Mace Tyrell is a fool

[Daeron the Daring]

53 minutes ago, John Suburbs said:

He is not unpredictable

Sure, that's why he interpreted Robert's words that death would be a kinder fate to Bran as a reason to arrange his death, right? I know why he did it (wanted to prove his father that he' 'worthy'), but was that the predictable thing? Killing the whore was a predictable thing? I don't think so. He's a lunatic and he is thinking as one. He was few years old when he murdered a pregnant cat and showed the unborn creatures to his father. He hates Sansa as hell for not siding with him, altough Sansa still didn't make him dirty.

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

No, "one single move" does not mean death

The kid eventually grows up. Do you think Mad King Aerys II was always brave enough to execute Rickard, Brandon and his companions? No. He grow more and more mad. Joffrey was still pushing his limits when he died. Psychopaths can easily decide to murder people too, why not the one laying next to him? Especially if she says something wrong. Because you can't know ho he interprets something. You can only guess. He obviously didn't kill Sansa, because his mother probably held him back after Ned's death. Later he went as far as believing he could have her whenever he wants. Do you think he would've tought this at the very beginning? He was getting worse and worse, from rabbits and cats to whores. Where do you think he would've stopped? 

1 hour ago, John Suburbs said:

Show me where this has happened,

I meant that he only needs to feel once that he's being manipulated, and he can take revenge on Margaery however he wants, without counting with the consequences, because guess what? He's insane. And don't tell me Margaery or anyone else would be able to handle him for a lifetime, you know it's not true.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 4/5/2021 at 2:46 PM, John Suburbs said:

1) We don't know when Mandon was appointed, so he might not have been one of the five originals

We don't hear of any KG deaths in battle between the Tower of Joy and the start of the main series (not that we can be sure none died in the Greyjoy Rebellion). The two remaining KG from Aerys' time are still around, even Barristan the (b)old. Being one of the five originals hasn't been confirmed, but it would seem to be the most likely probability, particularly since all but Barristan of Robert's initial 7 would likely be young with plenty of life expected ahead of them.

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Why else would Arryn recommend this creepy corpse-like guy that that he dislikes?

It wasn't said that Mandon was "disliked" by Jon, rather nobody had any particular fondness for him. And the reason why is because he was good at his job! Jaime considers Mandon to be one of the most dangerous members of the KG, and yes I know there are relative incompetents like Boros Blount & slow Meryn Trant, but nobody ever thinks less of Mandon's fighting ability. Jon had just fought a war in which he led his knights of the Vale to victory. It's entirely to be expected that he would appoint one of them whose prowess he witnessed to the KG! Lysa hasn't been campaigning with him, so he wouldn't have any reason to rely on her judgment of who the best knights are rather than his own.

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2) So again, hearsay.

You can click to link to read what others say, and if you really think everyone is lying about what's in the app you can look into that yourself. I know it requires payment, so I promise that if you look it up and it turns out everyone is lying about what's in the app, I'll send compensation for what you had to spend to a crypto wallet address you provide.

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3) If they didn't want to spoil a revelation they would just say it was the wine

GRRM doesn't rely on simply lying to avoid spoiling revelations.

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just like everyone believes N=J

No one believes Ned & Jon are the same person!

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4) On the wiki, Jon is Ned's bastard. So "apparently" that's what they went with.

The wiki is user-generated, unlike the app. The only place in the Jon Snow wiki article where it cites the app is on Robb Stark naming Jon his heir. The note about him being Ned Stark's bastard cites the Game of Thrones appendix. And since Ned openly claims Jon as his bastard with no one else saying otherwise, that is public knowledge within that world. What happened to Joffrey was part of a contentious trial, with Tyrion stating in his defense that Joffrey choked on his pigeon pie.

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5) Again, you are jumping to wild conclusions. D&D confirmed they guessed Jon's mother correctly, but nowhere does anyone say that was Lyanna.

Now I really want to hear your alternate theory about that!

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They discussed wine v pie, and then the app says wine. That's a huge leap in logic because discussing is not deciding, therefore stating is not confirming.

How is stating not confirming? And there's no alternate canon for the app vs books like there is for the show.

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6) Because of her characterization in the books and the fact that she's was married for a good three months or more. Even gay men can still father children on women.

Renly doesn't even deny it when Stannis asserts she's still a maid. He merely expects to father a child later.

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7) Yes, we know it, but few people in-story know it. Nobody thinks Margaery is a virgin

 

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Margaery will marry Tommen. She'll keep her queenly crown and her maidenhead

But I know you dismiss what LF says in that conversation, even though he no longer needs to "go along with the whole charade" "to be part of this new order".

8) I don't have an orange torch (or any torches, this being the electrical era), but neither the subtractive nor additive color model produces purple from red & orange/yellow/white. Maybe if the chalice was blue.

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10) Really? Someone is going to disarm the king because he threatened the imp uncle that everyone despises?

The Westerosi do not consider it a dull affair if nobody is killed at a wedding. Rather, it tends to spoil the festivities. If Joffrey threatens any of his guests with his sword, it's going to be taken away.

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11) Widow's Wail should have been part of the plan

Tywin ordered its creation, and he wasn't one of the conspirators!

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13) If Margaery is part of the conspiracy, why is she specifically calling Joffrey back to her side to share a toast with wine that she knows is poisoned? And how is she supposed to not drink at this point if she is the one who suggested this?

She's calling Joffrey to drink wine she knows is poisoned in order to poison him. And she can feign concern for Joffrey rather than drinking herself.

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14) Enough of the crystal will have dissolved in the pie to kill Tyrion. It's been sitting in the hot, moist

You haven't established that ANY of it will dissolve. You haven't shown any of the chemistry, we know that Joffrey complains about the pie being dry rather than moist, and we know the filling is spiced and that capsacin is non-polar.

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Wine is 90 percent water, and moist pie will also contain water in small amounts

Far less!

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And the mere fact that Joffrey notices the pie is "a bit dry, though" is further evidence that the crystal was inside absorbing the available water.

It couldn't possibly be that the pie is just dry, seeing as how baking things causes moisture to evaporate! Even if you're using a dessicant to absorb moisture, you're not going to expect half a minute to be sufficient to dry something out. Water isn't exactly flowing through the pie either.

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16) [..] So the only logical explanation is that the smudge was from the crystal dissolving ever so slight from the heat and sweat and oils of Sansa's head and hair

No, I won't agree! A smudge is not equal to "dissolving". It doesn't require a chemical reaction at all (abrasion, for example, is a mechanical process). Dissolving requires a chemical solvent to dissolve the solute. We know the Strangler dissolves in wine (which is polar), thus it must be a polar solute itself. Oil is non-polar, and thus could not dissolve it. Sweat would contain water, which is, but to the extent it already contains salt it has somewhat less ability dissolve more polar substances due to saturation.

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17) Yes, it will retain most of its volume undissolved. But all of this is moot because it is extremely unlikely that Tyrion will not drink wine with his pie anyway

If he bites down on a solid chunk of Strangler, he's probably going to spit it out. And even if he does drink some wine with it, you've got the problem of the amount of wine that comes into contact with the crystal. I mentioned saturation just above, and that's problem if you simply mix a solute & solvent in one container. Tyrion's mouth would not be such a container, as it would contain a lot of pie as well.

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18) What do you think accounts for the moistness of pigeon pie filling?

Who said it was moist? That word doesn't appear in the text.

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19) OK, but you said the conspirators made the chalice and poison, or something like that.

The alchemist & jeweler were acting on orders from the conspirators, but neither alchemist nor jeweler needed to know about any of the conspiracy other than their own small part. If I buy ammunition from a gun store, I don't need to tell them how I intend to use it. I can just talk about the properties of the ammunition in a particular gun and under particular conditions.

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20) Yes, right after he said he makes no promises for the books.

Let's distinguish between two propositions: whether it's actually the case that the poison was in the pie vs wine and whether all the facts in the text suggest one vs the other (GRRM could just be throwing a lot of red herrings at readers). You insist that all the facts support pie. But GRRM explicitly said that the careful reader should conclude Olenna poisoned Joffrey's wine to protect Margaery. You and him disagree about the effect his text should have.

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21) Really? And yet he is bound by things posted in the app?

I believe his rule is that the World of Ice and Fire can be superseded by the main series, but here we don't have a contradiction.

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22) [...] You can't use the show to prove something in the book. They are too radically different.

Of course I can. GRRM has said he gave them the broad outlines of his story, they've discussed "holy shit" moments he told them that got incorporated post-ADWD material, and we already brought up how they correctly guessed Jon Snow's mother. We also know there are some systematic ways the books differ from the show: the show is more compressed in time & number of characters (hence using Jaqen instead of the Kindly Man, Sansa instead of Jeyne Poole and Euron essentially being a combination of both Greyjoy uncles) and isn't restricted to the books' POV. So we got to see scenes of Renly & Loras in private rather than just in public, and this made explicit what had previously been word-of-GRRM. Similarly, we got a scene of Olenna discussing the assassination with Margaery and taking responsibility, and this fits with the statement GRRM gave to EW. That specific scene wasn't written by GRRM, so you can guess it's not exactly what he would have written if he were going to include a POV chapter for that. And he's said that Hodor's death won't be EXACTLY like on the show (he'll be wielding a sword), but the fundamentals will be the same.

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23) [...] Don't you think that when he says we have to give this to Sansa

He doesn't say that. He says Sansa will be wearing it. How she got Sansa got it isn't really Olenna's concern. She just needs to know that the poison will be accessible at the wedding, and how she can inconspicuously grab it.

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24) If one single thing in this "plan" does not happen, then it is a complete bust. If Tyrion is not in the room

The goal of the plan is to kill Joffrey to prevent him from hurting Margaery. Tyrion is not essential to it, he's a bonus.

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25) [...] He's not watching the woman in the dungeon

Precisely, he doesn't need to.

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he's going to watch the blood sport that he has commanded

Says who? Joffrey hasn't obligated himself. But if both knights turn out to survive the next morning, just like if the woman is found outside the dungeon, then he'll know that his judgement was flouted, and he's not going to accept that.

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Knights are not going to put their lives on the line for something stupid like a mill or a dam.

Trial by combat actually was a way that people sometimes resolved property disputes in the past. And these guys weren't planning on it, but now they have to. He didn't simply say it was an option and otherwise possession is 9/10ths of the law. The whole point of that section is about how Joffrey's conception of "justice" is purely about him enjoying the suffering of others!

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26) That event happened at Stokeworth, not the Red Keep

Who said these two knights are supposed to duel at the Red Keep?

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27) Um, no, killing fawns or taunting your little brother is not sadistic, not in this culture. Animals are killed every day, right out in the open.

Joffrey cutting open the pregnant cat is not considered normal even in his culture. And killing a deer would normally be fine, but not if your sibling has claimed it as their own. That's not a matter of cruelty to the animal, but to Tommen. Robert Baratheon didn't kill Proudwing, he just derided it in comparison to his own hawk.

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Nobody has any reason to think Margaery is in danger because years ago Joffrey killed a fawn

Joffrey has a PATTERN of sadistic behavior. Robert brings up the cat after the incident with Mycah as indicative of Joffrey's character. Joffrey abusing Sansa is part of that pattern, as is the "justice" he hands down.

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28) It doesn't matter what Tyrion thinks. All that matters is what Joffrey says And in this instance he is not doing anything that any other lord or king would do to a hostage whose lord had rebelled.

No, there are hostages on both sides and Jaime is considered to be worth more. Thus Joffrey doesn't actually have leverage over Robb via Sansa, he at best has a bargaining chip to be used in trade with Robb.

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I didn't see you post any quote between Tyrion and Varys about sending Joff to a brother

 

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Tyrion had spoken with Varys about how they might arrange for Joffrey to visit Chataya's

It's true that Chataya's is a brothel rather than a "brother", but somehow I doubt that's what you're getting at. However, I can't understand what else you're trying to say since I already provided that quote earlier!

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29) It is not a contradiction to say that, way late in the story, she picks up on one secret

Of course it is. You said she hasn't correctly figured out anything, when she did by your own admission. And she figured out the incident with Corbrey in the same chapter in which it occurred!

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Sansa is never puzzled about LF's motive for killing Joffrey

"My lord, I . . . I do not understand . . . Joffrey gave you Harrenhal, made you Lord Paramount of the Trident . . . why . . ."

Does that not count as puzzled?

Nobody even knows LF was anywhere near KL when Joffrey died, so how can anyone possible be confused by his intentions

That first bit is precisely the point LF made! If they knew LF was responsible, they'd have better odds of figuring out his game. As it is, LF is the inconspicuous but useful guy to have around when all these problems keep inexplicably happening.

She is puzzled by the Tyrells, which is all that is needed to get her not to trust them. But instead, LF throws a big wrench into his own plans by ratting out the Willas plot.

His own plans weren't disrupted. He's still got Sansa, and via Dontos, who had told her not to trust the Tyrells. LF doesn't want Sansa to continue any of her involvement with them.

30) It's not mind-reading. It's understanding what excuse a novice like Sansa would believe.

The exact same "excuse" Sansa independently arrived at as a puzzle for the Tyrells she couldn't figure out!? The missing piece of that puzzle has now been filled in, but you insist there never was such a slot, even as GRRM himself gave that as Olenna's motivation to EW.

That there is absolutely no chance that this thing could go tits up, that Lady O confessed to all in the black cells and the royal navy is dispatched to round him up?

LF is cocky. He lies about the dagger right in front of the Master of Whisperers. He even says "I confess" in reply to Tyrion claiming to know the identity of Jon Arryn's killer!

31) GRRM has never said the poison was in the wine

Ran asked him about it, and he said it was the wine.

32) [...] Sansa fears the KJ, and the wicked must fear the KJ, and Sansa fears the KJ, so Sansa is unwittingly calling herself one of the wicked, which everyone else picks up on but she remains utterly clueless.

That's not how logic works. If everyone fears the KJ, that would include both Sansa and the wicked without making her wicked. Barristan had just said he finds Ilyn frightening as well, and Sansa isn't calling him wicked. Nor was Cersei calling Barristan wicked when she said her line in response to Barristan.

33) [...] Littlefinger does it right to, as with the dwarf jousts.

LF is able to appeal to Joffrey's worst instincts. That doesn't mean he'd be able to restrain Joffrey if he wanted to do something horrible. And I should note that in another interview with EW about that wedding, GRRM himself describes Joffrey as "monstrous".

34) [...] Olenna was the one who fussed with the hairnet just before the wedding

Did anybody notice that? Nobody would have regarded that as remarkable. And if Sansa pleads ignorance (when everyone knows she had motive to kill Joffrey) and then tries to say Olenna took the missing stone from her hairnet, she'll just look like she's lying.

her reasons for touching it are false and contradictory

There's nothing contradictory about an old lady adjusting a hairnet. And she actually does tuck loose hair into the hairnet. Tyrion doesn't see any contradiction between Olenna's statement and the actual state of Sansa's hair. Is someone else more focused on Sansa's hair and going to make that claim?

35) [...] So, "who was at your hair today my lady?"

No, the Lannisters think Sansa is a knowing participant in the conspiracy.

36) It's not my deduction, it's the deduction of any interrogator with half a brain

You are projecting your own thoughts onto others. Cersei insists Tyrion is guilty, and the trial is a railroad for him. There will be no Perry Mason or Columbo determing the true culprit.

37) Lots of people have reasons to want Joffrey dead.

Who at the wedding had as much reason as Sansa and/or Tyrion?

38) Yes, Varys is very talented. You know who is more talented? Littlefinger, since "the gods know what game Littlefinger is playing."

LF doesn't know about Varys' plans to undermine the regime. He also explains how Varys knew about Catelyn arriving to meet LF even before LF knew by saying "Lord Varys knows all" and "He has informants everywhere". Those informants of course can't peer inside LF's mind to understand why he does the things he does.

Does Varys have spies in Petyr's brothels?

That would be the implication of LF's description of him.

39) [...] He most certainly is not in the Vale wooing Lysa Arryn

He's on a boat which will head there once he picks up Sansa. Varys is not actually a merman and thus his informants can't tip him off about that kind of thing.

40, 41) [...] Of course Lady Olenna knows about it by the time LF approaches her with the poisoning plan. She was at the reception, remember?

That's awfully late for him to be approaching her. He's supposed to have left the city quite some time back. Here's an attempt at a timeline of all the chapters. They have Sansa 3 at 11/8 of the year 299. Tyrion 3 is 11/3. Mace Tyrell heard LF say he was leaving the next day, but Olenna is supposed to believe he was lying and hanging around for no particular reason and he's now going to pop up where he shouldn't be in order to talk to her about assassinating Tyrion? That box of rocks is starting to look pretty smart by comparison.

42) Because Lady Olenna is savvy enough to know that Petyr is playing fast and loose with the crown's gold

What does she know about the crown's finances that the crown itself doesn't know?

Tyrion is MoC is a threat to that

LF is the one who recommended him in the first place! He was completely upbeat about it in the meeting Mace saw, and now Olenna is supposed to think he was spooked about it... but didn't approach her until days later once Tyrion had married Sansa and well after he said he was sailing to the Vale.

daft old grandma that pretends to be

She doesn't pretend to be "daft", she pretends to be harmless.

43) She would only be dumb to trust him if he is telling her that he will help kill Joffrey after he lied about Joff in the first place and then never even came clean with that lie

LF was sent on behalf of the regime to arrange the marriage. He would be betraying them if he openly spoke otherwise about Joffrey. At least if he did so openly. LF ensured that his servants spread the truth, and Olenna was always wary of the marriage. Conspiring with her to assassinate Joffrey THEN makes her agree to the marriage, prompts LF to have Dontos give Sansa the hairnet, and ensures Olenna & Margaery will be blase in reaction to Sansa.

understandable because he has to lie, since he is representing the crown in the negotiation

Precisely! He was officially doing his job, and unofficially making a deal with Olenna.

44) We've seen the crystal dissolve in seconds in wine, Cressen's wine

There were multiple lines of dialogue exchanged between the time he added the flake and when anyone drank. That doesn't mean the crystal dissolved instantaneously, or even the amount of time that someone's wine would be in their mouth (unless they were gargling it). And the flake is going to be small & have a high ratio of surface area to volume (otherwise it wouldn't be called a flake), which would cause it to dissolve faster than the rounder crystals of Sansa's hairnet. A larger volume of wine means more solute is soluble, but it still only takes place at a pace proportional to the surface area of said solute.

It will dissolve more slowly in pie because the same liquid that exists in wine, water, exists in pie

Pie is not a liquid! There's a reason you're supposed to dissolve a solute into a liquid solvent. Inside a liquid the various molecules are moving freely around, so the entire volume of the solvent can be used to dissolve the solute. Solids don't work that way! The molecules are fixed in place, merely vibrating. Only the surface areas of different solids would come in contact with each other, leaving most of the volume separated.

45) Crunching on it will break it up so that it dissolves even more quickly with his saliva.

It's supposed to get to the thoat, but it won't if it's spat out.

46) Pigeon pie is dark brown or purplish

It just looks dark brown rather than purplish to me. And the pie is never described as purplish. Nor does anyone describe the pie as "moist" (it is instead described as "dry").

47) The only person sticking her hand anywhere near the pie is Lady Olenna, while the servant is holding it behind the head table waiting for the ceremony to conclude.

If she's poisoning pie before it gets to Tyrion, how does she know which slice is his? The pie is supposed to be hot, so they're not going to have a lot of slices simply sitting around for much time.

48) Joffrey's wine was "deep purple" supposedly from the one crystal in his larger quantity of wine

The color of the wine isn't consistent. I think GRRM is merely alluding to the Strangler with mentions of purple.

49) And Tywin, Cersei or anyone else can undo this "marriage" at any time for any reason

It can be set aside "By the High Septon or a Council of Faith". Are either of them willing to openly screw over the Tyrells that way? Would even Tommen go along with that? As soon as Tommen is physically capable, the Tyrells are going to insist he consummates the marriage. And prior to that, if the Lannisters tried to replace Margaery with somebody else that somebody else would know right away their guarantee from the Lannisters would be worth about as much as the one given to the Tyrells.

50) Cersei still needs the Tyrell army.

She's not going ot have it if Margaery is convicted. That army was mobilized to ensure Margaery was released.

51) [...] You don't think this information would prompt Tywin to send the royal navy out into the bay to search every single ship in the area?

LF's ship will be far from that cliff by then. It wasn't visible from the cliff, anyone who followed Dontos wouldn't know anything about it.

52) Tyrion choking would provide plenty of distraction

Away from his wife, who is seated right next to him?

53) Joffrey, the person who beats and tortures people for no reason, would take no retribution against someone who dishonored him at his wedding?

I'm glad you now agree he does it for no reason. And no, Olenna not eating any pie would not be 'dishonoring" him. There's an enormous number of dishes, you can't expect everyone to eat all of it.

54, 55) [...] he takes his drink and within three seconds he hands the cup back to her. Now what does she do?

A toast normally involves talking, so she can do that before drinking.

This is the first time he's ever drank heavily

Joffrey was in no mood to listen. The wine had made him wild

That's after Sansa recalls Joffrey pushing her to drink more than she ever had before.

56) Why would anyone want to poison Sansa? They are all trying to get Sansa

And if poisoning the lemon cream would be the best way to poison Sansa then... that probably wasn't poisoned or the goal of the poisoning wasn't actually to "get" Sansa.

Who says the bedding has to wait until the feast is over?

That's Tyrion's expectation.

57, 58) You had to scroll up to see it though, right?

No, I read your comment with the quoted text above it before I hit the quote button. And I wrote up a reply in a text editor.

fancy text editors

Every computer comes with a text editor like Notepad. I guess ed would be sufficiently non-fancy to merit your critique, but I'm going to assume you're not Bill Joy typing on a machine with an unknown configuration of vi.

59) [...] none of this requires Lady Olenna to be part of the plot yet. He can tell her where and how to get the poison at any time, after he has made sure that she is just as motivated to kill the victim as he is.

How can he be sure he can motivate Olenna to kill Tyrion at the time the hairnet is given!?

She has all the motivation in the world the kill Tyrion, and none at all to kill Joffrey.

GRRM himself explained how Olenna had a motivation to kill Joffrey.

60) [..] Leaving her with Tywin is not an option for Lady O

Why is leaving her with LF an option? LF doesn't have to hand the wanted fugitive Sansa over to Olenna, and indeed he doesn't.

61) Sorry, nobody will notice if Sansa slips out when Tyrion loses it. A choking man is not something people will ignore.

Because they'll all be staring at Tyrion, they'll see his wife (seated right next to him) leave.

62) Who's talking about the Ruby Ford?

I am, because it contradicts your characterization of Sansa & Joffrey's interactions. Sansa "mocking" Joffrey isn't required for him to treat her horribly, he's just "monstrous" per GRRM.

63) So? Joffrey is not going to start beating Margy to a pulp the moment he gets her alone

Sansa wasn't expecting it to happen "the moment" she was alone with him, but within a year. Olenna simply sees no need to risk any alone time at all when she can instead simply have him replaced with Tommen right away.

the stage will be all set for him to meet with some unfortunate accident, like Lord Lothar did

He has 7 KG dedicated to protecting him, unlike Lothar.

64) Uh, Stannis? He is still on Dragonstone, remember?

Tywin does not need to leave KL to have ships blockade Dragonstone.

65) Yes he is, and Uncle Jaime will be right there to make sure

Joffrey refuses to listen to his other relatives talking sense to him, and it's not like he has some special relationship with Jaime.

66) The story is that LF fathered Sansa on a gentlewoman of Braavos he met in Gulltown

Sansa is the only one he tells that, after he first tells her Kella is her mother. Other people just don't inquire into his bastard's origins because it's not considered polite.

67) This is her cover story. If he isn't going to tell anyone, then why does she need this cover story at all?

Sansa asked LF, so he told her one answer which Sansa would hate and another one she'd accept.

68) Sorry, I don't know what Joffrey's "strategic calculus" is. But it is clear from the books that he doesn't just going around torturing people for no reason

I disagree. It's clear that he's simply a jerk who enjoys it and there's no consequentialist justification.

If it got anywhere close to that, he would sit Joff down and explain the situation with him

Explaining the situation doesn't work with Joffrey. He wants to hurt people and doesn't consider the consequences.

69) In what way is Garlan disabled?

Doh, Willas is the one who took up animal husbandry after he was disabled jousting against Oberyn.

70) Sorry, I don't know what you're on about here

I was making a point about geography. The US has oceans on its east & west coasts.

just like Tywin's rise is a major disruption of thousands of years of the Westerosi status quo

Does anybody in the series say that?

71) [...] Islands can't be invaded? Inhabitants of the eastern half of Briton 1200 years ago might disagree.

Isn't it notable that you have to go back 1200 years ago? The same isn't true for continental Europe.

The Reach has just as much common border with other realms as the riverlands

No, the Riverlands borders the North and the Vale while the Reach doesn't border either.

72) In what way is Russian succession even slightly relevant?

Your argument about Tywin taking over everywhere is based on dynastic succesion, which doesn't apply to post-Romanov Russia.

That's the situation Lady Olenna finds itself regarding Tywin and his empire-building.

The Westerlands were already north of the Reach, so that hasn't changed. Dorne is to the south and Myrcella is betrothed to Trystane, but he's Doran's youngest child (Olenna is not expecting Quentyn to die in Meereen). LF is Lord Paramount of the Riverlands rather than Emmon Frey, and the North isn't a neighbor to the Reach.

73) [...] Why bother marrying Margy to Joffrey at all if it serves no purpose?

I explained the purpose served by marriage in dynastic politics. In this case, Margaery's children will sit on the Iron Throne, and both the Lannisters & Tyrells will be invested in said children.

