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The surprising lack of STDs


TimJames

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A lot of the characters have unprotected sex. Some of the characters have LOTS of unprotected sex with multiple different partners.

Why do we never hear about anyone getting STDs? The only known case is Vargo Hoat, and even then we never hear exactly what he got. Not all STDs have visible symptoms, so some of the more sexually active characters can't exactly avoid this by checking for red bumps first.

How come we never hear about Oberyn's viper hurting whenever he pees, or about Robert having a bunch of sores on his back from untreated syphilis?

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There are other examples. Maekar's son Daeron died of a pox he caught from a whore, as did Tygett Lannister. Aegon IV and Merrett Frey also both caught poxes from whores but survived.



There's also:




He was followed by a haggard grey-faced whore, accused of giving the pox to four of Tarly’s soldiers. “Wash out her private parts with lye and throw her in a dungeon,” Tarly commanded.



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A lot of the characters have unprotected sex. Some of the characters have LOTS of unprotected sex with multiple different partners.

Why do we never hear about anyone getting STDs? The only known case is Vargo Hoat, and even then we never hear exactly what he got. Not all STDs have visible symptoms, so some of the more sexually active characters can't exactly avoid this by checking for red bumps first.

How come we never hear about Oberyn's viper hurting whenever he pees, or about Robert having a bunch of sores on his back from untreated syphilis?

aegon {4} the asshole died of stds.

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Thousands of pages of text, with a decent portion of it being senseless filler and you worry about the lack of STDs in there as well. With how Martin writes, do you really want 3 pages of him describing a character and his/her pain, while taking a piss? It's a complete and total waste of time that would be better spent.

Ultimately, what purpose would having more instances and greater descriptions of characters with STDs serve the narrative and overall story. There is just no need.

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Huh? The info I can find says he ended up so fat that he couldn't move and that his limbs were found already rotten. Sounds like he died from complications due to morbid obesity to me (perhaps gangrene).

i',m pretty sure he had the pox and gave it to one of his mistress (jeyen Lothston) and sent her away from kings landing when she got it.

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i',m pretty sure he had the pox and gave it to one of his mistress (jeyen Lothston) and sent her away from kings landing when he got it.

No, he got it from a whore, and then gave it to her.

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Huh? The info I can find says he ended up so fat that he couldn't move and that his limbs were found already rotten. Sounds like he died from complications due to morbid obesity to me (perhaps gangrene).

Sounds like bedsores to me.

I've seen those things in real life... it's... just don't google it.

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Thousands of pages of text, with a decent portion of it being senseless filler and you worry about the lack of STDs in there as well. With how Martin writes, do you really want 3 pages of him describing a character and his/her pain, while taking a piss? It's a complete and total waste of time that would be better spent.

Ultimately, what purpose would having more instances and greater descriptions of characters with STDs serve the narrative and overall story. There is just no need.

It adds realism to the story; in the story, characters have lots of unprotected sex without any consequences or repercussions. In real life, that's a quick way to get AIDS.

And the scenes that you consider "filler" are scenes I find quite interesting to read.

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To be fair the HIV virus is a recent phenomena. It was not a worry in our medieval times and if it's present somewhere in Planetos the lack of easy air travel is going to keep it from spreading.



Then there's a lot of diseases that might be present that they can't detect. We know of "the pox", but that's probably a blanket term for a variety of different STDs from syphilis to herpes.



As for Robert and Tyrion. They could certainly be brewing multiples illnesses they're not aware of. Many men can have an STD without symptoms. Also the higher class brothels probably have virgins for big spenders like Barra's Mother or kick out those who get the pox.


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Thousands of pages of text, with a decent portion of it being senseless filler and you worry about the lack of STDs in there as well. With how Martin writes, do you really want 3 pages of him describing a character and his/her pain, while taking a piss? It's a complete and total waste of time that would be better spent.

Ultimately, what purpose would having more instances and greater descriptions of characters with STDs serve the narrative and overall story. There is just no need.

We need book 6 soon.
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Qyburn discovered Brienne is a virgin after Vargo Hoat had him examine her because, "well, suffice to say he loved unwisely" (Qyburn to Jaime at the start of Storm of Swords.) Pretty sure that's an allusion to STDs. Either that, or Westerosi women have an extreme take on chastity belts...

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There are other examples. Maekar's son Daeron died of a pox he caught from a whore, as did Tygett Lannister. Aegon IV and Merrett Frey also both caught poxes from whores but survived.

There's also:

No reason to believe Tygett died of an STD/STI, as I have pointed out on other threads "pox" is a very vague term in westeros, it can refer to some kind of acne (Rolland Storm), or it can refer to an STD (Merrett and Daeron), the fact that Merrett lived and Daeron died shows that they probably caught different things.

The maesters probably have better terms for different condition, but everyone else just refers to anything with sores as a "pox", thus we can't speculate as to what killed a character without more information.

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