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Who poisoned Joffrey?


Octavian West

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Sorry if this question has been asked already. After rereading the last few pages of that chapter I realized that Joffrey ate the pie that was meant for Tyrion BEFORE he drank the wine. So maybe Tyrion was the one meant to be poisoned. But if so, by whom. My first thought was by Cersei, but if it was her why would she sit and watch Joffrey eat the pie? I know Tyrion ran afoul of a few people but I wonder if the pie were meant for him and not Joffrey who had enough influence to carry it out. But of course this is all speculation. It could have been the wine that did Joffrey in and that could have been at the behest of Littlefinger and/or Lady Olena. I just wanted to her other people thoughts.

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Littlefinger might have wanted Tyrion dead, but the Queen of Thorns (Olenna) probably couldn't care less. She didn't seem surprised that Joffrey died, either, and his death would save her granddaughter from marrying a horrible monster she couldn't control. (Tommen, by contrast, is weak-willed and doesn't have a mean bone in his body.)

I think it was the drink, anyway. In the Middle Ages, people usually ate from a common trencher (or whatever it was called) but each had their own cup.

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Remember the hairnet with the purple stones....

-----Think back on who messes with/ arranges it at the feast.

----------Remember that Dontos told Sansa that the hairnet was magic and would save her.

Yeah, i remember all that stuff. It just find it funny that GRRM would spell it out so plainly for us after what happen at the Red Wedding. I'm feeling like GRRM is doing the Kansas City Shuffle, making us look left then go right.

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Yes, I believe in the poisoned pigeon pie theory too.

1. I think that it was Little Finger, and the Queen of Thorns.

2. This was Little Finger's second attempt to kill Tyrion.

3. He lied to Sansa (I mean the guy is compulsive).

4. The Queen of Thorns is probably really pissed at how things turned out.

5. Tywin figured it out that Tyrion was the target, and was using him as a stalking horse, and also a reason to send him to the wall.

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Basically, it appears to have been a joint Tyrell/LF operation, the terms of which appear to have been:

Margaery gets to marry Tommen, rather than Joffrey. Result: Tyrells happy.

Littlefinger orchestrates it so that, in all likelihood, Tyrion will be the one blamed. He does this by talking Joffrey into hiring the jousting dwarves, and by kidnapping Sansa (so it looks like a Sansa/Tyrion plot). Result: Littlefinger gets Sansa and makes her totally reliant on him, which makes LF happy.

The poisoned pie possibility (i.e. someone was trying to kill Tyrion) was weakened by AFFC - Cersei (the strongest candidate for the pie poisoner) thinks Tyrion killed Joff, so she can't have been the one putting the poison in. If Joff was trying to kill Tyrion he wouldn't have eaten the pie. Littlefinger wouldn't poison Tyrion - Tyrion is needed as the scapegoat. Varys wants Tyrion to go to Dany, so he's out. If Tywin had wanted to dispose of Tyrion, he'd have done it years ago, and have the sense to make it look like an accident.

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Olenna undoubtedly put the poison in the cup. No reason to risk Margaery getting blood on her hands. But I'll bet my cock that Margaery knew what was going down.

The interview they had with Sansa was just to confirm what they had learned from Littlefinger and to make sure they still wanted to go through with the plan.

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Actually, it's more likely the direct culprit was Garlan Tyrell.

Why has no one mentioned Margaery? If she's involved in the plot, wouldn't she be the safest poisoner for her own livelihood as well as the most innocent-appearing? It should be easy for QoT to pass on the poison to her. Did I miss something?

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Several people have raised the possibility of the poison actually being in the pie. This is simply fraught with huge problems from beginning to end, and really doesn't work at all.

First, there are enormous practical problems in trying to poison one dish at a feast where hundreds of people are being served identical slices of pie. It simply can't be done in any way reliable enough to make it worth trying. Second, there's no doubt that the poison used was the Strangler, but we have no indication that this poison exists in any form that could be used to poison a slice of pie (and without any trace, at that). Third, why would anyone who wanted to kill Tyrion bother to go to such lengths? It would seem easier to kill him by other means - it's not as if he's particularly well protected. No-one would care much if he turned up at the foot of the serpentine stairs having suffered a 'fall' late at night. Fourth, the timing is a huge problem: most of those with a motive to kill him have no reason to ruin the wedding feast with a murder (quite the reverse). Fifth, it's a needless additional complication - we have no reason to suspect that the wine wasn't poisoned. In fact we have good reason to believe it was poisoned, from the description in the chapter. We also have no good reason to imagine that Joff wasn't the target.

