The DU Lounge

In the book you already know about Dontos being in on the plan for Sansa to escape Kings Landing, but she didn't know exactly when it was going to happen or how. All she knew was that Dontos was going to help her, and she had to follow his instructions and be ready to run at any moment. But Dontos was getting his instructions from someone else that there were tells about last season but that person was also getting their instructions from someone else. There was a conspiracy to help Sansa escape but not much of one about killing Joffrey.

Like I said, you have to watch the cup though the show made it confusing with it traveling about around so many people. And the one person it doesn't go anywhere near is Dontos. The show seems to make you want to wonder if it could have been Tyrion or Sansa or both of them that poisoned Joffrey, but if you think about it neither one of them had any idea but were the ones that were used as patsies for who really did it. And the pointing finger of guilt does fall on them in the books as well as the show, but with Sansa's escape she isn't arrested though her escape does make it appear that she was in on it with Tyrion. Since Sansa didn't know about the poisoned necklace gemstones (which was a hairnet in the book) we know it couldn't have been her. And we know it isn't Tyrion either since he's the one that once again gets falsely accused of something. And in the book we also know that Dontos didn't know about the poisoned gemstones either... he just wants to be in on helping Sansa to escape and follows instructions that he's given. Where would someone like him get poison anyway? He's a drunk and an idiot easily used and discarded for other peoples' ends.

However, the show seems to want to make "whodunnit" more of a conspiracy than it was in the book, which I think is actually more interesting. After all, there are a LOT of people that would have wanted Joffrey dead, and a whodunnit is always fun and so is a big conspiracy. I can also see how the show may want people to wonder if the patsy(s) are in on the conspiracy or not.