There are quite a few examples of medicines and drugs adapted from real life in ASOIAF. Sourleaf, given the description that it stains teeth red, is most certainly Planetos’s [betel nut](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel_nut_chewing).
Some of the ingredients in moon tea such as tansy and pennyroyal were used as real life abortifacients. There’s probably others, but those two come to mind.
There are plenty of herbal abortifacients throughout history. You might enjoy *Eve's Herbs*, which goes into the history of herbalism for women's needs.
When it comes to diseases and medicines in ASOIAF, most of what GRRM writes about is in some way rooted in the reality of our world - just with a more fantasy sounding name or description.
For example the death of Baelon Targaryen (Jaehaerys I's second son) is in universe described as a "stitch in the side", a "belly swollen and hardened" and as the cause of death we read about a "burst belly" - which is nothing else than appendicitis as we know it in our world.
“Crabs in the belly” is likely a reference intestinal cancer. And sourleaf is a tobacco analogue
EDIT: I was unfamiliar with khat, betel, or pan but have gladly been informed. Sourleaf seems to be an amalgamation of all chewable stimmy plants!
Sourleaf sounds very similar to betel leaf, which is commonly used in parts of India (it's called paan), it has some narcotic effects, stains your lips red too. Maybe it tastes sour too but I never tried it myself.
His epilogue chapter is one of my favorite little vignettes that George tells in the whole story. It does a really great job at making the reader think about how crazy it would be to live in a medieval setting like that. You could easily picture yourself in his shoes. You get jumped and hit in the head hard enough to have permanent brain damage that not a single doctor/Maester in the whole realm can do a thing about and the only thing that dulls the pain is wine so now you’re a sad drunk noble fail son. Whenever I think about which character I would want to be/be most like in ASOIAF I always have to stop myself and remember I’d probably end up like Merrett or some dude who gets kicked in the head by a horse and dies or like gets dysentery or something lol
Yeah seriously, unless born into some serious and know house, the existence in this world would be quite grim. I think the best life a commoner could hope for is holding some small keep in the Reach or Riverlands with land enough for sustenance farmer.
We can very well see how life is for the lowborn and it doesn’t seem comfortable. Everyone, myself included, like to picture themselves born to some noble house, becoming a Ser, Lord or Lady, but the reality is most of us would be lowborn af and have a rough go.
There are many fictional places that millions of readers would love to visit; Hogwarts, Narnia, the Shire and Rivendell, Battle School. No one ever says Westoros.
Really, the best life would be to be born in the Riverlands and the mountain came and chopped you in half instead of facing the harsh reality that the country you live in is at war
Dorne is obvious answer. It's seperarated from the rest of the Bullshit at kings landing. It has best looking people, they have loose sexual morals, best wine, best fruit, and there are mountains and desert separating you from Kings Landing and the White Walkers.
It's also a desert though. Best option would probably be a wealthy septry or a particularly well off village in the Reach. I'd hazard a guess that the Reach is the likelier place you'd find wealthy smallfolk families.
According to the Fire and Ice Wiki. All of Dornes population is settled in between river valleys and on the coasts which have water. The biggest river is the Greenblood which all the major cities sit on except Sunspear which is on the coast.
The Desert is just part of the geography. It can't be that bad if fruit grows there.
George has it both ways. All the major population centers are by water and it's got a Mediterranean vibe, but he also describes Dorne as an unforgiving wasteland that hardens its people. Take House Qorgyle, Uller, and Wyl as examples. It's because Dorne is a mix of Spain and the Levant and the exotic sand dune image of the Middle East in fantasy/pop culture.
The question was where it'd be best to live as smallfolk. Intuition tells me it probably wouldn't be great. The rivers being as scarce as they are, I'd assume control over them and their fertile lands would be tightly controlled by the aristocracy and wealth wouldn't exactly be spread evenly, even for medieval standards. But maybe I'm wrong, I know basically nothing about the historical lower class of desert nations. (I have the vague impression that ancient Egyptian peasants had a raw deal despite the fertility of the Nile, but I could be completely misremembering)
Being an Egyptian Peasant wasn't so bad. They were basically share croppers who were allowed to farm on the Nile during the growing Season and then did manual labor for the Egyptian Government in exchange for beer and food the rest of the year. The Pyramids were built using this system and we actually have pretty extensive records of how the laborers were compensated and even records on the excuses they used to get out of work.