That's five pretty good reasons just off the top of my head. I can see where the idea comes from, but once you start to give it some real consideration it falls to bits.

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After re-reading the series up to (ASoS), I'm pretty sure it was Garlin Tyrell as well.

1. He was very friendly to Tyrion during the feast and in this series deeds like this are done by those you least suspect (like Ser Mandon Moore)

For those who still believe in the Pie theory

1. If Tyrion was the target and Little Finger the culprit, Sansa stark would've been the most likely one accused of killing the imp (Tywin did go to war with the Starks when Cat captured him, so he probably would have no qualms in shorting Sansa by a couple of inches). => by poisioning Tyrion with pie all Little Finger would've accomplished (besides killing Tyrion) is getting Sansa killed as well.

2. That and the event was foreshadowed by the White dwarf lady the B w/o B talk with. She did say she saw a Maid at a wedding with Purple snakes in her Hair. which to me means the stones in the hair net was poison a.k.a. the strangler.

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Yeah, i remember all that stuff. It just find it funny that GRRM would spell it out so plainly for us after what happen at the Red Wedding. I'm feeling like GRRM is doing the Kansas City Shuffle, making us look left then go right.

For thr record. The Red Wedding was actually foretold a couple if times and when you go back and read it's fairly obvious. So it's definitely a possibility that GRRM pointed to the poisoner directly.

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Several people have raised the possibility of the poison actually being in the pie. This is simply fraught with huge problems from beginning to end, and really doesn't work at all.

First, there are enormous practical problems in trying to poison one dish at a feast where hundreds of people are being served identical slices of pie. It simply can't be done in any way reliable enough to make it worth trying. Second, there's no doubt that the poison used was the Strangler, but we have no indication that this poison exists in any form that could be used to poison a slice of pie (and without any trace, at that). Third, why would anyone who wanted to kill Tyrion bother to go to such lengths? It would seem easier to kill him by other means - it's not as if he's particularly well protected. No-one would care much if he turned up at the foot of the serpentine stairs having suffered a 'fall' late at night. Fourth, the timing is a huge problem: most of those with a motive to kill him have no reason to ruin the wedding feast with a murder (quite the reverse). Fifth, it's a needless additional complication - we have no reason to suspect that the wine wasn't poisoned. In fact we have good reason to believe it was poisoned, from the description in the chapter. We also have no good reason to imagine that Joff wasn't the target.

That's five pretty good reasons just off the top of my head. I can see where the idea comes from, but once you start to give it some real consideration it falls to bits.

Most sensible post in this thread!

I think a lot of ASOIAF fans have a tendency to make the plot needlessly complicated and convoluted. Yeah, Martin takes some surprising turns every so often in his story, but even when we are dealing with a fairly vast conspiracy such as the Red Wedding or Littlefinger's various plots, the details are clearly laid out and most importantly *plausible.* For instance, it isn't at all hard to follow how the Red Wedding would have been orchestrated once all the pieces are in place. Likewise, it's fairly certain that Dontos, who worked for Littlefinger and gave Sansa the hairnet, was the party who introduced the poison into the banquet hall. It was probably a Tyrell, possibly Olenna but this is certainly not completely clear, who took the poison from Sansa's hairnet and introduced it into Joffrey's cup. It's obvious that Joffrey was the intended target because his death was foreseen by Melisandre.

Suggesting that Joffrey's assassination was a botched attempt at killing Tyrion is not only needless, but also makes no sense based on the facts we have in front of us.

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Margaery, QoT or Garlan - I think all three of them knew of the plot and anyone of them could have done the actual deed of putting the poison in the cup. QoT definitely took the poison from Sansa's hairnet, but she could have easily passed it to one of the other two to do the deed, or just as easily done it herself.

In the end, it was the Tyrells with Littlefinger who planned and carried out a regicide. Littlefinger had his motives, the Tyrells had theirs (Margaery's personal safety, I think).

Interestingly, I think Loras may well have been out of the loop on all of this - he is a Kingsguard and seems to take his honor pretty seriously. Can't say I'm certain of this, but it is a gut feeling I have. Loras doesn't seem to be the deepest or most subtle of thinkers (he shows no interest in the book of Kingsguard exploits Jaime tries to show him, nor the lessons it might offer), and it would be easier to just leave him out of complex plots probably.

Edit: Looking at Happy Ent's very good post in the other thread on this, I'm pretty convinced the QoT couldn't have actually put the poison in the cup and the most likely candidate for that part of the plot is Garlan. It's quite likely, IMO, she slipped it to him moments before he did it, while Margaery and Joff are cutting the pie.

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