Your Most Hated ASOIAF theory

[Sandy Clegg]

6 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

he has no reason to trust the Tyrells, and they have no reason to trust him.

He brings them in on the Lannister's side at the Battle of Blackwater, and is rewarded with Harrenhall for his efforts. So the Tyrells and LF have negotiated before and are known to each other. They have no reason to despise each other or love each other, but they accomplished one successful dealing together so this is an established business relationship now. 

Like I said, this isn't an alliance built on trust. Hence all the added steps of distance involved in the plan.

How exactly would a betrayal between the two sides work? The poison is the incriminating detail that would enable either party to backstab the other.

But from the moment Olenna steps into the wedding, she cannot be implicated in anything because she has done nothing and possesses no poison. The window of opportunity for Littlefinger to backstab her (if he wished) is the tiny window of time between her obtaining the poison and dropping it into the chalice. And LF isn't at the wedding anyway. So trust on the Tyrell's part is based on the fact that their part in the scheme takes but a moment. 

Instead of asking why they trust each other, better to ask what they would gain for backstabbing each other once the plan is formed? We can't really speculate on 'who approached who' to instigate the plan. And yes, the party who approaches first would be the ones risking more. But it's Game of Thrones - it's a story of calculated risks.

 

[Frey family reunion]

On 4/7/2024 at 7:23 AM, Sandy Clegg said:

Not sure I agree with any of the above - he's aware of the need to be out of sight of KL due to being involved in a murder plot at the king's wedding. He even has his man ready to whisk Sansa away. If he's so unconcerned with his ship being spotted, why make Sansa's trip out there so unnecessarily long? In fact, why lurk near KL at all? What does he hope to gain by remaining  in sight, at such unnecessary risk when he's gone to such lengths to distance himself? 

We're shown the ship's prow coming towards Sansa. She doesn't approach the stern, which would make more sense if LF had just been lurking there waiting for her to arrive. Then they could have been on their way as quick as possible, before being seen. None of the evidence points towards him having recently left KL at all. Unless they just circled around the bay, making sea-donuts for no reason. Seems kind of illogical and warping the facts to fit a theory rather than deducing from the facts given to us.

I think you’re discounting the reason that GRRM made the bells ring so soon after Joffrey’s death.  It doesn’t terribly make sense that Sansa would have heard the bells so soon after her flight from the wedding feast especially since they were coming from across the city.  But it becomes necessary if George wants a public acknowledgment that the King was dead.  

Which I think points to the fact that he wants to give Petyr a way of knowing about Joff’s death independent of being told by one of the eye witnesses.  

But I think that you are assuming that the ship is coming from further out in the sea when it reaches Sansa, and I’m not sure that this assumption is correct.

I had to pull an image of King’s Landing to make sure I was properly oriented.  But assuming the images are accurate, Sansa’s rowboat would have been traveling in a northerly direct if they were traveling along the channel towards Blackwater Bay.  (I had earlier assumed that they would have been traveling in an easterly direction but that’s not apparently correct).

That direction is perhaps even further confirmed by the fact that Peter’s ship comes out of the darkness towards them.  That occurs as the sun is starting to rise in the East.  So presumably the ship isn’t heading from the east (further out in the bay) where it would have been lit by the rising sun, but instead it is heading from the North, which allows it to appear out of the darkness.  

Now the question is did Petyr ever actually leave King’s Landing?  

If he had boarded the Merling King as it was parked outside of the channel, then he would have been hanging out on the ship an awfully long time.  Tyrion comments that Petyr had left a fortnight before in his POV, which occurs even before the Martells made their arrival in King’s Landing.  So that’s quite a while to be on the ship, but it’s still a possibility.

The other possibility is that he was hiding out in one of his brothels, the same place perhaps that he hid Cat or hid the dwarves that were used at the wedding tourney.  

But regardless all we know is that his ship was traveling to meet Sansa and it was probably not traveling from further out in the bay, which would have put it to Sansa’s east, but traveling from somewhere north of Sansa’s location which could have put it anywhere within the vicinity of King’s Landing.  

