Greyscale, Jorah and Sam

[WSmith84]

Jorah basically seems to have recovered overnight. Recovered overnight from what appeared to involve basically being flayed. A doctor can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think that even with modern medicine and medical equipment that would be a risky operation with a long recovery time. And the fact that they're just like 'well, you seem fine, so off you pop.' Seriously?! How about waiting and seeing? You know, a week or month or whatever. Just to check. And maybe isolate Sam as well, just in case he managed to cure Jorah but infected himself?

[Samwell_Tarly]

3 minutes ago, WSmith84 said:

Jorah basically seems to have recovered overnight. Recovered overnight from what appeared to involve basically being flayed. A doctor can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd think that even with modern medicine and medical equipment that would be a risky operation with a long recovery time. And the fact that they're just like 'well, you seem fine, so off you pop.' Seriously?! How about waiting and seeing? You know, a week or month or whatever. Just to check. And maybe isolate Sam as well, just in case he managed to cure Jorah but infected himself?

Due to not being told or no way of really knowing, we do not know how much time has actually passed. I would have to assume that there has been quite a significant amount of time elapsed somewhere to around the month. 

Again if we see this, it takes up valuable screen time we just cant keep popping back to the Citadel every 5 minutes to see if Jorahs skin is finally healed etc That would be boring. The writers obviously dont feel the need to do so, hes obviously cured Jorah and I am sure Samwell is not infected.

 

[WSmith84]

1 hour ago, Samwell_Tarly said:

Due to not being told or no way of really knowing, we do not know how much time has actually passed. I would have to assume that there has been quite a significant amount of time elapsed somewhere to around the month. 

Again if we see this, it takes up valuable screen time we just cant keep popping back to the Citadel every 5 minutes to see if Jorahs skin is finally healed etc That would be boring. The writers obviously dont feel the need to do so, hes obviously cured Jorah and I am sure Samwell is not infected.

 

In the previous episode, Jorah was given one more day before he would have to leave. In this episode, the Maester seemed completely surprised by his recovery (noting how Jorah's wounds appeared to have been treated instead of getting better by themselves). So, it seems that it literally happened overnight. And no, they don't have to show us Jorah every 5 minutes (and can I note how annoying it is that every complaint about the show is met with 'well, they could just have 50 minutes of tedium, would that make you happy?') but they do have to help us maintain the suspension of disbelief. This is hard to do when you make the most terrifying disease in the world ridiculously easy to cure and have everyone behave like complete morons around it.

[Crona]

I don't get the point of Jorah having greyscale? Is it just to further Sam experience and he can climb the latter, to make another buddy alliance with Jon? Or is it that Jorah will come to Dany when she needs his help the most? Would have been cool to see Jorah run around trying to infect everyone that are Dany's enemies with greyscale 

[no_one_...]

25 minutes ago, Crona said:

I don't get the point of Jorah having greyscale? Is it just to further Sam experience and he can climb the latter, to make another buddy alliance with Jon? Or is it that Jorah will come to Dany when she needs his help the most? Would have been cool to see Jorah run around trying to infect everyone that are Dany's enemies with greyscale 

A theory I've read is that he's no longer at risk of getting Greyscale, so he can travel across the seas and go to areas which other can't, then acquire information or an item which will be needed at a future time (eg a special weapon).  

*** Trying to avoid potential spoilers as I've only read this as speculation, but I don't want to include potential background details from books ***

[snow is the man]

I think that the reason the procedure isn't done is because it usually doesn't work and has a chance of spreading grey scale. And how many people could truly go through that torture. Sam essentially had to flay a good portion of jorah's skin off. Most people wouldn't have been able to go through that. Especially when the chances are probably low that it will work.

remember what that guy said. It could have decemated the entire citadel. I think alot of it is that people wouldn't want to take that risk and bother with it. I think sam got very lucky it worked and that arch maester implied that.

[Xarkar]

15 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

That undermines anyone else who ever had greyscale's desire to be cured of it. We must assume somewhere along the line some man or woman that had children and a family contracted it and were unable to be cured of it, and their desire to be cured would be equal if not more than Jorah's to be cured to be reunited with Dany.