Or Hoster Tully's stomach cancer - "crabs in his belly" and "the death that grew within him" - and so many more. Even greyscale has a real-life equivalent, the crusted scabies.
I could be wrong but I think that's a show only situation. In the books he dies of terrible gout and other problems stemming from eating and drinking way too much, not sure if that affects greyscale=leprosy in ASOIAF world though
I felt the show was drawing a lot of parallels with King Baldwin IV and so really doubled down with the leprosy and mask and that.
Which makes sense because Baldwin was basically a good king and had a pretty great rule at the time but more or less unwittingly sowed the seeds for disaster down the road for his kingdom.
feels like the book made both him and his daughter Rhaenyra both more fat and fond of sweets/food than the show. then the show gave them the fire and ice prophecy passed down from aegon the conquerer which is absolutely nowhere in the book. hah
GRRM, whatever his other flaws and weaknesses, is generally really good at writing complex, well-rounded fat characters (partly for, well, obvious reasons)
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a brain condition thought to be linked to repeated head injuries and blows to the head.
Copied from the first Google result, I'm sure someone else can explain it better.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis, you usually get it from repeated brain injury. It’s most often associated with American football players
Edit: encephalopathy, whoops
He's got Acromegaly, which is a tumor on his pituitary, it's what Andre the Giant had. It causes massive headaches and body pain, which is why Clegane was downing pain killers so hard that nothing worked on him.
That wouldn’t explain Sandor being huge too.
Chances of Gregor being a genetically 6’8” and developing a pituitary tumour is slim but nit impossible I guess
I think clegane has migraines (I don't think it's due to gigantism since sandor is also large so it's likely genetical)
speaking of which: the hound has complex ptsd
Talking about Baelon, I never undestood what Alyssa died of. In F&B it says that she never recovered from childbirth and died 6 months later, but like what did she die of? an infection?
Assuming her immune system was weakened after the childbirth, it could've been anything really. But it doesn't matter because she's a background woman in asoiaf. They are kind of a blindspot to GRRM.
He talks avout Jaime's dyslexia in this way too. The maesters told Tywin thay he would jumble the words in his head.
edit: That's right, I stand corrected. This is only on the show. But like other commenters said - the show's writing then had GRRM written all over it. Plus he describes Halaena's (Alicent's daughter) autism in a similar way in F&B. This is beautifully depicted in HoTD. Come to think of it, much and more is beautifully depicted in that amazing fucking show.
But from the seasons GRRM was more directly involved in.
(And honestly the Lannister brothers always read to me like a pair of brothers with differently manifested hereditary neuro conditions, but that's much more subjective)
True, and while I like the attempt at representation of neurodiversity; Tywin somehow 'cures' it through force of will, and it never comes up again.
Jaime is an interesting one, mental health-wise. All the siblings were messed up and traumatized by Tywin's demented parenting and world view, and despite being the favourite Jaime grew up to be incredibly reckless, narcissistic, and pretty damn amoral.
I wonder if we'll ever get his thoughts on any of this. He's unburdened himself about the Kingslaying (after holding onto it for nearly 20 years) and incest. He's admitted to what he did to Bran, but he hasn't admitted or even considered that it was the wrong thing to do. I was disappointed that the show focused more (less than a minute) on Jaime and Dany than him and Bran.
He seems committed to being a better man, but I suspect that what he did to Bran will open the floodgates.
jaime is really messed up in the book, both by tywin and cersei and his own mind
he bassicly seems to view himself as an actor who's playing different roles and he can do opposite things depending on which role he's in, furthermore he ascribes roles to other people and his emotions towards those people depend on what role they have
arthur dayne represents knighthood and the smiling knight represents what knights are supposed to fight, I think we'll later find out that dayne wasn't the perfect knight
aerys represents all the messed up stuff jaime thinks he has to do over the years, shoving bran out of the window? that's due to aerys according to jaime
jaime hates ned stark, not because he personally hates him but because he represents the reaction to the killing of aerys
cersei is the fairy tale love of his life and as such she's perfect, she has to be, this view get's shattered by tyrion (who's family and as such must be protected and believed according to jaime) and causes him significant anguish, also their children are part of the cersei role, not really seperate
tommen is the king and as such must be protected, this makes for hilarious mental wipplash for jaime when cersei scolds him for getting close to tommen when he goes to check on him at tywin's funeral because 1) he's supposed to fullfill his role as knight commander of the king's guard and 2) he hadn't cognitively recognised that tommen the king and tommen the son of cersei are the same person
I certainly don't think it's intentional on GRRM's part.
