An enemy with Venom attacks and kills my defender. Do I still apply the one Venom or because the character died due to the damage does he not receive any Venom? I only ask because it can matter quite a bit for making your deck cycle faster or if you have deck manipulation (Imladris Stargazer, for example) when ordering your deck. I assume you do not apply the Venom only because the defender would be "immediately defeated" per the rule book and thus Venom could not be attached as the defender would be in the discard pile.

Other funny situation.

Patch of Midnight: While Patch of Midnight is the active location, treat the text box of each poisoned character as if it were blank (except for Traits).

Core Gandalf got poisoned and Patch of Midnight was the active location so he doesn't leave play at the end of the round correct? There were one or two more (can't remember) Patch of Midnights in the staging area that we traveled to on subsequent rounds so Gandalf was in play for more than one round.

1- I wouldn't put poison on the character, for the reason you mentioned. With damage equal to or exceeding its HP, the character is immediately destroyed, and you'll put the character in the discard pile before you have a chance to resolve the Venom keyword.

2- Yeah, you played it right. There are some interesting interactions with text-blanking effects that end up helping you out (Beorn hero, Glorfindel also get mention here).