Which also means that when he turned his ship right before Sansa boards he probably turns it from a southerly direction to facing the East which is where they would have had to turn to leave the Bay.

[CamiloRP]

14 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

He brings them in on the Lannister's side at the Battle of Blackwater, and is rewarded with Harrenhall for his efforts. So the Tyrells and LF have negotiated before and are known to each other. They have no reason to despise each other or love each other, but they accomplished one successful dealing together so this is an established business relationship now.

 Yeah but, that obviously helps LF (he gets rewarded Harrenhall) and obviously helps the Tyrells (they get a queen), while it having no possibility of being a set-up. It doesn't require trust at all, it's not the same thing as regicide, something either side has no reason to assume the other would be okay with and something for which no side need the other, and that has no serious repercusions if it doesn't work (as regicide would).

 

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Like I said, this isn't an alliance built on trust. Hence all the added steps of distance involved in the plan.

How exactly would a betrayal between the two sides work? The poison is the incriminating detail that would enable either party to backstab the other.

But from the moment Olenna steps into the wedding, she cannot be implicated in anything because she has done nothing and possesses no poison. The window of opportunity for Littlefinger to backstab her (if he wished) is the tiny window of time between her obtaining the poison and dropping it into the chalice. And LF isn't at the wedding anyway. So trust on the Tyrell's part is based on the fact that their part in the scheme takes but a moment. 

Instead of asking why they trust each other, better to ask what they would gain for backstabbing each other once the plan is formed? We can't really speculate on 'who approached who' to instigate the plan. And yes, the party who approaches first would be the ones risking more. But it's Game of Thrones - it's a story of calculated risks.

It just takes LF to tell Cersei "have someone covertly spy on Sansa, Olenna will steal poison from a hairnet on her head. Then have someone spy on her, hse will drop it on Joff's wine". or "the moment Sansa's harinet is missing a stone have lady Olenna searched, you will find poison in her."

On the other hand, they Tyrells just have to go "Sansa will go to the wedding wearing a hairnet with poison in it. Question her, she will tell you LF gave it to her." (well, she would likley narc on Dontos, then Dontos would narc on LF).

Or there's just "Your grace, Lady Olenna Tyrell/Lord Petyr Baelish approached me about killing the king. I can't prove it but I would watch out."

That would probably be enough for Cersei to turture LF/Olenna into confessing.

 

Again, why go over all that trouble? the Tyrells don't bring anything to the table.

[Nevets]

@CamiloRP What is the purpose of the hairnet?  Is it poisoned; is it the murder weapon?  If it is, who handled it and how, and how did they get it into the pie without being obvious?  If it's not poisoned, why bother, and what happened to the missing stone?  I prefer answers from the text if possible, please.

[Sandy Clegg]

11 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

Again, why go over all that trouble? the Tyrells don't bring anything to the table.

The fact that you are mystified by this isn't really the point any more. It's such a relatively subjective point you're making that it's difficult to respond to, but that's fair enough - we all have our sticking points. But it feels more like a 'taste' issue at this point. To me their working together makes perfect sense in the fictional world of courtly intrigue GRRM has created, and I don't see any need to justify its existence. Any number of things might be done any number of ways, each being more or less risky than the other. This is the way GRRM wrote it, though. 

[Sandy Clegg]

11 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

It doesn't require trust at all, it's not the same thing as regicide, something either side has no reason to assume the other would be okay with and something for which no side need the other, and that has no serious repercusions if it doesn't work (as regicide would).

In the real world you might have a point, but this is a book. And GRRM has gone to such lengths in the text to back up the accepted version of events (which I think are well-documented in this thread and others) that it just seems like you dislike the story George has given us (and which he is quoted as supporting, see previous posts). You could just actually just say that, rather than finding ways to imagine it went down otherwise. George doesn't please all of us all of the time. But I feel that if you keep picking on this thread you'll be left with a book full of characters who never interact with anyone or do anything interesting.

