Game of Thrones 4.02 "The Lion and the Rose" 4/13/14 [NO SPOILERS]

Cafe Society
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[QUOTE=Kobal2]
The Rains is hardly a wedding song, is it ? Ah, and now The Bear. Yup, them’s are the two songs in Westeros, we know.
[/QUOTE]

It’s hardly a song for a whorehouse frolic either, but two Lannister men were singing it while Oberyn and his lady did their shopping last week. It’d be kind of like somebody in the modern U.S. striking up a rousing chorus of “Strange Fruit” or “Memory” at the Bunny Ranch, which is why I assumed that they were deliberately baiting Martell (though others disagree).
While it’s nice to see Joffrey dead, did anybody else feel that tonight’s episode was written by former head writers of DYNASTY and FALCON CREST? The bitter banter twixt super rich smiling enemies was very Alexis/Krystal or Angela Channing/Chase Gioberti.

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In fact, my evil employer is blocking me again. Why does it hate Game of Thrones? :frowning:

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Haha, awesome suggestion in another thread on the episode :

“Joffrey was actually only given a small dose of a subtle poison designed to kill him slowly over a period of weeks. By every single guest simultaneously and without coordination between them.”

Another good observation that didn’t occur to me :
“So, Bronn, I hope you can keep a secret ?”
“Oh yes. I’m fucking Ser Something’s wife.”

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If it’s Margaery, then there would be no point in waiting until the wedding night. She must either :

-Get out of marriage ASAP and stay be a pure virgin for king husband number 3, if she can still find one willing to marry her given the fates of number one and number two

-or go all the way to pregnancy to become queen regent.

Not sure why but it just crossed my mind that it would be funn to search for Nostradamus quatrains predicting the events that took place in Westeros.

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Best guess, for various reasons, was that Olenna was the culprit. She had the access - Joffrey took a swig, put down the cup right in front of her, and then there was a distraction. The only other ones who could’ve pulled it off were Margaery and possibly Tyrion. But when Tyrion went to go pick up the cup again, the camera lingered on Olenna, and she had a face that sort of suggested she realized Tyrion was going to get the blame and she didn’t feel good about it.

I am curious what her play is. The Tyrells killing Joffrey makes sense in a few weeks once Margaery has settled in as queen. They’d have the access then too. Without consummating their marriage, I’m guessing it isn’t official - the bedding ceremony of Westeros and Robb’s commentary on it suggests that consummation is a requirement as part of the marriage. So the throne passes to Tommen and Margaery is nothing.

Which kinda rules out Margaery, since she wants power above all else. Her grandmother seems to be working against that interest for some reason. There’s some sort of power play afoot that I can’t really see. If I’ve read the situation correctly.

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Other thoughts:

Shae was aggressively begging for death, unfortunately for her, so Tyrion basically had to use the same tactic Arya used to get her dog to run away when they were going to kill her. That sort of thing is always painful to watch. But she kept with the “I’m not afraid of your family” attitude despite the fact that the family has been violently suppressing rebellions, murdering babies, and encouraging the egregious violation of social codes by killing an entire noble family. The idea that she’d somehow protect herself in their home turf was pretty ridiculous. The way Bronn was evasive about being followed and generally that conversation being odd makes me wonder if he actually killed her or delivered her to people who would. Bronn is so likeable that we forget he’s a true mercenary - if Tywin paid him more, then Tywin owns him.

Davos is going to have some sort of break with Stannis, who seems more dickish than we left off at the end of last season. Davos has been unfailingly loyal, and yet Stannis threatens him for questioning burning his own allies.

What was the bit about Tyrion saying to pay each of the performers in the “history lesson” 20 gold, and finding some other way to repay the king? I didn’t understand it.

It’s going to be a little implausible that Tyrion was the one who killed Joffrey, since his plan would revolve around coincidentally Joffrey deciding to threaten and humiliate him specifically by the “cupbearer” route. But then - the Lannisters are still in power and they all hate Tyrion. Even if they think it through, and realize him to be innocent, they may just go ahead and let him take the fall anyway. Tywin and Cercei would be happy to have him killed, although I suspect Jaime will turn out to be an ally in some way.