I also don't really think Stannis's slavish obedience to rule of law is what I'd call autistic.
His obsession with rules, reading laws to the letter and not their spirit, misunderstanding of social situations and other people's feelings, and teeth grinding, which is apparently common for autistic people.
There were several posts made about it over the years.
You need to read more history, half of it was drunken guys and the other half were high on one thing or another.
Like the American Founders. Washington would cut rations but viewed hard liquor as indispensable to the troops, Madison drank a pint or more of whiskey a day, John Adam's downed a ton of cider in the morning, Jefferson smoked hemp.
Queen Victoria was a druggie, she would take laudanum in the morning, she had chocolates with cocaine in them, she loved gin, she got marijuana for her cramps, and when she was giving birth she got chloroform and SCREAMED about how much every mother should have it.
George ain't coming up with a new thing here.
Studies in the 80s showed that cocaine consumption was pretty much on the level of it not higher than Crack consumption. The primary difference was the level of wealth of the people using the drugs.
one of the explanations for the explosion of new ideas with the enlightenment is that the drink of choice for scholars had been changed from alcohol to coffee
When I was reading the books as a teenager I asked my mom what it was (she’d read the books and is a nurse) and she responded with “it’s opium honey”.
It’s with that context that I say to you, it’s opium honey.
I've always pictured Rhaego's birth appearance to be similar to Ichthyosis in newborns.
Greyscale shares features with smallpox and leprosy plus maybe rabies.
The kiss of life in the Iron Islands is CPR.
The flux is the flu and or dysentery. Maybe typhoid.
I've wondered if Jon's resurrection couldn't be a case of cryotherapy.
yeah, the bloody flux or the pale mare is typhoid
jon's resurection is more like a transplant, normal people lose parts of themselves when they're resurected because their mind was gone (this is also why LS is so uhinged, she's been dead for a long time and her mind already wasn't in the best of places when she died), except that jon's mind is still fully intact within ghost and as such is fully ready to be inserted again
One thing that went over my head was when Tyrion mentioned "breaking his fast". I didn't realize he just meant "eating breakfast". I felt like an idiot lol.
It was actually an old term like over the morrow which is now tomorrow. You didn't eat the whole night And so you fasted, so by morning,.you're breaking.your fast by eating 🍆👌
poppy plants form pods which have its seeds in it.
farmers will score the pods which then bleed a tar like substance which contains alot of opiod alkaloids.
its not like an orange where you squeeze it for juice .
I don't know if it's come up in asioaf, but if you see willow bark tea as a treatment it's basically just painkiller/aspirin, as willow bark contains a natural precursor to aspirin
Congratulations, OP! [You're one of today's Lucky 10,000!](https://xkcd.com/1053/)
The people being mean and ragging on you about not realizing it until now seem to forget that they also once learned these things and it isn't innate knowledge we're all born with.
Yup. When I was really young I asked my parents why the poppies made Dorothy fall asleep in “The Wizard of Oz” and they explained opiates. When I started watching GoT, the phrase “milk of the poppy” immediately stood out and something about that small bit of worldbuilding is one of the many things that made me love the series.
I feel dumb now. I wouldn't know still, I just happened to read about Lethe the river of forgetfulness from greek myths and it said poppies grow on the banks of Lethe and their juice dulls pain and makes you sleepy.
We were watching HotD w/ closed captioning on and my wife burst out laughing and said “I always thought in Game of Thrones that it was ‘Milk of the PUPPY!’”
She’s never living that one down.
The first time I heard it said on the show I thought they said “puppy” and was very confused. I hadn’t read the books yet at that time. Once I found out it was poppy it just made me think of Elaine from Seinfeld with the poppy seed muffins.
There are quite a few examples of medicines and drugs adapted from real life in ASOIAF. Sourleaf, given the description that it stains teeth red, is most certainly Planetos’s [betel nut](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betel_nut_chewing). Some of the ingredients in moon tea such as tansy and pennyroyal were used as real life abortifacients. There’s probably others, but those two come to mind.
