner," suggested Ser Oswald Kettleblack with a sly grin. "Too holy by half, that old man. Never liked the look o' him, myself." He laughed.

"No," the Knight of Flowers said, unamused. "Sansa Stark was the poisoner. You all forget, my sister was drinking from that chalice as well. Sansa Stark was the only person in the hall who had reason to want Margaery dead, as well as the king. By poisoning the wedding cup, she could hope to kill both of them. And why did she run afterward, unless she was guilty?"

This is a very short conversation, and yet it is filled with problems and dumb conclusions. Additionally, we the readers know that Tyrion and Sansa are both innocent because we have their POVs, so obviously the KG are wrong here. The question is, are they also wrong about the wine being poisoned, or just the identity of the poisoner? GRRM clearly has led us to believe that they are simply wrong about Tyrion and Sansa, and that it was Olenna (and LF) who poisoned Joff. But if we really break down this comically stupid KG investigation, I personally think it is clear that GRRM has left us a glaring clue that it was actually the pie right at the beginning of their conversation.

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"You are certain it was the wine that was poisoned?"

Why have Jaime question if it was the wine unless GRRM is trying to make us readers ask the same question? In classic GRRM fashion, they never even mention that Joff ate Tyrion’s pie. So obviously, that is what we should be focusing on as clever readers.
 

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"What else?" said Ser Boros Blount. "The Imp emptied the dregs on the floor. Why, but to spill the wine that might have proved him guilty?"

"He knew the wine was poisoned," said Ser Meryn.

Now we have Tyrion’s POV, so we know this is false. Tyrion doesn’t explicitly give a reason for pouring out the wine in his thoughts, but the implication is that he assumed it was the source of the poison (never considering that he himself was the target) and so dumped it on the floor. Regardless, that line from Boros is what clues us in to the great irony: Tyrion did not spill the wine that might have proved him guilty, but instead spilled wine that would have certainly proved him innocent! And if you think about it, no one ever questions the source of the poison. Tyrion never thinks to question it as part of his defense in his trial. Hypothetically, if Tyrion had poisoned the wine and spilled the rest on the floor to cover up his crime, it would have been a pretty pointless move, and therefore that was a somewhat silly point to make by Boros.
 

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Ser Balon Swann frowned. "The Imp was not alone on the dais. Far from it. That late in the feast, we had people standing and moving about, changing places, slipping off to the privy, servants were coming and going... the king and queen had just opened the wedding pie, every eye was on them or those thrice-damned doves. No one was watching the wine cup."

"Who else was on the dais?" asked Jaime.

Ser Meryn answered. "The king's family, the bride's family, Grand Maester Pycelle, the High Septon . . ."

"There's your poisoner," suggested Ser Oswald Kettleblack with a sly grin. "Too holy by half, that old man. Never liked the look o' him, myself." He laughed.

The KG proceed to look for other suspects, but they stupidly focus on the highborn crowd and ignore the servants. This isn’t obviously stupid on an initial reread (LOL the phrase “initial reread”), because we are supposed to think that Olenna was the poisoner, and she was in fact on the dais. But the reason it is especially stupid of the KG to focus on the dais is that the true poisoner was likely the servant who placed the spoon of lemon cream on Tyrion’s pie slice. He was obviously not on the dais.

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"No," the Knight of Flowers said, unamused. "Sansa Stark was the poisoner. You all forget, my sister was drinking from that chalice as well. Sansa Stark was the only person in the hall who had reason to want Margaery dead, as well as the king. By poisoning the wedding cup, she could hope to kill both of them. And why did she run afterward, unless she was guilty?"

 

Finally, we have Loras suggesting that Sansa was the poisoner, and Jaime actually thinks it is pretty decent logic. But again, we know Loras is wrong because we have Sansa’s POV. In the end, the comically stupid KG investigation clearly implies that someone not on the dais was the poisoner, and something other than the wine (the pie) was the source of the poison.

