The Great Purple Wedding Irony: Tyrion Sabotaged His Own Trial

[John Suburbs]

6 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

This is important. The timing discrepancy is not based on number of words on the page or what's happening in Cressen's thoughts or anything like that. It is based on the dialogue, which is very clear in both scenes.

Exactly, but I think most wine fans acknowledge that Cressen's timeline is in fact much shorter than Joffrey's. The mistake they make is that they then pull any old excuse off the top of their heads and call it case closed.

Example: the idea that Cressen is old and therefore more easily susceptible to poison. Hogwash, there is no appreciable difference between the tissue of the soft palate or the muscles in the throat in an old person vs. a young person.

How about that Cressen had an empty stomach? Also nonsense. The strangler clearly works on contact with the throat. It does not bypass the throat, enter the stomach, become absorbed in the bloodstream and then collect in the very throat that it passed on the way to the stomach. If that is the way it worked, it would take several minutes to take affect, not several seconds.

Third excuse: that there are different stranglers, different batches, of different potency, etc... Thoroughly debunked by the text. This is the most lethal poison described in the book. Extremely expensive and rather difficult to find. Only a few people even know how to make it, and they are members of ancient orders who spend their entire lives perfecting their craft. The recipe calls for an exact collection of ingredients run through a time-consuming and laborious process that has been honed for thousands of years, so there is no reason to think there would be such wildly varying results. If there were, then nobody would give this poison a second thought, particularly when the target is a king or powerful lord because you could never be certain that the dose is strong enough to actually kill the person or too strong so that a tiny flake turns an ordinary amount of wine virtually black, which would have been the case had Cressen's wine been five or six times more concentrated than Joffrey's.

 

[John Suburbs]

6 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

This is important. The timing discrepancy is not based on number of words on the page or what's happening in Cressen's thoughts or anything like that. It is based on the dialogue, which is very clear in both scenes.

But do you get my point about the lemon cream? There is no reason to believe that Lady O would risk bringing anyone else in on this plot, no matter how trusted they are, when she can easily determine ahead of time which pie is going to Tyrion and then poison it herself the moment the doves take flight.

All that's needed to fill in the blanks is to think that Lady O does what she always does -- hectors people to get her way -- so that she can arrange this part of the ceremony to her liking. And that's assuming that it hasn't already been planned exactly this way to begin with, since this is the easiest and most efficient way to serve pies to the head table.

[Unacosamedarisa]

How about, Joffrey was drinking from a large chalice, with a lot of wine. Therefore the strangler was more diluted, took longer to take effect. 

Cressen was drinking from a normal cup, that was only half full. Therefore the strangler was more concentrated, took effect more quickly. 

4 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

Hogwash, there is no appreciable difference between the tissue of the soft palate or the muscles in the throat in an old person vs. a young person.

And gold can't be melted in a Dothraki soup pot... didn't stop George writing Viserys' death the way he did. Accepted wisdom is youth provides a bulwark against things. 

[Three-Fingered Pete]

1 hour ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

How about, Joffrey was drinking from a large chalice, with a lot of wine. Therefore the strangler was more diluted, took longer to take effect. 

Cressen was drinking from a normal cup, that was only half full. Therefore the strangler was more concentrated, took effect more quickly. 

I tried this argument earlier, they didn't buy it.

This thread reminds me of this conversation:

Which makes GRRM the

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

But do you get my point about the lemon cream? There is no reason to believe that Lady O would risk bringing anyone else in on this plot, no matter how trusted they are, when she can easily determine ahead of time which pie is going to Tyrion and then poison it herself the moment the doves take flight.

All that's needed to fill in the blanks is to think that Lady O does what she always does -- hectors people to get her way -- so that she can arrange this part of the ceremony to her liking. And that's assuming that it hasn't already been planned exactly this way to begin with, since this is the easiest and most efficient way to serve pies to the head table.

If Lady O is orchestrating events, then yes I think it makes sense for her to not include lemon cream guy in the plot, and poisoning Tyrion's individual pie slice is not unreasonable. I personally lean toward LF being the main person in charge of the murder, and since he is not there and has no family members there, he would need to rely on a trusted/extremely well paid servant to deliver the poison if he isn't simply trusting Lady O to carry it out for him. And if that is the case, I think the lemon cream would be his best option/easier to poison than the actual pie, and lemons are obviously a significant thing in asoiaf, so the mere fact that it is lemon cream clues us in that we may want to pay attention to it.