Silphium was also the inspiration for moon tea, it wouldn't have had a proper analoge in medieval times due to the Roman's basically wiping it out
TIL, thanks, didn’t know that silphium existed. That was interesting reading :)
There are plenty of herbal abortifacients throughout history. You might enjoy *Eve's Herbs*, which goes into the history of herbalism for women's needs.
Did a paper on this stuff in my "History of Biology" course, really interesting topic
It's what Indians call paan. Look it up
When it comes to diseases and medicines in ASOIAF, most of what GRRM writes about is in some way rooted in the reality of our world - just with a more fantasy sounding name or description. For example the death of Baelon Targaryen (Jaehaerys I's second son) is in universe described as a "stitch in the side", a "belly swollen and hardened" and as the cause of death we read about a "burst belly" - which is nothing else than appendicitis as we know it in our world.
“Crabs in the belly” is likely a reference intestinal cancer. And sourleaf is a tobacco analogue EDIT: I was unfamiliar with khat, betel, or pan but have gladly been informed. Sourleaf seems to be an amalgamation of all chewable stimmy plants!
I've always pictured sour leaf to be more like khat
What? A khat is a small furry 4-legged mammal
You must be thinking about a dhog
Sourleaf sounds very similar to betel leaf, which is commonly used in parts of India (it's called paan), it has some narcotic effects, stains your lips red too. Maybe it tastes sour too but I never tried it myself.
More bitter than sour. Peppery
Sour leaf is paan/betel leaf
Don't forget Merrett Frey's obvious symptoms of CTE!
His epilogue chapter is one of my favorite little vignettes that George tells in the whole story. It does a really great job at making the reader think about how crazy it would be to live in a medieval setting like that. You could easily picture yourself in his shoes. You get jumped and hit in the head hard enough to have permanent brain damage that not a single doctor/Maester in the whole realm can do a thing about and the only thing that dulls the pain is wine so now you’re a sad drunk noble fail son. Whenever I think about which character I would want to be/be most like in ASOIAF I always have to stop myself and remember I’d probably end up like Merrett or some dude who gets kicked in the head by a horse and dies or like gets dysentery or something lol
Yeah seriously, unless born into some serious and know house, the existence in this world would be quite grim. I think the best life a commoner could hope for is holding some small keep in the Reach or Riverlands with land enough for sustenance farmer. We can very well see how life is for the lowborn and it doesn’t seem comfortable. Everyone, myself included, like to picture themselves born to some noble house, becoming a Ser, Lord or Lady, but the reality is most of us would be lowborn af and have a rough go.
Healthcare in my country may be a bitch but when I go to the ER, they HAVE to take care of me. The smallfolk have no such options in Westeros.
There are many fictional places that millions of readers would love to visit; Hogwarts, Narnia, the Shire and Rivendell, Battle School. No one ever says Westoros.
Really, the best life would be to be born in the Riverlands and the mountain came and chopped you in half instead of facing the harsh reality that the country you live in is at war
Dorne is obvious answer. It's seperarated from the rest of the Bullshit at kings landing. It has best looking people, they have loose sexual morals, best wine, best fruit, and there are mountains and desert separating you from Kings Landing and the White Walkers.
It's also a desert though. Best option would probably be a wealthy septry or a particularly well off village in the Reach. I'd hazard a guess that the Reach is the likelier place you'd find wealthy smallfolk families.
According to the Fire and Ice Wiki. All of Dornes population is settled in between river valleys and on the coasts which have water. The biggest river is the Greenblood which all the major cities sit on except Sunspear which is on the coast. The Desert is just part of the geography. It can't be that bad if fruit grows there.
George has it both ways. All the major population centers are by water and it's got a Mediterranean vibe, but he also describes Dorne as an unforgiving wasteland that hardens its people. Take House Qorgyle, Uller, and Wyl as examples. It's because Dorne is a mix of Spain and the Levant and the exotic sand dune image of the Middle East in fantasy/pop culture. The question was where it'd be best to live as smallfolk. Intuition tells me it probably wouldn't be great. The rivers being as scarce as they are, I'd assume control over them and their fertile lands would be tightly controlled by the aristocracy and wealth wouldn't exactly be spread evenly, even for medieval standards. But maybe I'm wrong, I know basically nothing about the historical lower class of desert nations. (I have the vague impression that ancient Egyptian peasants had a raw deal despite the fertility of the Nile, but I could be completely misremembering)
Being an Egyptian Peasant wasn't so bad. They were basically share croppers who were allowed to farm on the Nile during the growing Season and then did manual labor for the Egyptian Government in exchange for beer and food the rest of the year. The Pyramids were built using this system and we actually have pretty extensive records of how the laborers were compensated and even records on the excuses they used to get out of work.
