[Recap] Game Of Thrones: Who Killed King Joffrey? [SPOILER]

So, Joffrey Baratheon (Jack Gleeson) is dead. Yay!! However, as unpopular as he was, and considering that the tagline for the season is “all men must die,” it wasn’t necessarily as huge a surprise as Robb Stark’s death was. Really, it was bound to happen. But the question remains...who killed him?  Read on for some of the top theories...

“The Lion And The Rose” – was pretty shocking if you haven’t read the books. We don’t want to spoil it for you if you haven’t seen the episode yet, but if you have, read on for a roundup of all the top suspects and tell us whom you think did the deed! We repeat: SPOILERS below!

1. Tyrion Lannister (Peter Dinklage)

This one’s fairly obvious — after all, it was Tyrion who fed his nephew the poisoned wine and Cersei (Lena Headey) is certainly pointing the finger at him. Furthermore, right before Joffrey downed the wine, he had utterly humiliated his uncle at court. Seems a bit too easy, though, and Tyrion has never struck us as a villain or a murderer — even to those who deserve it.

2. Sansa Stark (Sophie Turner)

Is there anybody in King’s Landing right now that Joffrey has wronged more than Sansa? Not only did he order for the murder of her father, Ned Stark, but he then forced her to look at his decaying head on a pike. Meanwhile, at the time, they were still betrothed. Once he became promised to Margaery Tyrell (Natalie Dormer), Joffrey more or less told her that he will feel quite free to rape her despite being married to another.

3. Margaery Tyrell

Is there anybody with a more wry grin than Margaery’s? There’s always something going on behind her innocent demeanor, and it always seems as if she’s playing a game of chess that no one else is aware they’re in. She has often spoken against Joffrey, as in the Season 4 premiere when she was deciding on her wedding jewelry – “Perhaps I should just let Joffrey choose it for me. End up with a string of dead sparrow heads around my neck.” But her grandmother, Olenna (Diana Rigg) warned her: “Watch that. Even here. Even with me.”

4. Lady Olenna Tyrell (née Redwyne)

This sassy old bird has been making moves since she landed in the capital. She is perhaps the only character with all of her cards on the table, asking Sansa about Joffrey’s true nature in Season 3, and admitting to Loras’ “bit of buggery” — and not really caring about it – to Tywin (Charles Dance) in an argument over whom Loras (Finn Jones) should marry — Cersei or Sansa.

She was horrified by Joffrey hiding Tyrion’s footstool at his wedding to Sansa, as she was at the Purple Wedding during Joffrey’s little show. She is not really interested in anyone’s nonsense, and Joffrey, as Tyrion once put it, is a “vicious idiot” of a King who is doing nobody in Westeros any good. And can you imagine if Joffrey ever laid a hand to Margaery? Olenna would burn the world down. Oh, and let’s not forget what Olenna said to Sansa not long before Joffrey’s death: “War is war, but killing a man at a wedding? Horrid. What sort of monster would do such a thing?” Doth the lady protest too much?

5. Anyone — Literally Anyone

Let’s see — there’s Ser Dontos, once a knight and now a jester of the court whom Joffrey almost killed. There’s Lord Varys (Conleth Hill), who is always behind some plot or another. And hey, the poison was in the wine — why not a member of the castle staff? Joffrey has literally been asking for this ever since he was made a boy King because his “father” was gored by a boar in an event orchestrated by Cersei. Even Tywin is often less than thrilled by his bratty, uncontrollable, violent grandson. And let’s not forget Prince Oberyn (Pedro Pascal), who has made clear since the start that he is no friend of the Lannisters, and that “Lannisters aren’t the only ones who pay their debts.”

Joffrey’s mere incestuous existence has spawned a war in the Five Kingdoms, and really, it was time for him to go.

Regardless of who orchestrated Joffrey’s murder, it is certain that Tyrion’s life is about to become very, very miserable at the hands of his big sister. May the Lord of Light, the old gods, the Faith of The Seven, or whomever/whatever be with him — he’s going to need it, because Cersei’s incredible wrath is nothing to sniff at.