Either way, I am quite convinced it was the pie based on the oversimplified logic I outlined somewhere earlier in the thread: the source of the poison is clearly ambiguous, we are told explicitly it was the wine, Jaime explicitly questions if it was the wine, and the comically stupid KG fail to answer his question by never even discussing the possibility of the pie, therefore it was the pie. Because that is how GRRM writes.

Everything else is just icing on the cake... or should I say... lemon cream on the pie 

[John Suburbs]

 

Quote

I didn't say he wasn't brave. Just duplicitous.

If he uses poison he is a coward. It is literally the weapon of women, cravens and eunuchs.

2 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

Against the King? Are you serious? He should just stab the King? 

He should challenge the king, and fight his champion if necessary. That's what a true knight would do.

2 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

It also doesn't state that she did have a part in it. That's my point. The text only says Cersei arranged the wedding and the feast. You are the one claiming that Olenna did have a part in it... but the text doesn't show that. Your notion that Olenna organised the pies is fanfiction. 

It also doesn't state the Garlen dropped the poison, and yet that is your story despite copious evidence to the contrary. So what you have is fanfic.

But the text does provide copious evidence that Lady Olenna hectors people to get her way, all the time. So my contention is eminently plausible, while yours is utterly contradicted by the text. Advantage: pie.

2 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

How about, Joffrey was drinking from a large chalice, with a lot of wine. Therefore the strangler was more diluted, took longer to take effect. 

Cressen was drinking from a normal cup, that was only half full. Therefore the strangler was more concentrated, took effect more quickly. 

First of all, the text clearly states that Joffrey's wine was "deep purple" while Cressen doesn't notice anything unusual about his half-swallow at all. So since your contention is that nothing is possible unless it is explicitly stated in the text, then Joffrey's was more concentrated.

Secondly, simple chemistry is enough to debunk this claim. The strangler is a contact poison: it hits the throat and goes to work directly. It does not accumulate in the throat through the stomach and bloodstream. With this undisputable fact firmly in hand, we can then conclude that relative concentration of the strangler in wine or any other solution would not speed up or delay its reaction to the body, it would only strengthen or weaken the affect. Let's apply this to a known substance that works on contact: ammonia. If you were to drink a straight shot of ammonia, it would burn you instantly and probably kill you. If you were to pour the shot into a large glass of water and then drink it, it would still burn you but not as badly, and you might even survive. If you were to place a tiny drop of ammonia in the water, you wouldn't notice the burning at all, but then it doesn't reconcentrate itself inside you body to then come back and burn your throat. This is simply not possible.

Any strangler that did not immediately penetrate Joffrey's soft palate would be washed into his stomach. It would not simply hang around his throat waiting for its turn. Ironically, you can make an argument of a delayed reaction by suspending the poison in a thick viscous substance like pie filling, since this would cling somewhat to Joffrey's throat and would allow for a more gradual penetration of his soft palate. But the effect would be inconsequential, fractions of a second.

2 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

And gold can't be melted in a Dothraki soup pot... didn't stop George writing Viserys' death the way he did. Accepted wisdom is youth provides a bulwark against things. 

Gold can most certainly be melted in an iron pot sitting in a large fire. Gold melts at about 2000⁰F. The average temperature of an open flame is about 1600⁰F. Iron maintains its integrity well past 3000⁰F and has the ability to absorb heat and grow hotter the longer it is exposed. So it would take only a few minutes at best to melt pure gold in an iron cauldron that is sitting directly in a large firepit.

The very medallions that Drogo used on Viserys had to be melted and shaped into medallions in the first place. How do you supposed they managed that feat if not with fire?

[John Suburbs]

1 hour ago, Trefayne said:

I tried this argument earlier, they didn't buy it.

Because it doesn't hold up to either the text or to real-world facts. Joffrey's wine was deep purple, Cressen's was not.

If Cressen's wine is acting five to six times faster that Joffrey's, and this is due to his being the more concentrated and Joffrey's wine is already deep purple, then logic dictates that Cressen's wine would have to be five or six shades darker than deep purple, which in my book puts it at almost black. So why on earth would anyone want to use this poison on a high-value target like a king or high priestess if just a tiny flake is enough to turn an ordinary amount of wine nearly black? How would you possibly expect your victim not to notice this dramatic change?