Other Supporting Evidence

There are a number of problems with the presented version of events (Olenna poisoning the wine), and one could go into great detail and back stuff up with more quotes from the text, and other people certainly have in other threads, but I will summarize some of the key problems:

• The purported reason for Olenna killing Joff was to prevent Loras from inevitably becoming a Kingslayer, but the Tyrells were the ones who insisted Loras be made a KG as part of the betrothal deal in the first place. Specifically, Margaery claimed that Mace forced them to accept those terms before agreeing to the match. Now, you could argue that Olenna and Mace were not on the same page, but it is highly suspicious.
• The vertically challenged Olenna probably would have a ton of trouble discreetly slipping poison into a 3 foot tall chalice standing on a table. I imagine she might even have to stand on her tippy toes and reach as far as she could to drop poison into the chalice. And Mace is the one who gave Joff the chalice. This could yet again be an example of Mace and Olenna not being on the same page, but it is again suspicious.
• LF had no clear motive for killing Joff but definitely had motive for killing Tyrion (Tyrion knows about the VS dagger and is married to Sansa), and he has seemingly attempted to kill Tyrion on several occasions, the original one being pinning the VS dagger on Tyrion in his conversation with Cat in AGOT. He was also likely the one who ordered Mandon Moore to kill Tyrion in ACOK, and he may have ordered Penny to try to kill Tyrion in ADWD (recall that Penny was originally hired by LF to perform at the wedding, and we should not trust her).
• Olenna has a dubious motive for killing Joff (fear that Loras will become a Kingslayer), and she also has a decent motive to kill Tyrion. Tyrion is married to Sansa, and the Tyrells want to marry Sansa to Willas.
• Why hire the jousting dwarves? The purported reason is to make Tyrion angry, but what does that accomplish, really? Tyrion was the prime suspect because Joff ordered Tyrion to be his cupbearer, something that LF could not have predicted Joff would do. I suppose LF could have suggested to Joff that he force Tyrion to be his cupbearer during their conversation about hiring the jousting dwarves, but LF never makes this claim. The only good reason I can think of for hiring the dwarves would be to cast suspicion on Joffrey for the murder of Tyrion (LF’s intended target). And really, if Tyrion had eaten his pie and dropped dead, Joff would probably be the prime suspect. Most people know that Joff doesn’t like his uncle, and that fact was highlighted by the jousting dwarves. Why cast suspicion on Joff? IDK. Maybe they planned on blaming Joff for some reason? Maybe LF wanted to begin weakening the Lannister-Tyrell alliance and making everyone suspect Joff of avunculicide would help that effort? Or maybe they figured that no one would dare name Joff as the murderer publicly? Your guess is as good as mine.
• Why entrust the poison to Dontos? As LF says when Sansa accuses Dontos of being the poisoner, “Ser Dontos the Red was a skin of wine with legs. He could never have been trusted with a task of such enormity.” I agree. So… why did LF seemingly trust Dontos to deliver the hairnet to Sansa and make sure she wore it? Well, my theory is that the hairnet was fake poison. Either it was meant to convince Sansa of LF’s story, or (more likely) it was meant to convince people that Sansa was the poisoner… or at least that’s what he told Olenna. Framing Sansa for Tyrion’s murder would actually be a pretty good plan to free her from marriage and convince Tywin to let her marry Willas, as she would be damaged goods politically at that point (debatably), and marrying her to another Lannister would potentially be a huge scandal after she already killed one. But more importantly, there were no Lannisters left who could have consummated a marriage with Sansa (except mayhaps Tywin himself) since Tommen was too young, Jaime was in the KG, and Lancel was too weak.
• Why waste a small fortune (presumably) on an entire hairnet filled with Strangler crystals? I am assuming that every crystal would have to be poison for the purported plan to work, and the Olenna didn’t somehow super skillfully grab the one single poisoned crystal based on blueprints she studied ahead of time, or something ridiculous like that. For context, when Cressen pours out his entire supply of Strangler in ACOK, he only possesses “a dozen” crystals. We don’t know exactly how many crystals were in Sansa’s hairnet, but a dozen is definitely in the ballpark based on its description. That means there was a number of crystals in the hairnet roughly equal to a maester’s entire supply. We don’t know exactly how much that would cost to obtain, but it is definitely a lot. Of course, the counterargument is that LF could have simply robbed a maester, as other characters (including Tyrion) have done. Or LF could have even robbed Tyrion’s supply that he robbed from Pycelle. Anyways, the point is that obtaining a single crystal (which FYI we know is plenty to kill Cressen) and not giving it to Dontos but instead to a competent, sober person seems like a more achievable plan. But then again, giving Sansa a real poison hairnet may have been part of the plan told to Olenna, with the intention that they would use the hairnet as the key evidence to frame Sansa, and that would require actual poison. But, LF could have simply told Olenna the hairnet was actual poison when really it wasn’t, since LF planned on kidnapping Sansa after the murder anyways and never intended on framing her for the murder. Either way, it would probably be a good idea to give someone other than Dontos some backup poison in the form of a single crystal.