Unfortunately I think it's a case of Jorah is an important character with stuff left to do and the writers dumbed down and made curing greyscale simpler than it actually will be in the books (I hope!).

Sounds like it had only been attempted a number of times no?

Maybe there has been people willing to go under the procedure, but as Sam was told, it was to dangerous.

The Masesters overall seem rather useless.  The Archmaser is more concerned about writing a book than listening to a member of the Nights watch sent to become a maester because he has first hand seen the WW/Wights

 

[Charlie Hustle]

17 hours ago, Mother of Mini Dragons said:

I don't know whether to be underwhelmed at the greyscale cure or the current maesters b/c apparently the only difference between them and Sam is that he reads the instructions AND follows them. So had greyscale always been easily curable and the maesters aren't so smart as they think they are or what?

I think the maesters ware just a bunch of lazy fucks. They have all the answers but no initiative. Just like how the maester told Sam, we'll just sit back and let the world heal itself, because thats how history works. Shit happens but we're still here.

[Samwell_Tarly]

2 hours ago, Xarkar said:

Sounds like it had only been attempted a number of times no?

Maybe there has been people willing to go under the procedure, but as Sam was told, it was to dangerous.

The Masesters overall seem rather useless.  The Archmaser is more concerned about writing a book than listening to a member of the Nights watch sent to become a maester because he has first hand seen the WW/Wights

 

Samwells goals are completely different that any other Maester that has come to the Citadel, he has no real ambition to become a fully fledged Maester, ie gaining his different chain links. I would pressume there would be a lot of people wanting an willing to go under whatever procedure to be cured. We dont know that factors or anything about the other cases of Maesters trying to decide why Sam was so successful. We can point out the procedure is not always effective and works unfortunately, so can we just count it as beginners luck? Its so dangerous in terms of how easily it can be contracted and also dangerous for the person its being carried out on. 

I wouldnt necessarily say he has sent to become a Maester as they know there is not enough time to do so but to more learn what he can about the WW and defeating them, so him saying saying he is to become the new Maester is more a key to access to the Citadel. I dont think the Maesters are useless more interested in learning about History,Maths, Ravenery etc

No one would believe him if said he was here to learn how to defeat the WW, the citadel I believe has anti - magic agenda and does not tolerate this type of interest, i.e Qyburn was thrown out of the Citadel as his experiments were deemed unhealthy. I also b

Maester's are in every castle, with pretty much every Lord. They write the histories, they provide advice, they educate the male side of noble houses.  Why are they purposely destroying magic?

Encouraging the Maesters to try magic to only see it doesnt work helps to back the claim there is no magic left. Maester Luwin enlightens Bran that his green dreams are nothing more than a young boy's wild imagination. He says that magic once existed in the world, but no longer. He even puts his valyrian link in Bran's face, as proof of his authority in discounting the existence of magic

 

2 hours ago, Charlie Hustle said:

I think the maesters ware just a bunch of lazy fucks. They have all the answers but no initiative. Just like how the maester told Sam, we'll just sit back and let the world heal itself, because thats how history works. Shit happens but we're still here.

 

[Lady Noble]

I was a little underwhelmed about how "easy" the procedure was too, but then I remind myself I'm probably quite ignorant thanks to modern medicine and what Sam did was probably very advanced.

I was hoping the cure was Dragon's Breath/Fire and he found Dany again and Drogon sensed his need and lit him aflame or something and all of his greyscale crusted off, lol. 

[Lady Noble]

3 minutes ago, Samwell_Tarly said:

Samwells goals are completely different that any other Maester that has come to the Citadel, he has no real ambition to become a fully fledged Maester, ie gaining his different chain links.

 

 

So true. Sam doesn't care about the politics or the must haves he just wanst to find information and when he found out who Jorah was I think he just wanted to help. 

[Samwell_Tarly]

1 minute ago, Lady Noble said:

I was a little underwhelmed about how "easy" the procedure was too, but then I remind myself I'm probably quite ignorant thanks to modern medicine and what Sam did was probably very advanced.

Yes it did look all too easy, but it wasn't. The most dangerous part is problem of being infected yourself, hence why it was banned and no Maester wants to carry it out, as the last Maester to try died of the infection, not necessarily that its super advanced.