[Unacosamedarisa]

7 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

The very medallions that Drogo used on Viserys had to be melted and shaped into medallions in the first place. How do you supposed they managed that feat if not with fire?

In a kiln, not a Dothraki soup pot. Unless you expect me to believe they cook their soup at 2000 degrees Farenheit. Which means they don't eat their soup, they inhale it as vapour. 

7 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

He should challenge the king, and fight his champion if necessary. That's what a true knight would do.

This is absolutely laughable. For the Tyrells to maintain their alliance with the Lannisters, one of them should challenge Marg's betrothed, because they think he's a shit and will abuse her, kill him, and then just expect everything to go on as normal and expect Tommen and Marg to marry?

If you expect me to take this sort of nonsense seriously, I'm done... you can't be reasoned with. 

[John Suburbs]

45 minutes ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

If Lady O is orchestrating events, then yes I think it makes sense for her to not include lemon cream guy in the plot, and poisoning Tyrion's individual pie slice is not unreasonable. I personally lean toward LF being the main person in charge of the murder, and since he is not there and has no family members there, he would need to rely on a trusted/extremely well paid servant to deliver the poison if he isn't simply trusting Lady O to carry it out for him. And if that is the case, I think the lemon cream would be his best option/easier to poison than the actual pie, and lemons are obviously a significant thing in asoiaf, so the mere fact that it is lemon cream clues us in that we may want to pay attention to it.

Either way, I am quite convinced it was the pie based on the oversimplified logic I outlined somewhere earlier in the thread: the source of the poison is clearly ambiguous, we are told explicitly it was the wine, Jaime explicitly questions if it was the wine, and the comically stupid KG fail to answer his question by never even discussing the possibility of the pie, therefore it was the pie. Because that is how GRRM writes.

Everything else is just icing on the cake... or should I say... lemon cream on the pie 

But we know that it's Lady O who palms the crystal off the hairnet. Why would he trust her with this delicate operation but not to tuck it into the pie when the servant is looking up at the pigeons, and that's even if it's in the servants hands at this point? Why involve her at all and bother with this silly hairnet business when you can just have your trusted servant do the entire deed?

I know it's popular, but this whole trusted servant idea is full of problems. This isn't just delivering boxes to maesters or listening to whisper through the walls; this is the most serious, consequential thing that either of them, that anyone, has done in the story, and the price of getting caught is the removal of your head from your body -- and even that will come as a huge relief to the suffering that you've just gone through.

So imagine yourself as this trusted servant. You are the sole possessor of the knowledge that could get your lord or lady horribly killed, and yet they can get virtually anyone to serve them pies. Would you be feeling comfortable right now?

Plus, we have the fact that the lemon cream is white or pale yellow, so a dissolving purple crystal is sure to become obvious at some point and they don't really know how long it will sit there before Tyrion takes his one and only bite. Meanwhile, pigeon pie is dark brown, even purplish, so it can hide the poison quite well even if it's fully dissolved. I think this also jams people up with the pie theory because they imagine pigeon pie looks like chicken pot pie -- all white meat and creamy yellow filling. But it's not. Pigeon is very dark, gamey and oily. It's quite disgusting actually.

[Three-Fingered Pete]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Because it doesn't hold up to either the text or to real-world facts. Joffrey's wine was deep purple, Cressen's was not.

If Cressen's wine is acting five to six times faster that Joffrey's, and this is due to his being the more concentrated and Joffrey's wine is already deep purple, then logic dictates that Cressen's wine would have to be five or six shades darker than deep purple, which in my book puts it at almost black. So why on earth would anyone want to use this poison on a high-value target like a king or high priestess if just a tiny flake is enough to turn an ordinary amount of wine nearly black? How would you possibly expect your victim not to notice this dramatic change?

I can't believe I'm diving back into this, but...

 

First of all you're relying on a notoriously unreliable writer to form your notions of dosage, quality of ingredients and small details like colors. He's inconsistant on that front:

Quote

ACoK- Prologue

 

... On the bottom shelf behind a row of salves in squat clay jars he found a vial of indigo glass, no larger than his little finger. It rattled when he shook it. Cressen blew away a layer of dust and carried it back to his table. Collapsing into his chair, he pulled the stopper and spilled out the vial’s contents. A dozen crystals, no larger than seeds, rattled across the parchment he’d been reading. They shone like jewels in the candlelight, so purple that the maester found himself thinking that he had never truly seen the color before.