So What Actually Happened???

To summarize my theory (and to clarify, I’m only really confident that LF poisoned the pie, and much less confident on the rest of this rampant speculation):

• LF wanted to kill Tyrion because of Tyrion’s knowledge of the VS dagger and his marriage to Sansa
• Olenna wanted to kill Tyrion because of his marriage to Sansa
• LF made a plan with Olenna to assassinate Tyrion at the wedding and frame Sansa. Olenna was told to retrieve the poison from Sansa’s hairnet and hand it off to LF’s crony (either the lemon cream guy or another LF crony, but probably the lemon cream guy).
• LF’s real plan was to kidnap Sansa after the murder. And because of this, he may have simply given the poison directly to the servant and given a fake poison hairnet to Dontos. This seems like a much better idea than trusting drunken Dontos + 13-year-old girl Sansa + scheming untrustworthy Olenna to deliver the poison. Or he may have had plenty of Strangler crystals to spare after robbing a maester’s supply and given an actual poison hairnet to Dontos. Doesn’t really matter.
• Lemon cream guy poisoned Tyrion’s pie slice, but Joff hilariously ate Tyrion’s pie instead (womp womp), and Tyrion was blamed since he was Joff’s cupbearer.
• Coincidentally, this actually would have worked out great for the Tyrells, since Tyrion was supposed to be executed and Margaery could be married to Tommen instead of Joff, but LF kidnapped Sansa which probably made Olenna super duper angry.
• LF claimed it was his plan all along!

Final Thoughts

While the supporting evidence is important to examine, I really think the key to the mystery is that comically stupid KG investigation. I think GRRM clearly wrote it to imply that the pie was poisoned.

Arguably the biggest problem with this theory is that LF knew Joffrey was dead before Sansa told him anything. How could he possibly know this if he planned on killing Tyrion? There are 3 perfectly reasonable explanations:

• He heard the bells tolling. In fact, the chapter opens with the line, “Far across the city, a bell began to toll.” And we are told later in the chapter that sound carries across water. And we know from AGOT Arya V that king-death bell ringing is unique: “When the king dies, they ring every bell in the city.” This explanation is the simplest and the one I would bet on.
• LF had another crony (other than Oswell) with a skiff, who delivered news of the events ahead of Oswell and Sansa heading out to LF’s ship. Sansa and Dontos did have to take some time to escape KL secretly.
• LF received the news telepathically from BR, who could easily spied on events as Balerion the Cat, the True Ruler of KL. This is of course possible because LF’s third eye was opened after he nearly died in his duel against Brandon, and he has been acting as a BR agent for the whole story, whether he knows it or not. But in this case, I’m betting BR didn’t deliver any news because he probably only visits LF in dreams, and LF was probably awake for the whole time between Joff’s death and his conversation with Sansa.