It’s hard to watch Theon so thoroughly broken. I thought all the torture scenes last year were gratuitious, but at least they appear to be leading somewhere. The shaving scene was pretty tense.

Briene hinting that she loved Jaime by refusing to refute it - eh. I thought the idea that they’d gained a knight’s respect for each other is more interesting and noble somehow than developing the hots for each other. I guess you could have both, but I don’t see them as a couple and it’d be a little tedious for it to go that way. Maybe Brienne was just trying to get under Circei’s skin passively.

Oberyn made good use of his very limited screen time. I like him as a guy who can handle the Lannisters on their level, unlike the Starks.

Did everyone cheer for Joffrey’s death? I found the way it happened unsettling too much to cheer. If someone had just gotten fed up and stabbed him in the face, I’d have cheered that. But there’s something about poison that’s more unsettling than triumphant - being underhanded, indirect, not knowing who the culprit was - sort of robbed the scene of being something you can cheer. I’m not sure if that’s intended - ie the writer saying “see, even when you get what you’ve wanted for years, you can’t feel that great about it” or if that’s just a personal version of mine and everyone else felt it was satisfying.

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It was much less viscerally satisfying than a violent death would have been, no doubt.

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No need. That’s the beauty of waiting for the wedding night. What you do is :

  • wait till the door is closed
  • kill the little creep in self fucking defence before he can lay his sociopathic hands on you
  • go to bed, sleep like an angel
  • next morning go “oh my lawd, somebody poisoned my poor husband in his sleep, what dreadful cowardice, and we’d had such a pleasant night, too !”
  • find a nice discreet blond squire to bone on the regular over the next month or so. Lancel, f’r’instance.
  • soon as babby happens, claim that the young King’s seed was pre-ttee strong indeed and you’re so very happy to have something to remember the dear love by. Oh, and get the squire 'orribly murdered of course.

[QUOTE=SenorBeef]
What was the bit about Tyrion saying to pay each of the performers in the “history lesson” 20 gold, and finding some other way to repay the king? I didn’t understand it.
[/QUOTE]

I took it as : the midget show was a deliberate insult to Tyrion on Joff’s part, trolling for an angry reaction. So Tyrion going “Jolly good ! Most amusing ! Here, little fellows, drinks are on me !” is good counter-trolling form for now. The actual revenge/repayment for the insult is to come later, away from witnesses.

Oh, knowing GRRM, not only is that intended but he’s wanking to horrified/disappointed YouTube reaction videos right now.

[QUOTE=Sampiro]
It’s hardly a song for a whorehouse frolic either, but two Lannister men were singing it while Oberyn and his lady did their shopping last week. It’d be kind of like somebody in the modern U.S. striking up a rousing chorus of “Strange Fruit” or “Memory” at the Bunny Ranch, which is why I assumed that they were deliberately baiting Martell (though others disagree).
[/QUOTE]

Eh, in the mouths of soldiers it’s more of a “we’re serving badasses, y’hear ?!” thing I think. Like Oberyn himself said, “you all think you’re golden lions”. I don’t believe they were baiting him, they didn’t seem to know who he was.

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The Lannister troops were also singing that song in the pub before battle of Blackwater. Bronn said he’d learned the song from drunk Lannisters, so it’s fair to presume it’s a song that gets sung a lot.

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Is it possible Sergei killed her own son? Jaime alluded to such ruthlessness in his comments to Ser Loras. She would remain Queen Regent until Tommen was crowned. And she has been lamenting Joffrey’s vile behavior.

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Seeing as she’s literally the only person who seems even the least bit cut up about the little prick’s untimely* end, it’s doubtful. Well, I guess Jaime also had something of an emotional reaction, but that might be because he’s now 0 for 3 on guarding Kings.

  • because it should have happened much sooner
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I think it’s more of a Lannister anthem, so it makes sense for random Lannisters to be singing it or for it to be played at Joffrey’s wedding.

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(sorry, I know I’m kind of spamming)

Apparently this was this season’s GRRM-written episode.
For reminder, he’d previously written 1x08, 2x09 (the Blackwater Bay one) and 3x08 (a.k.a. Brienne vs. Banter vs. Bear)

Now that I’ve had a closer rewatch, a think and a chat with the missus about it, I’m even more convinced that it’s the QoT. The poison was smuggled inside one of the pearls in Sansa’s necklace (see : missing pearl + QoT swiping it screencaps - Ser Dontos was probably in on it as well ?), which if found would have made her the patsy instead of Tyrion. And god knows Sansa would have had enough motives to want to murder the little shit.