[CamiloRP]

6 hours ago, Nevets said:

@CamiloRP What is the purpose of the hairnet?  Is it poisoned; is it the murder weapon?  If it is, who handled it and how, and how did they get it into the pie without being obvious? 

I'd bet on a servant, probably the one who served Tyrion and Sansa the pie, that's why the poison had to be with Sansa, close to the target and easy to reach.

We should question why the hairnet was used as a murder weapon instead of someone carrying poison in their pocket (especially if the target is Joffrey, someone who shouldn't be all that close to Sansa). The simple answer would be that the target was to be placed close to Sansa and taking the poison from her was easier fro the poisoner than digging around in their pockets.

 

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If it's not poisoned, why bother, and what happened to the missing stone?  I prefer answers from the text if possible, please.

There are no answers from the text, unless you trust the word of a known liar. Which alsoe requires you to accept that a (pressumably smart) old woman would involve 3 people she has absolutely no reason to trust (a liar, a drunken fool and a teenager) in something as risky as poisoning the king but would anyway not only do the poisoning herself, but twise risk being spotted handling poison with her weak, slow hands AND carry the poison with herself throughout the entire feast.

[CamiloRP]

2 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

The fact that you are mystified by this isn't really the point any more. It's such a relatively subjective point you're making that it's difficult to respond to, but that's fair enough - we all have our sticking points. But it feels more like a 'taste' issue at this point. To me their working together makes perfect sense in the fictional world of courtly intrigue GRRM has created, and I don't see any need to justify its existence. Any number of things might be done any number of ways, each being more or less risky than the other. This is the way GRRM wrote it, though. 

The thing is this "fictional world" is filled with proper character motivation, inteligent actions and consequences for those actions. In this suposed scheems there's varely any of that. The Olenna/LF theory requires George to write in a manner different than how he does in the rest of the series.

[CamiloRP]

1 hour ago, Sandy Clegg said:

In the real world you might have a point, but this is a book. And GRRM has gone to such lengths in the text to back up the accepted version of events (which I think are well-documented in this thread and others) that it just seems like you dislike the story George has given us (and which he is quoted as supporting, see previous posts). You could just actually just say that, rather than finding ways to imagine it went down otherwise. George doesn't please all of us all of the time.

So, your answer is what I posted above then: George is a bad writer (but only in that bit).

Also, where did he supported it??

 

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But I feel that if you keep picking on this thread you'll be left with a book full of characters who never interact with anyone or do anything interesting.

I don't get this at all.

[Sandy Clegg]

21 hours ago, Frey family reunion said:

think you’re discounting the reason that GRRM made the bells ring so soon after Joffrey’s death.  It doesn’t terribly make sense that Sansa would have heard the bells so soon after her flight from the wedding feast especially since they were coming from across the city.  But it becomes necessary if George wants a public acknowledgment that the King was dead.

The fact of the bells merely gives George a parameter to play with. That parameter is: an audible signal for the king's death. He then defines that parameter by having the bells slowly fade to nothing as Sansa reaches open water. 

By the time she reaches the rendezvous point with Dontos, having changed her clothes, the bell-ringing has begun. We have no info on how long it should or shouldn't take between the death and the ringing, but it would have been odd if they had stayed completely silent while she made her escape. George the writer (as opposed to guy who just draws up the plots) manages to add to the urgency of her escape in this way, by creating a more suspenseful atmosphere. The fact of the bells fading away is no less significant than their sounding, either, as it allows us to gauge the length of her rowing out to sea, where she meets Littlefinger. It lets us know that LF has taken heavy measures to remain out of earshot to those in the docks, and also lets us know that he couldn't have learned about Joff's death in this way.