There ya go folks! Have at it!

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

@The Fattest Leech

Since you tend to enjoy my ramblings more than most others, I am courteously alerting you to the existence of this thread. I know it has been a while since I have posted anything.  

[Unacosamedarisa]

How do you poison a pie with Strangler? What does it dissolve in? How do you ensure only that slice is poisoned? How do you guarantee that Tyrion is going to eat the pie during a 77 course wedding dinner? 

The basic premise is proving difficult to accept... so much that I don't think we can discuss any possible irony in the rest of the text, because it likely isn't intended or linked to this possible pie poisoning. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

16 minutes ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

How do you poison a pie with Strangler? What does it dissolve in? How do you ensure only that slice is poisoned? How do you guarantee that Tyrion is going to eat the pie during a 77 course wedding dinner? 

The basic premise is proving difficult to accept... so much that I don't think we can discuss any possible irony in the rest of the text, because it likely isn't intended or linked to this possible pie poisoning. 

As I pointed out, it was the lemon cream that was poisoned, not the pie itself. That's how you poison a single slice and make sure it is Tyrion's slice.

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Joffrey and Margaery joined hands to lift the greatsword and swung it down together in a silvery arc. When the piecrust broke, the doves burst forth in a swirl of white feathers, scattering in every direction, flapping for the windows and the rafters. A roar of delight went up from the benches, and the fiddlers and pipers in the gallery began to play a sprightly tune. Joff took his bride in his arms, and whirled her around merrily.

A serving man placed a slice of hot pigeon pie in front of Tyrion and covered it with a spoon of lemon cream. The pigeons were well and truly cooked in this pie, but he found them no more appetizing than the white ones fluttering about the hall. Sansa was not eating either. "You're deathly pale, my lady," Tyrion said. "You need a breath of cool air, and I need a fresh doublet." He stood and offered her his hand. "Come."

How do you guarantee Tyrion will eat the pie in a 77 course dinner? Because it isn't just 1 of 77 courses. It is ceremonial wedding pie, which is served alongside the "great pie" filled with doves. Everyone appluads the great pie, and after the doves are released the music is cued, and a sprightly tune is played! Everyone is expected to eat the pie. If you were going to choose any of the 77 courses to poison, that would be the one. In fact, here is the line from Joffrey:

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"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.

So at least according to Joffrey it is "ill luck" not to eat the pie, and the description of the ceremonial pie cutting definitely supports his claim.

And again, super ironically, it turns out to be super lucky for Tyrion that he didn't eat the pie.  

[Hugorfonics]

Im not a religious man, the seven have little meaning to me. But I could be wrong, there are heroes who have a destiny, the gods wont let Cat Jon or Brienne die. Or Tyrion. The gods chose a lesser man to die instead, they chose the king.

Theres also the whole Margery was drinking from the wine, so if Joffrey was the target then she must have known. However laughing Margery in the PW looks much different then crying Roslin in the RW.

Whats the irony though? That he doesnt want to drink backwash? Its kinda funny I guess

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Just now, Hugorfonics said:

Im not a religious man, the seven have little meaning to me. But I could be wrong, there are heroes who have a destiny, the gods wont let Cat Jon or Brienne die. Or Tyrion. The gods chose a lesser man to die instead, they chose the king.

Theres also the whole Margery was drinking from the wine, so if Joffrey was the target then she must have known. However laughing Margery in the PW looks much different then crying Roslin in the RW.

Whats the irony though? That he doesnt want to drink backwash? Its kinda funny I guess

Yes, Margaery is some kind of superb actress and/or sociopath if she knew Joff was going to be poisoned.

The irony is that Tyrion could have proved himself innocent if he hadn't poured the wine out onto the floor. He instead should have demanded that they test the wine for poison, which probably would have involved having a dog drink it or something equivalent.