The chain around his throat felt very heavy. He touched one of the crystals lightly with the tip of his little finger. Such a small thing to hold the power of life and death. It was made from a certain plant that grew only on the islands of the Jade Sea, half a world away. The leaves had to be aged, and soaked in a wash of limes and sugar water and certain rare spices from the Summer Isles. Afterward they could be discarded, but the potion must be thickened with ash and allowed to crystallize. The process was slow and difficult, the necessaries costly and hard to acquire. The alchemists of Lys knew the way of it, though, and the Faceless Men of Braavos… and the maesters of his order as well, though it was not something talked about beyond the walls of the Citadel. All the world knew that a maester forged his silver link when he learned the art of healing — but the world preferred to forget that men who knew how to heal also knew how to kill.

Cressen no longer recalled the name the Asshai’i gave the leaf, or the Lysene poisoners the crystal. In the Citadel, it was simply called the strangler. Dissolved in wine, it would make the muscles of a man’s throat clench tighter than any fist, shutting off his windpipe. They said a victim’s face turned as purple as the little crystal seed from which his death was grown, but so too did a man choking on a morsel of food.

Here is described the basic process and result of the chemistry. It is clear that the Strangler is hard and expensive to produce, subject to many variables, including the quality of and/or dilution of ingredients to save money on the part of the producer. We can assume Cressen produced the poison himself, since he reminds the reader of the lethal abilities he possesses. Being a proud maester of the Citadel, he made it correctly and by the proper instructions provided to reach the correct potency.

But Later:

Quote

The maester found the crystals where he had left them, and scooped them off the parchment. Cressen owned no hollow rings, such as the poisoners of Lys were said to favor, but a myriad of pockets great and small were sewn inside the loose sleeves of his robe. He secreted the strangler seeds in one of them...

He grabs the crystals and there is no indication of any modification to them or the time to do so.

Then:

Quote

Ser Davos’s cup was before him, still half-full of sour red. He found a hard flake of crystal in his sleeve, held it tight between thumb and forefinger as he reached for the cup.

The seeds magically turn into flakes!

And at the end:

Quote

“As you will.” Melisandre of Asshai took the cup from his hands and drank long and deep. There was only half a swallow of wine remaining when she offered it back to him. “And now you.”

We all can seem to agree on one thing - The poison is powerful.

But, Cressen poisoned a half cup of wine to begin with, so around 3-5 ounces of liquid, with a very powerful dose (even if we ignore the seed/flake inconsistency). He was left with half a swallow, so about and ounce or so. The text makes no mention of the wine turning purple or any other color at all and it is not mentioned in Cressens ruminations on the subject, only that "a victim’s face turned as purple as the little crystal seed from which his death was grown".

I would suspect, but can't prove, that the red/purple wine thing in the PW text could be attributed to GRRM not paying too close attention. We don't know that all that was written at once. He could have stopped and restarted weeks or months later on that chapter.

And on the dilution thing... I can't claim to be a chemist, but from what I remember from my HS chemistry, when you dissolve something in solution usually the more solution there is, the more dilution there is. That's simple physics.

What this comes down to is this: If the wedding chalice had more volume of liquid in it and we assume that LF/Olenna's source of the poison wasn't as good as Cressen or they short changed LF/Olenna as greedy, underhanded folks are wont to do, we can account for the apparent time differential in their reactions to the poison.

 

 

[40 Thousand Skeletons]

3 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

But we know that it's Lady O who palms the crystal off the hairnet. Why would he trust her with this delicate operation but not to tuck it into the pie when the servant is looking up at the pigeons, and that's even if it's in the servants hands at this point? Why involve her at all and bother with this silly hairnet business when you can just have your trusted servant do the entire deed?

I know it's popular, but this whole trusted servant idea is full of problems. This isn't just delivering boxes to maesters or listening to whisper through the walls; this is the most serious, consequential thing that either of them, that anyone, has done in the story, and the price of getting caught is the removal of your head from your body -- and even that will come as a huge relief to the suffering that you've just gone through.

So imagine yourself as this trusted servant. You are the sole possessor of the knowledge that could get your lord or lady horribly killed, and yet they can get virtually anyone to serve them pies. Would you be feeling comfortable right now?