We have to allow for dramatic beats to take place. Don't forget that first-time readers think that Dontos was waiting for the bedding ceremony to whisk Sansa away. Joff's death comes as a total surprise, as does Littlefinger's involvement in it. Dontos insisting that it was 'the pie' is just a necessary sop to keep Sansa quiet until they are out of the city, and also in case of prying little birds. George has wound up the drama and chosen the moment of Sansa's arrival to have LF spring the truth on her, and us. 

On 4/8/2024 at 4:08 PM, Frey family reunion said:

Now the question is did Petyr ever actually leave King’s Landing?  

If he had boarded the Merling King as it was parked outside of the channel, then he would have been hanging out on the ship an awfully long time.  Tyrion comments that Petyr had left a fortnight before in his POV, which occurs even before the Martells made their arrival in King’s Landing.  So that’s quite a while to be on the ship, but it’s still a possibility.

The other possibility is that he was hiding out in one of his brothels, the same place perhaps that he hid Cat or hid the dwarves that were used at the wedding tourney.  

This is also speculation. We see the boat coming towards Sansa - that's textual evidence put there deliberately. And there are plenty of ports between KL and the Fingers where LF could have been hiding out before returning, just as plausibly (in fact more so) as him being in KL, where there was the risk of him being seen (quite a significant one, I would say, as it destroys his alibi) just before a royal murder. What does he gain from remaining in KL, only to spring out to sea as soon as the killing takes place? He was too far from the wedding to affect events there, so ... just waiting for bells?

What does hope to gain by that, even if it was logistically possible for him to do so and get out to see before Sansa? Oswell would be on his way to the ship with Sansa in tow not long after anyway, and Oswell could tell LF anything he desperately needed to know regarding bells, if he needed it that badly. So all this ... just so he could get the jump on Sansa and pretend that he intended to kill Joff alll along? To keep his aura of infallible mastermind? That risk/reward ratio seems highly implausible and a little silly.

[Sandy Clegg]

2 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

So, your answer is what I posted above then: George is a bad writer (but only in that bit).

If you say so. I think the motivations are all fine, but you don't so it comes down to personal taste I guess. The people who dislike the purple wedding resolution seem to be in a minority, at least. This is what happens when people are starved of plot for years. They invent new ones. 

 

2 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

In this suposed scheems there's varely any of that. The Olenna/LF theory requires George to write in a manner different than how he does in the rest of the series.

I think it requires us to fill in a lot of the blanks for ourselves, which isn't quite the same thing. He trusts readers to follow clues, eventually.

2 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

Also, where did he supported it??

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-purple-wedding-george-r-r-martin-explains-thinking-behind-king-joffrey-s-demise-9262045.html

2 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

I don't get this at all.

It feels very 'anti-complexity' to decry LF choosing to conspire with the Tyrells. As neither of them are POV characters, we will never be 'in the room' for how it happened. We don't get to know everything, I'm afraid. But conspire they clearly did.

[CamiloRP]

15 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

I think it requires us to fill in a lot of the blanks for ourselves, which isn't quite the same thing. He trusts readers to follow clues, eventually.

But... that's precisely the oposite of what happens. a character says "this happened this way", despite no evidence of it being done that way, what blanks are to be filled? we just have to accept what LF says and done. Filling the blanks would be what I'm doing: realizing the plan makes no sense, knowing LF is a liar, noting Joff ate Tyrion's pie, realising LF doesn't reveal any information to Sansa, the characters in the story questioning if the poison was in the wine.

 

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https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-purple-wedding-george-r-r-martin-explains-thinking-behind-king-joffrey-s-demise-9262045.html

 

Do you mean this bit:

"I think the idea with Joffrey’s death was to make it look like an accident"

 

How is this a confirmation? if he had said "when people plotted Joffrey's murder" maybe. But the only thing this confirms is that joffrey did die and that it was intended to look like an accident (which works against the poison being in the wine).

 

 

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It feels very 'anti-complexity' to decry LF choosing to conspire with the Tyrells. As neither of them are POV characters, we will never be 'in the room' for how it happened. We don't get to know everything, I'm afraid. But conspire they clearly did.