[Unacosamedarisa]

3 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

As I pointed out, it was the lemon cream that was poisoned, not the pie itself. That's how you poison a single slice and make sure it is Tyrion's slice.

But again, how do you poison just the lemon cream that gets placed on Tyrion's pie? You could take the Strangler crystal, drop it into the cream pot and let it dissolve... but then wouldn't that poison all of the cream on all of the pies? Also, you've got to include an extra person in this setup... a serving wench or similar, who gets passed the crystal by Olenna, drops it in the cream, stirs it up, and makes sure only that cream makes it to Tyrion. Also, there's this, from the text...

8 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

A serving man placed a slice of hot pigeon pie in front of Tyrion and covered it with a spoon of lemon cream.

So, the serving man puts Tyrion's pie down and then covers it in cream, presumably from a pot or bowl that isn't exclusively for Tyrion's cream only. If the cream was poisoned, you're either having that poisoned cream doled out to others, or run the risk of others being poisoned (someone stops the passing serving man to ask for more cream). 

With the wine being poisoned, it's all covered already... we've seen the Strangler work in wine before (ACoK prologue), we can trace its path from LF to Dontos to Sansa to Olenna, and then Olenna/Garlan drops it in the wine while everyone's occupied with the pie cutting ceremony. Margaery drinks from the chalice all night, but then either knows when the poisoning will happen, or gets a signal from Olenna, and knows not to drink from it again... lends the Tyrell's some perfect deniability ("Why would we poison the wine and risk killing one of our own?"). 

This isn't even getting in to the other problems (like, how did LF know the plan failed and Joffrey died? Oh, they rang the bells? They also rang the bells when Tywin died). 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Just now, Unacosamedarisa said:

But again, how do you poison just the lemon cream that gets placed on Tyrion's pie? You could take the Strangler crystal, drop it into the cream pot and let it dissolve... but then wouldn't that poison all of the cream on all of the pies? Also, you've got to include an extra person in this setup... a serving wench or similar, who gets passed the crystal by Olenna, drops it in the cream, stirs it up, and makes sure only that cream makes it to Tyrion. Also, there's this, from the text...

So, the serving man puts Tyrion's pie down and then covers it in cream, presumably from a pot or bowl that isn't exclusively for Tyrion's cream only. If the cream was poisoned, you're either having that poisoned cream doled out to others, or run the risk of others being poisoned (someone stops the passing serving man to ask for more cream). 

With the wine being poisoned, it's all covered already... we've seen the Strangler work in wine before (ACoK prologue), we can trace its path from LF to Dontos to Sansa to Olenna, and then Olenna/Garlan drops it in the wine while everyone's occupied with the pie cutting ceremony. Margaery drinks from the chalice all night, but then either knows when the poisoning will happen, or gets a signal from Olenna, and knows not to drink from it again... lends the Tyrell's some perfect deniability ("Why would we poison the wine and risk killing one of our own?"). 

This isn't even getting in to the other problems (like, how did LF know the plan failed and Joffrey died? Oh, they rang the bells? They also rang the bells when Tywin died). 

I think it would be super easy to poison Tyrion's lemon cream and his alone: Spoon out Tyrion's portion, take the crystal out of your pocket, place the crystal inside the dollop of cream with your finger, and put the dollop of cream on the pie. You wouldn't even have to have superb sleight-of-hand skills, because as Ser Balon told us, "the king and queen had just opened the wedding pie, every eye was on them or those thrice-damned doves." So no need to poison the whole pot of cream, as that would poison multiple people as you pointed out.

And I already addressed how LF could have known the plan failed with not just 1, but 3 perfectly reasonable (albeit apparently unconvincing) explanations.  

