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In Game of Thrones S01E01, we see that Jaime and Cersei are aware that Jon Arryn was aware of their "secret". So why didn't they murder him?

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    Do we know how much time passed between his knowledge of the secret and his death? They did not straight up murder Ned Stark either...
    – Skooba
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 14:06
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    It takes a while to plan a murder. Jon Arryn was one of the highest officials of the whole kingdom - it's not easy to murder someone like that, much less get away with it. Panicking and rushing with a "solution" is #1 reason why criminals get caught :)
    – Luaan
    Commented Jun 17, 2016 at 8:22
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    @close-voter Uh, no stupid close-reasons please. And please don't delete your automatically generated close-reason comments just because you know they're stupid. If you see behaviour that you deem questionable, feel free to flag it for moderators rather than coming up with non-sense close-reasons against the question. Thank you.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 8:42
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    I rolled back yout title edit. We have a "no spoilers in titles" policy here. I would personally agree that it is not so much a spoiler at all, but members of the community were considering it a spoiler and especially with shows like Game of Thrones this can become dangerous territory fast. I think, though, the current title is a reasonable compromise and hope you respect the community's preferences in this regard. Thank you.
    – Napoleon Wilson
    Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 8:47

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In short, because they did not have to.

Jon Arryn was actively investigating Jaime and Cersei's secret when he met his untimely demise. If they were putting a plan together to murder Jon Arryn based on this knowledge it ended up not making a difference because he was killed anyway.

Look at what happened to Ned Stark: he made the same accusations and was not murdered outright. He was taken into custody and put on trial. Given that Jon Arryn was in the same position, a likely similar route events would have taken place.

The person who was in the way for Jaime and Cersei was not Jon Arryn or Ned Stark, it was Robert Baratheon... and they did have a plan to murder him...

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    Case 1: So it seems that the "murderer" did exactly what Cersei and Jamie wanted to do and that too at a perfect timing! The only difference being in the purpose. The murderer's motive had nothing to do with Jon's knowledge of the secret.
    – AlwaysALearner
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 14:20
  • What do you think of this case 2: They were not aware of Jon's knowledge of their secret prior to his death but came to know about it from his last words?
    – AlwaysALearner
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 14:21
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    Case 1) I think the real murderer knew of the secret and saw it as an opportunity to start/further his plot. --- Case 2) That could be possible...
    – Skooba
    Commented Jun 16, 2016 at 14:32

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