Plus, we have the fact that the lemon cream is white or pale yellow, so a dissolving purple crystal is sure to become obvious at some point and they don't really know how long it will sit there before Tyrion takes his one and only bite. Meanwhile, pigeon pie is dark brown, even purplish, so it can hide the poison quite well even if it's fully dissolved. I think this also jams people up with the pie theory because they imagine pigeon pie looks like chicken pot pie -- all white meat and creamy yellow filling. But it's not. Pigeon is very dark, gamey and oily. It's quite disgusting actually.

Well LF has a million friends in KL, since he hired commoners to fill every position in the economy he had oversight over. I don't think LF would put such pressure on a random pie server. I think he would plant a competent, loyal, motivated ally to carry out the deed, and I don't doubt LF had the power to pull that off. So I really see no problem with trusting lemon cream guy to get the job done.

Why involve Olenna at all, and why bother with the silly hairnet? That's a great question and I really don't know. The hairnet itself seems to be for Olenna's sake, since the purpose was to frame Sansa which only would have happened if LF didn't kidnap her which was obviously his plan all along. And to your credit that does point more to Olenna being the one in charge of the plan. Mmmmm... Needs more thought... and I need to have some pie with wine I think...

[Back door hodor]

On 8/2/2018 at 1:25 PM, John Suburbs said:

No prob. All I suggest is that you look at the actual facts of the case, and when you make an assumption to try and explain why a certain fact might not be real, test it against other known facts or logical deductions of human behavior.

Yea man, no disrespect or hostility meant, was typing a much longer response and had a feeling like I had done this before, so I just decided to leave this one to someone else haha

[Ygrain]

Sigh. Nihil novum...

The book states that the strangler is used dissolved in wine, so let's disregard it. The author speaks about justification and redemption for the murder of a 13-year-old tyrant, but that doesn't mean a thing.

 

On 7/30/2018 at 7:14 PM, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Except that GRRM was being a bit disingenuous there. He claims that the "careful reader" comes to the conclusion that Olenna poisoned the wine via hairnet. That's bullshit. A stupid reader would easily draw that conclusion because LF straight up told us that's what happened. You say he wanted us to figure it out but that's wrong. He explicitly spelled it out for us. I really think this interview is irrelevant.

 

On 8/1/2018 at 12:07 AM, John Suburbs said:

My favorite part of that quote is where he says: "In the books — and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal — the conclusion that the careful reader draws..."

But why look at everything that Martin says when you can just cherry-pick part of the quote and build an unshakeable belief around that?

Ya know what's disingenious? Ignoring all the previous discussions, and there have been tons of them in which both of you participated, where it has been stated multiple times that the exact logistics of the poisoning hasn't been revealed, because, as stated in the OP, Olenna is "vertically challenged" and couldn't drop the strangler into the chalice on her own. It's pretty much double standards, claiming that she absolutely couldn't have poisoned the wine due to her height, yet be perfectly alright with a patsy who poisoned the cream/pie.

[John Suburbs]

20 hours ago, Trefayne said:

I can't believe I'm diving back into this, but...

 

First of all you're relying on a notoriously unreliable writer to form your notions of dosage, quality of ingredients and small details like colors. He's inconsistant on that front:

Here is described the basic process and result of the chemistry. It is clear that the Strangler is hard and expensive to produce, subject to many variables, including the quality of and/or dilution of ingredients to save money on the part of the producer. We can assume Cressen produced the poison himself, since he reminds the reader of the lethal abilities he possesses. Being a proud maester of the Citadel, he made it correctly and by the proper instructions provided to reach the correct potency.

But Later:

He grabs the crystals and there is no indication of any modification to them or the time to do so.

Then:

The seeds magically turn into flakes!

And at the end:

We all can seem to agree on one thing - The poison is powerful.

But, Cressen poisoned a half cup of wine to begin with, so around 3-5 ounces of liquid, with a very powerful dose (even if we ignore the seed/flake inconsistency). He was left with half a swallow, so about and ounce or so. The text makes no mention of the wine turning purple or any other color at all and it is not mentioned in Cressens ruminations on the subject, only that "a victim’s face turned as purple as the little crystal seed from which his death was grown".

I would suspect, but can't prove, that the red/purple wine thing in the PW text could be attributed to GRRM not paying too close attention. We don't know that all that was written at once. He could have stopped and restarted weeks or months later on that chapter.