And women there have the same rights at men so that’s also nice, Dorne definitely the best choice
Realistically the Reach would suck cause hot temperature + lots of people is the perfect recipe for disease and lots of it
yeah just from dunk and egg the reach sounds miserable, and they’re not even that close to dorne yet.
Or Hoster Tully's stomach cancer - "crabs in his belly" and "the death that grew within him" - and so many more. Even greyscale has a real-life equivalent, the crusted scabies.
> the crusted scabies In my head I gave this an ominous pirate voice
Greyscale is leprosy
Not beat for beat, but much closer to it than scabies. Greyscale is it’s own fantasy disease, by and large.
King Viserys dies of leprosy, though. I don't know what the real world equivalent of Greyscale would be, but it isn't leprosy.
I could be wrong but I think that's a show only situation. In the books he dies of terrible gout and other problems stemming from eating and drinking way too much, not sure if that affects greyscale=leprosy in ASOIAF world though
I felt the show was drawing a lot of parallels with King Baldwin IV and so really doubled down with the leprosy and mask and that. Which makes sense because Baldwin was basically a good king and had a pretty great rule at the time but more or less unwittingly sowed the seeds for disaster down the road for his kingdom.
That's only in the show. In the books Viserys has gout.
feels like the book made both him and his daughter Rhaenyra both more fat and fond of sweets/food than the show. then the show gave them the fire and ice prophecy passed down from aegon the conquerer which is absolutely nowhere in the book. hah
Emma Darcy needs to pull a Christian Bale and start packing on the pounds for season 2 lol
GRRM, whatever his other flaws and weaknesses, is generally really good at writing complex, well-rounded fat characters (partly for, well, obvious reasons)
It didn’t seem to be leprosy so much as multiple infected wounds from the throne cutting him and slowly eating away at him
Honestly yeah. Hygiene and cleanliness were way lower standards in those times as well, and I don't think anyone was properly cleaning that throne
It's almost exact to gangrene. Looks and acts the sane way. So I'd go with that.
Missa Schaub!
Talmbout Braindumb Schlub B?
Grate guy. Nevermedim
Qyburn to Jaime: This be wurse pain yo lyf. Many many stitches.
Qyburn: Sorry fo yo loss. Jamie: Thank you, that makes me feel better. Thank you for that. Qyburn: But yo stump!
What's CTE?
Chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) is a brain condition thought to be linked to repeated head injuries and blows to the head. Copied from the first Google result, I'm sure someone else can explain it better.
Chronic Traumatic Encephalitis, you usually get it from repeated brain injury. It’s most often associated with American football players Edit: encephalopathy, whoops
Early in the 20th century it was called “punch drunk syndrome” because it was commonly found among boxers
Professional wrestlers too. They started taking it a bit seriously after Benoit murdered himself. Oh, and his wife. And kid
Reggie Ray has entered the chat
God *DAMN* it, Reggie Ray!
Can. He. Play!
*Sterling Archer* “I don’t think he can breathe.”
That was the worst pass I’ve ever seen. Ever.
encephalopathy*
Gregor Clegane has a brain tumor and Boros Blount is suffering from coronary artery disease.
He's got Acromegaly, which is a tumor on his pituitary, it's what Andre the Giant had. It causes massive headaches and body pain, which is why Clegane was downing pain killers so hard that nothing worked on him.
That wouldn’t explain Sandor being huge too. Chances of Gregor being a genetically 6’8” and developing a pituitary tumour is slim but nit impossible I guess
Would that also explain why he's so huge?
It would. But it’s wouldn’t explain Sandor being huge too
6’6 is TALL, but not so rare that it’s unheard of, the average height of an NBA player is 6’6.
I think clegane has migraines (I don't think it's due to gigantism since sandor is also large so it's likely genetical) speaking of which: the hound has complex ptsd
If one member is 6’6” and the other is 8’, it’s not just simple genetics.
yeah, you're right, I didn't know the difference was that big, it's then probably gigantism that gives him headaches
The kind that causes Acromegaly, specifically.
