Will Tyrion Take the Fall on 'GoT'?

Ding Dong the King is gone! King Joffrey is dead, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house (happy tears, of course) as the twerp met his particularly drool-y demise. Now, our main concern is figuring out whether not Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) will take the fall for the murder.

Sound a little harsh? Shall I quickly remind you of his hand in killing Ros, Lady, Mycah, Ned Stark, and all the bastard babies? Yes, Cersei is the only one all torn up about former King Joffrey's poisoning, but he was the King, and there must be justice in Westeros. Viewers can speculate all they want about who murdered Joffrey — hell, this is one of the rare times that even readers can only speculate — but it was clear at the end of the last episode that Cersei only had vengeance in her eyes for one familial murder culprit and she wants to see Tyrion’s head on a spike.

And, generally, what Cersei wants, Cersei gets; let’s take a look to the books to see what lies in store for dear Uncle Tyrion. Naturally, spoilers lie ahead.

George R.R. Martin has said that even though he makes no promises about the true identity of Joffrey’s murderer, because there are still two more books to be read, “the conclusion that the careful reader draws is that Joffrey was killed by the Queen of Thorns, using poison from Sansa’s hair net [changed to a necklace on the show], so that if anyone actually did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it.” But even the laziest of book readers know that it doesn’t matter whether the Golden Rose Grandmother (I’m sorry, that doesn’t sounds even close to badass enough for Olenna Tyrell) did it or not, because up to the fifth published book of A Song of Fire and Ice, it’s not Olenna who’s blamed — it’s one of the last maybe-good guys left, Tyrion.

Though D.B. Weiss and David Benioff went out of their way last week to offer up a few suspicious options for Joffrey’s poisoner, the series creators similarly made it quite clear to the audience that Tyrion was not the true culprit. The look on Dinklage’s face as he picked up the poisoned goblet, the very goblet he had been forced by his nephew to play wine bearer to, said it all. As we know from the books, this Sunday, we can expect to see Tyrion stand trial for another crime he didn’t commit; but as opposed to Catelyn Stark taking him to the Eyrie for a somewhat fair trial, this go-round it will be Cersei in Red Keep with a handful of lying witnesses.

In the trial that takes place in A Storm of Swords, Osmund Kettleblack, Cersei’s right-hand idiot, is the first witness brought forward, saying that Joffrey confided in him that he believed Tyrion meant to murder him. In the show, however, the Kettleblack brothers have yet to be introduced in the series. The creators could bring in any random guard from Joffrey’s fleet to make the murder plot accusation, or perhaps, Sunday’s episode will be the first time viewers meet Osmund and his sullen band of brothers. Cersei also brings in her favorite useless plaything, Grand Maester Pycelle, to claim that Tyrion stole poison from him and used it on Joffrey.

Her final and deepest cut in the books is bringing in Shae to shame and betray Tyrion. She tells the court that Tyrion plotted with Sansa to murder both Joffrey and Tywin; she also goes into detail about their affair and says Tyrion had her call him “Giant of Lannister.” In the last episode we saw Tyrion banish Shae for her own protection and Bronn assured Tyrion that he saw her to the boat, all but saying, “Oh yeah, I totally saw her get on the boat, and I definitely did not see anyone from Cersei’s team approach her afterward to offer her a knight to wed to betray Tyrion. Definitely not.” The show did a fairly good job of making it obvious to the audience that Shae is not yet out of the game, but Tyrion stands to be fully shocked still. As if anyone, reader or viewer, ever thought Shae would ultimately bring Tyrion anything but pain.

At least we know the dungeons he’s sent to after officially being accused of Joffrey’s murder are an excellent place to plot his next move. We're thinking they'll save that epic Trial by Combat for a later episode though — no one's ready to say goodbye to Prince Oberyn Martell in King's Landing just yet.

Images: HBO