And on the dilution thing... I can't claim to be a chemist, but from what I remember from my HS chemistry, when you dissolve something in solution usually the more solution there is, the more dilution there is. That's simple physics.

What this comes down to is this: If the wedding chalice had more volume of liquid in it and we assume that LF/Olenna's source of the poison wasn't as good as Cressen or they short changed LF/Olenna as greedy, underhanded folks are wont to do, we can account for the apparent time differential in their reactions to the poison.

 

 

Nobody would use this poison if they had no way of knowing what dosage is necessary, how much wine it needs, how long it takes to work, or even if it works at all. This formula has been perfected over thousands of years by orders of men who devote their entire lives to producing it, so there is no reason to think there would be stronger or weaker versions of the strangler any more than the pyromancers would produce stronger or weaker forms of wildfire.

A "flake" of a crystal is exactly what it means: a tiny piece of the crystal that itself is no larger than a "seed." Seed, of course, in an indeterminate term, since it can range anywhere from a poppy seed to a coconut. But from the context of the description I would surmise that they are akin to apple seeds or, even better, lemon seeds.

There is no indication that Cressen made his own strangler. He says himself that the secret is known to only a few at the Citadel.

Yes, simple physics. But Cressen dropped a flake into his half-glass while Joffrey had a full crystal in his half-chalice. Again, these are indeterminate measures, but we should take this into consideration when assuming any dilution differential between the two -- and Joffrey's was the one that was clearly discolored. And let's also add simple chemistry to our analysis here: with a substance like the strangler that works on contact, dilution will not delay the onset of the attack, it will only lessen its severity. Let's substitute the fictional strangler with a real compound that also works on contact with the body: ammonia. If you were to drink a shot of straight ammonia, it would burn you instantly and you'd probably die. If you poured the shot into a large glass of water it would still burn you instantly, but not as badly, and you might live. If you placed a drop of ammonia into the glass and drank that, you probably wouldn't feel the burn at all, but then the ammonia won't reconcentrate itself in your body to come back and attack your throat. This is simply impossible.

Exactly, no mention of Cressen's wine changing color, but Joffrey's wine does turn "deep purple" at the end. So we can see for ourselves that high doses of the stuff will change the color of red wine. So to suggest that Cressen's wine is five or six times more concentrated than Joffrey's, to account for the 5x-6x discrepancy in the timeline, then it would also have to be five or six times darker than deep purple. So even if you contend that Cressen simply wouldn't notice this in his own POV, you still have the problem that just a tiny flake of a crystal is enough to turn a normal amount of wine almost black. And if that is the case, then absolutely no one would bother using it against a high-value target because it can be so easily detected -- and the preferred method would certainly not be in crystal form dissolved in wine. Once again, the excuses used to explain the disconnects between the wine theory and the text collapse upon themselves with only rudimentary scrutiny -- leading to the inevitable final copout that "GRRM is not paying too close attention" to his writing.

[John Suburbs]

19 hours ago, 40 Thousand Skeletons said:

Well LF has a million friends in KL, since he hired commoners to fill every position in the economy he had oversight over. I don't think LF would put such pressure on a random pie server. I think he would plant a competent, loyal, motivated ally to carry out the deed, and I don't doubt LF had the power to pull that off. So I really see no problem with trusting lemon cream guy to get the job done.

Why involve Olenna at all, and why bother with the silly hairnet? That's a great question and I really don't know. The hairnet itself seems to be for Olenna's sake, since the purpose was to frame Sansa which only would have happened if LF didn't kidnap her which was obviously his plan all along. And to your credit that does point more to Olenna being the one in charge of the plan. Mmmmm... Needs more thought... and I need to have some pie with wine I think...

Still, this quite a bit of leverage over LF, and none of his appointees owe him any patronage now that he is no longer MoC. These were all men driven by greed and corruption anyway, so I can't help but think that there is a high degree of trust here, but I suppose it's possible. Still, I think it would be much easier and far safer to simply find out, or arrange it so that you are certain, which slice is going to Tyrion. In a conspiracy this big, the fewer plotter the better.