It's the other way around: it's 'anti-complexity' to have two supposedly smart scheeming characters come up with such a bonkers plan, and it's 'anti-complexity' to fully trust in the word of a known liar.

[Frey family reunion]

On 4/4/2024 at 4:27 PM, Sandy Clegg said:

That misreads the purpose of the poison.

The strangler poison would have appeared in Pycelle's autopsy regardless. The main purpose of using the strangler poison is its deadly effectiveness, but more crucially the fact that it manifests as a fit of choking on food. This choking exhibition was the thing that was needed to give Sansa time to get away, while kingsguard rushed to dislodge this non-existent yet persistent morsel of food. No 'false implication' is ever suggested as the reason  for its use. Another, more silent, poison that eats away at someone's intestines (like the mushrooms used to kill Nurse) would have killed Joffrey just as dead. But more slowly, and with less public display. Which doesn't serve Sansa's escape one bit.

We actually have the benefit of the author specifically being asked about the Purple Wedding in an interview with Entertainment Weekly:

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 I based it a little on the death of Eustace, the son of King Stephen of England. Stephen had usurped the crown from his cousin, the empress Maude, and they fought a long civil war and the anarchy and the war would be passed down to second generation, because Maude had a son and Henry and Stephen had a son. But Eustace choked to death at a feast. People are still debating a thousand of years later: Did he choke to death or was he poisoned? Because by removing Eustace, it brought about a peace that ended the English civil war. 

"Eustace’s death was accepted [as accidental], and I think that’s what the murderers here were hoping for — the whole realm will see Joffrey choke to death on a piece of pie or something. But what they didn’t count on, was Cersei’s immediate assumption that this was murder. Cersei wasn’t fooled by this for a second. She doesn’t believe that it was an accidental death. You saw the scene filmed, does it come across as he could possibly be just choking or is it very clear he’s been poisoned?"

So once again, how does that jive with the idea that Littlefinger wanted Joffrey poisoned, wanted everyone to realize Joffrey was poisoned, and laid the groundwork for Tyrion to be blamed for it?

If Joffrey died from a poison, no matter how quick it was going to cause a disturbance from everyone around them, which would enable Sansa to escape.

But here, a poison was used that the murderers would hope would go undetected.  (Which begs the question, how was Littlefinger planning on freeing Sansa from Tyrion’s marriage if everything went as planned and the realm thought Joffrey choked to death on food?)  

And now perhaps, if Joffrey was the target we could expect there would be a more thorough investigation as to how he died.  But if Tyrion was the intended target do we really think there would be such an investigation?

 

Edited April 9 by Frey family reunion

[Frey family reunion]

3 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

The fact of the bells fading away is no less significant than their sounding, either, as it allows us to gauge the length of her rowing out to sea, where she meets Littlefinger. It lets us know that LF has taken heavy measures to remain out of earshot to those in the docks, and also lets us know that he couldn't have learned about Joff's death in this way.

I would note that the passage is that the bells were fading away, not that they had faded away.  And just like Sansa is traveling in the bay, so is Littlefinger.  And we also know that he wasn’t traveling from the East, where the sun was rising, because his ship came out of the darkness.  So George also goes out of his way to show that Petyr wasn’t coming from further out in the Bay.  So no, I don’t think the author wanted us to think that Petyr couldn’t have learned of Joff’s death from the ringing of the bells.  

In fact just the opposite.  If Petyr wasn’t privy to exactly what happened inside the  chapel how could he have been so sure of Joffrey’s death, whether or not Joffrey was the intended target.  After all an attempted poisoning could have been a sufficient distraction to allow Sansa to escape unnoticed.  So I think the bells were confirmation that it was now publicly known that the King was dead which is why Petyr knew it for a certainty when he had Dontos killed.