74) Riverrun, the strongest castle in the riverlands and the traditional seat of the region

Harrenhal was built specifically to be the strongest castle, and was defeated only by dragons. Riverrun is not "the traditional seat of the region", it's the traditional seat of House Tully, who were never kings. Riverrun isn't nothing, but it achieved its current prominence as a result of the Targaryens choosing a ruling house rather than the specifics of the castle itself.

75) [...] If he hadn't done that then houses on the fence would start to think Robb was going to win.

There's nothing in the text to support that, as no characters think that. Instead everyone who thinks about it at all considers it foolish. You are simply projecting your own thoughts onto the characters.

This is what happens to hostages. This is why you have them

Robb doesn't do that to his hostages, nor does Dany to hers in Meereen. Instead hostages get traded. Theon wasn't abused, there was instead merely an implicit threat. And when Theon uses Beth Cassel as a hostage, he shows her father that he can have her hanged rather than stripping & beating her without Rodrik present.

76) [...] the queen regent, whom Joffrey obeys, because he is a king under a regency

"My mother bids me let Lord Eddard take the black [...] But they have the soft hearts of women.

When he did choose to make a ruling, though, not even his queen mother could sway him.

Cersei gave him a searching look. "Joff has had no lack of good counsel. He's always been strong-willed. Now that he's king, he believes he should do as he pleases, not as he's bid."

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"A jest." Cersei smiled. "Joff did not mean it."
"Yes I did," Joffrey insisted.

 

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"Joffrey, apologize to your grandfather," said Cersei.
He wrenched free of her. "Why should I?

Tommen did as he was bid. His meekness troubled her. A king had to be strong. Joffrey would have argued. He was never easy to cow.

And if all those aren't enough for you, Tywin sent Tyrion to KL because he didn't think Cersei could control Joffrey.

77) Yes, Joffrey thinks that, but he doesn't just go around beating people for no reason

The reason is that he enjoys it.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 4/7/2021 at 11:28 AM, John Suburbs said:

Robert was a drunkard and a rampant philanderer, yet Tywin still married his only daughter to him.

That's not so abnormal for a Westerosi nobleman. But Robert can't understand how he could have had a son as messed up as Joffrey.

Lords allowed their daughters to be Aegon iV's concubines

He was mostly just corrupt. One such concubine did die in a horrible way, but that's because she was caught sleeping with one of his KG.

The character of the king is not important in the game of thrones

Maegor, Rhaenyra, Aegon II & Aerys II all learned the hard way that their character does matter. Adults try to tell Joffrey similarly, but he doesn't listen.

9 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

He is not unpredictable. He is in fact one of the most predictable characters in the book.

Who was expecting him to throw out the deal arranged for Ned Stark to take the black?

[John Suburbs]

22 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Sure, that's why he interpreted Robert's words that death would be a kinder fate to Bran as a reason to arrange his death, right? I know why he did it (wanted to prove his father that he' 'worthy'), but was that the predictable thing? Killing the whore was a predictable thing? I don't think so. He's a lunatic and he is thinking as one. He was few years old when he murdered a pregnant cat and showed the unborn creatures to his father. He hates Sansa as hell for not siding with him, altough Sansa still didn't make him dirty.

The kid eventually grows up. Do you think Mad King Aerys II was always brave enough to execute Rickard, Brandon and his companions? No. He grow more and more mad. Joffrey was still pushing his limits when he died. Psychopaths can easily decide to murder people too, why not the one laying next to him? Especially if she says something wrong. Because you can't know ho he interprets something. You can only guess. He obviously didn't kill Sansa, because his mother probably held him back after Ned's death. Later he went as far as believing he could have her whenever he wants. Do you think he would've tought this at the very beginning? He was getting worse and worse, from rabbits and cats to whores. Where do you think he would've stopped? 

I meant that he only needs to feel once that he's being manipulated, and he can take revenge on Margaery however he wants, without counting with the consequences, because guess what? He's insane. And don't tell me Margaery or anyone else would be able to handle him for a lifetime, you know it's not true.

Well, if that is the reason Joffrey sent the catspaw (which I doubt, but whatever), then that is perfectly predictable. Joffrey did not kill any whores in the book. He was a little boy when he killed the cat, and it was probably due to curiosity more than cruelty. This is a society where animals are killed all the time, just not pregnant ones. And he never did it again. He hates Sansa because she saw him cry like a baby on the Trident and then she goes out of her way to mock him, correct him, belittle him at every turn -- and her brother is winning battles in the west, killing Lannisters on Lannister soil. She is his hostage, and this is what happens to hostages. If Balon Greyjoy had risen in rebellion again, no one would think Ned was a mad tyrant if he beat, tortured or even executed Theon. In fact, most lords, and probably Robert, would question his fitness as a lord and Warden of the North if he didn't. This is why you have hostages.

Yes, maybe someday Joffrey will pose a threat to Margaery. But that day is clearly not today. He is utterly infatuated with her. She is probably the only person in the world he doesn't despise. So all Margy has to do is bear him an heir or two or three, keep her wits about her, and then they can get rid of Joffrey at any time to make Margaery the queen regent with unlimited, unchecked power over all the realm. This is a far better outcome than waiting five years for Tommen, during which time this unconsummated marriage can be set aside at any time for any reason, only to have Margaery serve is his relatively powerless queen consort. Any way you look at it, Tyrell interests are better served by marrying Joffrey now and then offing him later, regardless of whether he is hurting Joffrey or not.

Grandpa Tywin is Hand and Uncle Jaime is now back as Lord Commander of the KG. They are not going to let any harm come to Margaery because they, and Joffrey, know that Tyrell power is the only thing keeping him on the throne. Margaery is in absolutely no danger. She doesn't need to handle him for a lifetime, just until the heir(s) is(are) born.

 

[Daeron the Daring]

2 hours ago, John Suburbs said:

Well, if that is the reason Joffrey sent the catspaw (which I doubt, but whatever), then that is perfectly predictable. Joffrey did not kill any whores in the book. He was a little boy when he killed the cat, and it was probably due to curiosity more than cruelty. This is a society where animals are killed all the time, just not pregnant ones. And he never did it again. He hates Sansa because she saw him cry like a baby on the Trident and then she goes out of her way to mock him, correct him, belittle him at every turn -- and her brother is winning battles in the west, killing Lannisters on Lannister soil. She is his hostage, and this is what happens to hostages. If Balon Greyjoy had risen in rebellion again, no one would think Ned was a mad tyrant if he beat, tortured or even executed Theon. In fact, most lords, and probably Robert, would question his fitness as a lord and Warden of the North if he didn't. This is why you have hostages.

Yes, maybe someday Joffrey will pose a threat to Margaery. But that day is clearly not today. He is utterly infatuated with her. She is probably the only person in the world he doesn't despise. So all Margy has to do is bear him an heir or two or three, keep her wits about her, and then they can get rid of Joffrey at any time to make Margaery the queen regent with unlimited, unchecked power over all the realm. This is a far better outcome than waiting five years for Tommen, during which time this unconsummated marriage can be set aside at any time for any reason, only to have Margaery serve is his relatively powerless queen consort. Any way you look at it, Tyrell interests are better served by marrying Joffrey now and then offing him later, regardless of whether he is hurting Joffrey or not.

Grandpa Tywin is Hand and Uncle Jaime is now back as Lord Commander of the KG. They are not going to let any harm come to Margaery because they, and Joffrey, know that Tyrell power is the only thing keeping him on the throne. Margaery is in absolutely no danger. She doesn't need to handle him for a lifetime, just until the heir(s) is(are) born.

 

Well, I'm sure I can't do anything but roll my eyes and leave you believe what you'd like to.

[John Suburbs]

14 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

1) We don't hear of any KG deaths in battle between the Tower of Joy and the start of the main series (not that we can be sure none died in the Greyjoy Rebellion). The two remaining KG from Aerys' time are still around, even Barristan the (b)old. Being one of the five originals hasn't been confirmed, but it would seem to be the most likely probability, particularly since all but Barristan of Robert's initial 7 would likely be young with plenty of life expected ahead of them.

2) It wasn't said that Mandon was "disliked" by Jon, rather nobody had any particular fondness for him. And the reason why is because he was good at his job! Jaime considers Mandon to be one of the most dangerous members of the KG, and yes I know there are relative incompetents like Boros Blount & slow Meryn Trant, but nobody ever thinks less of Mandon's fighting ability. Jon had just fought a war in which he led his knights of the Vale to victory. It's entirely to be expected that he would appoint one of them whose prowess he witnessed to the KG! Lysa hasn't been campaigning with him, so he wouldn't have any reason to rely on her judgment of who the best knights are rather than his own.

3) You can click to link to read what others say, and if you really think everyone is lying about what's in the app you can look into that yourself. I know it requires payment, so I promise that if you look it up and it turns out everyone is lying about what's in the app, I'll send compensation for what you had to spend to a crypto wallet address you provide.

4) GRRM doesn't rely on simply lying to avoid spoiling revelations.

5) No one believes Ned & Jon are the same person!

6) The wiki is user-generated, unlike the app. The only place in the Jon Snow wiki article where it cites the app is on Robb Stark naming Jon his heir. The note about him being Ned Stark's bastard cites the Game of Thrones appendix. And since Ned openly claims Jon as his bastard with no one else saying otherwise, that is public knowledge within that world. What happened to Joffrey was part of a contentious trial, with Tyrion stating in his defense that Joffrey choked on his pigeon pie.

7) Now I really want to hear your alternate theory about that!

8) How is stating not confirming? And there's no alternate canon for the app vs books like there is for the show.

9) Renly doesn't even deny it when Stannis asserts she's still a maid. He merely expects to father a child later.

 

10) But I know you dismiss what LF says in that conversation, even though he no longer needs to "go along with the whole charade" "to be part of this new order".

11) I don't have an orange torch (or any torches, this being the electrical era), but neither the subtractive nor additive color model produces purple from red & orange/yellow/white. Maybe if the chalice was blue.

12) The Westerosi do not consider it a dull affair if nobody is killed at a wedding. Rather, it tends to spoil the festivities. If Joffrey threatens any of his guests with his sword, it's going to be taken away.

13) Tywin ordered its creation, and he wasn't one of the conspirators!

14) She's calling Joffrey to drink wine she knows is poisoned in order to poison him. And she can feign concern for Joffrey rather than drinking herself.

15) You haven't established that ANY of it will dissolve. You haven't shown any of the chemistry, we know that Joffrey complains about the pie being dry rather than moist, and we know the filling is spiced and that capsacin is non-polar.

16) Far less!

17) It couldn't possibly be that the pie is just dry, seeing as how baking things causes moisture to evaporate! Even if you're using a dessicant to absorb moisture, you're not going to expect half a minute to be sufficient to dry something out. Water isn't exactly flowing through the pie either.

18) No, I won't agree! A smudge is not equal to "dissolving". It doesn't require a chemical reaction at all (abrasion, for example, is a mechanical process). Dissolving requires a chemical solvent to dissolve the solute. We know the Strangler dissolves in wine (which is polar), thus it must be a polar solute itself. Oil is non-polar, and thus could not dissolve it. Sweat would contain water, which is, but to the extent it already contains salt it has somewhat less ability dissolve more polar substances due to saturation.

19) If he bites down on a solid chunk of Strangler, he's probably going to spit it out. And even if he does drink some wine with it, you've got the problem of the amount of wine that comes into contact with the crystal. I mentioned saturation just above, and that's problem if you simply mix a solute & solvent in one container. Tyrion's mouth would not be such a container, as it would contain a lot of pie as well.

20) Who said it was moist? That word doesn't appear in the text.

21) The alchemist & jeweler were acting on orders from the conspirators, but neither alchemist nor jeweler needed to know about any of the conspiracy other than their own small part. If I buy ammunition from a gun store, I don't need to tell them how I intend to use it. I can just talk about the properties of the ammunition in a particular gun and under particular conditions.

22) Let's distinguish between two propositions: whether it's actually the case that the poison was in the pie vs wine and whether all the facts in the text suggest one vs the other (GRRM could just be throwing a lot of red herrings at readers). You insist that all the facts support pie. But GRRM explicitly said that the careful reader should conclude Olenna poisoned Joffrey's wine to protect Margaery. You and him disagree about the effect his text should have.

23) I believe his rule is that the World of Ice and Fire can be superseded by the main series, but here we don't have a contradiction.

24) Of course I can. GRRM has said he gave them the broad outlines of his story, they've discussed "holy shit" moments he told them that got incorporated post-ADWD material, and we already brought up how they correctly guessed Jon Snow's mother. We also know there are some systematic ways the books differ from the show: the show is more compressed in time & number of characters (hence using Jaqen instead of the Kindly Man, Sansa instead of Jeyne Poole and Euron essentially being a combination of both Greyjoy uncles) and isn't restricted to the books' POV. So we got to see scenes of Renly & Loras in private rather than just in public, and this made explicit what had previously been word-of-GRRM. Similarly, we got a scene of Olenna discussing the assassination with Margaery and taking responsibility, and this fits with the statement GRRM gave to EW. That specific scene wasn't written by GRRM, so you can guess it's not exactly what he would have written if he were going to include a POV chapter for that. And he's said that Hodor's death won't be EXACTLY like on the show (he'll be wielding a sword), but the fundamentals will be the same.

25) He doesn't say that. He says Sansa will be wearing it. How she got Sansa got it isn't really Olenna's concern. She just needs to know that the poison will be accessible at the wedding, and how she can inconspicuously grab it.

26) The goal of the plan is to kill Joffrey to prevent him from hurting Margaery. Tyrion is not essential to it, he's a bonus.

27) Precisely, he doesn't need to.

28) Says who? Joffrey hasn't obligated himself. But if both knights turn out to survive the next morning, just like if the woman is found outside the dungeon, then he'll know that his judgement was flouted, and he's not going to accept that.

29) Trial by combat actually was a way that people sometimes resolved property disputes in the past. And these guys weren't planning on it, but now they have to. He didn't simply say it was an option and otherwise possession is 9/10ths of the law. The whole point of that section is about how Joffrey's conception of "justice" is purely about him enjoying the suffering of others!

30) Who said these two knights are supposed to duel at the Red Keep?

31) Joffrey cutting open the pregnant cat is not considered normal even in his culture. And killing a deer would normally be fine, but not if your sibling has claimed it as their own. That's not a matter of cruelty to the animal, but to Tommen. Robert Baratheon didn't kill Proudwing, he just derided it in comparison to his own hawk.

32) Joffrey has a PATTERN of sadistic behavior. Robert brings up the cat after the incident with Mycah as indicative of Joffrey's character. Joffrey abusing Sansa is part of that pattern, as is the "justice" he hands down.

33) No, there are hostages on both sides and Jaime is considered to be worth more. Thus Joffrey doesn't actually have leverage over Robb via Sansa, he at best has a bargaining chip to be used in trade with Robb.

 

34) It's true that Chataya's is a brothel rather than a "brother", but somehow I doubt that's what you're getting at. However, I can't understand what else you're trying to say since I already provided that quote earlier!

35) Of course it is. You said she hasn't correctly figured out anything, when she did by your own admission. And she figured out the incident with Corbrey in the same chapter in which it occurred!

 

36) Does that not count as puzzled?

 

37) That first bit is precisely the point LF made! If they knew LF was responsible, they'd have better odds of figuring out his game. As it is, LF is the inconspicuous but useful guy to have around when all these problems keep inexplicably happening.

 

38) His own plans weren't disrupted. He's still got Sansa, and via Dontos, who had told her not to trust the Tyrells. LF doesn't want Sansa to continue any of her involvement with them.

 

39) The exact same "excuse" Sansa independently arrived at as a puzzle for the Tyrells she couldn't figure out!? The missing piece of that puzzle has now been filled in, but you insist there never was such a slot, even as GRRM himself gave that as Olenna's motivation to EW.

 

40) LF is cocky. He lies about the dagger right in front of the Master of Whisperers. He even says "I confess" in reply to Tyrion claiming to know the identity of Jon Arryn's killer!

 

41) Ran asked him about it, and he said it was the wine.

 

42) That's not how logic works. If everyone fears the KJ, that would include both Sansa and the wicked without making her wicked. Barristan had just said he finds Ilyn frightening as well, and Sansa isn't calling him wicked. Nor was Cersei calling Barristan wicked when she said her line in response to Barristan.

 

43) LF is able to appeal to Joffrey's worst instincts. That doesn't mean he'd be able to restrain Joffrey if he wanted to do something horrible. And I should note that in another interview with EW about that wedding, GRRM himself describes Joffrey as "monstrous".

 

44) Did anybody notice that? Nobody would have regarded that as remarkable. And if Sansa pleads ignorance (when everyone knows she had motive to kill Joffrey) and then tries to say Olenna took the missing stone from her hairnet, she'll just look like she's lying.

 

45) There's nothing contradictory about an old lady adjusting a hairnet. And she actually does tuck loose hair into the hairnet. Tyrion doesn't see any contradiction between Olenna's statement and the actual state of Sansa's hair. Is someone else more focused on Sansa's hair and going to make that claim?

 

46) No, the Lannisters think Sansa is a knowing participant in the conspiracy.

 

47) You are projecting your own thoughts onto others. Cersei insists Tyrion is guilty, and the trial is a railroad for him. There will be no Perry Mason or Columbo determing the true culprit.

 

48) Who at the wedding had as much reason as Sansa and/or Tyrion?

 

49) LF doesn't know about Varys' plans to undermine the regime. He also explains how Varys knew about Catelyn arriving to meet LF even before LF knew by saying "Lord Varys knows all" and "He has informants everywhere". Those informants of course can't peer inside LF's mind to understand why he does the things he does.

 

50) That would be the implication of LF's description of him.

 

51) He's on a boat which will head there once he picks up Sansa. Varys is not actually a merman and thus his informants can't tip him off about that kind of thing.

 

52) That's awfully late for him to be approaching her. He's supposed to have left the city quite some time back. Here's an attempt at a timeline of all the chapters. They have Sansa 3 at 11/8 of the year 299. Tyrion 3 is 11/3. Mace Tyrell heard LF say he was leaving the next day, but Olenna is supposed to believe he was lying and hanging around for no particular reason and he's now going to pop up where he shouldn't be in order to talk to her about assassinating Tyrion? That box of rocks is starting to look pretty smart by comparison.

 

53) What does she know about the crown's finances that the crown itself doesn't know?

 

54) LF is the one who recommended him in the first place! He was completely upbeat about it in the meeting Mace saw, and now Olenna is supposed to think he was spooked about it... but didn't approach her until days later once Tyrion had married Sansa and well after he said he was sailing to the Vale.

 

55) She doesn't pretend to be "daft", she pretends to be harmless.

 

56) LF was sent on behalf of the regime to arrange the marriage. He would be betraying them if he openly spoke otherwise about Joffrey. At least if he did so openly. LF ensured that his servants spread the truth, and Olenna was always wary of the marriage. Conspiring with her to assassinate Joffrey THEN makes her agree to the marriage, prompts LF to have Dontos give Sansa the hairnet, and ensures Olenna & Margaery will be blase in reaction to Sansa.

 

57) Precisely! He was officially doing his job, and unofficially making a deal with Olenna.

 

58) There were multiple lines of dialogue exchanged between the time he added the flake and when anyone drank. That doesn't mean the crystal dissolved instantaneously, or even the amount of time that someone's wine would be in their mouth (unless they were gargling it). And the flake is going to be small & have a high ratio of surface area to volume (otherwise it wouldn't be called a flake), which would cause it to dissolve faster than the rounder crystals of Sansa's hairnet. A larger volume of wine means more solute is soluble, but it still only takes place at a pace proportional to the surface area of said solute.

 

59) Pie is not a liquid! There's a reason you're supposed to dissolve a solute into a liquid solvent. Inside a liquid the various molecules are moving freely around, so the entire volume of the solvent can be used to dissolve the solute. Solids don't work that way! The molecules are fixed in place, merely vibrating. Only the surface areas of different solids would come in contact with each other, leaving most of the volume separated.

 

60) It's supposed to get to the thoat, but it won't if it's spat out.

 

61) It just looks dark brown rather than purplish to me. And the pie is never described as purplish. Nor does anyone describe the pie as "moist" (it is instead described as "dry").

 

62) If she's poisoning pie before it gets to Tyrion, how does she know which slice is his? The pie is supposed to be hot, so they're not going to have a lot of slices simply sitting around for much time.

 

63) The color of the wine isn't consistent. I think GRRM is merely alluding to the Strangler with mentions of purple.

 

64) It can be set aside "By the High Septon or a Council of Faith". Are either of them willing to openly screw over the Tyrells that way? Would even Tommen go along with that? As soon as Tommen is physically capable, the Tyrells are going to insist he consummates the marriage. And prior to that, if the Lannisters tried to replace Margaery with somebody else that somebody else would know right away their guarantee from the Lannisters would be worth about as much as the one given to the Tyrells.

 

65) She's not going ot have it if Margaery is convicted. That army was mobilized to ensure Margaery was released.

 

66) LF's ship will be far from that cliff by then. It wasn't visible from the cliff, anyone who followed Dontos wouldn't know anything about it.

 

67) Away from his wife, who is seated right next to him?

 

68) I'm glad you now agree he does it for no reason. And no, Olenna not eating any pie would not be 'dishonoring" him. There's an enormous number of dishes, you can't expect everyone to eat all of it.

 

69) A toast normally involves talking, so she can do that before drinking.

 

 

70) That's after Sansa recalls Joffrey pushing her to drink more than she ever had before.

 

71) And if poisoning the lemon cream would be the best way to poison Sansa then... that probably wasn't poisoned or the goal of the poisoning wasn't actually to "get" Sansa.

 

72) That's Tyrion's expectation.

 

73) No, I read your comment with the quoted text above it before I hit the quote button. And I wrote up a reply in a text editor.

 

74)Every computer comes with a text editor like Notepad. I guess ed would be sufficiently non-fancy to merit your critique, but I'm going to assume you're not Bill Joy typing on a machine with an unknown configuration of vi.

 

75) How can he be sure he can motivate Olenna to kill Tyrion at the time the hairnet is given!?

 

76) GRRM himself explained how Olenna had a motivation to kill Joffrey.

 

77) Why is leaving her with LF an option? LF doesn't have to hand the wanted fugitive Sansa over to Olenna, and indeed he doesn't.

 

78) Because they'll all be staring at Tyrion, they'll see his wife (seated right next to him) leave.

 

79) I am, because it contradicts your characterization of Sansa & Joffrey's interactions. Sansa "mocking" Joffrey isn't required for him to treat her horribly, he's just "monstrous" per GRRM.

 

80) Sansa wasn't expecting it to happen "the moment" she was alone with him, but within a year. Olenna simply sees no need to risk any alone time at all when she can instead simply have him replaced with Tommen right away.

 

81) He has 7 KG dedicated to protecting him, unlike Lothar.

 

82) Tywin does not need to leave KL to have ships blockade Dragonstone.

 

83) Joffrey refuses to listen to his other relatives talking sense to him, and it's not like he has some special relationship with Jaime.

 

84) Sansa is the only one he tells that, after he first tells her Kella is her mother. Other people just don't inquire into his bastard's origins because it's not considered polite.

 

85) Sansa asked LF, so he told her one answer which Sansa would hate and another one she'd accept.

 

86) I disagree. It's clear that he's simply a jerk who enjoys it and there's no consequentialist justification.

 

87) Explaining the situation doesn't work with Joffrey. He wants to hurt people and doesn't consider the consequences.

 

88) Doh, Willas is the one who took up animal husbandry after he was disabled jousting against Oberyn.

 

89) I was making a point about geography. The US has oceans on its east & west coasts.

 

90) Does anybody in the series say that?

 

91) Isn't it notable that you have to go back 1200 years ago? The same isn't true for continental Europe.

 

92) No, the Riverlands borders the North and the Vale while the Reach doesn't border either.

 

93) Your argument about Tywin taking over everywhere is based on dynastic succesion, which doesn't apply to post-Romanov Russia.

 

94) The Westerlands were already north of the Reach, so that hasn't changed. Dorne is to the south and Myrcella is betrothed to Trystane, but he's Doran's youngest child (Olenna is not expecting Quentyn to die in Meereen). LF is Lord Paramount of the Riverlands rather than Emmon Frey, and the North isn't a neighbor to the Reach.

 

95) I explained the purpose served by marriage in dynastic politics. In this case, Margaery's children will sit on the Iron Throne, and both the Lannisters & Tyrells will be invested in said children.

 

96) Harrenhal was built specifically to be the strongest castle, and was defeated only by dragons. Riverrun is not "the traditional seat of the region", it's the traditional seat of House Tully, who were never kings. Riverrun isn't nothing, but it achieved its current prominence as a result of the Targaryens choosing a ruling house rather than the specifics of the castle itself.

 

97) There's nothing in the text to support that, as no characters think that. Instead everyone who thinks about it at all considers it foolish. You are simply projecting your own thoughts onto the characters.

 

98) Robb doesn't do that to his hostages, nor does Dany to hers in Meereen. Instead hostages get traded. Theon wasn't abused, there was instead merely an implicit threat. And when Theon uses Beth Cassel as a hostage, he shows her father that he can have her hanged rather than stripping & beating her without Rodrik present.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

99) And if all those aren't enough for you, Tywin sent Tyrion to KL because he didn't think Cersei could control Joffrey.

 

The reason is that he enjoys it.

1) Even if he is, it still doesn't preclude Littlefinger's involvement.

2) Neither Jon nor Robert "loved him much." We can quibble over semantics all day and night, but Jon did not like the man. So Jon does not like knights who are good at their jobs? Jon is desperate to please his despondent, unstable wife. If she pressed him to do this for her, he would do it.