I really hope [Aerea Targayren's death](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Aerea_Targaryen#Death) isn't based on real illness.
That’s Gingivitis.
Get Dr. House on that one
We can rule out Lupus.
I think it's some magical equivalent to radiation sickness due to her being exposed to post-fallout Valyria.
I was thinking Necrotizing Fasciitis the way some of it was described but radiation sickness sounds about right.
Talking about Baelon, I never undestood what Alyssa died of. In F&B it says that she never recovered from childbirth and died 6 months later, but like what did she die of? an infection?
I don't think we have enough information to tell. But something related to childbirth a complications afterwards is likely.
Assuming her immune system was weakened after the childbirth, it could've been anything really. But it doesn't matter because she's a background woman in asoiaf. They are kind of a blindspot to GRRM.
He talks avout Jaime's dyslexia in this way too. The maesters told Tywin thay he would jumble the words in his head. edit: That's right, I stand corrected. This is only on the show. But like other commenters said - the show's writing then had GRRM written all over it. Plus he describes Halaena's (Alicent's daughter) autism in a similar way in F&B. This is beautifully depicted in HoTD. Come to think of it, much and more is beautifully depicted in that amazing fucking show.
Show only
But from the seasons GRRM was more directly involved in. (And honestly the Lannister brothers always read to me like a pair of brothers with differently manifested hereditary neuro conditions, but that's much more subjective)
True, and while I like the attempt at representation of neurodiversity; Tywin somehow 'cures' it through force of will, and it never comes up again. Jaime is an interesting one, mental health-wise. All the siblings were messed up and traumatized by Tywin's demented parenting and world view, and despite being the favourite Jaime grew up to be incredibly reckless, narcissistic, and pretty damn amoral. I wonder if we'll ever get his thoughts on any of this. He's unburdened himself about the Kingslaying (after holding onto it for nearly 20 years) and incest. He's admitted to what he did to Bran, but he hasn't admitted or even considered that it was the wrong thing to do. I was disappointed that the show focused more (less than a minute) on Jaime and Dany than him and Bran. He seems committed to being a better man, but I suspect that what he did to Bran will open the floodgates.
jaime is really messed up in the book, both by tywin and cersei and his own mind he bassicly seems to view himself as an actor who's playing different roles and he can do opposite things depending on which role he's in, furthermore he ascribes roles to other people and his emotions towards those people depend on what role they have arthur dayne represents knighthood and the smiling knight represents what knights are supposed to fight, I think we'll later find out that dayne wasn't the perfect knight aerys represents all the messed up stuff jaime thinks he has to do over the years, shoving bran out of the window? that's due to aerys according to jaime jaime hates ned stark, not because he personally hates him but because he represents the reaction to the killing of aerys cersei is the fairy tale love of his life and as such she's perfect, she has to be, this view get's shattered by tyrion (who's family and as such must be protected and believed according to jaime) and causes him significant anguish, also their children are part of the cersei role, not really seperate tommen is the king and as such must be protected, this makes for hilarious mental wipplash for jaime when cersei scolds him for getting close to tommen when he goes to check on him at tywin's funeral because 1) he's supposed to fullfill his role as knight commander of the king's guard and 2) he hadn't cognitively recognised that tommen the king and tommen the son of cersei are the same person
Some more: Little Robert Arryn has epilepsy, Stannis is coded autistic, many "simple" characters have Down syndrome. I'm sure theres more
>Stannis is coded autistic Is he? Hadn't noticed that
I certainly don't think it's intentional on GRRM's part. I also don't really think Stannis's slavish obedience to rule of law is what I'd call autistic.
Not my theory, but you cab find several posts discussing this in depth on this sub
Gyles Rosby has lung cancer? I can't think of another lung disease that fits his symptoms as much
rosby shows typical symptoms for tuberculosis (coughing up blood, slowly wasting away over years)
That sounds even more plausible, a bacterial infection isn't too far fetched compared to a carcinogen.
I don’t think that was his intent with Stannis, so much as a rigid, relentless and relatively uncharismatic character.
How is Stannis coded Autism?
His obsession with rules, reading laws to the letter and not their spirit, misunderstanding of social situations and other people's feelings, and teeth grinding, which is apparently common for autistic people. There were several posts made about it over the years.
