11 Years Later, Game of Thrones Fans Still Puzzled Over How One Character Died

It has now been over a decade since Game of Thrones Season 4, Episode 2, “The Lion and the Rose” aired, and fans are still perplexed by the so-called “Purple Wedding.” The infamous episode depicts the wedding of King Joffrey Baratheon to Margaery Tyrell, but during the festivities, the king seems to choke to death in front of all of his subjects. However, Joffrey’s family assumes he was poisoned, and over the course of the episode, two characters take credit for plotting to poison him — Petyr “Littlefinger” Baelish, and Olenna Tyrell. Looking at the whole picture in hindsight, some fans find it hard to determine why their plot was so convoluted, but there are some answers.

“The Purple Wedding” is named because it’s a parallel to the “Red Wedding” where Robb Stark was assassinated, and because Joffrey’s face turned purple as he suffocated to death. At the time of his death, Joffrey was eating and drinking wine gluttonously, while moving around the party to mock his uncle Tyrion at the same time. It seems entirely possible he simply choked on his food and died, but Grand Maester Pycelle testifies that his death was consistent with a poison known as “the strangler,” which was stolen from the maester’s personal supplies while Tyrion was Hand of the King.

What really has confuses fans, however, is the method of administering this poison. Sansa Stark was wearing a necklace adorned with what she thought were amethysts. It was given to her by Ser Dontos, who was an agent of Littlefinger. Littlefinger points out to Sansa that one of the stones was missing from her necklace, and explains that these were actually the crystalline form of the strangler, which would dissolve in liquid. He claims that he orchestrated Joffrey’s death by planting the poison on Sansa and paying a discrete agent to pluck one of the stones from her necklace and drop it into Joffrey’s goblet.

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At the time, fans suspected Olenna, who admired Sansa’s necklace and adjusted it for her during the wedding. In Season 7, Olenna confirmed this theory, at least in the show’s continuity. Even with these logistical answers, however, some fans are still confused about why such an elaborate plot was needed. One Reddit post this week wondered why the poison needed to be hidden in plain sight on Sansa’s jewelry, joking, “Did the high lords and noble ladies go through a TSA checkpoint before they got into the wedding feast?”

“Why add the complication of having Sansa unwittingly smuggle it in? It’s a big risk to count on her wearing the necklace to the wedding, and it’s big risk for Grandma Tyrell to do her sleight of hand to remove the stone with the poison,” the post went on. “It’s not like the necklace was used as evidence of Sansa’s guilt… It’s all needlessly elaborate.”

Potential Answers

This is a topic fans have discussed and debated for years, and they brought up some familiar points in the comments here. One important factor is that we must assume the plan to assassinate Joffrey was concocted with many contingencies and considerations on place. For example, if someone had suspected poison and searched the other people sitting at the table, they would have found more strangler crystals on Sansa, implicating her in the crime. She was Tyrion’s wife at the time, which would have made him look guilty as well.

Olenna and the Tyrell faction may have wanted Sansa to fall from grace alongside Tyrion. They had tried to arrange a marriage between Sansa and a member of their house, which they believed would give them power over the entire North. Now that Sansa had been married to Tyrion instead, they would rather see her executed than allow House Lannister to claim Winterfell and gain even more power. Alternatively, they may have hoped Tyrion would be found guilty alone, allowing them to marry a widowed Sansa into their house after all.

While Olenna may have been willing to sacrifice Sansa, Littlefinger clearly wasn’t. However, by smuggling her out of the city and telling her about her part in the plot, Littlefinger did frighten Sansa and establish some amount of control over her. She would now need to stay close to him for protection from the Lannisters, making her more likely to go along with his other schemes. After this, Littlefinger’s creepy infatuation with Sansa becomes the center of her story, so everything clearly worked out the way he wanted.

Alternative Theories

While this part of the story is wrapped up pretty neatly, there are still some popular alternative theories about Joffrey’s death — especially when it comes to the book series, A Song of Ice and Fire. So far, Olenna has not confessed any part in Joffrey’s death in the books, and there are some indications that Littlefinger didn’t know as much about it as he claims, either. YouTuber Preston Jacobs has an extensive video going over the alternative theories, but at this point, it’s hard to imagine how a Purple Wedding revelation could be relevant in the future books — if they are ever published.

In the end, the continued uncertainty on this mystery is a great example of why Game of Thrones and A Song of Ice and Fire are so compelling. While many fantasy stories lay out elaborate schemes like this, they tend to either go perfectly as planned, or go awry in a way the audience can understand perfectly. The fact that this plot had contingencies in place that still confuse readers to this day adds to the realism of the story and the world as a whole.

Game of Thrones is streaming now on Max, with a new spinoff, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms expected sometime this year on HBO and Max. Martin’s novels are available now in print, digital, and audiobook formats, with the sixth installment still expected eventually.