3) I can easily see the app says wine, just like the wiki does. But this proves nothing because the app is not canon. And just because they discussed something doesn't mean they decided to put the whole story in the app, especially considering this is Martin's life's work and that he is not going to waste a reveal like this on the app.

4) He is not lying. You are jumping to conclusions.

5) Don't be silly. You know exactly what I mean.

6) Doesn't matter. Neither are canon.

7) It's not a theory. Nowhere does anyone say what the "correct guess" actually was. Some people theorize that Jon's mother is in fact Ashara Dayne and Lyanna gave birth to Dany. I don't necessarily buy it, but the fact remains that anything is possible until it is confirmed in the text, not the app.

8) Um, I can state that the moon is made of cheese. Does this statement confirm it? Why would there need to be "alternate canon"? There was no "alternate canon" when everyone thought Cersei killed Jon Arryn.

9) 

Quote

"In your bed she is like to die that way."

"Oh, I expect I'll get a son on her in a year."

In no way is Renly denying that he is having sex with Margy. They've already been married for several months and he is expecting she'll have a son within the year. If she is not already pregnant, she soon will be. This is the top priority for a king and his queen, especially when the king is off to war.

10) Yes he does need to go along with this charade. He must have Sansa's completely trust and confidence in order for her to carry out the next phase of this plan: to become someone else, all the time, in front of everyone. This is difficult enough for a master mummer, but near impossible for someone like Sansa. If she doesn't think LF has everything under control that everything is going exactly according to plan, she has no chance of pulling this off.

11) Try it with you're own skin if it's white. Use a candle. Thin runs of wine will look purple, just like it looks purple in Tormund's (?) beard and on various pieces of clothing throughout the story.

12) Really? This mad, uncontrollable king who just does what he likes and nobody can stop him? Someone's going to take away his sword? Who? Tyrion threatens to geld Joffrey at his wedding and nobody thought much of it -- and Joffrey's the king.

13) Even if they don't know about the sword specifically, they know Joffrey will be showered with gifts at the wedding, and a sword would be entirely expected. There was no way anyone could possibly know that Joffrey would come at Tyrion with the chalice, let alone that he would put it in some convenient place just at the right time and walk away from it.

14) No she can't. Even if Joffrey drinks first, he shows no reaction for a good 15-20 seconds. In a toast, even if Joff goes first, she gets the chalice back in about three seconds. Now what does she do? Hum a pretty tune? And how is this not going to look suspicious when Joff drops dead a few moments later?

15) It will dissolve in pie as easily as a crystal of sugar or salt would. And we know that poison does not need wine to dissolve because of the smudge in the hairnet afterward, unless somehow you think someone dumped wine on Sansa's head too.

16) Yes, far less water in the pie. But water nonetheless. Exactly the same substance that is in wine. So there is your science. Same kind of crystal, same kind of liquid, and a longer time period for it to dissolve. And, no, there is no capsaicin in the pie. This is not a Dornish recipe. The pie is dry because the crystal is using the moisture in the dissolution process. It's all right there for the reader to put together.

17) Really? Blueberry, blackberry, apple pie is all dry as dust inside just because it's been baked? Joffrey's pie is not entirely dry, BTW, just "a bit dry".

18) Yes it is. Real crystals don't leave smudges behind. The smudge is there because some of the crystal dissolved from its crystal form to a semi-liquid to form a smudge. This is exactly what should happen given that the crystal is highly unstable and dissolves quite easily, even with just the miniscule amount of heat, sweat and oils on Sansa's head.

19) It's not a solid chunk of strangler. It's a softened piece the size of a seed. He is not going to spit it out at this fancy dinner right in front of the fanciest people in all the land. In all likelihood he's just going to swallow it because it's so small. Adding wine to the mix in his mouth with only accelerate the dissolution process. As is already proven in the text, you do not need wine to break down this crystal.

20) What kind of pie do you imagine they are eating? Of course the filling is moist, just like in all the pictures I showed you. Name any kind of pie that doesn't have a moist filling? And why would Joffrey react to the fact that it's a bit dry if it's supposed to be dry?

21) Exactly, so why are you saying they they have to be part of this conspiracy?

22) Of course he wants readers to conclude it was the wine, just like he wanted readers to think Cersei killed Jon Arryn. He is not going to spill this secret in a Rolling Stone interview and spoil his life's work. He's going to do it in the text. 

Yes, all the facts point to the pie and nothing supports the wine. The physical facts, the logistical facts, the motivation facts, the actions and decisions of the principal characters before, during and after the murder -- literally everything points to the pie whereas the only reason people think it's the wine is because they want it that way and proceed to invent all kinds of utterly unsupported imaginary workarounds to the dozens of points in which the text disproves the wine.

23) Yes we do have contradictions. Dozens of them. The time discrepancy, the impossible-to-predict events leading up to the poisoning, the backstory that establishes no reason for Lady O to trust Petyr, the complete lack of motivation for wanting Joffrey dead . . . Over and over again people have to make up solutions to cover these holes, and more often than not they end up contradicting one part of their theory in order to explain another.

24) No you cant. Actually, the rules of this forum state that the show is not to be discussed here but in the show forum. That's because the two are so radically different that one cannot be used to explain the other. It's like arguing that there is no Lady Stoneheart in the books because she isn't in the show.

25) You think Lady Olenna is on a need-to-know basis here? That she is merely doing Littlefinger's bidding, like Dontos? She is the co-conspirator here with just as much motivation as Petyr. And it's her neck on the line, so she is going to want to know everything about this plan, all of it -- if only to assure herself that LF is not trying to screw her. Of course she is going to want to know how the hairnet got to Sansa, and why.

26) Tyrion is crucial to this plan because as long as he is still alive Sansa cannot remarry and the Lannisters maintain control of the north. Without getting rid of him, there is no point in taking Sansa. It's Joffrey who they need to preserve; he is the best asset for both of their games.

27) OK, so why do you think he should be?

28) You're the one who says Joffrey is doing this because he likes to make people suffer. What's the point if he's not going to watch?

29) Again, how is he supposed to enjoy it if he doesn't watch. And TbCs are called when one or another disputants request for one under their rights, not when the king orders it.

30) Where else are they supposed to do this "on the morrow"? The Wall?

31) No it's not normal, but it hardly turns him into a monster who must be killed years later. Nobody questions Joffrey's cruelty. But cruelty alone is not a reason to pass on the Iron Throne, especially when your daughter is the last person on earth he will be cruel to, because he is utterly infatuated with her and you've trained her in all the arts of seduction and manipulation of men. Margaery is in absolutely no danger.

32) Sure, but nowhere does this "pattern" point to Margaery. He is not going to hurt Margy just because he hurt Sansa any more than he is going to execute Mace just because he executed Ned. The pattern is that Joffrey strikes back when provoked, so all Margaery has to do is not provoke him, which she has all the skills to do. Margaery is in absolutely no danger.

33) It's not about getting leverage over Robb. It's about sending a message to other lords that Robb's cause is doomed. And yes, Jaime is a more valuable hostage than Sansa, which is why he can get away with doing this to Sansa, but only up to a point. Thus, Tyrion's interference.

34) Tyrion does discuss bringing Joff to Chataya's, after he is given the idea by Bronn. Nothing ever came of it.

35) Yes, Corbray, way late in the story, long after the murder and longer still after he assessment about Loras going nuts. Up til then, she gets nothing right. Not a thing. So, no, Sansa's views on Loras should not be taken as the gospel truth.

36) Yes, Sansa is puzzled by all  of this. I'm not the one saying she isn't, you are.

37) No, the point is that LF had no reason to kill Joffrey. Which is true. So why would he think it confuses his enemies when nobody even considers him a suspect. This is exactly the kind of double-talk you get when someone is lying through their teeth.

38) He got Sansa by the skin of his teeth, and even still she is no long a maid but a married woman. If he had left it alone and continued to work on Sansa's suspicion of the Tyrells like he was doing, he would have had her with a far less convoluted plan and she would still be a maid.

39) The exact same reasoning that LF would expect a naive neophyte like Sansa to believe. And no, GRRM did not confirm anything because again, "I make no promises for the book."

40) Really? He has no reason at all to doubt that Tyrion will be made cupbearer, that the chalice will be left exactly where it needed to be at the crucial moment, that tine Lady Olenna will have no problem getting the poison in, which is only made that much more difficult by the size of the thing? That's not cocky. That's downright delusional.

41) Ran discussed it with GR and they decided not to waste this major plot twist in the app.

42) It wouldn't be funny if Sansa was calling Barry wicked. It is only funny because she unwittingly calls herself wicked. That's why the people laughed rather than gasp at the insult she just made to the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.

43) LF plays Joff like a fiddle precisely because he appeals to his worst instincts. This is how predictable and malleable he is. And Margaery has shown she can do the same thing, even though Joff is monstrous.

44) She did this right out in the open, right after Sansa had polite conversations with Kevan and Lancel, Lord Gyles, Jalabar Xho . . .  There are dozens of people in the yard "enjoying the unseasonable warmth" and Lady Olenna is fiddling with Sansa's hair. Plenty of people would have seen this.

45) He reasons for doing so are false and contradictory. There was no wind, hairnets are supposed to keep the hair in place, and there is nothing unusual about a few loose strands of hair, which Tyrion would have no clue about. Nobody would think this unusual at the time, but if the hairnet becomes involved in the murder it spells the end for Lady O.

46) They might or they might not. They will know that little Sansa, all by herself, with no money and no friends, was able to acquire this rare and expensive poison and then commission a silver hairnet with a trick clasp just so she can parade the poison around on her head all evening long. The only reason for the hairnet is so someone else could get it. And the only someone who touched it was Lady O.

47) If they have Sansa and the hairnet they will most certainly question her, sharply if necessary. That's not up for debate.

48) Um, Oberyn Martell? Tywin? Anyone who Joff has ever tormented or who thinks he's too unstable to be king?

49)  Oh, I think Petyr knows a lot more about Varys and what he's up to than you realize. But yes, he knows Varys has spies everywhere, but he doesn't "know all." That's just hyperbole to make Catelyn wary around him. Petyr also knows how to outwit Varys and his spies, or else he never would have gotten away with the murder, and pretty much everything else. Varys even admits that, despite knowing all the important secrets of all the important people in the realm, he is utterly blind when it comes to Petyr -- a little admission that does not seem to bother Illyrio a great deal. Hmmmm.

50) If he does then Petyr would know better than to discuss important matters in his brothels.

51) So Petyr spent the entire last half-year or more on his boat out in the bay just waiting for Sansa to arrive?

52) There are several weeks between Tyrion's wedding and Joffrey. Plenty of time to set this up. And Lady O will know instantly that he wasn't here for no particular reason. But I'm sure it was a very delicate conversation nonetheless.

53) She knows a hustler when she sees one. It takes one to know one, after all. And Lady O is not above conning people with her coin as well.

54) Who else is Petyr supposed to recommend? Tyrion was the only choice.

55) 

Quote

"Margaery, you're clever, be a dear and tell your poor old half-daft grandmother the name of that queer fish from the Summer Isles that puffs up to ten times its own size when you poke it."

Anyone who has any dealings at all with Lady Olenna Tyrell can see that she is not harmless, nor does she pretend to be.

56) Wrong. He talks up Joffrey because he has to, and Lady Olenna knows he is lying because she is no fool. She already knows all about the little lion from Renly and a dozen other sources. But that doesn't matter because the only thing that does matter here is the throne, not Margaery's happiness. If LF had already told her the "truth" about Joffrey back at Highgarden, then there is no reason why she couldn't just hector her son out of the match right then and there, and there is no reason why she would need to confirm any of this with Sansa, since the only person to ever tell her that Joffrey is anything but a nasty piece of work has just admitted that he lied.

57) Yes, and she knows he is lying, otherwise she would have gone right to Mace when LF immediately turns around and tells her the truth. You see how this whole theory collapses in on itself? Nobody is doing what they are supposed to be doing if this was what was really happening.

58) It was fully dissolved by the time he handed it to Mel. And honestly, if it took this crystal minutes to dissolve, don't you think someone would have thought by now that using it in crystal form is not the best way to do it? Yes, a large amount of wine means more solute, which makes it harder to predict how or whether the poison will work effectively. So why on earth would they purposely give Joffrey a chalice that holds such a large, indeterminant volume of wine, and which will be shared with Margaery, and then use that as their murder weapon? Again, why are these supposedly smart people making such foolish mistakes? Not just at this point but over and over and over again.

59) There is enough liquid -- the exact same kind of liquid that is in wine -- in the filling to dissolve it enough to be effective. It anything, it will be more effective because it will be less diluted and will cling to the throat more readily than wine.

60) Tyrion is not going to spit out a tiny piece of pie right in front of all these fancy people at the highest public event in a decade. He'll have to isolate it with his tongue first (unless you imagine him hawking the whole mouthful onto his plate just because of a tiny bone), and by the time he does that it's too late.

61) Brown, purplish, whatever. It's not creamy yellow like chicken pot pie. Nobody, least of all Tyrion, is going to open the pie and inspect it first. It's just one obligatory bite. And it is unusually dry, or else Joffrey would not have thought anything of it. This is what I mean when people just start making things up out of whole cloth just to support their theory.

62) Because she is standing right next to the servant who is right behind Tyrion waiting to serve him his pie. See how fast the pie is placed before him? It is right there, already cut and plated, and waited to be served as soon as the cutting ceremony is done. And if she had the wits the gods gave a goose, she would have orchestrated this whole thing herself, making sure that servants were right behind everyone at the head table in order to serve their pies immediately. And nobody would think anything of it because she is a Queen of Thorns and this is her granddaughter's wedding and we've seen how much of a stickler she is when it comes to food and the serving of food even at minor functions. "The cheese will be served when I want it served, and I want it served now."

63) Wine that has been changed to "deep purple" does not change back to red then to deep purple again.

64) The Lannister control the High Septon at this point. He will go along with it if his patrons tell him to. Both Jaime and Cersei see no problem in letting them marry because they know they can undo it whenever they choose.

Yes, as soon as Tommen is physically capable, five years from now. Anything can happen in five years, literally anything. Joffrey is right here, ready to go, and could give Margy a son within the year. And he is absolutely no danger to her.

65) You're talking about stuff happening after Joffrey died. If he had lived, Cersei would no long be queen regent. As it stands now, they have to put up with her for another five years.

66) Um, the cliff is on the river, not the bay. And anyone who mucks up the plan and gets caught with the poison or trying to put the poison into the giant golden chalice, all glittering a bejeweled in order to draw attention to itself, like a giant fishing lure, they will spill the whole plane, including where Sansa went. So in the hours between the murder and the rendezvous, Tywin has plenty of time to close off the bay and board and search any ship until he finds one with a highborn maid.

67) Away from his wife when he falls on the floor and others rush to his side to help him. If you were sitting next to someone who was choking, you would just continue to sit there as if nothing was happening?

68) No, I'm pointing out the glaring contradiction in your statement. You clearly do not understand the significance of the pie. It is expected to be eaten, at least one bite, by everyone in attendance, just like our own wedding cake. Why else for "It's ill luck not to eat the pie"? Everyone is expected to eat, because note will be take of who does not and they will most assuredly be met with ill luck at some later point.

69) Good grief, have you ever been to a wedding before? The bride and groom don't toast the guests, the guests toast the bride and groom. That means the guest says something and the bride and groom do nothing until the toast has been said. Then they drink. And in this case, they drink from the same chalice one right after the other. There is absolutely no reason in the world that Margaery would just stand their for half-a-minute after Joffrey drinks, and if she does come up with some excuse it looks extremely bad for her when he drops dead the next moment.

70) They had a glass or two with lunch. This is hardly drinking heavily like we see him at the wedding. It is for Sansa, though, because she had never drank this much before.

71) Again, who says anything about poisoning Sansa? Tyrion was the target, not Sansa. Sansa is the prize.

72) The feast is not going to end until the wee hours of the morning. They are not going to keep everyone, including the bride and groom, up all night.

73, 74) Well, sorry. I'm not that sophisticated. I just quote what is written, but it gets annoying for both me and the other person when they feel the need to argue over every minute detail.

75) Because her motivation to kill him is now as great as his own. She must do something to prevent Tywin from eclipsing Highgarden as the top power in the realm. But even then, as I said, it was probably a very delicate conversation between two high accomplished interlocutors.

76) He did no such thing because he "makes no promises for the books."

77) Because as I've explained many many times, she has no way of getting her out of the Red Keep without being seen. The only way is through the gates and there are guards and people all over them. Sure, she would love to have Sansa for herself, but she can't. LF is the least bad option; certainly better than leaving her with Tywin.

78) Nobody is going to be looking at Sansa when Tyrion is gasping and purple and people are all around trying to help and there is confusion and hysteria across the room. Again, if someone next to you was choking, you would honestly just sit there, not even moving to give someone else a chance to help? Nobody is going to be watching Sansa.

79) At what time does Joffrey ever mistreat someone completely out of the blue, for no reason?

80) Even a few bruises "within a year" is well worth the Iron Throne. Plenty of queens have suffered far worse for their crowns. There is no reason Margaery cannot do the same. And Margaery is not stupid like Sansa. She knows how to manipulate men, especially short-sighted simpletons like Joffrey. Margaery is in absolutely no danger.

81) Robert had KG too, and they got to him. Kings can have accident, especially foolish ones like Joffrey.

82) Tywin will be off to war. He still has Stannis to deal with. Blockading him is not enough. He must be defeated.

83) Joffrey will still be under a regency, which means Jaime most likely will have control of the government. If he has to, he can lock Margaery in the maidenvault. But it won't some to that because Joffrey is madly in love with Margaery and Margaery has all the skills to manipulate him right up to the point where she doesn't need him anymore, when she can just kill him.

84) This is Alayne's story. Other people will want to know where she came from and what she's doing here all of a sudden because she is now serving them at table and managing Petyr's household.

85) Yes, and the one she accepted has her at 14 when that is simply impossible. But Sansa remains utterly clueless, like she is about virtually everything.

86) Again, show me when Joffrey abused someone for no reason. The singer, the rebel's wife, Sansa, the antler men, Tyrion . . . In all these cases, Joffrey had very clear reason for doing what he did. Show me one instance in which he was just walking along and started beating on somebody just because he felt like it?

87) Yes it does. Margaery explained why Widow's Wail is not for cutting pies, and he agreed. LF explained why he should have the dwarf joust, and he agreed. Cersei obviously explained why he should be nice to Sansa at the riverside dinner, and he agreed. If you do it right, you can get Joffrey to agree to virtually anything. What you can't do is simply tell him no, you can't do that.

88) Um, no. The Tyrells did not start breeding animals with Willas. Both them and the Gardeners were known to breed the finest animals for ages, and their lords were tops in gentlemanly pursuits like hunting, hawking and racing. To say that this started with Willas is absurd. This is the house descended from Garth Greenhand.

89) And this is relevant how?

90) It shows this. Good writing is all about showing, not telling.

91) The vikings raided all over Europe, going as far south as the Arabian peninsula, and, of course, North America. Having an ocean on one side does not make you immune from invasion, as the ironmen clearly demonstrate.

92) If they don't border they come awfully close. And if not, it's only because the area where they touched is now called the crownlands. Before that it was the riverlands.

93) No, my facts regarding Tywin's power bloc are taken straight from the book. This is exactly what has happened over the last 20 years. There is no denying it. Neither can it be denied that this represents a major threat to Highgarden, which has been the dominant house for the past 10,000 years. The shift in power in Westeros is just as serious as if the United States were to suddenly be eclipsed by Russia, regardless of who is in power.

94) Well of course the Westerlands is still north of the Reach. What on earth are you talking about. What has changed is that Tywin is gaining control of all the other realms either by marriage or conquest or both, just the way Highgarden has maintained its dominance over the years. LF is LP at the moment. This could change at any time. Why does the north have to be a neighbor to the Reach? When the overlord calls, his relative in Winterfell will answer, especially if it's winter and the northmen are looking for any excuse to march south. This is a huge problem for the Tyrells, far worse that Margaery getting a black eye.

95) Margaery's children will consider themselves Lannisters in the same way that Joffrey considers himself a Baratheon. Joffrey is not the sort to be a hands-on father, just like his own father, so that means Margaery will oversee the raising of the new king, just like Cersei did. And since the rest of this plan is to take down Tywin and undo all his empire building, it won't matter that the boy is half-lannister.

96) There was no traditional seat in the riverlands until the Hoares came by and united the whole thing. Riverrun is arguably the strongest castle in the region, rivaled only by the Twins, and has been the dominant seat for 300 years. It only makes sense to restore it to paramount, especially once Tywin's nephew is the new lord.

97) There are some things that are said and others that are shown. Joffrey literally tells Sansa, "you are here to answer for your brothers crimes", not because I just feel like it, or I hate you, or I like to see you cry, but to answer for your brother's crimes, which Lancel has just described in the battle at Oxcross. This is what prompted Joffrey to give her this beating. Oxcross.

98) Robb didn't have to. Neither did Dany. Yes, sometimes hostages are exchanged, but these are usually knights and fighting men. Not children. Children are taken as wards to bind houses together, to make sure one lord does not betray the other. You can bet that if Robb ever managed to make his way tot he gates of King's Landing, Sansa would be up there with a noose around her neck.

99) Tywin sent Tyrion to KL because Cersei had demonstrated that she could not control him. But if Joffrey had lived, Cersei would have been sent packing and Tywin would be regent, or Jaime in his absence. And Tywin has no problem controlling Joffrey.

100) Again, show me when Joffrey just pulls someone out of a crowd at random and gives them a beat down. It just doesn't happen. And it most certainly will not happen to Margaery, who is literally the only person on the planet that he does not despise.

 

[John Suburbs]

18 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

That's not so abnormal for a Westerosi nobleman. But Robert can't understand how he could have had a son as messed up as Joffrey.

 

He was mostly just corrupt. One such concubine did die in a horrible way, but that's because she was caught sleeping with one of his KG.

 

Maegor, Rhaenyra, Aegon II & Aerys II all learned the hard way that their character does matter. Adults try to tell Joffrey similarly, but he doesn't listen.

Who was expecting him to throw out the deal arranged for Ned Stark to take the black?

It still puts Cersei at risk. Why didn't they wed him to Robert, then kill him and marry her to Stannis? Robert is a fierce warrior and Joffrey is a spineless liar. Who wouldn't be disappointed in that?

No, he was insatiable in his lust, leaving bastards all over the realm, including three to Lord Butterwell, who apparently got a nice dragon egg for his trouble, and then his grandson became Master of Coin and eventually Hand. This is how far people are willing to overlook cruelty in their king just to get a chance at expanding their power. 

Joffrey is 13, and he does listen, if you talk to him the right way.

Whoever put him up to it. My hunch is Littlefinger.

 

[Frey family reunion]

Holy crap, I just want to applaud the level of dedication to first make a hundred point argument and then to respond to a hundred point argument.

[John Suburbs]

2 hours ago, Daeron the Daring said:

Well, I'm sure I can't do anything but roll my eyes and leave you believe what you'd like to.

Joffrey is 100 percent predictable and he is absolutely in love with Margeary. We can see this plain as day in the text. She is in absolutely no danger and probably won't be for years, long after his usefulness has expired. There was no reason to kill him now and every reason to wait. Tyrion, however, has to go ASAP because he could father the next lord of Winterfell at any time, bringing the entire north under Tywin's expanding domain. That is what is really going on here.

[FictionIsntReal]

On 4/9/2021 at 10:06 AM, John Suburbs said:

if that is the reason Joffrey sent the catspaw (which I doubt, but whatever)

I don't think it makes a lick of sense, but like the fantasy genetics which prove incest to Ned, I think we're just supposed to accept it.

This is a society where animals are killed all the time

Edible ones & wild ones, sure. Cats are domesticated enough to live indoor amongst people. Cutting open the cat would have been weird even if it wasn't pregnant (though that does make it extra weird).

And he never did it again

A yellow cat was dying on the ground, mewling piteously, a crossbow quarrel through its ribs [...] Joffrey stood in the center of the throng, winding an ornate crossbow

I suppose shooting a cat with a crossbow is technically different from cutting open a pregnant one.

He hates Sansa because she saw him cry like a baby on the Trident

Precisely! Sansa wasn't responsible for that, so if Margaery was in her place there's nothing she could do to prevent Joffrey from being angry with her.

If Balon Greyjoy had risen in rebellion again, no one would think Ned was a mad tyrant if he beat, tortured or even executed Theon

Theon would simply be executed rather than beaten or tortured, just as the Yunkai only executed Groleo.

They are not going to let any harm come to Margaery because they, and Joffrey, know that Tyrell power is the only thing keeping him on the throne

Cersei went after Margaery anyway, because she makes bad decisions despite how obviously bad they are. Joffrey also makes terrible decisions. You can't rely on him to restrain his worst impulses out of political pragmatism.

On 4/9/2021 at 2:42 PM, John Suburbs said:

1) Even if he is, it still doesn't preclude Littlefinger's involvement.

LF has no military experience, isn't a knight, and didn't have knightly bannermen (or any other kind of bannermen). His cutouts tend to be greedy men of little status. Particularly early in his career, he's not going to have leverage to use over a knight whom Jaime regards as the most dangerous after himself. The reason people try to connect him to LF is that he's from the Vale, which isn't surprising since Jon Arryn brought him to KL.

2) Neither Jon nor Robert "loved him much." We can quibble over semantics all day and night, but Jon did not like the man.

Do we know of Robert or Jon having strong feelings toward any member of the KG, aside from when Robert sent his maester to Barristan? They don't need to.