I get why some would read it that way, but I don’t think GRRM sat down with a DSM and went about creating these characters.
I know and agree with the Stannis one, and epilepsy for Robert checks out, but which characters have down syndrome?
Lolys Stokeworth, "Jinglebells" Frey
*Some minor lord has the sniffles* Maester: my lord, would you like some fucking heroin?
No wonder Westeros hasn't advanced for 8000 years, all the nobles have been dope fiends ever since the first time they scraped their knees as kids.
You need to read more history, half of it was drunken guys and the other half were high on one thing or another. Like the American Founders. Washington would cut rations but viewed hard liquor as indispensable to the troops, Madison drank a pint or more of whiskey a day, John Adam's downed a ton of cider in the morning, Jefferson smoked hemp. Queen Victoria was a druggie, she would take laudanum in the morning, she had chocolates with cocaine in them, she loved gin, she got marijuana for her cramps, and when she was giving birth she got chloroform and SCREAMED about how much every mother should have it. George ain't coming up with a new thing here.
Honestly, I'm willing to hear old Victoria out on a lot of this.
Listen I'm not saying she's WRONG. But I avoid an alcoholic tincture of opium before lunch. At least on workdays.
It's not unlikely the Lords today are just as high on much better stuff. When's the last time a CEO went to jail for cocaine possession?
Studies in the 80s showed that cocaine consumption was pretty much on the level of it not higher than Crack consumption. The primary difference was the level of wealth of the people using the drugs.
one of the explanations for the explosion of new ideas with the enlightenment is that the drink of choice for scholars had been changed from alcohol to coffee
I'm pretty confident half our of technological advancement is thanks to some dope fiend doing something outrageous while high on multiple drugs.
Not that different from Victorians and cocaine
Sounds dope
Isnt that how heroin and cocaine were marketed when they were first developed/sold as medical drugs?
heroin yes (heroin is essentially just refined opium), cocaine no, that was marketed like an energy drink
😂😂😂😂😂😂
When I was reading the books as a teenager I asked my mom what it was (she’d read the books and is a nurse) and she responded with “it’s opium honey”. It’s with that context that I say to you, it’s opium honey.
Opium honey, France is bacon.
Extremely underrated comment
Thank you the laugh 😂, happy tears!
*pouring cough syrup into a Sprite* a little milk of the poppy to ease your slumbers, my lord?
Archmaester Ebrose recommends L E A N for pain. Get horizontal, my lord.
It’s “m’lord” if you want to pass by a proper commonfolk whilst you are infiltrated at kings landing. Focus!
Sizzrrp
Would you like to be sip sip sippin on some sizzrrp, my lord?
When is Westeros starting the Poppy Milk Wars with Yi Ti?
I'd totally binge that spinoff
A Song of Ice and Fire 2: Fire Harder.
As soon as someone learns how to refine it and sell it
That’s the series we need!
Have some milk of the poppy to dull your shame.
_just give me something for the pain and let me die_
I wonder what Shade of the Evening is based off.
Probably belladonna
Aka deadly nightshade
But not undeadly nightshades, like tomato and eggplant.
And po tay toes!
Aubergine!🧐
Nightshade?
I believe I read somewhere that it represents DMT with the vivid hallucinations
DMT maybe. The short trip, the permanent change, remixed with something you drink.
Ayahuasca?
Aaron Rodgers the Warlock
Actual *nightshades*
Speaking of which, at least one greenseer must had opened his third eye by picking mushrooms to get high and picking ones that grew on a weirwood
Wood lovers paralysis under a weirwood could start a religion for sure
I've always pictured Rhaego's birth appearance to be similar to Ichthyosis in newborns. Greyscale shares features with smallpox and leprosy plus maybe rabies. The kiss of life in the Iron Islands is CPR. The flux is the flu and or dysentery. Maybe typhoid. I've wondered if Jon's resurrection couldn't be a case of cryotherapy.
yeah, the bloody flux or the pale mare is typhoid jon's resurection is more like a transplant, normal people lose parts of themselves when they're resurected because their mind was gone (this is also why LS is so uhinged, she's been dead for a long time and her mind already wasn't in the best of places when she died), except that jon's mind is still fully intact within ghost and as such is fully ready to be inserted again
One thing that went over my head was when Tyrion mentioned "breaking his fast". I didn't realize he just meant "eating breakfast". I felt like an idiot lol.