Yes, the wine could have been poisoned. It's not impossible. Obviously the presented explanation has to mostly make sense, otherwise there would be no puzzle and asoiaf would generally be more boring. That's just my opinion.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

I'm not sure I want to dive into this particular episode of CSI: King's Landing, but couldn't the poison be dissolved in water first and then dripped onto Tyrions pie/lemon cream? People were distracted and it wouldn't be too hard.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Just now, Trefayne said:

I'm not sure I want to dive into this particular episode of CSI: King's Landing, but couldn't the poison be dissolved in water first and then dripped onto Tyrions pie/lemon cream? People were distracted and it wouldn't be too hard.

Also a good point. Although, to play devil's advocate, it is heavily implied that Tyrion was directly watching/observing when the pie was placed in front of him, so I doubt the servant would have been able to drip the poison water at that point without Tyrion noticing. But I bet you could dissolve the poison in water and drip it onto the lemon cream before placing the cream on the pie if dissolving it is really an issue.

Actually, that is a really important to make I think. Because while I personally think you could probably just put the crystal in the spoonful of cream and it would dissolve adequately, others will certainly be more skeptical. So to those skeptics I will now say, the lemon cream guy could have dissolved the poison in liquid first, then added the liquid to the spoonful of cream.  

[Davjos]

14 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

I think it would be super easy to poison Tyrion's lemon cream and his alone: Spoon out Tyrion's portion, take the crystal out of your pocket, place the crystal inside the dollop of cream with your finger, and put the dollop of cream on the pie. You wouldn't even have to have superb sleight-of-hand skills, because as Ser Balon told us, "the king and queen had just opened the wedding pie, every eye was on them or those thrice-damned doves." So no need to poison the whole pot of cream, as that would poison multiple people as you pointed out.

 

I strongly doubt a crystal dissolves in an unstirred, cold (presumably) dollop of cream. If you want Tyrion to choke on the crystal itself, not on the poison, this might work. Of course this is (logical) speculation but still.

EDIT: @40 Thousand Skeletons. Sorry had not read your last reply. Let's ignore the dissolving of the poison.

Also, Olenna has obviously a lot more motivation. Tommen is a docile king, Joffrey is an abusive, disgusting little beast. Getting rid of him at that point makes some sense. 

One more reason I doubt this version of the story is the tGoHH in ASOS Arya 8

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I dreamt of a maid at a feast with purple serpents in her hair, venom dripping from their fangs.

The hair net was clearly poisonous. And it was 'dripping' in venom, hinting at a 'bite' that just happened. This to me says: Sansa had poison in her hair and that poison was used. So the more logical way of poisoning Tyrion, not taking it from Sansa's hair, is improbable. 

 

[Unacosamedarisa]

1 minute ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Spoon out Tyrion's portion, take the crystal out of your pocket, place the crystal inside the dollop of cream with your finger, and put the dollop of cream on the pie.

An action Tyrion would have seen, because Tyrion watches the serving man serving the pie...

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A serving man placed a slice of hot pigeon pie in front of Tyrion and covered it with a spoon of lemon cream.

If he had fidgeted around in his pockets and dropped something into the cream, Tyrion would probably have noticed. 

Also, although we don't know every detail about the Strangler, we're only told, specifically, in ACoK prologue that it's dissolved in wine to make it look like someone choked on food. I would speculate this is because of its colour... a deep purple, which is disguised in red wine. 

13 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

And I already addressed how LF could have known the plan failed with not just 1, but 3 perfectly reasonable (albeit apparently unconvincing) explanations.

Only 1 of these is plausible, that he heard the bells. Having someone else row out to tell him is something we have no evidence, clues or hints towards... GRRM can't expect us to put the pieces together if he doesn't actually give us those pieces. As for the Bloodraven telepathy, I'm not going to bother with that. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Just now, Davjos said:

I strongly doubt a crystal dissolves in an unstirred, cold (presumably) dollop of cream. If you want Tyrion to choke on the crystal itself, not on the poison, this might work. Of course this is (logical) speculation but still.