[Aejohn the Conqueroo]

Wouldn't there have been better opportunities to get rid of Tyrion than at a royal wedding?  Targeting Joffrey here makes sense because there are enough moving pieces to have one unsuspecting accomplice bring the poison and only Oleanna needed to get it from her and put it in Joffrey's drink and security is lighter than what usually surrounds the king because they figure that everyone in attendance is already vetted.  Tyrion could be had anywhere and if his enemies wanted him he could have been compromised a lot more by having him done in at Shae's or anywhere else.  

Also if it was a hit of Tyrion, who's royal nephew hated him wouldn't there have been an attempt to involve Joffrey in the plot, or at least get his sanction to upstage his wedding? This would have been embarrassing to Joffrey had he survived, Tyrion died and the cause of death emerged as poison.

 

[Frey family reunion]

Just now, Aejohn the Conqueroo said:

Wouldn't there have been better opportunities to get rid of Tyrion than at a royal wedding?  Targeting Joffrey here makes sense because there are enough moving pieces to have one unsuspecting accomplice bring the poison and only Oleanna needed to get it from her and put it in Joffrey's drink and security is lighter than what usually surrounds the king because they figure that everyone in attendance is already vetted.  Tyrion could be had anywhere and if his enemies wanted him he could have been compromised a lot more by having him done in at Shae's or anywhere else.  

Also if it was a hit of Tyrion, who's royal nephew hated him wouldn't there have been an attempt to involve Joffrey in the plot, or at least get his sanction to upstage his wedding? This would have been embarrassing to Joffrey had he survived, Tyrion died and the cause of death emerged as poison.

 

Let’s assume that Littlefinger was in on the plot to kill Tyrion.  He also has another motivation for wanting to create a distraction to allow for Sansa to escape.  So Littlefinger wants the poisoning to happen at a public event that everyone is going to be at to allow Sansa to escape.  

So in the scenario that Olenna was going to do the dirty work for him, he tells Olenna that Sansa will unwittingly (perhaps) provide the poison on the day of the wedding through the hairnet.  

When Olenna sees Sansa with the hairnet, Olenna tells Sansa that she is going to take her to Highgarden on the next day.  Olenna’s motivation is to to marry Sansa to her son Willas, and she knows that Sansa will be free of her marriage to Tyrion if indeed Tyrion was the intended target.

Or, in a scenario that I find more interesting and made a fairly lengthy post about, there is a possibility that none of the plotters, either Littlefinger or Olenna were willing to personally dirty their hands and the do the deed.  But instead the poisoner was Sansa, and George had Sansa repress what she did directly in the next chapter as she swallowed a fit of hysterical laughter when she was told that she had a good heart.

In which case, Olenna would have provided the poison to Sansa through Sansa’s hairnet, which would allow Sansa to then drop it into her husband’s food or wine, since she would have been the one with the best opportunity to do so.

 

[Frey family reunion]

8 hours ago, Sandy Clegg said:

In the real world you might have a point, but this is a book. And GRRM has gone to such lengths in the text to back up the accepted version of events (which I think are well-documented in this thread and others)

You may have to wonder if George thinks this “accepted version of events” is necessarily the only possible version:

Once again GRRM’s own words from a Rolling Stones interview:

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The current season of Game of Thrones is roughly based on the second half of the third A Song of Ice and Fire book, A Storm of Swords. Series author George R.R. Martin says that Joffrey appears to have been killed by Queen of Thorns Olenna Tyrell in the books, but adds that he makes no promises.

"I make no promises... and I may have more surprises to reveal," Martin says. "The conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa's hair net."

So if George has gone out of his way for the reader to accept this as the only version of events that is possible, then what are the additional surprises that he may reveal?

I think George himself is telling us that the mystery of Joffrey’s death may have been revealed, or may not have been revealed, depending on what George decides to do in future books.

So I think George has left enough wiggle room to throw us a curveball.

[Sandy Clegg]

3 hours ago, CamiloRP said:

How is this a confirmation? if he had said "when people plotted Joffrey's murder" maybe. But the only thing this confirms is that joffrey did die and that it was intended to look like an accident (which works against the poison being in the wine).