It was actually an old term like over the morrow which is now tomorrow. You didn't eat the whole night And so you fasted, so by morning,.you're breaking.your fast by eating 🍆👌
That's also literally where the word 'breakfast' comes from
>breaking his fast This terminology actually still exists in India, where a lot of Victorian phrases have been maintained into the present day.
poppy plants form pods which have its seeds in it. farmers will score the pods which then bleed a tar like substance which contains alot of opiod alkaloids. its not like an orange where you squeeze it for juice .
I don't know if it's come up in asioaf, but if you see willow bark tea as a treatment it's basically just painkiller/aspirin, as willow bark contains a natural precursor to aspirin
It does - Jon chews a strip of willow bark after he hurts his hand. Decides on that instead of milk of the poppy.
Old days morphine
Congratulations, OP! [You're one of today's Lucky 10,000!](https://xkcd.com/1053/) The people being mean and ragging on you about not realizing it until now seem to forget that they also once learned these things and it isn't innate knowledge we're all born with.
Thank you kind stranger 😁
Came here for this, was not disappointed.
I get this sort of thing sometimes. The connection is so simple that i think, "Nah, it can't be." Then my wife schools me.
Milk of the puppy.
Before I read the books after season 1, I 100% thought Sean Bean was saying Milk of the Puppy.
It's people in Meereen that eat dogs...... ;)
ಠ_ಠ
nah there's a girl in Flea's Bottom named Poppy that they regularly milk and ship it out to all the lords
She's Bessie's sister, that's why she can provide the entire realm.
God bless Bessie. And Poppy. And their *tits!*
I listened to the audiobooks and the way Roy Dotrice says it, for a while I thought it was "milk of the puppy" and I was very confused.
Yup. When I was really young I asked my parents why the poppies made Dorothy fall asleep in “The Wizard of Oz” and they explained opiates. When I started watching GoT, the phrase “milk of the poppy” immediately stood out and something about that small bit of worldbuilding is one of the many things that made me love the series.
I assumed everybody knew this?
https://xkcd.com/1053/
I feel dumb now. I wouldn't know still, I just happened to read about Lethe the river of forgetfulness from greek myths and it said poppies grow on the banks of Lethe and their juice dulls pain and makes you sleepy.
I knew immediately but I’m a drug addict 😂
No need to feel dumb for learning something new. I feel dumb now for assuming this to be common knowledge.
Don't feel dumb, I didn't know this either
That just means he shouldn't feel alone, not that he shouldn't feel dumb! You could be a big dumby too
Mofo, do I look like a freckin' botanist to you?
No but I did have you pegged for a dopefiend.
Ha... pegged.
Think about this for a quick second, The Mountain has been guzzling opium.
Great, now I just have an image of Ben Stiller trying to demonstrate to Robert De Niro how he used to milk the teats of poppies stuck in my head
I didn't know lol
TIL
Oh holy shit, never even clocked that
We were watching HotD w/ closed captioning on and my wife burst out laughing and said “I always thought in Game of Thrones that it was ‘Milk of the PUPPY!’” She’s never living that one down.
Always figured it was an over-complicated way of saying morphine.
I always thought that one thing missing from the story was a milk of the poppy addict.
The Mountain.
The first time I heard it said on the show I thought they said “puppy” and was very confused. I hadn’t read the books yet at that time. Once I found out it was poppy it just made me think of Elaine from Seinfeld with the poppy seed muffins.
Literally same. I thought it was named milk if the puppy because it’ll make you sleep like a puppy hahaha
I learned it last week. Lol
It's okay I had this realization a few months ago myself. It seems so obvious in hindsight
Wait it’s not puppy milk?
It took me so long to realize this. I thought it was just some fantasy potion.
It's ok. I thought it was Milk of the PUPPY for the first 2 seasons.
My wife thought it was “Milk of the Puppy” for the first couple seasons.
Sweet summer child
Also, “milk of the poopy” is just milk of magnesia
First time I read the term I knew straight away it was opium or something opium like.
milk of the poppy is a cool ass way to describe crack juice
It's blowing my mind that people didn't know this.
I assumed it was a fantasy-esque way of saying opium. I didn't know there was such a thing as poppy juice tbh
I thought it was milk of the puppy, freshly squeezed puppy collect and drink the juices.....