Jon is desperate to please his despondent, unstable wife.

No he isn't. She didn't want him to send their son away, but Jon was going to do that anyway. He gave LF a minor appointment because of Lysa, but LF actually raised more revenue than expected, which is how he got named Master of Coin.

3) I can easily see the app says wine, just like the wiki does. But this proves nothing because the app is not canon.

I'm glad you agree it's not "hearsay" now. Unlike the user-generated wiki, that factoid in the map was explicitly confirmed by GRRM.

And just because they discussed something doesn't mean they decided to put the whole story in the app

Of course entries in the app aren't supposed to be unlimited length accounts of "the whole story". But if Ran asked GRRM to confirm pie vs wine for the app, and GRRM said pie, the app isn't going to say wine instead. If he didn't want to say anything, then he would just not say anything, which he has plenty of practice doing when people ask him about things that have yet to be revealed.

4) He is not lying. You are jumping to conclusions.

Of course I don't think he's lying. I think he told the truth that it was the wine.

6) Doesn't matter. Neither are canon.

The app is semi-canon because it was written by people authorized by GRRM and with his input, and published as such. The wiki isn't canon at all.

7) It's not a theory. Nowhere does anyone say what the "correct guess" actually was.

D&D revealed it was Lyanna. And we know they guessed correctly. This is a reveal that has yet to happen in the books, but is analogous to GRRM saying that Theon would appear in ADWD and isn't dead even if he wishes he was.

8) Um, I can state that the moon is made of cheese. Does this statement confirm it?

If you are the creator of a fictional universe and somebody asks you about the moon in said universe, then yes you have.

This is the top priority for a king and his queen, especially when the king is off to war.

This is you projecting your own mind onto others again. Renly was confident in an alliance with the Tyrells even before he married Margaery.

10) Yes he does need to go along with this charade.

What obligation does he have to pretend Margaery is still a maiden!?

12) [...] Someone's going to take away his sword? Who?

Any adult nearby. This is a wedding, not a court where Joffrey is handing down a judgement.

Tyrion threatens to geld Joffrey at his wedding and nobody thought much of it

No, they did react, and say he must be joking, which Tyrion affirmed.

13) Even if they don't know about the sword specifically, they know Joffrey will be showered with gifts at the wedding, and a sword would be entirely expected.

You're grasping at straws here.

There was no way anyone could possibly know that Joffrey would come at Tyrion with the chalice, let alone that he would put it in some convenient place just at the right time and walk away from it.

The primary purpose of the chalice was to poison Joffrey. Tyrion was a bonus that LF primed Joffrey to humiliate.

15) It will dissolve in pie as easily as a crystal of sugar or salt would

You don't add that to pie AFTER it's baked.

And we know that poison does not need wine to dissolve because of the smudge in the hairnet afterward

I already explained that smudging is not dissolving! Graphite can make smudges without any chemical reaction!

16) Yes, far less water in the pie. But water nonetheless

Says you. No one describes the pie as moist, Joffrey only describes it as dry.

And, no, there is no capsaicin in the pie. This is not a Dornish recipe.

Spices tend to be chemically similar. Piperine is also nonpolar.

17) Really? Blueberry, blackberry, apple pie is all dry as dust inside

This isn't a sweet fruit pie. It's a spicy meat pie.

18) Yes it is. Real crystals don't leave smudges behind.

Graphite has a crystalline structure.

19) [...] As is already proven in the text, you do not need wine to break down this crystal.

As I already said, graphite can be mechanically worn down through abrasion without any chemical dissolution.

21) Exactly, so why are you saying they they have to be part of this conspiracy?

I didn't say that. The clients can give & receive whatever info is required from them for their specific creations without actually filling them in on the whole conspiracy.

22) Of course he wants readers to conclude it was the wine, just like he wanted readers to think Cersei killed Jon Arryn.

Other characters accused Cersei of that, but GRRM himself never said that.

Yes, all the facts point to the pie and nothing supports the wine.

If that were the case, GRRM wouldn't say the careful reader would conclude the latter!

literally everything points to the pie whereas the only reason people think it's the wine is because they want it that way and proceed to invent all kinds of utterly unsupported imaginary workarounds

No, LF himself admitted to it and his explanation for the Tyrells' motivations meshed precisely with what Sansa came up with independently.

23) [...] the complete lack of motivation for wanting Joffrey dead

No, GRRM himself explained the motivation, which is precisely what Sansa imagined & LF confirmed.

24) [...] It's like arguing that there is no Lady Stoneheart in the books because she isn't in the show.

No, GRRM has noted that's the one element left out he most wanted them to include, and D&D explained they didn't want to bring back Michelle as a zombie. None of your weird poison plot requires any zombies. It DOES require them to not have Olenna confess to it in multiple scenes.

25) You think Lady Olenna is [...] like Dontos?

No, she's not supposed to get paid. GRRM explained her motivation.

And it's her neck on the line, so she is going to want to know everything about this plan, all of it -- if only to assure herself that LF is not trying to screw her.

She doesn't need to micromanage everything, and she would have no reason to think the details of how the hairnet got to Sansa would be used to screw her over. The lack of connection between Olenna & Dontos would actually serve to insulate her in the event of Dontos being caught.

26) Tyrion is crucial to this plan because as long as he is still alive Sansa cannot remarry and the Lannisters maintain control of the north.

Sansa is a bonus, the target is Joffrey. The Tyrells are not neighbors of the North, so it's not really essential to their interests.

27) OK, so why do you think he should be?

I am arguing against your claim that since we didn't see the two knights fight to the death that means it couldn't have happened. Joffrey doesn't need to directly observe the result of everything he orders.

28) You're the one who says Joffrey is doing this because he likes to make people suffer. What's the point if he's not going to watch?

He can enjoy knowing that people are suffering even if he's not watching. For example, if Robb Stark had been captured rather than killed by the Freys, Joffrey could have sent a raven telling the Freys what tortures he wants inflicted on Robb without having to travel to see it.

30) Where else are they supposed to do this "on the morrow"?

Anywhere in the area of KL could serve.

31) No it's not normal, but it hardly turns him into a monster who must be killed years later.

I'm glad you now admit he's not normal, as every other character notes about him. And GRRM himself has called Joffrey "monstrous". It's not just one incident from his childhood, that was indicative of his character and consistent with his subsequent pattern of behavior.

But cruelty alone is not a reason to pass on the Iron Throne

They're not, Margaery is marrying Tommen. They wouldn't be able to hold onto the Iron Throne if Loras killed Joffrey.

32) Sure, but nowhere does this "pattern" point to Margaery

The "pattern" isn't about his targets. It's about Joffrey. He can be awful to anyone. You are extremely confident that Joffrey would NEVER harm Margaery specifically, but GRRM himself has said Olenna doesn't believe that (and in a manner indicating her reasoning is rational).

33) It's not about getting leverage over Robb. It's about sending a message to other lords that Robb's cause is doomed.

I recommend studying up on the topic of credibly costly signals. Joffrey abusing Sansa doesn't have any direct connection to the viability of Robb's cause so that Joffrey wouldn't do it if Robb had good odds. In fact Joffrey does it more when Robb is successful! Therefore the lords would have no reason to conclude based on Sansa's abuse that Robb is doomed. Joffrey just comes across as deranged & out of control, hence Tyrion stopping things.

34) I'm glad you're no longer claiming Tyrion talked to Varys about bringing Joffrey to a brothel after I quoted the section saying just that. And the point was that Tyrion attributed a sexual motive to Joffrey rather the signalling argument you've come up with (and that no character ever suggests).

35) Yes, Corbray, way late in the story, long after the murder

Going back to the timeline again, Joffrey's assassination/wedding was on 1/1 in the year 300. The bit with Corbray takes place on 3/23 of the same year. Did Sansa really get that much older & more mature by that time? And yet she still doesn't see the "obvious" holes in LF's story about the assassination?

So, no, Sansa's views on Loras should not be taken as the gospel truth

It's not merely that Sansa couldn't understand why the Tyrells were blase about that. It's that LF independently gave the same explanation that Sansa thought of, and GRRM explicitly said that Olenna killed Joffrey because of just the sort of thing that Sansa worried would cause Loras to kill Joffrey. Against that you just have your own confidence not supported by anything in the text.

36) Yes, Sansa is puzzled by all  of this. I'm not the one saying she isn't

I guess I have to quote you again:

Sansa is never puzzled about LF's motive for killing Joffrey

This appears to be the result of you not reading the comment until you quote-reply, thus losing the quotes inside it and forgetting what you yourself wrote. So perhaps you'll just have no idea what I'm talking about when you reply to this, even though everyone else reading will see how you contradicted yourself.

37) No, the point is that LF had no reason to kill Joffrey. Which is true. So why would he think it confuses his enemies when nobody even considers him a suspect.

That's precisely why! If they did think he was behind it then they WOULDN'T be confused! As it is they are looking in the wrong place for enemies, letting LF sneak out with Sansa and all the funds he misappropriated during his tenure as Master of Coin (by now converted into things like debt he's bought from Vale lords).

38) He got Sansa by the skin of his teeth

Everything worked out perfectly for LF, with no hitches. Whoever's pulling strings from hell really likes him

even still she is no long a maid but a married woman

The marriage was never consummated, and Tyrion was sentenced to death. LF doesn't see her earlier marriage as that big of a hurdle. With Sansa herself being a fugitive accused-regicide, any reveal of her would mean revealing LF's open defiance of the Lannisters.

39) The exact same reasoning that LF would expect a naive neophyte like Sansa to believe

There are many ways to be wrong, but only one true answer to any sufficiently narrow question. Independently arriving at the arriving at the same logic (which GRRM supported in his statement) is evidence in favor of it. LF has only just heard about what happened, so if he was expecting Tyrion to be assassinated instead he would be surprised and have little time to come up with th is explanation.

And no, GRRM did not confirm anything because again, "I make no promises for the book."

If I asked GRRM to confirm that it was Roose Bolton who stabbed Robb Stark to death, and he said "Yes", that would be confirming. Even though his statement would not be part of the actual canonical text and it wouldn't actually be a contradiction for him to reveal later it was a look-a-like (though GRRM wouldn't confirm it if he was actually planning on such a reveal).

40) [...] that the chalice will be left exactly where it needed to be at the crucial moment

The Tyrells aren't limited to a single moment to poison the chalice. They can do so whenever it's most convenient for them. Although if LF suggests to Joffrey that Tyrion be his cupbearer, that could help get it moving more.

that tine Lady Olenna will have no problem getting the poison in

She doesn't have to do that bit herself.

41) Ran discussed it with GR and they decided not to waste this major plot twist in the app.

Then they would have just NOT confirmed it either way!

42) It wouldn't be funny if Sansa was calling Barry wicked.

She's not saying that about Barry OR herself. No one interprets her comment that way because logic doesn't work that way.

43) LF plays Joff like a fiddle precisely because he appeals to his worst instincts

It's really more the show where she appeals to his sadism. Interrupting Joffrey when he's berating Tyrion because the pie has arrived isn't really appealing to his worst instincts.

44) [...] Plenty of people would have seen this.

None of the witnesses remembered afterward, even though Sansa was an escaped accused-regicide. Even Sansa didn't remember until LF pointed it out. Tyrion would have every reason to blame someone else, but the idea never occurs to him.

45) He reasons for doing so are false and contradictory. There was no wind, hairnets are supposed to keep the hair in place

Tyrion actually sees loose hair that Olenna is able to put back in the net! The text makes that clear, but you just insist it can't be.

there is nothing unusual about a few loose strands of hair, which Tyrion would have no clue about

So just because it's not "unusual" for some hairs to be loose it means an old lady can't fix them up anyway?

if the hairnet becomes involved in the murder it spells the end for Lady O

No, because she'd just seem like an old lady fiddling with a hairnet that no one else knew at the time to contain poison. Sansa is the one known to have been abused by Joffrey and to have had her brother recently killed by his loyalists. Olenna had no connection to the hairnet prior to that and even Sansa wouldn't know how she'd know it was poison.

46) [...] little Sansa, all by herself, with no money and no friends

The accusation is that she & Tyrion conspired together.

47) If they have Sansa and the hairnet they will most certainly question her, sharply if necessary. That's not up for debate.

Certainly. And they won't accept her protestations of innocence & ignorance.

48) Um, Oberyn Martell? Tywin?

Oberyn Martell wants vengeance for something that happened before Joffrey was even born. Joffrey merely making insulting jokes about the Dornish wouldn't be enough to motivate an assassination, and he didn't have much contact with Sansa. And of course the regime isn't going to be checking if Sansa conspired with Tywin!

49)  Oh, I think Petyr knows a lot more about Varys and what he's up to than you realize

What's your evidence for that?

Petyr also knows how to outwit Varys and his spies, or else he never would have gotten away with the murder

Varys helps Tyrion flee after he murders Tywin. He's not that loyal a servant of the regime.

he is utterly blind when it comes to Petyr

He doesn't claim to be "utterly blind", he says he doesn't know what game he's up to. Varys knew he was causing problems, but didn't know WHY.

50) If he does then Petyr would know better than to discuss important matters in his brothels.

Where is he going to discuss the assassination he has planned for the royal wedding after he's already said he's left for the Vale?

51) So Petyr spent the entire last half-year or more on his boat out in the bay just waiting for Sansa to arrive?

The boat can leave and come back for the scheduled wedding. And it's not "the entire last half-year or more", as you yourself noted just afterward it was more a matter of "weeks" between the two weddings.

52) [...] Lady O will know instantly that he wasn't here for no particular reason

How is he going to explain why he's secretly in KL when Mace knows he's supposed to be in the Vale? He's just that dedicated to helping Olenna steal Sansa away from the Lannisters?

53) She knows a hustler when she sees one

This is you just imagining knowledge on her part when the text gives no support to that.

54) Who else is Petyr supposed to recommend?

Mace Tyrell. He's currently Master of Ships, but it's not like he's really a naval specialist. Tywin was even willing to have Mace's brother take the position.

55) [..] Anyone who has any dealings at all with Lady Olenna Tyrell can see that she is not harmless, nor does she pretend to be.

I don't see how the quote about the puff fish has anything to do with that. She's using it as a term of mockery.

56) [..] the only thing that does matter here is the throne, not Margaery's happiness.

Not every family is as awful toward their own members as the Lannisters. The Tyrell sibligns actually get along with each other, even without a sexual relationship like Cersei & Jaime.

If LF had already told her the "truth" about Joffrey back at Highgarden, then there is no reason why she couldn't just hector her son out of the match right then and there

there is no reason why she would need to confirm any of this with Sansa, since the only person to ever tell her that Joffrey is anything but a nasty piece of work has just admitted that he lied.

Regicide is a big deal. She'd want to check every box, including what Joffrey's former fiance has to say about him.

57) Yes, and she knows he is lying, otherwise she would have gone right to Mace when LF immediately turns around and tells her the truth.

There are a couple of different possibilities. 1: Olenna is telling the truth that Mace is the one who insisted both of Margaery's marriages over her objections and he's too much of an oaf look past the shiny prize in front of him. Then she might simply go around his back. 2: She's lying and Mace is actually in on the plan to assassinate Joffrey and replace him with Tommen. And in that case she actually did go to him.

58) It was fully dissolved by the time he handed it to Mel

It was a flake, which raises the ratio of surface area to volume, and it was immersed in wine.

And honestly, if it took this crystal minutes to dissolve, don't you think someone would have thought by now that using it in crystal form is not the best way to do it?

No, it's still useful for people who prepare it in advance and don't try to poison a solid like a pie.

Yes, a large amount of wine means more solute, which makes it harder to predict how or whether the poison will work effectively

The ratio of the volume of wine to the volume of poison would determine the concentration. And we now from Cressen that there's not really much poison required to be fatal. The conspirators know how much wine the chalice can hold and how much poison is in a single stone from the net.

such foolish mistakes

It wasn't a mistake or foolish, it killed Joffrey without harming Margaery.

59) There is enough liquid -- the exact same kind of liquid that is in wine

No, we don't hear of any alcohol in the pie. We do hear that it's spiced, which is chemically quite different. And we hear Joffrey say that it's dry.

60) Tyrion is not going to spit out a tiny piece of pie right in front of all these fancy people at the highest public event in a decade

At Tyrion's own wedding he talked about castrating the king. You can't rely on his strong sense of decorum to ensure he eats any of the pie at all (it better be the part with the crystal, which also isn't visible), and doesn't spit out the crystal. Meanwhile Olenna or whoever is supposed to be uncouth enough to stick their fingers inside Tyrion's slice of pie.

61) Brown, purplish, whatever. It's not creamy yellow like chicken pot pie

We don't get a description. If "all the facts" were going to point to the pie, we would have gotten some indication it was even capable of concealing/dissolving the poison.

62) Because she is standing right next to the servant who is right behind Tyrion waiting to serve him his pie. See how fast the pie is placed before him?

Olenna walks with a cane, I'd expect her to be sitting rather than standing even it wasn't already expected for the guests to be seated. And we don't need text about servants cutting pie while Joffrey is dancing with Margaery.

And if she had the wits the gods gave a goose, she would have orchestrated this whole thing herself, making sure that servants were right behind everyone at the head table in order to serve their pies immediately

Who said Olenna was in charge of the servants? Tyrion tells Shae that the queen (Cersei) has chosen all the servers.

"The cheese will be served when I want it served, and I want it served now."

That was just the Tyrells inviting Sansa to a private get together which they put on themselves. They have complete authority over that, unlike with the wedding the Lannisters are putting on.

64) [...] Both Jaime and Cersei see no problem in letting them marry because they know they can undo it whenever they choose.

Cersei is the one paranoid about the Tyrells, while Jaime is trying to get her to chill out.

65) You're talking about stuff happening after Joffrey died.

You said that Cersei framed Margaery for adultery rather than annulling the marriage because she needed the Tyrell army. But I replied that she's not going to have the support of the Tyrell army if Margaery gets convicted.

68) No, I'm pointing out the glaring contradiction in your statement. You clearly do not understand the significance of the pie. It is expected to be eaten, at least one bite, by everyone in attendance, just like our own wedding cake

Seventy-seven courses, I daresay. Don't you find that a bit excessive, my lord? I shan't eat more than three or four bites myself, but you and I are very little, aren't we?"

Tyrion's small stomach could have already filled up by then. And indeed he had no plans on eating any of the pie.

Why else for "It's ill luck not to eat the pie"?

That's just Joffrey continuing to mess with Tyrion after dumping the wine on him and forcing him to serve it. Joffrey is even eating Tyrion's pie as a gesture of disrespect rather than punishing him for not eating it.

70) They had a glass or two with lunch.

He's not portrayed as sober, instead it's said that the wine had made him wild.

71) Again, who says anything about poisoning Sansa?

I just explained that as the plan you describe is more likely to poison Sansa, then it's probably not the case that it was in fact the plan with obtaining Sansa as the objective!

72) The feast is not going to end until the wee hours of the morning. They are not going to keep everyone, including the bride and groom, up all night.

This is you just making up stuff that's not in the text.

73, 74) Well, sorry. I'm not that sophisticated.

Text editors are extremely basic. Everyone else reading these comments will see quotes followed by replies, although the lack of nesting will obscure what those quotes were themselves replying to. When you just use numbers (which are certainly an improvement over what you did before), then you do require readers to "scroll up", which is exactly what you had complained about.

75) [...] She must do something to prevent Tywin from eclipsing Highgarden as the top power in the realm.

That's not going to come down to Sansa's marriage. The Tyrells were completely left outside of the marriage alliances of Robert's rebel coalition, and it wasn't regarded as any existential threat to them.

76) He did no such thing because he "makes no promises for the books."

This is the explanation GRRM gave:

She certainly had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Everything she’d heard about him, he was wildly unstable, and he was about to marry her beloved granddaughter. The Queen of Thorns had studied Joffrey well enough that she knew that at some point he would get bored with Margaery, and Margaery would be maltreated, the same way that Sansa had been. Whereas if she removed him then her granddaughter might still get the crown but without all of the danger.

So he did explain it, and you are choosing to ignore it because of his comment about how he was two more books to write. That comment merely demarcates his discussion with EW (including a bit about how Sansa was to take the blame) as extra-textual.

77) Because as I've explained many many times, she has no way of getting her out of the Red Keep without being seen

Sansa was able to get away. And if Olenna was in on the plan for her to run away when a poisoning occurred, then she could have assigned someone the job of following Sansa.

78) Nobody is going to be looking at Sansa when Tyrion is gasping and purple and people are all around trying to help

There were people looking at Margaery. And if anyone sees her running away when her husband is poisoned, she'd look suspicious as hell.

Again, if someone next to you was choking, you would honestly just sit there, not even moving to give someone else a chance to help?

Olenna actually did have to "screech" for people to move to help Joffrey, as they were all just staring.

79) At what time does Joffrey ever mistreat someone completely out of the blue, for no reason?

The reason is that he gets his jollies from it. Mycah hadn't done anything to him, but Joffrey still decided to draw blood with Lion's Tooth. That sort of sadism is why GRRM called him "monstrous".

80) Even a few bruises "within a year" is well worth the Iron Throne

It might result in Loras killing Joffrey. Cersei had to hide from Jaime any bruises Robert gave her, and Robert was at least ashamed of hitting her.

81) Robert had KG too, and they got to him.

Robert insisted on hunting the boar alone when he was drunker than usual. Joffrey is dumb, but he's not actually brave.

82) [...] Blockading him is not enough. He must be defeated.

Blockading him would lead to his defeat. Tywin didn't say anything about going back out on campaign to deal with Stannis.

83) Joffrey will still be under a regency, which means Jaime most likely will have control of the government.

Jaime was never regent.

84) This is Alayne's story. Other people will want to know where she came from

As LF said, it's considered impolite to inquire into the origins of a bastard. And LF recommended "pious bleating" to discourage "unwanted questions". One detail of the story is that her own mother died giving birth to her, leaving her to the Faith. There's no reason for Alayne to even talk about Gulltown.

85) Yes, and the one she accepted has her at 14 when that is simply impossible

Sansa is 13. That's very close to 14. Myranda even says she's well developed for her age.

86) Again, show me when Joffrey abused someone for no reason.

Alright then, Mycah again!

87) Yes it does. Margaery explained why Widow's Wail is not for cutting pies, and he agreed.

That's not preventing him from hurting anyone, that's just using a different sword to cut the pie.

LF explained why he should have the dwarf joust, and he agreed.

That's not restraining him from hurting anyone for fear of the consequences either, rather it was suggesting a way of humiliating his uncle.

If you do it right, you can get Joffrey to agree to virtually anything

We haven't really seen that. When Joffrey is bent on a bit of sadism, he's unwilling to let up. If he wanted to hurt Margaery, the best anyone could do would be suggesting better ways of doing it.

89) And this is relevant how?

The Riverlands has more neighboring kingdoms on its borders than the Reach or the US (counting countries as "kingdoms" for that last bit).

90) It shows this. Good writing is all about showing, not telling.

That's one way of saying it's your head-canon when the text doesn't say something.

91) I'm making a relative comparison of places bounded by land vs sea. England was able to avoid invasions at a time when contiental countries weren't.

92) [...] it's only because the area where they touched is now called the crownlands. Before that it was the riverlands

Back when it was called the Riverlands rather than the Crownlands, the Riverlands still bordered the Vale & North whereas the Reach didn't.

93) [...] There is no denying it.

I deny that Tyrion's marriage to Sansa is a giant threat to Highgarden.

Neither can it be denied that this represents a major threat to Highgarden, which has been the dominant house for the past 10,000 years.

The Targaryens were the dominant house up until Robert's rebellion. Prior to that House Hoare had seized the Riverlands from House Durrandon. If the Gardeners had actually been dominant all that time, they would have been running the Riverlands themselves.

94) [..] What has changed is that Tywin is gaining control of all the other realms either by marriage or conquest or both, just the way Highgarden has maintained its dominance over the years.

The Tyrells didn't have marriage alliances with those other kingdoms all that time.

Why does the north have to be a neighbor to the Reach?

Do you think the Tyrells are all that concerned with who rules Yi Ti? The further away something is, the less important.

95) Margaery's children will consider themselves Lannisters in the same way that Joffrey considers himself a Baratheon.

The issue with Joffrey isn't that he doesn't consider himself a Baratheon (he actually dismisses Tywin on the basis of his "father" Robert). It's that he's not actually one, hence Ned & Stannis refusing to accept him on the throne (and, as a result of Ned, Robb also rebelling).

96) There was no traditional seat in the riverlands until the Hoares came by and united the whole thing

Tristifer IV Mudd of Oldstones was the fourth King of the Rivers and the Hills, and his house had been kings of the Riverlands for thousands of years before the Andals came. In contrast, there were only three Hoare Kings of the Isles and the Rivers, so I don't see why their two fewer generations was enough to establish a "tradition" if the Mudds had not.

97) There are some things that are said and others that are shown. Joffrey literally tells Sansa, "you are here to answer for your brothers crimes", not because I just feel like it, or I hate you, or I like to see you cry, but to answer for your brother's crimes

And that's completely stupid. She can't answer for "crimes" she had nothing to do with many miles away. Tyrion deduces a sexual motive for Joffrey's actions, as Joffrey certainly never displays an ounce of political pragmatism. Everyone agrees Joffrey is just awful including GRRM, I really don't know why you're trying to spin his actions as something other than sadism.

98) [...] You can bet that if Robb ever managed to make his way tot he gates of King's Landing, Sansa would be up there with a noose around her neck.

But that's not what happened. Sansa was stripped & beaten far from Robb, with no possible way of influencing his behavior, and while Robb had an even more valuable hostage in Jaime! It was just idiotic behavior explainable only by Joffrey's sadism.