I can't imagine that Lady Olenna did not know that Sansa's removal was part of the plan. Otherwise, killing Tyrion is a pyrrhic victory because Tywin will simply marry her off to another Lannister. Plus, there is no way to expect that the hairnet will implicate Sansa even if she is still there. I mean, who is going to grab Sansa by the hand and say "A HA!, a tiny missing crystal in your hairnet, my lady. This is obviously the rare and little-known poison I've heard tell about …"

And even if that highly suspicious event did occur, now you have Sansa down in the black cells with a red hot poker inches from her pretty eye. So the first name she'll give up is Dontos, who will undoubtedly be dead by now. But any fool could see that the only reason to parade the poison around on her head instead of just carrying it in a pocket is to allow the actual  poisoner to get it. So the next obvious question would be: "who was at your hair that day, my lady?" And quick as a flash, "why, Lady Olenna said the wind was at my hair..."

So, no way under an scenario could Lady O hope to frame Sansa with the hairnet, because that trail leads directly back to her.

It you're interested, I can tell you what purpose the hairnet did serve, but if you think about it in terms of the timeline leading up to the poisoning and who knew what when, you can probably deduce it for yourself.  But no fair scrolling up, because I think I've already explained it in this thread.

[John Suburbs]

45 minutes ago, Ygrain said:

Sigh. Nihil novum...

The book states that the strangler is used dissolved in wine, so let's disregard it. The author speaks about justification and redemption for the murder of a 13-year-old tyrant, but that doesn't mean a thing.

 

 

Ya know what's disingenious? Ignoring all the previous discussions, and there have been tons of them in which both of you participated, where it has been stated multiple times that the exact logistics of the poisoning hasn't been revealed, because, as stated in the OP, Olenna is "vertically challenged" and couldn't drop the strangler into the chalice on her own. It's pretty much double standards, claiming that she absolutely couldn't have poisoned the wine due to her height, yet be perfectly alright with a patsy who poisoned the cream/pie.

Sigh, the book says Jon Snow is Ned's son by some washerwoman named Wylla, so let's disregard it. The author speaks about the shame of having to suffer your lord husband's bastard in your home, but that doesn't mean a thing.

She is only "vertically challenged" if you imagine her squeezing her five-foot body past Tyrion without being seen and then reaching up to the lip of a chalice that is a good six feet above ground and an arm's length into the table. She is not vertically challenged when it comes to tucking a crystal into a pie that is either on a table or in the hands of a servant. If it's the patsy theory, well, we see one serving the pie and another one adding the cream, so they are well within reach of it.

 

[John Suburbs]

23 hours ago, Unacosamedarisa said:

In a kiln, not a Dothraki soup pot. Unless you expect me to believe they cook their soup at 2000 degrees Farenheit. Which means they don't eat their soup, they inhale it as vapour. 

This is absolutely laughable. For the Tyrells to maintain their alliance with the Lannisters, one of them should challenge Marg's betrothed, because they think he's a shit and will abuse her, kill him, and then just expect everything to go on as normal and expect Tommen and Marg to marry?

If you expect me to take this sort of nonsense seriously, I'm done... you can't be reasoned with. 

It's an iron kettle placed directly into a huge fire pit. Plenty hot to melt gold. Also, perfect for suspending over the fire to get several gallons of stew nice and hot.

Um, you realize that the very reason Loras is in the KG is to protect Margaery, right? And the only person she apparently needs protecting from is Joffrey. So why would they intentionally set it up so one brother would have to challenge the king, but then panic at the thought of another doing the same? Once again, Littlefinger's lies are obvious. If they were so worried about Joffrey hurting Margaery and that would send Loras into a rage, then why did they choose him specifically to join the KG?

[Three-Fingered Pete]

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Nobody would use this poison if they had no way of knowing what dosage is necessary, how much wine it needs, how long it takes to work, or even if it works at all. This formula has been perfected over thousands of years by orders of men who devote their entire lives to producing it, so there is no reason to think there would be stronger or weaker versions of the strangler any more than the pyromancers would produce stronger or weaker forms of wildfire.

You are comparing apples to oranges and you have a bad analogy since the pyromancers reported that the wildfire seemed to be more potent than usual after the dragons were born.

Most people using poison don't know the finer points of the pharmacology. They just want to know if it is enough to kill their target. And never discount greed. Even today pharmaceutical companies cheat and lie to the consumer, and they're supposed to be the good guys! Drug dealers have been known cut down potency with outside ingredients to stretch profits. I am not claiming this is the case, just a possibility like all others in this thread.

