Game of Thrones said goodbye to one of its best characters tonight, with Jaime Lannister poisoning Olenna Tyrell after a surprise sack of Highgarden.
Olenna was given a post-poison, pre-death speech befitting of such a wise and outspoken character however, and made Jaime squirm in spite of him allowing her a painless death.
It started with some great character assassinations:
On Joffrey…
“He really was a cunt, wasn’t he?”
On Cersei…
“Your sister has done things I wasn’t capable of imagining. That was my prize mistake, a failure of imagination. She’s a monster, you do know that? You love her, you really do love her. She’ll be the end of you.
“She’s a disease, I regret my role in spreading it; you will too.”
Just before the poison started to take hold, Olenna then confessed to being behind his son Joffrey’s death just to screw with Jaime.
“I’d hate to die like your son,” she said. “Clawing at my neck. Foam and bile spilling from my mouth. Eyes blood red. Skin purple. Must have been horrible for you as a kings guard as a father, it was horrible enough for me, a shocking scene, not at all what I intended. You see I’d never seen the poison work before.
“Tell Cersei, I want her to know it was me.
As well as giving Olenna a last lick of revenge, her admission could make Jaime consider his brother Tyrion more favouribly now he knows he wasn’t the architect of Joffrey’s demise (did still crossbow his dad though).