1 minute ago, Lady Noble said:

I was hoping the cure was Dragon's Breath/Fire and he found Dany again and Drogon sensed his need and lit him aflame or something and all of his greyscale crusted off, lol. 

Very speculative but I agree in terms that it should off been a 'a ha moment', something to do with dragonglass.

Just now, Lady Noble said:

So true. Sam doesn't care about the politics or the must haves he just wanst to find information and when he found out who Jorah was I think he just wanted to help. 

Jeor was a good man and he saved Sam on a few occasions, Sam is a good man too so it was obvious he would risk his own life to save Jorahs, repaying the favour to his son. He also found Jeor to be respectful and a father figure type than his own father Randyll who would have killed him if he didnt go to the Wall.

[Nerevanin]

imo it's ridiculous that the so dangerous infection was cured so easily but I have another problem with it:

what exactly Jorah's greyscale brought to the story? In season 5 he got the infection. Fine. Over time it attacked more and more parts of his body. Fine. Nevertheless, it didn't stop him from doing anything he wanted, including going out with Daario to save Dany. Then Dany sent him off to cure himself. Now he's cured. But why bother with the infection? I don't get it.

[Cas Stark]

3 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

imo it's ridiculous that the so dangerous infection was cured so easily but I have another problem with it:

what exactly Jorah's greyscale brought to the story? In season 5 he got the infection. Fine. Over time it attacked more and more parts of his body. Fine. Nevertheless, it didn't stop him from doing anything he wanted, including going out with Daario to save Dany. Then Dany sent him off to cure himself. Now he's cured. But why bother with the infection? I don't get it.

It can only be, IMO, one of two things.  Either Jorah is not fully cured and is going to infect someone/somewhere in the future or GRRM changed the plot of the story somehow after they started with the greyscale and greyscale no longer plays a role in the books beyond Connington, so they wound the plot down as best they could.

[Jordan La Cabra]

13 minutes ago, Nerevanin said:

imo it's ridiculous that the so dangerous infection was cured so easily but I have another problem with it:

what exactly Jorah's greyscale brought to the story? In season 5 he got the infection. Fine. Over time it attacked more and more parts of his body. Fine. Nevertheless, it didn't stop him from doing anything he wanted, including going out with Daario to save Dany. Then Dany sent him off to cure himself. Now he's cured. But why bother with the infection? I don't get it.

There has been a few suggestions before that now Jorah has been cured of greyscale, he has also become immune to it, which would enable him to go to deep into the ruins of Valyria without risk of contracting it again. I like this idea, as clearly there are hidden secrets there that are far too much of a risk for characters to explore due to greyscale, but at this point in the story, there is next to no time for that to happen.

Now I'm beginning to wonder at all if there was any point in Jorah'a greyscale, as the cure revealed no big secret or revelation. 

Trying to find a reason, I like Cas' idea that maybe he hasn't actually been fully cured and could potentially still be a carrier so to speak, but Sam touched him to shake his hand afterwards so it would be a real shame if Jorah infected the man that cured him. 

Maybe Sam curing Jorah was like a dumby run. I said in a previous post that Sam isn't likely to be Westeros' resident greyscale specialist but thinking back he could well be. Another main character could contract it and Sam will be there to cure it, having done it before.

I think I am clutching at straws, though. In reality, I am leaning towards Jorah's greyscale being completely pointless.

[WSmith84]

Hmmm, thinking about it, maybe Jorah contracted greyscale so he wouldn't be with Daenerys during her initial days in Westeros. Jorah is (supposedly) a decent adviser and might have handled Dany's military strategy better (though, to be fair, I could have handled it better). Perhaps it was meant to show that Dany needs a strong military adviser, or somesuch.

[Damitol]

On 8/1/2017 at 0:57 PM, JordanJH1993 said:

Was anyone else underwhelmed with how 'easy' it was to cure? 

I love Jorah and I like that a friend of Jeor's saved his son but the mention of greyscale always sent a shiver through me like it was the worst affliction known to man, but Sam, a novice cured it with ease.