IIRC, it is a good chance the stuff came from Pycelle's personal inventory anyway. Wasn't his supply reported missing? LF could have easily arranged that.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

A "flake" of a crystal is exactly what it means: a tiny piece of the crystal that itself is no larger than a "seed." Seed, of course, in an indeterminate term, since it can range anywhere from a poppy seed to a coconut. But from the context of the description I would surmise that they are akin to apple seeds or, even better, lemon seeds.

There is no indication that Cressen made his own strangler. He says himself that the secret is known to only a few at the Citadel.

Where and when did Cressen separate this "flake" from the "seed"? The "seeds" are described as "little". This would indicate something larger than a poppy seed and smaller than a sunflower seed since he used the tip of his littler finger to inspect one. Plus you have to be able to slip it into someone's wine unnoticed, something Cressen fails to do.

There is no indication that he didn't make it, but he is knowledgeable about the process and has his silver healing link or he wouldn't be maester to a high lord.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Once again, the excuses used to explain the disconnects between the wine theory and the text collapse upon themselves with only rudimentary scrutiny -- leading to the inevitable final copout that "GRRM is not paying too close attention" to his writing.

I never proclaimed it as truth, only a possibility. My statement on that was practically dripping with qualifiers.

 

One other thing about toxins. Again, I am by no means a toxicologist, but I do know a few things. I am not going to conflate toxins with toxic substances, like ammonia. Yes ammonia is toxic, but it has the effect of chemically burning long before toxicity can be discussed. We excrete ammonia, so it can be handled safely within the body under correct conditions.

Toxins like poisons, either natural or human derived, are almost always the most effective and quick when injected directly into the body. Reptiles, insects etc. have very fast acting toxins. Within seconds you are affected and within seconds to minutes you are totally helpless or dead. Curare works almost as fast if my research is correct.

Ingested toxins tend to take much longer in comparison, with the initial symptoms taking several minutes to hours to appear because the stomach has to do its job first. A good example from history is the use of toxic mushrooms to fake food poisoning. It took hours to see any signs of trouble and by then the culprit was far away.

This is the weird thing about the Strangler. It seems to be an ingested poison, but acts quickly and much like an injected poison. Here is where I think the clue might lie. The only type of toxin that can act nearly as quickly as an injected one is an inhaled one. These types of toxins either enter the bloodstream through the mucus membranes in the sinuses or through the lungs, and, while the Strangler does touch the throat, being mixed in wine (or other media) and passing by quickly would degrade any immediate effects. Most likely the first effect would be a stomach ache.

Now, the author, and many here, seem to be pointing to wine as the only practical delivery method and this may indeed be true. Let us postulate that the reason wine is needed is for the alcohol it contains. Remember, medieval wine is much more potent that our wine today. It had somewhere between 18%-25% alcohol content. This is why it was not unusual to cut it with water (it also sterilized the water, but that's another topic). When consumed, a portion of the alcohol turns into a vapor and enters through the air passages (any good cognac drinker knows this). Let us also postulate that the Strangler interacts with the alcohol and mixes with this vapor to attack the mucus membranes and the lungs. The target drinks the wine and the poison is placed directly into the bodily system it is designed to attack and in a few seconds you have purple faced corpse.

[OtherFromAnotherMother]

The time difference between Joff and Cressen's ingestion to death can be explained both in story and out of story. 

In story it can be explained by there being no Planetos Pharmacy producing the Strangler in factory level perfection. Despite JS's assertions, there is absolutely no way we can know that every Strangler flake, seed, batch, whatever is going to have the exact same potency or reaction time. 

Out of story it can be explained by George himself,

Quote

"My suggestion would be to put away the ruler and the stopwatch, and just enjoy the story."

 

[Three-Fingered Pete]

2 hours ago, Ygrain said:

Ya know what's disingenious? Ignoring all the previous discussions, and there have been tons of them in which both of you participated, where it has been stated multiple times that the exact logistics of the poisoning hasn't been revealed, because, as stated in the OP, Olenna is "vertically challenged" and couldn't drop the strangler into the chalice on her own. It's pretty much double standards, claiming that she absolutely couldn't have poisoned the wine due to her height, yet be perfectly alright with a patsy who poisoned the cream/pie.

Well, they are obviously disregarding the fact that Olenna was her division's leader in three pointers in the under four foot league.