99) Tywin sent Tyrion to KL because Cersei had demonstrated that she could not control him. But if Joffrey had lived, Cersei would have been sent packing and Tywin would be regent, or Jaime in his absence. And Tywin has no problem controlling Joffrey.

Tyrion didn't really control Joffrey either, he was just more competent at running other things than Cersei. We've got one incident of Tywin sending Joffrey to bed with his mother, without agreeing to follow Tywin's lead after their argument. The Tyrells would be wise not to rely on Tywin deterring Joffrey.

100) Again, show me when Joffrey just pulls someone out of a crowd at random and gives them a beat down.

Joffrey isn't really tough enough to do much beating himself, but again I can cite Mycah as a random person Joffrey went after without any cause.

On 4/9/2021 at 2:49 PM, John Suburbs said:

It still puts Cersei at risk. Why didn't they wed him to Robert

Men can't marry each other in Westeros

then kill him and marry her to Stannis?

Tywin doesn't care about Cersei's wellbeing, as evidenced by him forcing her to marry again over her objections (and his general attitude toward his children). He didn't expect any problems with Robert either, who was known to be a drinker & skirt-chaser but not a sadist. Stannis was married to Selyse, and there really wouldn't be any reason to think marriage to him would be better anyway. Tywin never wanted Robert killed, the murder plot only came about to prevent him from learning about the incest.

Robert is a fierce warrior and Joffrey is a spineless liar. Who wouldn't be disappointed in that?

Joffrey is indeed a spineless liar, but when Robert is discussing his dismay at Joffrey he brings up the incident with the cat, which was not an example of Joffrey being notably spineless or a liar. He was just screwed up. And doing that to animals at a young age is considered a warning sign of becoming a serial killer nowadays.

No, he was insatiable in his lust, leaving bastards all over the realm, including three to Lord Butterwell, who apparently got a nice dragon egg for his trouble, and then his grandson became Master of Coin and eventually Hand. This is how far people are willing to overlook cruelty in their king just to get a chance at expanding their power.

What's "cruel" about leaving bastards all over?

Whoever put him up to it. My hunch is Littlefinger.

I actually agree with you there. But I don't think that, say, Margaery could have prevented it (nor could she have foreseen it). Joffrey can only be encouraged to act out his sadism. Discouraging that is a completely different story.

[John Suburbs]

10 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

1) I don't think it makes a lick of sense, but like the fantasy genetics which prove incest to Ned, I think we're just supposed to accept it.

 

2) Edible ones & wild ones, sure. Cats are domesticated enough to live indoor amongst people. Cutting open the cat would have been weird even if it wasn't pregnant (though that does make it extra weird).

 

 

3) I suppose shooting a cat with a crossbow is technically different from cutting open a pregnant one.

 

4) Precisely! Sansa wasn't responsible for that, so if Margaery was in her place there's nothing she could do to prevent Joffrey from being angry with her.

 

5) Theon would simply be executed rather than beaten or tortured, just as the Yunkai only executed Groleo.

 

6) Cersei went after Margaery anyway, because she makes bad decisions despite how obviously bad they are. Joffrey also makes terrible decisions. You can't rely on him to restrain his worst impulses out of political pragmatism.

7) LF has no military experience, isn't a knight, and didn't have knightly bannermen (or any other kind of bannermen). His cutouts tend to be greedy men of little status. Particularly early in his career, he's not going to have leverage to use over a knight whom Jaime regards as the most dangerous after himself. The reason people try to connect him to LF is that he's from the Vale, which isn't surprising since Jon Arryn brought him to KL.

 

8) Do we know of Robert or Jon having strong feelings toward any member of the KG, aside from when Robert sent his maester to Barristan? They don't need to.

 

9) No he isn't. She didn't want him to send their son away, but Jon was going to do that anyway. He gave LF a minor appointment because of Lysa, but LF actually raised more revenue than expected, which is how he got named Master of Coin.

 

10) I'm glad you agree it's not "hearsay" now. Unlike the user-generated wiki, that factoid in the map was explicitly confirmed by GRRM.

 

11) Of course entries in the app aren't supposed to be unlimited length accounts of "the whole story". But if Ran asked GRRM to confirm pie vs wine for the app, and GRRM said pie, the app isn't going to say wine instead. If he didn't want to say anything, then he would just not say anything, which he has plenty of practice doing when people ask him about things that have yet to be revealed.

 

12) Of course I don't think he's lying. I think he told the truth that it was the wine.

 

13) The app is semi-canon because it was written by people authorized by GRRM and with his input, and published as such. The wiki isn't canon at all.

 

14) D&D revealed it was Lyanna. And we know they guessed correctly. This is a reveal that has yet to happen in the books, but is analogous to GRRM saying that Theon would appear in ADWD and isn't dead even if he wishes he was.

 

15) If you are the creator of a fictional universe and somebody asks you about the moon in said universe, then yes you have.

 

16) This is you projecting your own mind onto others again. Renly was confident in an alliance with the Tyrells even before he married Margaery.

 

17) What obligation does he have to pretend Margaery is still a maiden!?

 

18) Any adult nearby. This is a wedding, not a court where Joffrey is handing down a judgement.

 

19) No, they did react, and say he must be joking, which Tyrion affirmed.

 

20) You're grasping at straws here.

 

21) The primary purpose of the chalice was to poison Joffrey. Tyrion was a bonus that LF primed Joffrey to humiliate.

 

22) You don't add that to pie AFTER it's baked.

 

23) I already explained that smudging is not dissolving! Graphite can make smudges without any chemical reaction!

 

24) Says you. No one describes the pie as moist, Joffrey only describes it as dry.

 

25) Spices tend to be chemically similar. Piperine is also nonpolar.

 

26) This isn't a sweet fruit pie. It's a spicy meat pie.

 

27) Graphite has a crystalline structure.

 

As I already said, graphite can be mechanically worn down through abrasion without any chemical dissolution.

 

28) I didn't say that. The clients can give & receive whatever info is required from them for their specific creations without actually filling them in on the whole conspiracy.

 

29) Other characters accused Cersei of that, but GRRM himself never said that.

 

30) If that were the case, GRRM wouldn't say the careful reader would conclude the latter!

 

31) No, LF himself admitted to it and his explanation for the Tyrells' motivations meshed precisely with what Sansa came up with independently.

 

32) No, GRRM himself explained the motivation, which is precisely what Sansa imagined & LF confirmed.

 

33) No, GRRM has noted that's the one element left out he most wanted them to include, and D&D explained they didn't want to bring back Michelle as a zombie. None of your weird poison plot requires any zombies. It DOES require them to not have Olenna confess to it in multiple scenes.

 

34) No, she's not supposed to get paid. GRRM explained her motivation.

 

35) She doesn't need to micromanage everything, and she would have no reason to think the details of how the hairnet got to Sansa would be used to screw her over. The lack of connection between Olenna & Dontos would actually serve to insulate her in the event of Dontos being caught.

 

36) Sansa is a bonus, the target is Joffrey. The Tyrells are not neighbors of the North, so it's not really essential to their interests.

 

37) I am arguing against your claim that since we didn't see the two knights fight to the death that means it couldn't have happened. Joffrey doesn't need to directly observe the result of everything he orders.

 

38) He can enjoy knowing that people are suffering even if he's not watching. For example, if Robb Stark had been captured rather than killed by the Freys, Joffrey could have sent a raven telling the Freys what tortures he wants inflicted on Robb without having to travel to see it.

 

39) Anywhere in the area of KL could serve.

 

40) I'm glad you now admit he's not normal, as every other character notes about him. And GRRM himself has called Joffrey "monstrous". It's not just one incident from his childhood, that was indicative of his character and consistent with his subsequent pattern of behavior.

 

41) They're not, Margaery is marrying Tommen. They wouldn't be able to hold onto the Iron Throne if Loras killed Joffrey.

 

42) The "pattern" isn't about his targets. It's about Joffrey. He can be awful to anyone. You are extremely confident that Joffrey would NEVER harm Margaery specifically, but GRRM himself has said Olenna doesn't believe that (and in a manner indicating her reasoning is rational).

 

43) I recommend studying up on the topic of credibly costly signals. Joffrey abusing Sansa doesn't have any direct connection to the viability of Robb's cause so that Joffrey wouldn't do it if Robb had good odds. In fact Joffrey does it more when Robb is successful! Therefore the lords would have no reason to conclude based on Sansa's abuse that Robb is doomed. Joffrey just comes across as deranged & out of control, hence Tyrion stopping things.

44) 34) I'm glad you're no longer claiming Tyrion talked to Varys about bringing Joffrey to a brothel after I quoted the section saying just that. And the point was that Tyrion attributed a sexual motive to Joffrey rather the signalling argument you've come up with (and that no character ever suggests).

 

45) Going back to the timeline again, Joffrey's assassination/wedding was on 1/1 in the year 300. The bit with Corbray takes place on 3/23 of the same year. Did Sansa really get that much older & more mature by that time? And yet she still doesn't see the "obvious" holes in LF's story about the assassination?

 

46) It's not merely that Sansa couldn't understand why the Tyrells were blase about that. It's that LF independently gave the same explanation that Sansa thought of, and GRRM explicitly said that Olenna killed Joffrey because of just the sort of thing that Sansa worried would cause Loras to kill Joffrey. Against that you just have your own confidence not supported by anything in the text.

 

47) I guess I have to quote you again:

This appears to be the result of you not reading the comment until you quote-reply, thus losing the quotes inside it and forgetting what you yourself wrote. So perhaps you'll just have no idea what I'm talking about when you reply to this, even though everyone else reading will see how you contradicted yourself.

 

48) That's precisely why! If they did think he was behind it then they WOULDN'T be confused! As it is they are looking in the wrong place for enemies, letting LF sneak out with Sansa and all the funds he misappropriated during his tenure as Master of Coin (by now converted into things like debt he's bought from Vale lords).

 

49) Everything worked out perfectly for LF, with no hitches. Whoever's pulling strings from hell really likes him

 

50) The marriage was never consummated, and Tyrion was sentenced to death. LF doesn't see her earlier marriage as that big of a hurdle. With Sansa herself being a fugitive accused-regicide, any reveal of her would mean revealing LF's open defiance of the Lannisters.

 

51) There are many ways to be wrong, but only one true answer to any sufficiently narrow question. Independently arriving at the arriving at the same logic (which GRRM supported in his statement) is evidence in favor of it. LF has only just heard about what happened, so if he was expecting Tyrion to be assassinated instead he would be surprised and have little time to come up with th is explanation.

 

52) If I asked GRRM to confirm that it was Roose Bolton who stabbed Robb Stark to death, and he said "Yes", that would be confirming. Even though his statement would not be part of the actual canonical text and it wouldn't actually be a contradiction for him to reveal later it was a look-a-like (though GRRM wouldn't confirm it if he was actually planning on such a reveal).

 

53) The Tyrells aren't limited to a single moment to poison the chalice. They can do so whenever it's most convenient for them. Although if LF suggests to Joffrey that Tyrion be his cupbearer, that could help get it moving more.

 

54) She doesn't have to do that bit herself.

 

55) Then they would have just NOT confirmed it either way!

 

56) She's not saying that about Barry OR herself. No one interprets her comment that way because logic doesn't work that way.

 

57) It's really more the show where she appeals to his sadism. Interrupting Joffrey when he's berating Tyrion because the pie has arrived isn't really appealing to his worst instincts.

 

58) None of the witnesses remembered afterward, even though Sansa was an escaped accused-regicide. Even Sansa didn't remember until LF pointed it out. Tyrion would have every reason to blame someone else, but the idea never occurs to him.

 

59) Tyrion actually sees loose hair that Olenna is able to put back in the net! The text makes that clear, but you just insist it can't be.

 

60) So just because it's not "unusual" for some hairs to be loose it means an old lady can't fix them up anyway?

 

No, because she'd just seem like an old lady fiddling with a hairnet that no one else knew at the time to contain poison. Sansa is the one known to have been abused by Joffrey and to have had her brother recently killed by his loyalists. Olenna had no connection to the hairnet prior to that and even Sansa wouldn't know how she'd know it was poison.

 

61) The accusation is that she & Tyrion conspired together.

 

62) Certainly. And they won't accept her protestations of innocence & ignorance.

 

63) Oberyn Martell wants vengeance for something that happened before Joffrey was even born. Joffrey merely making insulting jokes about the Dornish wouldn't be enough to motivate an assassination, and he didn't have much contact with Sansa. And of course the regime isn't going to be checking if Sansa conspired with Tywin!

 

64) What's your evidence for that?

 

65) Varys helps Tyrion flee after he murders Tywin. He's not that loyal a servant of the regime.

 

66) He doesn't claim to be "utterly blind", he says he doesn't know what game he's up to. Varys knew he was causing problems, but didn't know WHY.

 

67) Where is he going to discuss the assassination he has planned for the royal wedding after he's already said he's left for the Vale?

 

68) The boat can leave and come back for the scheduled wedding. And it's not "the entire last half-year or more", as you yourself noted just afterward it was more a matter of "weeks" between the two weddings.

 

69) How is he going to explain why he's secretly in KL when Mace knows he's supposed to be in the Vale? He's just that dedicated to helping Olenna steal Sansa away from the Lannisters?

 

70) This is you just imagining knowledge on her part when the text gives no support to that.

 

71) Mace Tyrell. He's currently Master of Ships, but it's not like he's really a naval specialist. Tywin was even willing to have Mace's brother take the position.

 

72) I don't see how the quote about the puff fish has anything to do with that. She's using it as a term of mockery.

 

73) Not every family is as awful toward their own members as the Lannisters. The Tyrell sibligns actually get along with each other, even without a sexual relationship like Cersei & Jaime.

 

 

 

74) Regicide is a big deal. She'd want to check every box, including what Joffrey's former fiance has to say about him.

 

75) There are a couple of different possibilities. 1: Olenna is telling the truth that Mace is the one who insisted both of Margaery's marriages over her objections and he's too much of an oaf look past the shiny prize in front of him. Then she might simply go around his back. 2: She's lying and Mace is actually in on the plan to assassinate Joffrey and replace him with Tommen. And in that case she actually did go to him.

 

76) It was a flake, which raises the ratio of surface area to volume, and it was immersed in wine.

 

77) No, it's still useful for people who prepare it in advance and don't try to poison a solid like a pie.

 

78) The ratio of the volume of wine to the volume of poison would determine the concentration. And we now from Cressen that there's not really much poison required to be fatal. The conspirators know how much wine the chalice can hold and how much poison is in a single stone from the net.

 

79) It wasn't a mistake or foolish, it killed Joffrey without harming Margaery.

 

80) No, we don't hear of any alcohol in the pie. We do hear that it's spiced, which is chemically quite different. And we hear Joffrey say that it's dry.

 

81) At Tyrion's own wedding he talked about castrating the king. You can't rely on his strong sense of decorum to ensure he eats any of the pie at all (it better be the part with the crystal, which also isn't visible), and doesn't spit out the crystal. Meanwhile Olenna or whoever is supposed to be uncouth enough to stick their fingers inside Tyrion's slice of pie.

 

82) We don't get a description. If "all the facts" were going to point to the pie, we would have gotten some indication it was even capable of concealing/dissolving the poison.

 

83) Olenna walks with a cane, I'd expect her to be sitting rather than standing even it wasn't already expected for the guests to be seated. And we don't need text about servants cutting pie while Joffrey is dancing with Margaery.

 

84) Who said Olenna was in charge of the servants? Tyrion tells Shae that the queen (Cersei) has chosen all the servers.

 

85) That was just the Tyrells inviting Sansa to a private get together which they put on themselves. They have complete authority over that, unlike with the wedding the Lannisters are putting on.

 

86) Cersei is the one paranoid about the Tyrells, while Jaime is trying to get her to chill out.

 

87) You said that Cersei framed Margaery for adultery rather than annulling the marriage because she needed the Tyrell army. But I replied that she's not going to have the support of the Tyrell army if Margaery gets convicted.

 

 

88) Tyrion's small stomach could have already filled up by then. And indeed he had no plans on eating any of the pie.

 

89) That's just Joffrey continuing to mess with Tyrion after dumping the wine on him and forcing him to serve it. Joffrey is even eating Tyrion's pie as a gesture of disrespect rather than punishing him for not eating it.

 

90) He's not portrayed as sober, instead it's said that the wine had made him wild.

 

91) I just explained that as the plan you describe is more likely to poison Sansa, then it's probably not the case that it was in fact the plan with obtaining Sansa as the objective!

 

92) This is you just making up stuff that's not in the text.

 

93) Text editors are extremely basic. Everyone else reading these comments will see quotes followed by replies, although the lack of nesting will obscure what those quotes were themselves replying to. When you just use numbers (which are certainly an improvement over what you did before), then you do require readers to "scroll up", which is exactly what you had complained about.

 

94) That's not going to come down to Sansa's marriage. The Tyrells were completely left outside of the marriage alliances of Robert's rebel coalition, and it wasn't regarded as any existential threat to them.

 

95) This is the explanation GRRM gave:

So he did explain it, and you are choosing to ignore it because of his comment about how he was two more books to write. That comment merely demarcates his discussion with EW (including a bit about how Sansa was to take the blame) as extra-textual.

 

96) Sansa was able to get away. And if Olenna was in on the plan for her to run away when a poisoning occurred, then she could have assigned someone the job of following Sansa.

 

97) There were people looking at Margaery. And if anyone sees her running away when her husband is poisoned, she'd look suspicious as hell.

 

98) Olenna actually did have to "screech" for people to move to help Joffrey, as they were all just staring.

 

99) The reason is that he gets his jollies from it. Mycah hadn't done anything to him, but Joffrey still decided to draw blood with Lion's Tooth. That sort of sadism is why GRRM called him "monstrous".

 

100) It might result in Loras killing Joffrey. Cersei had to hide from Jaime any bruises Robert gave her, and Robert was at least ashamed of hitting her.

 

101) Robert insisted on hunting the boar alone when he was drunker than usual. Joffrey is dumb, but he's not actually brave.

 

102) Blockading him would lead to his defeat. Tywin didn't say anything about going back out on campaign to deal with Stannis.

 

103) Jaime was never regent.

 

104) As LF said, it's considered impolite to inquire into the origins of a bastard. And LF recommended "pious bleating" to discourage "unwanted questions". One detail of the story is that her own mother died giving birth to her, leaving her to the Faith. There's no reason for Alayne to even talk about Gulltown.

 

105) Sansa is 13. That's very close to 14. Myranda even says she's well developed for her age.

 

106) Alright then, Mycah again!

 

107) That's not preventing him from hurting anyone, that's just using a different sword to cut the pie.

 

108) That's not restraining him from hurting anyone for fear of the consequences either, rather it was suggesting a way of humiliating his uncle.

 

109) We haven't really seen that. When Joffrey is bent on a bit of sadism, he's unwilling to let up. If he wanted to hurt Margaery, the best anyone could do would be suggesting better ways of doing it.

 

110) The Riverlands has more neighboring kingdoms on its borders than the Reach or the US (counting countries as "kingdoms" for that last bit).

 

111) That's one way of saying it's your head-canon when the text doesn't say something.

112) 91) I'm making a relative comparison of places bounded by land vs sea. England was able to avoid invasions at a time when contiental countries weren't.

 

113) Back when it was called the Riverlands rather than the Crownlands, the Riverlands still bordered the Vale & North whereas the Reach didn't.

 

114) I deny that Tyrion's marriage to Sansa is a giant threat to Highgarden.

 

115) The Targaryens were the dominant house up until Robert's rebellion. Prior to that House Hoare had seized the Riverlands from House Durrandon. If the Gardeners had actually been dominant all that time, they would have been running the Riverlands themselves.

 

116) The Tyrells didn't have marriage alliances with those other kingdoms all that time.

 

117) Do you think the Tyrells are all that concerned with who rules Yi Ti? The further away something is, the less important.

 

118) The issue with Joffrey isn't that he doesn't consider himself a Baratheon (he actually dismisses Tywin on the basis of his "father" Robert). It's that he's not actually one, hence Ned & Stannis refusing to accept him on the throne (and, as a result of Ned, Robb also rebelling).

 

119) Tristifer IV Mudd of Oldstones was the fourth King of the Rivers and the Hills, and his house had been kings of the Riverlands for thousands of years before the Andals came. In contrast, there were only three Hoare Kings of the Isles and the Rivers, so I don't see why their two fewer generations was enough to establish a "tradition" if the Mudds had not.

 

120) And that's completely stupid. She can't answer for "crimes" she had nothing to do with many miles away. Tyrion deduces a sexual motive for Joffrey's actions, as Joffrey certainly never displays an ounce of political pragmatism. Everyone agrees Joffrey is just awful including GRRM, I really don't know why you're trying to spin his actions as something other than sadism.

 

121) But that's not what happened. Sansa was stripped & beaten far from Robb, with no possible way of influencing his behavior, and while Robb had an even more valuable hostage in Jaime! It was just idiotic behavior explainable only by Joffrey's sadism.

 

122) Tyrion didn't really control Joffrey either, he was just more competent at running other things than Cersei. We've got one incident of Tywin sending Joffrey to bed with his mother, without agreeing to follow Tywin's lead after their argument. The Tyrells would be wise not to rely on Tywin deterring Joffrey.

 

123) Joffrey isn't really tough enough to do much beating himself, but again I can cite Mycah as a random person Joffrey went after without any cause.

Men can't marry each other in Westeros

 

124)Tywin doesn't care about Cersei's wellbeing, as evidenced by him forcing her to marry again over her objections (and his general attitude toward his children). He didn't expect any problems with Robert either, who was known to be a drinker & skirt-chaser but not a sadist. Stannis was married to Selyse, and there really wouldn't be any reason to think marriage to him would be better anyway. Tywin never wanted Robert killed, the murder plot only came about to prevent him from learning about the incest.

 

125) Joffrey is indeed a spineless liar, but when Robert is discussing his dismay at Joffrey he brings up the incident with the cat, which was not an example of Joffrey being notably spineless or a liar. He was just screwed up. And doing that to animals at a young age is considered a warning sign of becoming a serial killer nowadays.

 

126) What's "cruel" about leaving bastards all over?

 

127) I actually agree with you there. But I don't think that, say, Margaery could have prevented it (nor could she have foreseen it). Joffrey can only be encouraged to act out his sadism. Discouraging that is a completely different story.

1) No, we are not supposed to accept it, just like we were not supposed to accept that Cersei killed Jon Arryn, that the Westerlings had joined Robb's cause, that Jon is Ned's bastard. Martin takes the motivations of his characters very seriously, and when the motivations don't fit with the plot we look to the subtext to have it makes sense. We don't just assume that Martin fudged it.

2) Cats are service animals, just like horses and pigs and dogs. Nobody cares if someone kills a cat.

3) No different in any practical sense in a feudal society. This whole cat story is no big deal, and it certainly doesn't provide motivation for someone to kill him 8 years later.

4) Joffrey can get angry with her all he wants. He is not going to harm her, not with Uncle Jaime commanding the Kingsguard.

5) Sure, and no one would think Ned was a mad tyrant who must be killed immediately because he did that. This is not the way these people think.

6) Yes you can, when his motivation is his own self-interest.

7) Gold is his leverage, and that's if he doesn't have some other kind of hold over this man with no feelings, no real personality, almost like he's an automaton, an undead automaton. LF also has been trying to get rid of Tyrion since the story began. So this, with the connections to Lysa and the Vale, make LF a prime suspect in my book.

8) KG are usually appointed because they are worthy. Only with Robert do we see unworthies like Blount get in. Robert doesn't pay much attention to his actual reign, which is how someone like Moore could get appointed.

9) Yes he is. Fostering Robert was a way to rescue the boy from his mother, which led Lysa to kill Jon. Pleasing your unstable wife does not extend to harming your son. And LF just happened to raise this substantial amount of revenue from where? Any merchant or ship captain starts paying significantly more when LF checks your wares than when someone else does it, and this doesn't produce howls of protest? I don't think so.

10) Sorry, I can easily imagine the app says wine, but until you are I actually see it, it's remains hearsay.

11) The app can still say wine just as easily as it says Jon is Ned's bastard. You are jumping to conclusions while ignoring the complete factual support in the text for the pie.

12) You think, but you don't know. Look at the actual facts in the book, and then you'll know it was the pie.

13) Semi-canon is like being semi-a-virgin. It is not canon and cannot be taken as such.

14) Sure, and this would indicate x+L=J. But people jump to conclusions that the x must be Rhaegar. And I don't believe the Ds ever said their guess was Lyanna.

15) Um, no, it doesn't. People can say whatever they like, and Martin has even said this about his own SSMS:

Quote

"I would have no problem with you collecting my "words" (by which I assume you mean interviews, public comments, letters, etc, rather than fiction), provided that I could ask you to pull down anything I decided I did not want up there -- misquotes, outdated info, slips of the tongue, etc."

And since even your hearsay post on Discord is not a direct quote but a recollected report after the fact, it has even less credibility.

16) Nonsense. The first thing kings and queens do is start making babies. It has nothing to do with the Tyrell alliance. It has to do with securing the throne. R&M are not going to put off trying for a baby just because he has other things to do at the moment. It takes 20 minutes per day. If they weren't already trying for a baby, then there would have been no reason to bring Margaery on campaign.

17) What are you talking about? When does Littlefinger pretend Margaery is a maiden?

18) Really? This mad, uncontrollable king who can order anyone's head off on a whim? Someone's going to just take his sword out of his hand. This seems to contradict your primary motivation for everyone wanting him dead.

19) Exactly my point. Nobody thought it was serious. No one is going to up and tackle Joffrey if he draws his sword on Tyrion.

20) So no gifts for Joffrey at his wedding. How odd.