LOL, see my post from like 2 seconds before you posted which I assume you did not see yet  

1 minute ago, Davjos said:

Also, Olenna has obviously a lot more motivation. Tommen is a docile king, Joffrey is an abusive, disgusting little beast. Getting rid of him at that point makes some sense. 

For sure, I definitely concede that point

2 minutes ago, Davjos said:

One more reason I doubt this version of the story is the tGoHH in ASOS Arya 8

The hair net was clearly poisonous. And it was 'dripping' in venom, hinting at a 'bite' that just happened. This to me says: Sansa had poison in her hair and that poison was used. So the more logical way of poisoning Tyrion, not taking it from Sansa's hair, is improbable. 

That is an excellent point, and I think you are almost certainly correct on the interpretation of the language there. However, I am extremely skeptical on the validity of any and all green dreams/prophecies/visions/hokus pokus. I still think it likely that LF would have given some backup poison to lemon cream guy(or at least that would be the smart thing to do and more consistent with his character), but if the hairnet did have real poison then it doesn't matter much and we would never find out, because on a meta level it is still a story and GRRM has 100% certainty of all outcomes that he decides.

[The Fattest Leech]

1 hour ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

@The Fattest Leech

Since you tend to enjoy my ramblings more than most others, I am courteously alerting you to the existence of this thread. I know it has been a while since I have posted anything.  

Well hey there stranger , good to hear from you. I will certainly pop back in to give this a closer look later this evening after the rest of the Leechie family heads out. Thanks for the tag. 

And I do love your “ramblings” 

[Three-Fingered Pete]

6 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Actually, that is a really important to make I think. Because while I personally think you could probably just put the crystal in the spoonful of cream and it would dissolve adequately, others will certainly be more skeptical. So to those skeptics I will now say, the lemon cream guy could have dissolved the poison in liquid first, then added the liquid to the spoonful of cream.  

All you would need is a brass pipette and a rat's bladder. It could easily be concealed under a sleeve or even in the palm.

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

Just now, Trefayne said:

All you would need is a brass pipette and a rat's bladder. It could easily be concealed under a sleeve or even in the palm.

LOL agreed!  

[Unacosamedarisa]

6 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

But I bet you could dissolve the poison in water and drip it onto the lemon cream before placing the cream on the pie if dissolving it is really an issue.

But this still has the problem of limiting the poison to Tyrion's plate, and Tyrion not seeing this. So, the serving man has dissolved the Strangler in water... If he mixes that with the cream before bringing it out to serve people, then people other than Tyrion will be poisoned by it. If he scoops up Tyrion's cream, and poisons it before dropping it onto Tyrion's plate, Tyrion is gonna notice him fidgeting about getting the water/Strangler mix out and putting it on/in the cream. 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

12 minutes ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

An action Tyrion would have seen, because Tyrion watches the serving man serving the pie...

If he had fidgeted around in his pockets and dropped something into the cream, Tyrion would probably have noticed. 

 

8 minutes ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

But this still has the problem of limiting the poison to Tyrion's plate, and Tyrion not seeing this. So, the serving man has dissolved the Strangler in water... If he mixes that with the cream before bringing it out to serve people, then people other than Tyrion will be poisoned by it. If he scoops up Tyrion's cream, and poisons it before dropping it onto Tyrion's plate, Tyrion is gonna notice him fidgeting about getting the water/Strangler mix out and putting it on/in the cream. 

OK, let me be even more specific... lemon cream guy, while standing 20 feet away behind Tyrion completely out of his view, could have placed the poison in/on the spoonful of cream (either in crystal or pre-dissolved form), and then proceeded to serve the pie and cream to Tyrion before serving everyone else, without contaminating the potful of cream with poison and without Tyrion seeing anything.