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If they were able to sneak in poison via jewelry, though, why go through the extra step of involving Sansa at all? The plan could go awry if she decided not to wear it that day, for example, or if Olenna never got the chance to get it back.

Unless they’re planning on using that to frame Sansa for it somehow. But that doesn’t mesh with the idea that the fool tried to rescue Sansa and escape with her. I guess perhaps they could’ve framed her and had escape into exile.

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How many young princes must die before people learn not to get betrothed to Margeary? She’s like the Jessica Fletcher of Westeros.

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Well, that would retroactively explain why the fool was so goddamn goony about her wearing it, please, come on, seriously you have to wear it, on formal occasions and in public as often as possible, I insist, do it for Mama Dontos or I’ll cry.

As for Lady Oleanna, she doesn’t strike me as the self-doubting kind :slight_smile:

Escape is further incrimination, isn’t it ? Plus, otherwise why would have Ser Dontos rushed to her and told her to hurriedly exit stage left if he didn’t know she was the patsy ? She was in exactly zero danger at the time.

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As for motive, factoring out the fast heir angle : “You promised to wed young Margaery to your son. Well, that one’s dead. But he was shitty, so, like, whatever. You Lannisters have *another *first son now, though. That Tommen tyke. And isn’t he just precious and completely malleable ? Let’s have a big wedding right now. Shame to waste the food.”

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I think it may be Cersei that is behind this. She sent the maester away earlier in the episode and after the murder, she immediately blamed Tyrion. She also had a lot to gain as she now can remain the Queen regent. I don’t know if anyone else had as much to gain as her.

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Yes, that’s the theory I came up with to explain why Oleanna might have killed Joff. Was going to post it, but you beat me.

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Circei does benefit more obviously than anyone else - Margaery was going to take her out of the picture as a powerful player. But it’s been shown over and over again that love for her children is a primary motivation for her, so I’m not sure I could buy it. Maybe if you consider how she gradually loses control of Joffrey as he becomes more and more of a monster throughout the series, but it’s hard to believe she’d kill her son.

It would also be logistically difficult. If we assume this poison is quick acting - which, in terms of storytelling, is a fair assumption - it would be somewhat unfair if it was on a 2 minute delay, and he just coincidentally started reacting to it when he started drinking again a while after ingesting the lethal dose, then the timeline goes like this:

Joffrey kicks the goblet under the table, Sansa grabs it and returns it to Tyrion, who offers it to Joffrey. Joffrey orders Tyrion to fill it. He takes the carafe of wine, which is placed in front of Cercei, and fills it, offering it to Joffrey. That’s when Joffrey orders him to kneel, and Margaery distracts him with the pie ceremony. At that point he takes the cup, takes a gulp, and hands it to Margaery, who puts it down on the other side of the central table, closest to Olenna.

At this point, if the poison is quick acting, then he’d start having symptoms right then, but he doesn’t. Which rules out Sansa doing something when she retrieved the cup, and the carafe of wine being poisoned before Tyrion pours it into the goblet.

Joffrey chops the ceremonial pie, some servants bring some real pie, and Margaery feeds some to Joffrey. His piece being poisoned specifically is a possibility, but the poison wouldn’t be acting right away if that were the case. There’s a good 50 seconds between him eating the pie and the symptoms starting.

He orders Tyrion to serve him his wine - Tyrion walks over, picks up the cup, and the camera shows Olenna in the frame with the cup, looking at Tyrion. He hands Joffrey the cup, he drinks, and the symptoms begin within 5 seconds.

So if the poison is fast acting, it came from the wine, which must have been tampered with at some point after Margaery takes it from him to set down. Circei isn’t close enough to have access to it at that point. Only Margaery or Olenna plausibly could reach it. Or it’s not fast acting, and he could’ve been poisoned at any time in the last few minutes, in which case it’s really hard to say, but that’d be a bit of cheat in storytelling terms, I think.