21) The only purpose the chalice serves is to make the poisoning that much more difficult to accomplish and the put Margaary's life at risk. Tyrion is not a bonus. If Tyrion is not removed from the board, Sansa cannot remarry and her value is zero. Tyrion has to go or the entire purpose of removing Sansa from the capital is moot.

22) You could if you wanted to, and they will dissolve. More slowly and not completely, perhaps, but they will dissolve.

23) Graphite leaves a mark when you draw it across certain rough surfaces. It doesn't dissolve into a smudge when left alone. The smudge in the hairnet is the strangler dissolving. Amethysts do not leave smudges behind. Talk about grasping at straws.

24) Show me a pie, any kind of pie, that's bone dry inside. That's not a pie, that's a cracker. Joffrey says "it's a bit dry, though. Needs washing down." So from this you conclude that the pie is not as dry as it's supposed to be, and he's going to make it drier by mixing it with wine? Please.

25) What does any of this have to do with anything. The strangler dissolves in water, H20, the same compound that it in both the pie and the wine. And even if you think there is something unique about wine, then just read the text: Joff started choking after he washed the pie down with wine. So there's your wine, right there in his mouth, and the same thing would have happened with Tyrion when he noticed the pie was dry.

26) OK, so it's a spicy meat pie, full of moisture. Plenty to dissolve a highly unstable crystal like the strangler.

27) Crystallinine structure is not the same as a crystal. A crystal is a single unit consisting of arranged atoms. A chrystalline structure is made up of tiny, individual crystals. This is why graphite leaves a mark. SO you have a classic case of apples and oranges here.

28) This you?

Quote

They can easily afford extra minutes or hours. And since the chalice & poison were both prepared by conspirators ahead of time, they can arrange in advance not to use a combination that wouldn't work.

29) Yes, just like other characters explain the Loras-going-nuts thing and the Joffrey-will-hurt Margaery thing and even the poisoned wine thing, but Martin never has -- not in the books, for which he makes no promises, anyway. 

30) Lol, that is exactly how Martin would say it. The "careful reader draws . . ." As in, this is the conclusion that I want readers to draw, not the actual truth that I will reveal later.

31) You mean Littlefinger, the biggest liar in the book? That Littlefinger?

32) GRRM, who says he makes no promises for the books because he has more secrets to reveal? That GRRM?

33) Regardless of the reasons, the show cannot be used to confirm anything in the text, and vice versa. They are completely different versions.

34) Exactly. Lady Olenna is on a need to know basis. She is going to want to know everything that LF has been up to up to this point. When she asks how Sansa got the poison, LF is not going to just fob her off with "none of your business". And there is no way she would join this plot if he did, since she already has little enough reason to trust him. GRRM has not explained her motivations in the books, just the show.

35) She's not micromanaging anything. She is getting the full story in order to trust this known liar and backstabber. The connection with Dontos is not what will link her to this crime. It's her connection to the hairnet that does it.

36) Sansa is not a bonus, any more than Tyrion is. If the Tyrells do not care about the north, then why are they trying to marry Sansa to Willas? And the Reach is a neighbor to the westerlands. They share a common, ill-defined border of a good 800 leagues or more, which is ripe for conflicts over lands, bridges, dams, mills, towns and all the other things that bring wealth to high lords. And if push ever comes to shove with the Lannisters, they not only have their own army to bring down on the Reach, but the combined armies of the westerlands, riverlands, north, crownlands and stormlands, plus the command of the Iron Throne and Dornish support as well. And Tywin is not the sort who just reaffirms you in your titles when you bend the knee. He utterly destroys your house, murders your family, sacks and burns your cities, murders your smallfolk by the tens of thousands, razes you castles to the ground and leaves you realm a smoldering wasteland. This is what keeps Lady Olenna up at night, not Margaery getting a black eye. Plenty of queens have suffered far worse for their crowns. There is no reason Margaery could not do the same. But when her line is gone, its gone forever.

37) This would have been a major spectacle that Joffrey, Sansa and the rest of the court would most certainly attend. Nobody ever mentions it again, nor this ongoing series of blood matches. It doesn't happen.

38) There is a huge difference between travelling the 1000 leagues to the Twins versus walking out into the bailey. Please be serious.

39) Why go anywhere else when they are all right there in the Red Keep? Tyrion's TBC was held in the outer ward, not "anywhere in King's Landing."

40) No one ever said he was a saint (except Littlefinger). But it is a far cry from recognizing Joffrey for what he is to killing him, especially when they are so close to finally getting what they want, a Tyrell heir, at which point Joffrey becomes expendable.

41) They are not getting Tommen for another five years. Loras is not going to kill Joffrey. That's is just plain ridiculous.

42) I never said he would never harm Margaery. But a little harm is not worth giving up the Iron Throne. They have far more to gain by putting up with Joffrey, even in the highly unlikely event that he hurts Margaery, just long enough to get a few sons out of him. Then he is gone and Margaery assumes full control over the kingdom. Any way you look at it, this is a far better outcome than simply becoming Tommen's consort someday. Margaery is in absolutely no danger, especially with Uncle Jaime right there to watch things.

43) Joffrey abusing Sansa has a direct affect on Robb's warring in the north, as I've already explained. It sends a signal to other lords that Robb will ultimately lose, so its best not to support him. Yes, he does it when Robb is successful, and specifically because "you are here to answer for your brother's crimes." Why would he bother doing it if Robb was losing?

44) Of course there is a sexual component. Joffrey is 13. But just because Tyrion wants to take him to a brothel doesn't mean Lady Olenna has to kill him. How can you possibly make this kind of connection?

45) Even Sansa can get a little wood on the ball sometimes. Just because she pegged Corbray doesn't mean she has the whole world figured out. That's just silly.

46) That's the obvious line of BS that someone like Sansa would believe. It doesn't take a genius to come up with that one. Martin has confirmed nothing, but all the facts in the book confirm the pie and utterly disprove the wine.

47) You misunderstand. Sansa does not think she is puzzled by anything LF says, but in reality she is because she lacks the insight to see that he is lying. To her, it all makes sense, but to those of us who can see the whole story, particularly the copious facts that confirm it was the pie, LF is obviously lying.

48) Sorry, but this is absurd. Sansa asks him specifically why he killed Joffrey, and he said to confuse his enemies. So how on earth does this confuse his enemies when they don't even know he's involved? He could have killed anyone on the planet and his enemies would be no more or less confused than they are now. This is the hallmark of a liar, just coming up with whatever bs they can.

49) Eerything did not work out perfectly for LF. Tyrion is still alive and has now escaped, so Sansa is of minimal value. And there is no way this could have been the plan because it relied on far too many chance decisions by the two victims. If they decided differently at any number of points, then the whole plan would have been bust, Margaery would have been dragged off to the bedding chamber and Tyrion would have walked home that night with Sansa.

50) Now you're saying that LF knew ahead of time that Tyrion would not consummate the marriage? Lustful, loathsome Tyrion? Sansa is only a fugitive for as long as the Lannisters are in power. After that, she can re-emerge as Sansa Stark. But as long as Tyrion is alive, she cannot remarry.

51) Multiple characters independently arrived at the wrong conclusion that Cersei had Jon Arryn killed. This is what Martin does. Makes it look one way then reveals the truth later. This is how all good writers do it, in fact. Otherwise, their stories would be bland, boring and predictable.

52) Um, the man with the pink cloak killed Robb Stark, and the man with the pink cloak is Roose Bolton. That would be your confirmation. If Martin said it was someone other than Roose Bolton, would that be a confirmation over the text? The poison could not have been in the wine, or else Joffrey would have dropped in seconds. All the excuses put forward to square that circle are just that, excuses. The facts are clear as day: there was no poison in the wine at that time. Martin has never, not once, said any differently.

53) There are literally a thousand witnesses in the room and the chalice is a large, bejeweled, glittering gold cup intended to draw the eye. What other convenient time could there have been? If just one person sees this drop, the jig is up. LF is now suggesting that Joff dump the wine and name Tyrion his cuphearer? Now that's grasping at straws.

54) Nobody could have done it, at any time. It's either in Joffrey's hand, up at his place next to Tywin and Cersei, or directly in front of Sansa. There was no time for this to happen during the entire feast.

55) Nobody has confirmed anything because the app is not canon. This is all in your head.

56) Well then why does everyone, literally everyone, laugh? Sansa is afraid and the wicked fear the king's justice. Sansa just outed herself as one of the wicked. It's funny because she is so naive, just like you'd expect from an 11yo girl trying to act like a grownup.

57) Getting Joffrey to overrule Tywin on what sword to use to cut the pie is just a small taste of what she will do going forward. The point is not what she does, but how she does it. She manipulates him while others trying to command him.

58) Plenty of people would remember seeing this when asked directly about it in order to confirm Sansa's, and Tyrion's, story. They're not just going to take her word for it.

59) Loose strands do not become loose from the wind. There was no wind that day. Period. We see both Sansa's and Tyrion's POVs and nobody mentions any wind. Just the hot, stultifying air inside the litter, which would not be hot and stultifying if it was a windy day.

60) Yes, it's unusual, because she blames it on the non-existent wind and this just happens to be the hairnet that had the poison, and the only reason to have it in a hairnet is for someone else to get it, and the only way to get it is to fiddle with it using some made-up excuse to do so, and then this very same person winds up right behind the scene (right where the pies are) when the poisoning happens. Yes, I'd say any reasonable person would think this was unusual.

61) So they are going to think that Tyrion and Sansa had the hairnet made so that Sansa could wear the poison on her head all evening so Tyrion would get to it when the time was right? Do you remember their wedding, when Tyrion had to climb on a stool just to undo her cloak. What idiot would think they felt putting the poison on Sansa's head would be a convenient way for Tyrion to get at it?

62) Yes, and they'll get the whole story out of her: Dontos, the hairnet, Lady Olenna, the whole thing.

63) Oberyn wants revenge for the deaths of his sister, niece and nephew. Joffrey is Tywin's grandson and king. Oberyn has plenty of motivation to get to Tywin through Joffrey. If Joffrey is as unstable as you say and everyone is at a loss as to what to do with him, then anybody could be a suspect: Tywin, Cersei, Kevan, Lancel . . . anyone who thinks Tommen would make a better king.

64) Much and more, but I'll leave that for a different thread.

65) So now you're saying Varys and LF were co-conspirators in the poisoning? Where is your evidence for that? And why would LF go through such great pains to hide all this from little birds by meeting in the godswood? BTW: Varys would not have been involved in Tyrion's escape at all if Jaime hadn't put a knife to his throat.

66) Why doesn't he know? He knows all the other secrets of all the other lords across the land. It's his job to know. And even more importantly, why is Illyrio not overly concerned about what Varys does not know of the man who they both acknowledge is mucking with the finances of the realm they hope to usurp and who is directly responsible for events in Westeros moving too quickly for Illyrio. Mayhaps he already knows what game Littlefinger is playing, and mayhaps this also helps explain why and how LF knows a lot more about Varys than we think?

67) Wherever he thinks it's safe. If he's talking about killing the king, the last thing he's worried about is the person he's discussing it with knowing he's not in the Vale.

68) LF leaves the day after the council meeting where all of this is discussed. Jaime is just arriving at Maidenpool with Brienne and Cleos about this time, Arya is not yet with the Hound and Robb has not left Riverrun for the RW. S&T wed some weeks later, right around the time Arya sees the Hound captured, Jaime arrives at Harrenhall with his hand around his neck, and Robb still has not left for the Twins. Joffrey doesn't die until quite a bit later. Jaime is almost back in KL, Arya and the Hound are on their way to the Eyrie and the RW is some weeks ago. So maybe not six months, but not six days either.

69) Why would LF need to explain anything to Mace? Why would anyone want a blustering oaf like Mace involved at all? Under you're theory, Lady O is doing this to counter Mace's decision. Under mine, there is absolutely no reason to involve Mace in any of this, and every reason in the world not to.

70) Lady Olenna has been dealing with LF for a long time. Who do you think arranged for the loans to the crown? And Lady O knows how to run a con, like her little game with the Gardener coins. She is not the daft old grandma she pretends to be, we can see that with her own eyes. And no one in-story thinks that either. Lady O is not fooled by Petyr one bit.

71) Lol, bumbling idiot Mace Tyrell as Master of Coin? Over Tyrion? Even after Tywin lost Tyrion, he still didn't turn to Mace. Tywin would instantly suspect Petyr was either stupid or up to something if he did not recommend Tyrion, and he knows he's not stupid.

72) It's how she lies about literally everything. Her broken engagement to Daeron Targaryen, the death of her husband, Mace wants Margy to marry Joffrey and there's absolutely nothing poor little Lady O can do about it. It's all lies. You can tell a liar when what they say is in direct contradiction to what they do and what the actual facts are.

73) All lords are playing the game of thrones. Some are just better at it than others. This is the woman who first married her daughter to a known gay man and then sent her off to war, then to a bratty little twat, now to an eight-year-old boy. If her goal is Margaery's happiness, then Lady O must be delusional.

74) Lady O does not need to confirm any of this through Sansa, like I've shown you. She has plenty of trusted sources, her own grandsons, who can tell her they saw all of this with their own eyes, and all the accounts would conform to one another. And since the only person who has ever said otherwise has already admitted he lied, she has absolutely no reason to be confused when it comes to Joffrey.

75) No, there is the one truth that we can see with our own eyes: that Mace does not do anything against his mother's wishes, and if she says it's OK to marry Mace to Joffrey, then it's OK with Mace, because otherwise she would merely hector him mercilessly to back out of it, just like she did with Cersei and just like we see her do with Mace, again, right before our own eyes.

76) Yes, it was a flake, which poisoned this half glass of wine several shades deeper than deep purple, which Cressen never notices, and neither did any other person who was poisoned in this way. Hardly.

77) No, it is not useful at all when dropped in wine because it can be so easily detected. Literally, you are saying that not one person in a thousand years has ever looked at what is in their glass as they are bringing it to their lips and wondered, "why is my red wine suddenly such a garish purple?"

78) You're the one arguing that Cressen's wine must have had more poison in it, which means it must have been deeper than deep purple. And the conspirators do not know how much wine the chalice will hold when they drop the poison in. It could be full, could be half, could be empty. They'd have a much better idea if they used a normal sized cup, but they didn't. Instead, they thought it was best to purposely use the giant chalice to intentionally make it that much more difficult to predict how much wine would be in play.

79) It didn't kill Margaery only by the sheer good fortune that Joffrey did not bound right back to her to share a toast, like she's asking him to do.

80) So now only alcohol can dissolve the wine? So someone dumped alcohol on Sansa's head? The crystal dissolves nearly instantly in wine, therefore it is very unstable. It would dissolve more slowly in hot, moist pie (yes, the pie is how and moist, stop pretending otherwise), just like sugar or salt would. Joffrey says the pie is a bit dry because it's not supposed to be, and he drinks wine to overcome the dryness, like anyone would. So any way you want to twist the facts, the poison was still in the pie. It was the only place it could have been.

81) Everybody is expected to eat the pie. Tyrion is Master of Coin, he will be expected to eat the pie or face Joffrey's retribution later. Tyrion is not an animal. He's not going to hawk up a big bit of pie all over his plate just because he bits down on something hard. Yes, Olenna will tuck the crystal into the pie with her fingers, out of sight, behind the head table, where no one can see, not even the servant holding the plate. Honestly, she's about to murder someone and you think she's going to worry about what people would think of her manners if they see her with her fingers in the pie? That will be the least of her problems. And it only takes a fraction of a second.

82) What other facts do you need? The fact that Joffrey drinks wine and nothing happens? Then he eats pie and starts choking? The the wine goes from red to purple to red to purple? That the pie is a brown-purplish in color? And it has a crust that can easily hide the filling below? Unlike the wine, which turns deep purple right in front of the victim's nose? This is just the beginning. Every other facet of this tale, from the initial plotting to the impossible logistics to the motivations of the plotters, literally everything screams pie, not wine.

83) Yes, she walks with a cane, and she happens to be standing, with her cane, close enough for Tyrion to hear her over the din of the room, and this is just before the pie comes in. The pie is served within seconds of the conclusion of the cutting ceremony, and Tyrion is about 12 places away from Joffrey, who would be served first. And yet his pie is placed within seconds. IT literally goes cut, birds, applause, dance, pie. The pie was right behind him, already cut and plated, ready to be served, just like you would expect at this level of a formal dinner and Lady O is coordinating it.

84) Lady O can certainly take it upon herself to organize these kinds of things. Nobody is going to object if she wants this formal ceremony to go off smoothly, least of all Cersei who has plenty of other things to do.

85) It shows how Lady O is a stickler for food and the serving of food, and that she is not above brow-beating servants in order to get her way. She can just as easily insert herself into the wedding planning. She is the Queen of Thorns and this is her grandaughter's wedding.

86) Jaime chills her out and Cersei immediately sees the sense of it. Because he's right, this marriage means nothing because it can be undone just as easily. Five years is a long time.

87) Why not? It's not the Lannisters who have charged her with a crime. The Lannisters are the ones defending her. You're essentially describing exactly how things are in the book and saying they are not real.

88) Everyone's stomach is full by now. That's irrelevant. Everyone is expected to take one bite because "it's ill luck not to eat the pie."

89) It's disrespecting Tyrion by saying it's ill luck not to eat the pie? How? And Joffrey just dreamed this up off the top of his head in the spur of the moment? "My uncle has not eaten his pie" would have sufficed for that.

90) He's not acting wild. This is Sansa's hyperbole. No where do we ever see him chugging wine like at the wedding, so there is no reason why anyone would expect him to. Indeed, the only reason they gave him the giant chalice in the first place was probably because they hoped he would drink himself into insensibility and then Margaery could at least get one night of rest.

91) No, the plan I'm describing in now way implies, infers or intimates that Sansa was to be poisoned. It's Tyrion's pie, meant for Tyrion. Sansa has her own pie.

92) Lol, so servants cutting pies are not in the text, no bedding until dawn the next day is not in the text, literally nothing being used to support the wine theory is in the text. How convenient.

93) If text editing is so easy, why are you the one having trouble following your own arguments?

94) Yes it does. Tyrion as Lord of Winterfell tips the balance to Tywin. His acquisitions of the stormalnds, crownlands and Iron Throne were a concern to the Tyrells, just like the potential union between Stark-Tully-Lannister-Martell would have been. That's why the supported mad Aerys; because they had just as much to be concerned about as he did. It upsets the balance of power that has existed for 10,000 years. Now, Tywin is adding both the Riverlands and the North, giving him control of well over half the kingdom. Taking out Tyrion does not undo 15 years of empire-building in one shot, but it's a start, and it preserves a rough parity between them. And they have to get rid of Tyrion ASAP before he fathers the next LoW, Tywin's grandson.

95) Yes, in answer to a question about the show in which he says he makes no promises for the books. You keep skipping over that little part.

96) Why would she want to involve anyone else in on this plan. Remember, someone tells; someone always tells. She can easily make sure herself that Sansa and Dontos disappear out the back. There is no reason for her to follow Sansa all the way down the cliff. She knows where she is going.

97) Margaery is not Sansa. Margaery is down in the center of the floor, in plain view of everyone. Sansa is tiny and behind a crush of people behind the head table. Nobody is going to think twice about not seeing her when Tyrion is clawing at his throat.

98) Yes, and Sansa was probably still there at that point. It's only when the chaos starts that it's safe for her to flee.

99) Yes, he's a prick, especially to smallfolk. But Margaery is not a smallfolk, and Joffrey has no reason at all to hurt her, and even if he did it is nothing that Margaery could not tolerate until it was safe to get rid of Joffrey. Joffrey does not mistreat people for no reason. If he just passed by Mycah in the camp, he would have taken no notice of him.

100) Loras is not going to kill Joffrey. That's what naive 13yo girls believe. Margaery has all the tools at her disposal to make sure that does not happen. And if Lady O was even slightly concerned by this, Loras would not be on the kingsguard.

101) Kings die in all sorts of ways, even though they have guards. Joffrey is dumb, so it makes this task even easier.

102) Blockading him would take years. But even Tywin has no plans to go on campaign, all the better for Margaery because now she has Tywin himself in KL to ride herd on Joffrey. She is in absolutely no danger.

103) Jaime would be acting regent if Tywin was not there.

104) It's considered impolite to ask a lord about his natural children. But gossip is an entirely different matter, especially when the lord decides to raise their bastard to a position of authority within his house. Everyone knows when Walder Rivers was born, who his mother was and that she died from falling off a horse. Everybody knows Ramsay Snow's backstory, and Aegon Rivers', Edric Storm's, Mya Ston's, Joy Hill's, Aurane Waters', and countless other bastards. Again, if there was not reason to invent any of this story because no one would dare ask any questions about Alayne, then why bother?

105)  The problem is not the distance between Sansa's age and Alayne's, but the fact that Littlefinger could not have father her when he says he did because he would have been years away from being in charge of the ports at Gulltown.

106) Mycah was beating his betrothed's sister with a stick. Commoners are not supposed to do that to highborns.

107, 108) It's manipulating Joffrey to get him to do what you want him to do. He doesn't just tell Joffrey to do this, he makes him see why he should by appealing to his hatred for Tyrion. Nobody other than Margaery manipulate him this way. So all this stuff about getting rid of Joffrey because he is so unpredictable and uncontrollable simply is not supported by the text. The two people who supposedly want to kill him are the two people who can predict him and control him.

109) He is not going to hurt Margaery. He has no reason to, and Margaery has all the skills to manipulate him. If anyone will encourage him toward sadism, it's Margaery.

110) Yes, and the Riverlands saw thousands of years of endless warfare and rising and falling petty kings. The Reach did not, even though it is far more easier to invade and conquer. The only difference is that the Reach has lots more people, which means a far larger army, and the political stability that comes from marriage in order to leverage this advantage -- all except for one time when bad marriages broke down this system and the Reach was invaded by three different kingdoms. IT's all right there in the text.

111) No, it means people who understand what good writing is will learn to see with their eyes, hear with their ears. Believe what the facts tell you, not what people want you to believe.

112) Um, England was invaded routinely for centuries. There was a little group of people called the Normans who gave it to them pretty good.

113) Hard to say. The Reach would have bordered the Riverlands somewhere along the Blackwater Rush. But this is irrelevant. All of it is now owned by Tywin Lannister: the westerlands, riverlands, crownlands and stormlands, plus he has the north to back him up too. Plenty to dominate the Reach's one and only military advantages: it's army.

114) It is, but it's not the only one.

115) Why should they? They have the best, most fertile lands on the continent. That's like saying the United States is the strongest country today, so why doesn't it just take over all of north, central and south america?

116) No, they didn't. But Tywin does. Tywin is taking control of the entire kingdom, and this poses a significant threat to the Tyrells because it means they are vulnerable to invasion and defeat for the second time in history.

117) Lol, Yi Ti, on the opposite side of the world? And as we've seen, the north is more than capable to inserting itself into southern affairs.

118) Ned and Stannis have absolutely nothing to do with Margaery and Joffrey. Margaery will raise their children so they will favor her family over his, just like Cersei did with Joffrey. Once he's gone, she rules and her Tyrell-leaning son rules after her. That is the real prize here. Not Margaery's happiness.

119) The Mudds ruled a small part of what is now the riverlands and were constantly being harrassed by river kings, rock kings and invaders from the stormlands, the vale, westerlands and even the north. And while the house may have existed for thousands of years (no one is really sure) the only kings anyone is sure about are Tristifers. who lost to the Andals, and of course Marq, who we're not even sure was a Mudd. Meanwhile, all this time, the Gardneners were the  undisputed sole kings of the Reach, from the Blackwater to the Redwyne Straits. Nobody messed with them, or if they did they did not last very long.

120) Of course she can. She is his hostage. Theon could not do anything if his father rebelled again, but he is Ned's hostage, so he would get it. It's what you do with hostages. It's why you have them. But Joffrey has a personal dislike for Sansa and he's a 13yo boy, so sex and sadism are certainly in the mix as well. But it would not have happened if not for the loss at Oxcross. The Mad King boiled people alive in wildfire and caused their sons to strangle themselves trying to save them. Talk about sadism. And yet the Tyrells still went to war to keep him on the throne. So much for their high moral standing.

121) As I told you over and over, it's not Robb's behavior that Joffrey is trying to influence. It's the behavior of the other lords. And this is why Tyrion put an end to it; because Joffrey took it too far, not because this is an utterly enxcusable, tyrannical thing for a king to do. It's what happens to hostages. 

122) Joffrey doesn't execute any more high lords once Tyrion arrives. He isn't raising butchers and dogs to places of high honor, casting away respected knights in the process. Tyrion also brokered the Martell alliance using Myrcella, which is crucial at this point. Tyrion put plenty to right once he arrived. Things were back on track in a number of ways as far as Tywin is concerned. Tywin would most certainly read the riot act to Joffrey if any harm came to Margaery, and he would take steps to ensure it never happened again, even if it meant separating them. He can do that. He's the Hand and regent.

123) Mycah was not random and he was not without cause. He was assaulting a highborn, the sister of his betrothed.

124) Stannis didn't marry Selyse until two or three years after Cersei and Robert, so plenty of time to rid her of drunken Robert in favor of solemn, dutiful Stannis. Lady Olenna does not place Margaery's needs above the needs of House Tyrell, and those needs right now are the Iron Throne.

Um, no, the murder plot came about because they needed to remove Robert and put Joffrey on the throne so Tywin could invade the Riverlands. If it was to hide the incest, then why is Cersei telling Ned about the incest before Robert is even gored?