... but the poison that is used to kill Joffrey is one that I introduce earlier in the books and its symptoms are similar to choking. So a feast is the perfect time to use this thing. I think the intent of the murderer is not to have this become another Red Wedding—the Red Wedding was very clearly murder and butchery. I think the idea with Joffrey’s death was to make it look like an accident — someone’s out celebrating, they haven’t invented the Heimlich maneuver, so when someone gets food caught in his throat, it’s very serious.

 https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/tv/news/game-of-thrones-purple-wedding-george-r-r-martin-explains-thinking-behind-king-joffrey-s-demise-9262045.html

1. ... the poison that is "used to kill Joffrey" .... NOT ....  "the poison from which Joffrey dies". The infinitive of purpose is used when referring to intent. The poison was there to kill Joffrey. George knows how to use words, and I think this is as clear as it comes.
2. ... someone's out celebrating. Joff was celebrating his wedding. Tyrion was there having a miserable time.
3. ... that 'someone' gets food caught in his throat ... again Joffrey.

It doesn't really look like GRRM is trying to weasel out of this at all. He could have been way more evasive. And he even wrote that that Purple Wedding episode personally, making it fit the accepted version. That's not really anything to be swept under the carpet.

Doesn't it feel right that after three books GRRM does actually tie some loose threads up?

Lets see, the book came out in 2000, so I guess I wrote those scenes in like 1998. I knew all along when and how Joffrey was going to die, and on what occasion.

I just think we need to treat this incident as a closed case, the culmination of a three-book buildup with a decent payoff,  and move on to more unresolved mysteries from later books (of which there are many). 

Edited April 9 by Sandy Clegg

[Sandy Clegg]

1 hour ago, Frey family reunion said:

So once again, how does that jive with the idea that Littlefinger wanted Joffrey poisoned, wanted everyone to realize Joffrey was poisoned, and laid the groundwork for Tyrion to be blamed for it?

Did you miss that in your quote, George literally says " I think that’s what the murderers here were hoping for — the whole realm will see Joffrey choke to death on a piece of pie or something".

This already negates Tyrion as the target, so what's the point of arguing about any discrepancies in the Tyrell/LF plan? Which there may have been, of course, and I think that's a more worthwhile discussion to have. I don't think LF saw himself as an equal partner in that conspiracy, and his use of the jousting dwarves shows that he went further than providing the hairnet. He may have gambled on Tyrion being fingered somehow, even if the Tyrells were hoping it was seen as accidental. Like people have said, this alliance was not based on trust and it would be just like LF to squeeze a little more out of the affair to give him extra profit.

Like I say, I'm happy to argue the wrinkles in the LF/Tyrell alliance, but I'm really not in any doubt as to the primary target being Joffrey any more.

[Frey family reunion]

2 minutes ago, Sandy Clegg said:

Did you miss that in your quote, George literally says " I think that’s what the murderers here were hoping for — the whole realm will see Joffrey choke to death on a piece of pie or something".

This already negates Tyrion as the target, so what's the point of arguing about any discrepancies in the Tyrell/LF plan? Which there may have been, of course, and I think that's a more worthwhile discussion to have. I don't think LF saw himself as an equal partner in that conspiracy, and his use of the jousting dwarves shows that he went further than providing the hairnet. He may have gambled on Tyrion being fingered somehow, even if the Tyrells were hoping it was seen as accidental. Like people have said, this alliance was not based on trust and it would be just like LF to squeeze a little more out of the affair to give him extra profit.

Like I say, I'm happy to argue the wrinkles in the LF/Tyrell alliance, but I'm really not in any doubt as to the primary target being Joffrey any more.

It’s simple, George doesn’t want to reveal the possible surprises he may still have in store for the Purple wedding.  So the question is if this is a closed case as you suggest, why does George specifically state that while it appears Olenna poisoned Joffrey he may have some additional surprises.