A major plot development took place during Sunday’s episode of “Game of Thrones,” involving King Joffrey Baratheon during the so-called “Purple Wedding.”
WARNING-SPOILERS BELOW:
King Joffrey was killed--poisoned--at his own wedding after he humiliated his uncle, Tyrion Lannister. This came just a few episodes after two prominent Stark family members were killed during the so-called Red Wedding.
At the wedding, many characters suspected that Tyrion was responsible.
The author of “A Song of Ice and Fire,” George R.R. Martin said it’s tough to lose Joffrey, who is played by Jack Gleeson, as he’s an entertaining character.
“Oh boy, it was so long ago! 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’d been building up to it for three years through the first books. Part of it was that there’s a lot of darkness in the books. I’ve been pretty outspoken in my desire to write a story where decisions have consequences and no one is safe,” Martin told EW.com.
“But I didn’t want it to be unrelentingly bleak—I don’t think everyone would read the books if everything was just darkness and despair and people being horribly tortured and mutilated and dying. Every once in a while you have to give the good guys a victory — where the guys who are perhaps a lighter shade of grey have a victory over the guys who are a darker shade of grey.
“The Red Wedding and this — fans call this the Purple Wedding — occur in the same book. In the TV show, it’s separate seasons. But Joffrey’s death was in some ways a counterweight for readers to the death of Robb and Catelyn. It shows that yes, nobody is safe—sometimes the good guys win, sometimes the bad guys win. Nobody is safe and that we are playing for keeps. I also tried to provide a certain moment of pathos with the death.”
Martin described Gleeson’s portrayal of Joffrey as “more loathsome” than in the books.
Martin also have an interview with Rolling Stone about “who killed Joffrey.”
“In the books — and I make no promises, because I have two more books to write, and I may have more surprises to reveal — 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 that if anyone actually did think it was poison, then Sansa would be blamed for it. Sansa had certainly good reason for it,” Martin said.
He added: “The reason I bring this up is because I think that’s an interesting question of redemption. That’s more like killing Hitler. Does the Queen of Thorns need redemption? Did the Queen of Thorns kill Hitler, or did she murder a 13-year-old boy? Or both? She certainly had good reasons to remove Joffrey. Everything she’d heard about him, he was wildly unstable, and he was about to marry her beloved granddaughter. The Queen of Thorns had studied Joffrey well enough that she knew that at some point he would get bored with Margaery, and Margaery would be maltreated, the same way that Sansa had been. Whereas if she removed him then her granddaughter might still get the crown but without all of the danger. So is that a case where the end justifies the means? I don’t know. That’s what I want the reader or viewer to wrestle with, and to debate.”
Gleeson also gave a recent interview about his role--which he said will be his last. The 21-year-old Irish actor said he'll be retiring from acting.
“You want to do the scene and character justice. It’s a complicated scene; I’ve never had a death on screen before. You want it to look believable — the choking and the coughing. It’s calming to know I’m in the great hands of [director] Alex Graves,” he told Entertainment Weekly.
Gleeson said doing the death scene “was tough.”
“I suppose it’s one of those things that you have no prior experience in. I’ve never seen anyone die. It’s hard to imagine what it would be like. But Alex very kindly walked me through it. It was fun in the end, but kind of stressful to be so focused, but acting like you’re completely unfocused. Difficult, but exciting,” he said.