12 minutes ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

Also, although we don't know every detail about the Strangler, we're only told, specifically, in ACoK prologue that it's dissolved in wine to make it look like someone choked on food. I would speculate this is because of its colour... a deep purple, which is disguised in red wine. 

Yes red wine would possibly be better because of the color. Although, we don't really know how much it changes the color of something once dissolved. I would guess not very much since it is just a tiny seed-sized crystal. But on the other hand, the ACOK prologue, as you pointed out, tells us it is supposed to disguise the poison effects as choking, which would arguably be much more reasonable if you put the poison in food instead of wine, if the opportunity presents itself (Cressen had no such opportunity).

In fact, if you compare Cressen's death to Joffrey's death, the time it took for the poison to affect Cressen actually implies that Joff couldn't have been poisoned by the wine, because he carried on a brief conversation ("ill luck not to eat the pie, yada yada") after drinking some of the allegedly poisoned wine. By contrast, the timing (of Joff losing the ability to speak) based on the poison being in the pie is a perfect match to the timing presented with Cressen's death. Here's the text from both scenes to compare.

Here's Cressen's death:

Quote

His hands were shaking, but he made himself be strong. A maester of the Citadel must not be afraid. The wine was sour on his tongue. He let the empty cup drop from his fingers to shatter on the floor. "He does have power here, my lord," the woman said. "And fire cleanses." At her throat, the ruby shimmered redly.

Cressen tried to reply, but his words caught in his throat. His cough became a terrible thin whistle as he strained to suck in air. Iron fingers tightened round his neck. As he sank to his knees, still he shook his head, denying her, denying her power, denying her magic, denying her god. And the cowbells peeled in his antlers, singing fool, fool, fool while the red woman looked down on him in pity, the candle flames dancing in her red red eyes.

So Cressen drinks, and the poison takes almost immediate effect. He can't even get a single word out in response to Mel's brief sentence.

And here is Joffrey:

Quote

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 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.

Margaery looked at him with concern. "Your Grace?"

So if the wine was poisoned and the timing is the same, Joff never should have been able to say, "My uncle hasn't eaten his pigeon pie. It's ill luck not to eat the pie." Or at least he shouldn't have been able to get those words out without coughing.

However, if the pie was the source of the poison, then the timing between the 2 scenes of the 2 men losing the ability to speak matches perfectly. The poison begins to take effect immediately after Joff eats the pie.

21 minutes ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

Only 1 of these is plausible, that he heard the bells. Having someone else row out to tell him is something we have no evidence, clues or hints towards... GRRM can't expect us to put the pieces together if he doesn't actually give us those pieces. As for the Bloodraven telepathy, I'm not going to bother with that. 

LOL bells it is then!  

Again, unique-death-of-a-king-ring-every-bell-in-the-city bells as described by Arya in AGOT. Yes, bells would ring for Tyrion's death, but not every bell in the city, at least according to that conversation in AGOT.

[Unacosamedarisa]

1 hour ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

So at least according to Joffrey it is "ill luck" not to eat the pie

But Tyrion wasn't going to eat the pie, until Joffrey intervened, and ate the pie himself... Tyrion didn't eat any pie. It's a pretty crap plan that relies on Tyrion eating the pie, ne?

But a plan that relies on Joffrey drinking wine, at his own wedding, when he's going to be making toasts and the like, and is probably being encouraged by Margaery? Seems a bit more solid to me. 

Also, why would LF encourage Joffrey to hire the dwarf jousters, if not to cause the scene between Joffrey and Tyrion, just before the poisoning, thus placing the blame squarely on Tyrion infront of the whole wedding party? 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

23 minutes ago, The Fattest Leech said:

Well hey there stranger , good to hear from you. I will certainly pop back in to give this a closer look later this evening after the rest of the Leechie family heads out. Thanks for the tag. 

And I do love your “ramblings” 

Since I have never seen pics of your family, I am picturing you as a human person, married to a giant anthropomorphized leech, with little leech children LOL 

Lookin forward to it