125) Again with the cat. It was years ago, Joffrey never did it again, and it was out of curiosity, not cruelty. If it was cruetly, why would he show to Robert and reveal himself as this cruel little monster. He thought he was doing a good thing. He's eight.

126) Really? What was cruel about that? Other than taking the daughters of his lords, whom then would want to cement their own alliances? And then these bastards turned around and bled the realm for the next 100 years? What was cruel about any of that? Why nothing, nothing at all.

127) Margaery could encourage his mistreatment of others, becoming his partner, until it's time to get rid of him. She is in absolutely no danger.

 

 

 

[FictionIsntReal]

On 4/16/2021 at 3:52 PM, John Suburbs said:

1) No, we are not supposed to accept it, just like we were not supposed to accept that Cersei killed Jon Arryn

Cersei was still alive so we could hear from her whether she was guilty or not (she even got POV chapters, which is how we can guess she didn't send Mandon after Tyrion). Joffrey dies right after Tyrion concludes he sent the catspaw, and Jaime comes to the same conclusion, without Joffrey around to rebut it anymore.

2) Cats are service animals, just like horses and pigs and dog

Much more like a dog than a pig, whose purpose is to be eaten.

Nobody cares if someone kills a cat

Robert did, and Stannis also thought it was messed up.

3) No different in any practical sense in a feudal society

I'm glad then you agree that it's not the case that "he never did it again".

it certainly doesn't provide motivation for someone to kill him 8 years later

His pattern of behavior continuing into years later (when we see he's killed another cat) is why the Tyrells are afraid he'll hurt Margery, as GRRM himself noted.

5) Sure, and no one would think Ned was a mad tyrant who must be killed immediately because he did that

Yes, because Ned would NOT torture someone for his own enjoyment like Joffrey or Ramsay!

6) Yes you can, when his motivation is his own self-interest.

He didn't dismiss Barristan & execute Ned out of "his own self-interest". Tyrion & Tywin are both aware those decisions are terrible for his new regime.

7) Gold is his leverage

Mandon isn't some little striver, he's a KG who wasn't known to have much in the way of desires.

that's if he doesn't have some other kind of hold over this man with no feelings, no real personality, almost like he's an automaton, an undead automaton

That's precisely why we shouldn't think LF had some "hold" on him! Dontos Hollard isn't like that at all.

LF also has been trying to get rid of Tyrion since the story began

No, he's been trying to frame Tyrion to cause conflict. Blaming Tyrion for the dagger wasn't expected to result in the Starks sending an assassin after Tyrion.

8) KG are usually appointed because they are worthy. Only with Robert do we see unworthies like Blount get in. Robert doesn't pay much attention to his actual reign, which is how someone like Moore could get appointed.

But Moore ISN'T unworthy like Blount! Rather, Jaime considers him the next most dangerous member of the KG, and no one ever doubts his prowess in battle or willingness to follow orders.

9) Yes he is. Fostering Robert was a way to rescue the boy from his mother, which led Lysa to kill Jon. Pleasing your unstable wife does not extend to harming your son.

It's not like she'd suddenly gotten more harmful, rather Jon started working together more with Stannis. He refused her the thing she cared most about because he wasn't "desperate to please" her. You simply made that up.

10) Sorry, I can easily imagine the app says wine, but until you are I actually see it, it's remains hearsay.

If you don't actually believe me, you can verify it for yourself. If I'm wrong, I'll compensate you for whatever you had to spend to determine that.

11) The app can still say wine just as easily as it says Jon is Ned's bastard.

You haven't even determined that it says the latter, nor have we heard of Ran asking GRRM to confirm that bit before putting it in the app.

the complete factual support in the text for the pie

That's all in your head, whereas GRRM himself has said what the "careful reader" would conclude from what he actually wrote.

12) You think, but you don't know. Look at the actual facts in the book, and then you'll know it was the pie.

I've looked at all the "facts" you've presented and of course I don't think it was the pie.

13) GRRM himself endorses the app. It's official.

15) Um, no, it doesn't. People can say whatever they like, and Martin has even said this about his own SSMS:

He didn't say anything about his SSMs not being credible. Instead he just wanted the ability to have things removed at his request. Which he certainly has with the app! The wine vs pie bit is not a "slip of the tongue", it was explicitly confirmed by him prior to appearing in app.

17) What are you talking about? When does Littlefinger pretend Margaery is a maiden?

Margaery will marry Tommen. She'll keep her queenly crown and her maidenhead, neither of which she especially wants, but what does that matter?

He doesn't "pretend", he says it outright.

18) Really? This mad, uncontrollable king who can order anyone's head off on a whim? Someone's going to just take his sword out of his hand.

This is at a big prestigious wedding. People stepping in to stop Joffrey from killing his uncle there does not mean Joffrey will be under control ALL the time.

20) So no gifts for Joffrey at his wedding. How odd.

Of course there wouldn't be "no gifts", the Tyrells themselves are among those giving gifts. They just can't be expected to anticipate any specific gift given by others.

21) The only purpose the chalice serves is to make the poisoning that much more difficult to accomplish and the put Margaary's life at risk.

They chose a chalice for Joffrey specifically, knowing that Joffrey would drink out of it.

Tyrion is not a bonus.

Of course he is, Joffrey is the actual target and has been even prior to Sansa's marriage.

23) Graphite leaves a mark when you draw it across certain rough surfaces. It doesn't dissolve into a smudge when left alone

It doesn't "dissolve" because there's no requirement that something dissolve in order to leave a smudge. If the crystals were leaking/dripping from the hairnet that would be another thing. And graphite can leave a mark against all sorts of surfaces.

Amethysts do not leave smudges behind

This is a fictional poison called the Strangler, not an actual amethyst.

25) I have already discussed the relevance of the amount of solvent used to dissolve a solute, and how merely pouring some wine into his mouth is not comparable to immersing the crystal directly in the cup of wine.

28) This you?

Yes. The conspirators presumably acquired the chalice & poison from a jeweler & alchemist, respectively. Thus, they were prepared for the wedding and did not have to react on the fly to the volume of the chalice or the size and nature of the poison crystal. None of this implies that either the jeweler or alchemist have to know about the other's role. The conspirators can keep that info to themselves and share only what they need to with those below them.

29) Yes, just like other characters explain the Loras-going-nuts thing and the Joffrey-will-hurt Margaery thing and even the poisoned wine thing, but Martin never has

GRRM himself explained it in that interview.

30) Lol, that is exactly how Martin would say it. The "careful reader draws . . ." As in, this is the conclusion that I want readers to draw, not the actual truth that I will reveal later.

But that's completely inconsistent with your claim that the "facts" are all against it!

31) You mean Littlefinger, the biggest liar in the book?

When LF confesses to a poisoning, it's more honest than even Tyrion could have anticipated. See his "I confess" about Jon Arryn's killer.

32) GRRM, who says he makes no promises for the books because he has more secrets to reveal? That GRRM?

Yes, THAT GRRM explained it, and you are choosing to simply ignore it.

33) Regardless of the reasons, the show cannot be used to confirm anything in the text

Of course it can. GRRM has discussed their shared endings, and we know of three "holy shit" moments the show took directly from him.

34) Exactly. Lady Olenna is on a need to know basis. She is going to want to know

The whole point of "need to know" is that it's not the same as "want to know"!

GRRM has not explained her motivations in the books, just the show

No, he explicitly told Rolling Stone he was talking about the books. Hence "careful reader" not "careful watcher".

35) She's not micromanaging anything.

Yes, that would be. LF's cutouts are his responsibility.

36) Sansa is not a bonus, any more than Tyrion is. If the Tyrells do not care about the north, then why are they trying to marry Sansa to Willas?

How does "bonus" mean "don't care" to you? It's nice to have another marriage alliance, but they're not at risk of a kingslayer stew without it.

And the Reach is a neighbor to the westerlands

But NOT to the North, which is what's relevant for Sansa.

And Tywin is not the sort who just reaffirms you in your titles when you bend the knee.

That's exactly what Tywin recommends doing! He even phrases it in terms of "helping" a supplicant back up. You seem to have the Cersei/Joffrey view of things, which Tywin explains would cause people to see no benefit to bending the knee rather than fighting to the death after a conflict starts.

37) This would have been a major spectacle

Says you. There's a lot shaking up in KL at that time, a dispute between two knights does not rank that high in importance.

38) There is a huge difference between travelling the 1000 leagues to the Twins versus walking out into the bailey.

I am serious. Joffrey can demand people's heads even if he doesn't see the beheading himself, just as Cersei has many wrong dwarves beheaded.

39) Why go anywhere else when they are all right there in the Red Keep?

There's no reason to assume everyone there for the king's justice is a resident of the Red Keep.

Tyrion's TBC was held in the outer ward, not "anywhere in King's Landing."

That was fought by champions as a trial to determine the guilt of a third party. And it was a trial for regicide! A completely different story from two knights fighting each other to death over a property dispute.

40) No one ever said he was a saint

It's normal not to be saint. Joffrey isn't normal. He's monstrous.

they are so close to finally getting what they want, a Tyrell heir, at which point Joffrey becomes expendable

Selyse has been married to Stannis a long time without a male heir. The Tyrells don't want to spend any time letting Margaery be subject to Joffrey's abuse.

41) They are not getting Tommen for another five years.

They got Tommen. They don't have his heir, but they do have him.

42) I never said he would never harm Margaery. But a little harm is not worth giving up the Iron Throne

Cersei had to hide anything Robert did to her to prevent Jaime from killing him. Your evaluation of its "worth" wouldn't stop Loras from killing Joffrey.

43) Stop repeating the same handwaving and read up on credibly costly signalling theory. I've cited Robin Hanson a number of times on this forum, and I know people regard him as explaining everything via signalling but you need to give an actual explanation for how that signal would work (it needs to be more costly if it's dishonest than honest). Joffrey's doesn't, which is why Tyrion stops him.

Yes, he does it when Robb is successful [...] Why would he bother doing it if Robb was losing?

Every victorious battle makes Robb more likely to win the war. If Joffrey was deterred from hurting Sansa as a result of Robb winning, then hurting Sansa COULD be a signal that Robb is less likely to win. As it is, it just looks like Joffrey taking out his frustrations on a young girl when he's unable to do anything about the men leading armies against him. Which is just as Tyrion says.

44) Of course there is a sexual component. Joffrey is 13.

That's not the same as your explanation where Joffrey is following a rational strategy by sending signals to his lords!

But just because Tyrion wants to take him to a brothel doesn't mean Lady Olenna has to kill him. How can you possibly make this kind of connection?

Again, it's a pattern of behavior. Joffrey is a sadist who doesn't behave rationally, and instead takes things out on his betrothed. Olenna is not risking something like that happening to Margaery.

45) Even Sansa can get a little wood on the ball sometimes

As I noted, that is of course inconsistent with what you said earlier.

That's just silly

So silly that LF & GRRM use the same logic.

46) [...] Martin has confirmed nothing

He confirmed the wine rather than the pie for the app, and he explained Olenna's logic in that interview.

all the facts in the book confirm the pie and utterly disprove the wine

If that were actually the case then the "careful reader" wouldn't conclude it was the latter.

47) You misunderstand. Sansa does not think she is puzzled

Hodor doesn't think he's puzzled by various things either because he never even rises to that level. Sansa explicitly asks why LF would do it considering his lack of motive.

48) [...] So how on earth does this confuse his enemies when they don't even know he's involved?

That's precisely how! If they knew he was behind it, they'd be a lot less baffled! "Baffled" is of course different from "puzzled", as to "baffle 'em with bullshit" means to fool people so they don't know you are BSing them and that they are in fact baffled.

He could have killed anyone on the planet and his enemies would be no more or less confused than they are now

Killing someone in Yi Tai would not matter to the regime in KL. Killing Joffrey causes them to look for enemies in the wrong places and not think too much about LF.

This is the hallmark of a liar, just coming up with whatever bs they can.

This is a hallmark of you not understanding what people are actually saying, just as you didn't understand why people actually laughed at Sansa's line about Ilyn Payne.

49) Eerything did not work out perfectly for LF. Tyrion is still alive and has now escaped, so Sansa is of minimal value

It's strange that you believe that, when LF clearly doesn't and is still preparing for her to marry Harry.

50) Now you're saying that LF knew ahead of time that Tyrion would not consummate the marriage?

I said everything actually did work out for LF, not that he could predict the lack of consummation in advance.

51) Multiple characters independently arrived at the wrong conclusion that Cersei had Jon Arryn killed.

And do you claim "all the facts" were against that, even as Pycelle admitted he did in fact ensure Jon's death based on Cersei's reaction? Did anyone ever confess to it? Did GRRM confirm any part of it?

52) Um, the man with the pink cloak killed Robb Stark, and the man with the pink cloak is Roose Bolton.

Roose is A man in a pink cloak. Hence the possibility of wiggle room. And you can't really "confirm" it since you're not GRRM.

The poison could not have been in the wine, or else Joffrey would have dropped in seconds.

You assume a greater understanding of the fictional poison than you actually have.

Martin has never, not once, said any differently

He did for the app.

53) [...] What other convenient time could there have been?

It's an enormous wedding with 77 dishes and numerous performers. Even if they hadn't used that specific moment, there was a lot of time available.

55) Nobody has confirmed anything because the app is not canon. This is all in your head.

The app is not "in my head", I have given multiple links to others discussing how GRRM confirmed parts of it. Including a post at GRRM's blog!

56) I have already explained the joke and how your reading of it doesn't make sense. I can lead you to the waters of reason, but unfortunately can't ensure you drink your way to sense.

57) Getting Joffrey to overrule Tywin on what sword to use to cut the pie is just a small taste of what she will do going forward.

It's something Joffrey doesn't care much about, he just happened to have Hearteater on him to use.

58) Plenty of people would remember seeing this

Nobody actually did, not even Sansa, until LF reminded her.

when asked directly about it in order to confirm Sansa's, and Tyrion's, story

What "story" will they have? And their guilt will be decided by the regime right away, without any attempt to verify any defense they might give.

There was no wind that day. Period

Tyrion doesn't think that in response to her line. He never became suspicious of that.

which would not be hot and stultifying if it was a windy day

There can be wind on a hot day.

the only reason to have it in a hairnet is for someone else to get it

It's inconspicuous for Sansa to be wearing that to the wedding. It would be suspicious if Sansa brought a vial, and Sansa already had spies among her servants.

61) So they are going to think that Tyrion and Sansa had the hairnet made so that Sansa could wear the poison on her head all evening so Tyrion would get to it when the time was right?

As a co-conspirator, Sansa can simply hand Tyrion the poison.

62) Yes, and they'll get the whole story out of her: Dontos, the hairnet, Lady Olenna, the whole thing.

No, Sansa doesn't even remember Olenna doing anything until LF reminds her. She'll bring up Dontos, and the court will simply assume Tyrion is her co-conspirator.

63) Oberyn didn't simply assassinate some people Tywin cared about. He fought a trial by combat in which he insisted on Gregor's guilt and the source of his actions in orders.

anyone who thinks Tommen would make a better king

The Lannisters wouldn't want to permit the idea that they COULD be assassinated. They'd rather appear untouchable.

64) Much and more, but I'll leave that for a different thread.

You are truly a never-ending font. Of something.

65) So now you're saying Varys and LF were co-conspirators in the poisoning?

No, he undermines the regime independently of LF. LF getting away with that poisoning is not evidence of Varys being hoodwinked any more than Tyrion escaping is... or Dany surviving the wineseller's "assassination" attempt.

And why would LF go through such great pains to hide all this from little birds by meeting in the godswood?

LF doesn't know what Varys is actually up to, and since they have different agendas it wouldn't help him to let Varys know everything.

Varys would not have been involved in Tyrion's escape at all if Jaime hadn't put a knife to his throat.

Varys sent Tyrion to Illyrio, and Jaime didn't even know they were in league with each other.

66) Why doesn't he know?

Knowing someone's motivations & long-term strategy is a different thing from knowing their preceding actions.

why is Illyrio not overly concerned about what Varys does not know of the man who they both acknowledge is mucking with the finances of the realm

I don't recall Illyrio saying much about how LF handled said finances, and they're trying to launch an invasion which would replace LF so they wouldn't need to be concerned about him beyond that.

Mayhaps he already knows what game Littlefinger is playing

You think Varys was lying to Illyrio? There really is no end to your head-canon.

67) Wherever he thinks it's safe. If he's talking about killing the king, the last thing he's worried about is the person he's discussing it with knowing he's not in the Vale.

Where does LF think is safe from Varys? As far as I can tell, the answers would be outside KL.

So maybe not six months, but not six days either.

There's an enormous gap between those two! Which would include the "weeks", as I said.

69) Why would LF need to explain anything to Mace?

I didn't say he was explaining anything TO Mace. Rather, Mace knows when LF said he would leave for the Vale, so Olenna will know as well.

Under you're theory, Lady O is doing this to counter Mace's decision

My interpretation is compatible with EITHER Olenna telling the truth about Mace being at odds with her on Margaery, and her lying as the two of them are actually in cahoots.

70) Lady Olenna has been dealing with LF for a long time. Who do you think arranged for the loans to the crown?

LF was borrowing money from Tywin. The Tyrells get involved after the marriage alliance is agreed to.

70) There's no evidence in the text for your theory that Olenna had anything to do with LF prior to the marriage alliance.

71) Lol, bumbling idiot Mace Tyrell as Master of Coin?

Yes, rich men are often given lofty positions beyond their abilities (I already noted that Mace isn't a notable seaman). That very position has even had incompetents who had others do their work for them before!

Even after Tywin lost Tyrion, he still didn't turn to Mace

To Mace's brother, using the position to further cement the Tyrell alliance.

72) You are assuming that she's lying about the death of her husband, you can't assume that conclusion as a premise to make an argument about her being a liar.

73) [...] This is the woman who first married her daughter to a known gay man

Olenna denies she wanted either marriage for Margaery, I don't think we can simply assume the contrary.

and then sent her off to war

She wasn't "sent off to war". She remained in the Reach amidst tourneys rather than actual combat. When the Tyrell host attacks KL, Margaery is certainly not part of it.

74) Sansa has seen more of Joffrey than Olenna's grandsons.

75) [...] just like she did with Cersei

Cersei isn't nearly as valuable as Joffrey.

76 & 77) I haven't been harping on the color. Purple is a normal color for wine to have, though a face turning purple is a nice allusion to the medium via which the poison is delivered.

80) So now only alcohol can dissolve the wine?

Wine is a solution of alcohol in water (plus some other things which provide color & flavor). That's not "the exact same", and in fact solutions of alcohol rather than water are sometimes used to extract specific chemicals. I will add that wine is the one thing we KNOW can dissolve the Strangler. We don't know that pie can do it.

81) Everybody is expected to eat the pie

Olenna said she didn't expect him to eat much because he's small.

Honestly, she's about to murder someone and you think she's going to worry about what people would think of her manners if they see her with her fingers in the pie?

That would just seem strange & suspicious. Fiddling with Sansa's hair does not.

82) What other facts do you need?

As I said, ANY indication that the pie is even capable of dissolving the Strangler.

That the pie is a brown-purplish in color?

That is NEVER indicated in the text. Wouldn't you think GRRM would mention that so the audience could connect purple to the color of the crystal/Strangler?

83) [...] Tyrion is about 12 places away from Joffrey, who would be served first. And yet his pie is placed within seconds.

You don't know the actual amount of time.

Lady O is coordinating it

She's not in charge of that, Cersei is. Olenna actually complains about the number of meals being excessive, as well as the music.

84) Lady O can certainly take it upon herself to organize these kinds of things. Nobody is going to object if she wants this formal ceremony to go off smoothly, least of all Cersei who has plenty of other things to do.

You are simply ignoring the text specifying Cersei was in charge in favor of something you made up which has no support in the text.

87) Why not? It's not the Lannisters who have charged her with a crime.

Of course Cersei has, and Margaery knows Cersei is the "vile, scheming, evil bitch" trying to get her executed.

88) Everyone is expected to take one bite because "it's ill luck not to eat the pie."

That was just Joffrey continuing to taunt Tyrion. He wasn't even forcing Tyrion to eat any pie, as he was instead eating Tyrion's.

89) It's disrespecting Tyrion by saying it's ill luck not to eat the pie?

It's disrespecting him to stick his hand in his uncle's pie and start eating the pigeon inside. Try doing that with someone else's food some time and see how they react.

90) He's not acting wild. This is Sansa's hyperbole.

If anything, Sansa underestimates how awful Joffrey is at that point.

Indeed, the only reason they gave him the giant chalice in the first place was probably because they hoped he would drink himself into insensibility and then Margaery could at least get one night of rest

Another head-canon from you, although we know getting sloshed doesn't prevent Robert from trying to have sex with Cersei and then blaming the wine for hurting her the next morning.

91) And I have been trying to explain that putting poison in pie with lemon cream is what one would do if they wanted to poison Sansa instead. It's not like Tyrion is a noted fan of any of that, and in fact he doesn't find the pie appetizing. Thus it doesn't fit your claimed target very well.

92) [...] no bedding until dawn the next day is not in the text

The text actually DOES discuss when the bedding will take place:

no one was permitted to leave the feast until the time came for the bedding ceremony. That was still a good twenty or thirty dishes off, he judged.

You simply choose to ignore that and say Tyrion is wrong.

93) I'm not having trouble with my own argument. I have reminded you of the things you've said, as you hadn't noticed when you contradicted yourself.

94) [...] That's why the supported mad Aerys

A lot of people supported Aerys, even outside the Reach. Robert had to defeat loyalists in the Vale, as well as the Stormlands.

It upsets the balance of power that has existed for 10,000 years.

There hasn't been a "balance of power" for all that time. The Targaryens overpowered all the other houses in order to conquer Westeros. And regions other than the Reach were able to seize the Riverlands.

95) Yes, in answer to a question about the show

GRRM was explicit that he was talking about the books! Hence the "careful reader"!

You keep skipping over that little part.

I've already discussed it, you misunderstand it. He's not saying "Ignore everything I just said", he's saying it's extra-canonical. And we do use things GRRM says outside the text to understand the text all the time, even if he always has the option of retconning something he said in an SSM.

96) Why would she want to involve anyone else in on this plan

If she really did place a high value on Sansa, then she would do so.

Remember, someone tells; someone always tells

That's for Arianne's amateurish plot. Nobody told on LF, and he got away with it. Even though he's got a number of helpers he didn't kill along with Dontos.

There is no reason for her to follow Sansa all the way down the cliff. She knows where she is going.

I don't think there's any indication that Olenna knew where Sansa went, although she really should if she was in on that as the goal of her plan. Getting Sansa out is something she actually should be involved with, unlike the question of how Sansa got her hairnet. She really has no reason to trust LF to just hand Sansa over to her, particularly since he's going to the Vale instead of the Reach.

97) Margaery is not Sansa. Margaery is down in the center of the floor, in plain view of everyone.

A good place to poison someone if you actually want to cause a big distraction away from Sansa.

Sansa is tiny

She's tall for her age, and Myranda thinks she's well developed for her age (despite Sansa claiming an older age).

98) Yes

I'm glad you now agree that people did, in fact, stand around staring while someone (the king, in this case) was choking.

99) Yes, he's a prick, especially to smallfolk

He's a prick generally, and the Mycah incident proves he doesn't need a "reason" like you insist.

Joffrey has no reason at all to hurt her, and even if he did it is nothing that Margaery could not tolerate

This is like the "four dog defense" or "narcissist's prayer".

Joffrey does not mistreat people for no reason.

You say this in a middle of a discussion about how he mistreated Mycah for no reason!

If he just passed by Mycah in the camp, he would have taken no notice of him

It's entirely possible Joffrey would have randomly picked someone else to mistreat for no reason

100) [...] And if Lady O was even slightly concerned by this, Loras would not be on the kingsguard.

Loras doesn't want to ever marry, so this is a convenient spot for him. And Cersei explained how Margeaery must be defended by a member of the KG for any trial by combat. Olenna deals with her concern by murdering Joffrey, with Margaery remaining queen with Tommen instead.

102) Blockading him would take years.

Storm's End was besieged for "years" but it still nearly starved during the rebellion.

103) Jaime would be acting regent if Tywin was not there.

What makes you say that? He doesn't become regent after Tywin dies.

104) LF suggested Alayne's mother was Braavosi and left her to the Faith. There's no reason to expect Westerosi nobles to know anything about some Braavosi merchant's daughter. There is no real past for "Alayne", so it's not like anyone had heard of her years ago.

105) We don't see him tell anyone but Sansa the bit about him being in charge of Gulltown then. He instead wants to discourage any discussion of Alayne's backstory.

106) Mycah was beating his betrothed's sister with a stick

No he wasn't. They were both swinging at each other with sticks, and she got hit on the hand she was using to hold her own stick. They stopped as soon as Sansa called out, and Arya told them both to go away rather than acting like she needed any help. She instead hit Joffrey when he was tormenting Mycah, at which point Joffrey slashed at "his betrothed's sister" with an actual sword. I don't know why you've appointed yourself Joffrey's defense lawyer, but there's nothing you can do for your client.

107 & 108) None of those involve preventing Joffrey from hurting someone, which is what Olenna is worried about.

109) He is not going to hurt Margaery. He has no reason to

Once again, JOFFREY DOESN'T NEED A REASON!

110) Yes, and the Riverlands saw thousands of years of endless warfare and rising and falling petty kings. The Reach did not, even though it is far more easier to invade and conquer.

No one ever says "it's far more easier to invade and conquer". Aside from being ungramattical, it's just something you made up.

111) The "facts" tell me you're wrong, as almost everything you say is based on your head-canon rather than the text.

112) Um, England was invaded routinely for centuries. There was a little group of people called the Normans who gave it to them pretty good.

