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Originally Posted by BillieCassin
It's funny you bring this up, because I have had this conversation several times this week.
I see how someone could think this way, because we very rarely see actual realistic death on film. I mean, how many poisonings in real life have you witnessed? (Me = none, hopefully same for you, LOL.) So our idea of what a death should look like comes mostly from film or TV we have seen, where it tends to be much overly simplified (people rarely get hit on the head once and just die, if they die from the injury it's hours later because of blood loss, etc., even a single gunshot unless it's a direct hit to a few select places won't just instantly kill someone).
While we often see "superhuman" strength/abilities in action movies (even on non-super-powered folks), and know it's not realistic - the opposite is true as well - you'll hear a lot of doctors and medical folks say that people are way too fragile on film, and that it's a lot harder (and often much messier) for someone to die in real life.
That said, I think this may very well be a rather accurate portrayal of what it looks like for someone to choke to death/suffocate. I've watched the episode a few times, and the first time I too thought there was something...odd about it (at the end where he almost looks like he's shrinking like Golum or something LOL). But if you really pay attention, he just cannot breathe. His airway has closed and he is choking to death. That's why the weird noises, the draining of color, etc. A poison certainly could close off his throat/airway - I think that the producers just went the medically accurate way here, because Joffrey's death was so demanded/anticipated, they wanted to add some heft to it.
We may find out differently later, but I'm pretty confident he just choked to death and that's what it would look like IRL. I hope never to find out, but I would be curious if someone who has some medical expertise weighed in with their thoughts.
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I think it was magical in only that he was cursed by Stannis. Was the curse actually in some way the cause? Who knows.
As for choking, I assumed poison simply because of the puking and then blood coming from his nostrils. I don't think common suffocating/choking would cause massive hemorrhaging like that...
Cursed and poisoned are my thoughts on it.