As others have said, we don't really know how "easy" or quick it was (having a layer of flesh removed by someone who knows the tiniest exposure could kill them as well is not easy for either party), but it was quick on screen because there is a lot of ground to cover in only a handful of remaining hours.  The bigger question is why Jorah got the disease since he pretty much disappeared from the show right afterwards, since it's not from the books - and I think it was to eventually give Sam his chance to grow and gain the respect of his superiors.  He wasn't pulled off or latrine duty and handed a pile of really old documents and books to copy for no reason.  It's his boss's way to give Sam access to the information he asked for, without looking like he really believes all of this "dead army" nonsense.  

[Illiterati]

2 hours ago, WSmith84 said:

Hmmm, thinking about it, maybe Jorah contracted greyscale so he wouldn't be with Daenerys during her initial days in Westeros. Jorah is (supposedly) a decent adviser and might have handled Dany's military strategy better (though, to be fair, I could have handled it better). Perhaps it was meant to show that Dany needs a strong military adviser, or somesuch.

I think you make a beautiful point.  Joran rejoins just as Tyrion's military strategy has their campaign in shambles.

[Nerevanin]

20 hours ago, Cas Stark said:

It can only be, IMO, one of two things.  Either Jorah is not fully cured and is going to infect someone/somewhere in the future or GRRM changed the plot of the story somehow after they started with the greyscale and greyscale no longer plays a role in the books beyond Connington, so they wound the plot down as best they could.

Jorah later infecting someone is an interesting idea. But I have one problem with it - greyscale apparently takes rather a long time to kill / affect the mind of someone (although it's possible that the speed is different in different people's cases). Jorah was infected for ~2 seasons and it didn't even cover his all body, let alone affecting his mind. If Jorah infects someone now, probably that person will look like Jorah in previous episode when the story ends. So, once again, it doesn't really bring anything to the story.

Speaking about JonCo, I wonder what role has greyscale to play in his case too. So far my best theory is that he knows that he's going to die / lose his mind soon so he tries to hurry the invasion as much as possible to help fAegon while he still can.

I can't really check it right now but maybe, just maybe the point of greyscale was to make Daenerys like Jorah again? I don't remember it very well, so feel free to correct me, but Daenerys banished Jorah several times. However Jorah went on a quest to save her. And here's the amnesia, I don't remember how Dany reacted to him before he revealed the infection to her, I just know that after find out about the greyscale, Dany got emotional and wanted Jorah to be cured. This would somehow mean that Jorah is supposed to have a role in the story but he needs to be with Dany. And this was the way to bring them back together after they fell apart.

19 hours ago, JordanJH1993 said:

There has been a few suggestions before that now Jorah has been cured of greyscale, he has also become immune to it, which would enable him to go to deep into the ruins of Valyria without risk of contracting it again. I like this idea, as clearly there are hidden secrets there that are far too much of a risk for characters to explore due to greyscale, but at this point in the story, there is next to no time for that to happen.

I like this idea of Jorah being immune and going to Valyria, it sounds really cool tbh. But as you said, there isn't really time for this to happen. So I suppose that Jorah might be immune and that he will becomea healer, curing other victims of greyscale as he himself can't be infected...

19 hours ago, WSmith84 said:

Hmmm, thinking about it, maybe Jorah contracted greyscale so he wouldn't be with Daenerys during her initial days in Westeros. Jorah is (supposedly) a decent adviser and might have handled Dany's military strategy better (though, to be fair, I could have handled it better). Perhaps it was meant to show that Dany needs a strong military adviser, or somesuch.

I think that this is a good idea but imo it doesn't make much sense. It would make perfect sense if Dany had no one from Westeros as her ally. If she had just a bunch of people who have never been to Westeros before, who have no idea about the landscape, the traditions, the loyalty and alliances between different Houses etc. Then Jorah would be a very valuable advisor as he is Westerosi. But in reality Dany has Varys and Tyrion, and she used to had Ellaria, Olenna and Yara/Theon, so 6 different people from different parts of the kingdom. No need to have Jorah too, then. As for Jorah being a military strategist, why not but we have no proof that Jorah is a good strategist, at least I believe so. While Tyrion managed to defend KL against Stannis, so he seems like a more suitable person for this position. I really don't know, anything can happen in the show...