Where did the Normans invade from? Normandy. Which was in France, but conquered by Norsemen. The vikings invaded all over Europe, so it doesn't help your argument comparing England to the rest of Europe. It's the centuries during which England WASN'T invaded but other countries were that we see a difference.

All of it is now owned by Tywin Lannister: the westerlands, riverlands

He doesn't own the Riverlands. He's claimed Harrenhal, which was then given to LF, and LF was named Lord Paramount. This has already been explained to you, so stop saying the Lannisters own the region.

and stormlands

He never actually took Storm's End.

115) Why should they? They have the best, most fertile lands on the continent.

Asking why a feudal aristocrat would conquer even more fertile land would get you some puzzled looks.

That's like saying the United States is the strongest country today, so why doesn't it just take over all of north, central and south america?

The US is a democratic republic, not the property of feudal aristocrats. When Mexico was defeated, it was decided that we'd just take a large chunk of land where Anglos lived rather than try to govern all those Mexicans. The early colonial powers had no such inclination toward restraint.

117) Lol, Yi Ti, on the opposite side of the world? And as we've seen, the north is more than capable to inserting itself into southern affairs.

The extreme distance to Yi Ti makes obvious the point: closer is more important than further away. The North is at the extreme end of the continent, and it's not particularly rich. In a conflict it would take Northmen a long time to get down.

118) [...] Margaery will raise their children so they will favor her family over his, just like Cersei did with Joffrey.

Joffrey didn't favor his mother over his father or the Lannisters over the Baratheons. His uncles both rebelled against him, so he naturally opposed them, but he had no respect for his grandfather.

119) The Mudds ruled a small part of what is now the riverlands

The title was King of the Rivers and the Hills, so they weren't even restricted to just the Riverlands!

and were constantly being harrassed by river kings

Which river kings harassed the King of the Rivers and the Hills?

120) [...] It's what you do with hostages. It's why you have them. But Joffrey has a personal dislike for Sansa and he's a 13yo boy, so sex and sadism are certainly in the mix as well.

That's NOT "what you do with hostages". You kill them or trade them. And Robb had a more valuable hostage in Jaime, so it was especially stupid to do something to Sansa that might get to Robb!

The Mad King boiled people alive in wildfire and caused their sons to strangle themselves trying to save them. Talk about sadism.

Yes, and Joffrey is told about that as a cautionary lesson! A lesson you don't seem to have learned.

So much for their high moral standing

What high moral standing? Mace Tyrell spent most of the war at a banquet table. He's a pragmatist, not an idealist.

121) As I told you over and over, it's not Robb's behavior that Joffrey is trying to influence. It's the behavior of the other lords.

You say that over and over, but haven't explained how it's a credibly costly signal. Certainly nobody in the books voices your "logic".

And this is why Tyrion put an end to it; because Joffrey took it too far, not because this is an utterly enxcusable, tyrannical thing for a king to do. It's what happens to hostages.

Tyrion stopped it because the only purpose it served was to get Joffrey's rocks off, and it was idiotic as long as Robb had Jaime hostage.

122) Joffrey doesn't execute any more high lords once Tyrion arrives.

He does start a riot which gets a KG and the High Septon killed.

Tyrion also brokered the Martell alliance using Myrcella, which is crucial at this point.

The Martells never provide any actual help. Instead Oberyn picks a fight with the Lannisters, Arianne gets Myrcella injured & Arys killed, while Doran angles to bring "fire and blood" to the Lannisters.

123) Mycah was not random and he was not without cause. He was assaulting a highborn, the sister of his betrothed.

I have already addressed this but would like to take a moment to marvel again at your attempt to defend Joffrey. The incident is placed in the book to show Joffrey doing something indefensible, so you know he's awful. There's no ambiguity about it.

124) Stannis didn't marry Selyse until two or three years after Cersei and Robert, so plenty of time to rid her of drunken Robert in favor of solemn, dutiful Stannis.

Who is going to get Stannis to marry Cersei? Not Robert, since he's dead. Not Jon Arryn, since Stannis doesn't care about hin. Stannis wants to kill Jaime or send him to the Wall, he's not going to make nice with the Lannisters.

If it was to hide the incest, then why is Cersei telling Ned about the incest before Robert is even gored?

Ned confronted HER with the incest! She's not telling him anything he doesn't already know.

125) Again with the cat. It was years ago, Joffrey never did it again

You just admitted him crossbowing another cat in the present-day was basically the same thing! Was that "out of curiosity, not cruelty"?

why would he show to Robert and reveal himself as this cruel little monster

Joffrey does stupid things all the time. He even likes to show off his cruelty.

126) Really? What was cruel about that? Other than taking the daughters of his lords, whom then would want to cement their own alliances?

Lords willingly pandered their daughters to him. As far as they were concerned, Aegon was corrupt, rather than cruel. When one of them was caught with Toyne, he did react with cruelty, but that's not what happened his other mistresses.

And then these bastards turned around and bled the realm for the next 100 years? What was cruel about any of that?

It's irresponsible, but not sadistic enough to associate with someone like Maegor the Cruel.

127) Margaery could encourage his mistreatment of others

I don't think she could guarantee she'd never be a target.

[Dreadscythe95]

How did people end up answering 3 page answers to the topic "Mace Tyrell is a Fool", omg, it's unbelievable.

George, pls mate, release WOW, we are all gonna end up wacked up schizophrenics. 

[John Suburbs]

6 hours ago, Dreadscythe95 said:

How did people end up answering 3 page answers to the topic "Mace Tyrell is a Fool", omg, it's unbelievable.

George, pls mate, release WOW, we are all gonna end up wacked up schizophrenics. 

 

13 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Cersei was still alive so we could hear from her whether she was guilty or not (she even got POV chapters, which is how we can guess she didn't send Mandon after Tyrion). Joffrey dies right after Tyrion concludes he sent the catspaw, and Jaime comes to the same conclusion, without Joffrey around to rebut it anymore.

 

Much more like a dog than a pig, whose purpose is to be eaten.

 

Robert did, and Stannis also thought it was messed up.

 

I'm glad then you agree that it's not the case that "he never did it again".

 

His pattern of behavior continuing into years later (when we see he's killed another cat) is why the Tyrells are afraid he'll hurt Margery, as GRRM himself noted.

 

Yes, because Ned would NOT torture someone for his own enjoyment like Joffrey or Ramsay!

 

He didn't dismiss Barristan & execute Ned out of "his own self-interest". Tyrion & Tywin are both aware those decisions are terrible for his new regime.

 

Mandon isn't some little striver, he's a KG who wasn't known to have much in the way of desires.

 

That's precisely why we shouldn't think LF had some "hold" on him! Dontos Hollard isn't like that at all.

 

No, he's been trying to frame Tyrion to cause conflict. Blaming Tyrion for the dagger wasn't expected to result in the Starks sending an assassin after Tyrion.

 

But Moore ISN'T unworthy like Blount! Rather, Jaime considers him the next most dangerous member of the KG, and no one ever doubts his prowess in battle or willingness to follow orders.

 

It's not like she'd suddenly gotten more harmful, rather Jon started working together more with Stannis. He refused her the thing she cared most about because he wasn't "desperate to please" her. You simply made that up.

 

If you don't actually believe me, you can verify it for yourself. If I'm wrong, I'll compensate you for whatever you had to spend to determine that.

 

You haven't even determined that it says the latter, nor have we heard of Ran asking GRRM to confirm that bit before putting it in the app.

 

That's all in your head, whereas GRRM himself has said what the "careful reader" would conclude from what he actually wrote.

 

I've looked at all the "facts" you've presented and of course I don't think it was the pie.

13) GRRM himself endorses the app. It's official.

 

He didn't say anything about his SSMs not being credible. Instead he just wanted the ability to have things removed at his request. Which he certainly has with the app! The wine vs pie bit is not a "slip of the tongue", it was explicitly confirmed by him prior to appearing in app.

 

 

He doesn't "pretend", he says it outright.

 

This is at a big prestigious wedding. People stepping in to stop Joffrey from killing his uncle there does not mean Joffrey will be under control ALL the time.

 

Of course there wouldn't be "no gifts", the Tyrells themselves are among those giving gifts. They just can't be expected to anticipate any specific gift given by others.

 

They chose a chalice for Joffrey specifically, knowing that Joffrey would drink out of it.

 

Of course he is, Joffrey is the actual target and has been even prior to Sansa's marriage.

 

It doesn't "dissolve" because there's no requirement that something dissolve in order to leave a smudge. If the crystals were leaking/dripping from the hairnet that would be another thing. And graphite can leave a mark against all sorts of surfaces.

 

This is a fictional poison called the Strangler, not an actual amethyst.

25) I have already discussed the relevance of the amount of solvent used to dissolve a solute, and how merely pouring some wine into his mouth is not comparable to immersing the crystal directly in the cup of wine.

 

Yes. The conspirators presumably acquired the chalice & poison from a jeweler & alchemist, respectively. Thus, they were prepared for the wedding and did not have to react on the fly to the volume of the chalice or the size and nature of the poison crystal. None of this implies that either the jeweler or alchemist have to know about the other's role. The conspirators can keep that info to themselves and share only what they need to with those below them.

 

GRRM himself explained it in that interview.

 

But that's completely inconsistent with your claim that the "facts" are all against it!

 

When LF confesses to a poisoning, it's more honest than even Tyrion could have anticipated. See his "I confess" about Jon Arryn's killer.

 

Yes, THAT GRRM explained it, and you are choosing to simply ignore it.

 

Of course it can. GRRM has discussed their shared endings, and we know of three "holy shit" moments the show took directly from him.

 

The whole point of "need to know" is that it's not the same as "want to know"!

 

No, he explicitly told Rolling Stone he was talking about the books. Hence "careful reader" not "careful watcher".

 

Yes, that would be. LF's cutouts are his responsibility.

 

How does "bonus" mean "don't care" to you? It's nice to have another marriage alliance, but they're not at risk of a kingslayer stew without it.

 

But NOT to the North, which is what's relevant for Sansa.

 

That's exactly what Tywin recommends doing! He even phrases it in terms of "helping" a supplicant back up. You seem to have the Cersei/Joffrey view of things, which Tywin explains would cause people to see no benefit to bending the knee rather than fighting to the death after a conflict starts.

 

Says you. There's a lot shaking up in KL at that time, a dispute between two knights does not rank that high in importance.

 

I am serious. Joffrey can demand people's heads even if he doesn't see the beheading himself, just as Cersei has many wrong dwarves beheaded.

 

There's no reason to assume everyone there for the king's justice is a resident of the Red Keep.

 

That was fought by champions as a trial to determine the guilt of a third party. And it was a trial for regicide! A completely different story from two knights fighting each other to death over a property dispute.

 

It's normal not to be saint. Joffrey isn't normal. He's monstrous.

 

Selyse has been married to Stannis a long time without a male heir. The Tyrells don't want to spend any time letting Margaery be subject to Joffrey's abuse.

 

They got Tommen. They don't have his heir, but they do have him.

 

Cersei had to hide anything Robert did to her to prevent Jaime from killing him. Your evaluation of its "worth" wouldn't stop Loras from killing Joffrey.

43) Stop repeating the same handwaving and read up on credibly costly signalling theory. I've cited Robin Hanson a number of times on this forum, and I know people regard him as explaining everything via signalling but you need to give an actual explanation for how that signal would work (it needs to be more costly if it's dishonest than honest). Joffrey's doesn't, which is why Tyrion stops him.

 

Every victorious battle makes Robb more likely to win the war. If Joffrey was deterred from hurting Sansa as a result of Robb winning, then hurting Sansa COULD be a signal that Robb is less likely to win. As it is, it just looks like Joffrey taking out his frustrations on a young girl when he's unable to do anything about the men leading armies against him. Which is just as Tyrion says.

 

That's not the same as your explanation where Joffrey is following a rational strategy by sending signals to his lords!

 

Again, it's a pattern of behavior. Joffrey is a sadist who doesn't behave rationally, and instead takes things out on his betrothed. Olenna is not risking something like that happening to Margaery.

 

As I noted, that is of course inconsistent with what you said earlier.

 

So silly that LF & GRRM use the same logic.

 

He confirmed the wine rather than the pie for the app, and he explained Olenna's logic in that interview.

 

If that were actually the case then the "careful reader" wouldn't conclude it was the latter.

 

Hodor doesn't think he's puzzled by various things either because he never even rises to that level. Sansa explicitly asks why LF would do it considering his lack of motive.

 

That's precisely how! If they knew he was behind it, they'd be a lot less baffled! "Baffled" is of course different from "puzzled", as to "baffle 'em with bullshit" means to fool people so they don't know you are BSing them and that they are in fact baffled.

 

Killing someone in Yi Tai would not matter to the regime in KL. Killing Joffrey causes them to look for enemies in the wrong places and not think too much about LF.

 

This is a hallmark of you not understanding what people are actually saying, just as you didn't understand why people actually laughed at Sansa's line about Ilyn Payne.

 

It's strange that you believe that, when LF clearly doesn't and is still preparing for her to marry Harry.

 

I said everything actually did work out for LF, not that he could predict the lack of consummation in advance.

 

And do you claim "all the facts" were against that, even as Pycelle admitted he did in fact ensure Jon's death based on Cersei's reaction? Did anyone ever confess to it? Did GRRM confirm any part of it?

 

Roose is A man in a pink cloak. Hence the possibility of wiggle room. And you can't really "confirm" it since you're not GRRM.

 

You assume a greater understanding of the fictional poison than you actually have.

 

He did for the app.

 

It's an enormous wedding with 77 dishes and numerous performers. Even if they hadn't used that specific moment, there was a lot of time available.

 

The app is not "in my head", I have given multiple links to others discussing how GRRM confirmed parts of it. Including a post at GRRM's blog!

56) I have already explained the joke and how your reading of it doesn't make sense. I can lead you to the waters of reason, but unfortunately can't ensure you drink your way to sense.

 

It's something Joffrey doesn't care much about, he just happened to have Hearteater on him to use.

 

Nobody actually did, not even Sansa, until LF reminded her.

 

What "story" will they have? And their guilt will be decided by the regime right away, without any attempt to verify any defense they might give.

 

Tyrion doesn't think that in response to her line. He never became suspicious of that.

 

There can be wind on a hot day.

 

It's inconspicuous for Sansa to be wearing that to the wedding. It would be suspicious if Sansa brought a vial, and Sansa already had spies among her servants.

 

As a co-conspirator, Sansa can simply hand Tyrion the poison.

 

No, Sansa doesn't even remember Olenna doing anything until LF reminds her. She'll bring up Dontos, and the court will simply assume Tyrion is her co-conspirator.

63) Oberyn didn't simply assassinate some people Tywin cared about. He fought a trial by combat in which he insisted on Gregor's guilt and the source of his actions in orders.

 

The Lannisters wouldn't want to permit the idea that they COULD be assassinated. They'd rather appear untouchable.

 

You are truly a never-ending font. Of something.

 

No, he undermines the regime independently of LF. LF getting away with that poisoning is not evidence of Varys being hoodwinked any more than Tyrion escaping is... or Dany surviving the wineseller's "assassination" attempt.

 

LF doesn't know what Varys is actually up to, and since they have different agendas it wouldn't help him to let Varys know everything.

 

Varys sent Tyrion to Illyrio, and Jaime didn't even know they were in league with each other.

 

Knowing someone's motivations & long-term strategy is a different thing from knowing their preceding actions.

 

I don't recall Illyrio saying much about how LF handled said finances, and they're trying to launch an invasion which would replace LF so they wouldn't need to be concerned about him beyond that.

 

You think Varys was lying to Illyrio? There really is no end to your head-canon.

 

Where does LF think is safe from Varys? As far as I can tell, the answers would be outside KL.

 

There's an enormous gap between those two! Which would include the "weeks", as I said.

 

I didn't say he was explaining anything TO Mace. Rather, Mace knows when LF said he would leave for the Vale, so Olenna will know as well.

 

My interpretation is compatible with EITHER Olenna telling the truth about Mace being at odds with her on Margaery, and her lying as the two of them are actually in cahoots.

 

LF was borrowing money from Tywin. The Tyrells get involved after the marriage alliance is agreed to.

70) There's no evidence in the text for your theory that Olenna had anything to do with LF prior to the marriage alliance.

 

Yes, rich men are often given lofty positions beyond their abilities (I already noted that Mace isn't a notable seaman). That very position has even had incompetents who had others do their work for them before!

 

To Mace's brother, using the position to further cement the Tyrell alliance.

72) You are assuming that she's lying about the death of her husband, you can't assume that conclusion as a premise to make an argument about her being a liar.

 

Olenna denies she wanted either marriage for Margaery, I don't think we can simply assume the contrary.

 

She wasn't "sent off to war". She remained in the Reach amidst tourneys rather than actual combat. When the Tyrell host attacks KL, Margaery is certainly not part of it.

74) Sansa has seen more of Joffrey than Olenna's grandsons.

 

Cersei isn't nearly as valuable as Joffrey.

76 & 77) I haven't been harping on the color. Purple is a normal color for wine to have, though a face turning purple is a nice allusion to the medium via which the poison is delivered.

 

Wine is a solution of alcohol in water (plus some other things which provide color & flavor). That's not "the exact same", and in fact solutions of alcohol rather than water are sometimes used to extract specific chemicals. I will add that wine is the one thing we KNOW can dissolve the Strangler. We don't know that pie can do it.

 

Olenna said she didn't expect him to eat much because he's small.

 

That would just seem strange & suspicious. Fiddling with Sansa's hair does not.

 

As I said, ANY indication that the pie is even capable of dissolving the Strangler.

 

That is NEVER indicated in the text. Wouldn't you think GRRM would mention that so the audience could connect purple to the color of the crystal/Strangler?

 

You don't know the actual amount of time.

 

She's not in charge of that, Cersei is. Olenna actually complains about the number of meals being excessive, as well as the music.

 

You are simply ignoring the text specifying Cersei was in charge in favor of something you made up which has no support in the text.

 

Of course Cersei has, and Margaery knows Cersei is the "vile, scheming, evil bitch" trying to get her executed.

 

That was just Joffrey continuing to taunt Tyrion. He wasn't even forcing Tyrion to eat any pie, as he was instead eating Tyrion's.

 

It's disrespecting him to stick his hand in his uncle's pie and start eating the pigeon inside. Try doing that with someone else's food some time and see how they react.

 

If anything, Sansa underestimates how awful Joffrey is at that point.

 

Another head-canon from you, although we know getting sloshed doesn't prevent Robert from trying to have sex with Cersei and then blaming the wine for hurting her the next morning.

91) And I have been trying to explain that putting poison in pie with lemon cream is what one would do if they wanted to poison Sansa instead. It's not like Tyrion is a noted fan of any of that, and in fact he doesn't find the pie appetizing. Thus it doesn't fit your claimed target very well.

 

The text actually DOES discuss when the bedding will take place:

You simply choose to ignore that and say Tyrion is wrong.

93) I'm not having trouble with my own argument. I have reminded you of the things you've said, as you hadn't noticed when you contradicted yourself.

 

A lot of people supported Aerys, even outside the Reach. Robert had to defeat loyalists in the Vale, as well as the Stormlands.

 

There hasn't been a "balance of power" for all that time. The Targaryens overpowered all the other houses in order to conquer Westeros. And regions other than the Reach were able to seize the Riverlands.

 

GRRM was explicit that he was talking about the books! Hence the "careful reader"!

 

I've already discussed it, you misunderstand it. He's not saying "Ignore everything I just said", he's saying it's extra-canonical. And we do use things GRRM says outside the text to understand the text all the time, even if he always has the option of retconning something he said in an SSM.

 

If she really did place a high value on Sansa, then she would do so.

 

That's for Arianne's amateurish plot. Nobody told on LF, and he got away with it. Even though he's got a number of helpers he didn't kill along with Dontos.

 

I don't think there's any indication that Olenna knew where Sansa went, although she really should if she was in on that as the goal of her plan. Getting Sansa out is something she actually should be involved with, unlike the question of how Sansa got her hairnet. She really has no reason to trust LF to just hand Sansa over to her, particularly since he's going to the Vale instead of the Reach.

 

A good place to poison someone if you actually want to cause a big distraction away from Sansa.

 

She's tall for her age, and Myranda thinks she's well developed for her age (despite Sansa claiming an older age).

 

I'm glad you now agree that people did, in fact, stand around staring while someone (the king, in this case) was choking.

 

He's a prick generally, and the Mycah incident proves he doesn't need a "reason" like you insist.

 

This is like the "four dog defense" or "narcissist's prayer".

 

You say this in a middle of a discussion about how he mistreated Mycah for no reason!

 

It's entirely possible Joffrey would have randomly picked someone else to mistreat for no reason

 

Loras doesn't want to ever marry, so this is a convenient spot for him. And Cersei explained how Margeaery must be defended by a member of the KG for any trial by combat. Olenna deals with her concern by murdering Joffrey, with Margaery remaining queen with Tommen instead.

 

Storm's End was besieged for "years" but it still nearly starved during the rebellion.

 

What makes you say that? He doesn't become regent after Tywin dies.

104) LF suggested Alayne's mother was Braavosi and left her to the Faith. There's no reason to expect Westerosi nobles to know anything about some Braavosi merchant's daughter. There is no real past for "Alayne", so it's not like anyone had heard of her years ago.

105) We don't see him tell anyone but Sansa the bit about him being in charge of Gulltown then. He instead wants to discourage any discussion of Alayne's backstory.

 

No he wasn't. They were both swinging at each other with sticks, and she got hit on the hand she was using to hold her own stick. They stopped as soon as Sansa called out, and Arya told them both to go away rather than acting like she needed any help. She instead hit Joffrey when he was tormenting Mycah, at which point Joffrey slashed at "his betrothed's sister" with an actual sword. I don't know why you've appointed yourself Joffrey's defense lawyer, but there's nothing you can do for your client.

107 & 108) None of those involve preventing Joffrey from hurting someone, which is what Olenna is worried about.

 

Once again, JOFFREY DOESN'T NEED A REASON!

 

No one ever says "it's far more easier to invade and conquer". Aside from being ungramattical, it's just something you made up.

111) The "facts" tell me you're wrong, as almost everything you say is based on your head-canon rather than the text.

 

Where did the Normans invade from? Normandy. Which was in France, but conquered by Norsemen. The vikings invaded all over Europe, so it doesn't help your argument comparing England to the rest of Europe. It's the centuries during which England WASN'T invaded but other countries were that we see a difference.

 

He doesn't own the Riverlands. He's claimed Harrenhal, which was then given to LF, and LF was named Lord Paramount. This has already been explained to you, so stop saying the Lannisters own the region.

 

He never actually took Storm's End.

 

Asking why a feudal aristocrat would conquer even more fertile land would get you some puzzled looks.

 

The US is a democratic republic, not the property of feudal aristocrats. When Mexico was defeated, it was decided that we'd just take a large chunk of land where Anglos lived rather than try to govern all those Mexicans. The early colonial powers had no such inclination toward restraint.

 

The extreme distance to Yi Ti makes obvious the point: closer is more important than further away. The North is at the extreme end of the continent, and it's not particularly rich. In a conflict it would take Northmen a long time to get down.

 

Joffrey didn't favor his mother over his father or the Lannisters over the Baratheons. His uncles both rebelled against him, so he naturally opposed them, but he had no respect for his grandfather.

 

The title was King of the Rivers and the Hills, so they weren't even restricted to just the Riverlands!

 

Which river kings harassed the King of the Rivers and the Hills?

 

That's NOT "what you do with hostages". You kill them or trade them. And Robb had a more valuable hostage in Jaime, so it was especially stupid to do something to Sansa that might get to Robb!

 

Yes, and Joffrey is told about that as a cautionary lesson! A lesson you don't seem to have learned.

 

What high moral standing? Mace Tyrell spent most of the war at a banquet table. He's a pragmatist, not an idealist.

 

You say that over and over, but haven't explained how it's a credibly costly signal. Certainly nobody in the books voices your "logic".

 

Tyrion stopped it because the only purpose it served was to get Joffrey's rocks off, and it was idiotic as long as Robb had Jaime hostage.

 

He does start a riot which gets a KG and the High Septon killed.

 

The Martells never provide any actual help. Instead Oberyn picks a fight with the Lannisters, Arianne gets Myrcella injured & Arys killed, while Doran angles to bring "fire and blood" to the Lannisters.

 

I have already addressed this but would like to take a moment to marvel again at your attempt to defend Joffrey. The incident is placed in the book to show Joffrey doing something indefensible, so you know he's awful. There's no ambiguity about it.

 

Who is going to get Stannis to marry Cersei? Not Robert, since he's dead. Not Jon Arryn, since Stannis doesn't care about hin. Stannis wants to kill Jaime or send him to the Wall, he's not going to make nice with the Lannisters.

 

Ned confronted HER with the incest! She's not telling him anything he doesn't already know.

 

You just admitted him crossbowing another cat in the present-day was basically the same thing! Was that "out of curiosity, not cruelty"?

 

Joffrey does stupid things all the time. He even likes to show off his cruelty.

 

Lords willingly pandered their daughters to him. As far as they were concerned, Aegon was corrupt, rather than cruel. When one of them was caught with Toyne, he did react with cruelty, but that's not what happened his other mistresses.

 

It's irresponsible, but not sadistic enough to associate with someone like Maegor the Cruel.

 

I don't think she could guarantee she'd never be a target.

Yawn. Bye

[FictionIsntReal]

On 4/21/2021 at 12:40 PM, John Suburbs said:

Yawn. Bye

The style guide says to only quote what you need to, try to follow that.

[John Suburbs]

11 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

The style guide says to only quote what you need to, try to follow that.

I did