George R. R. Martin (Game Of Thrones Author): Obsessed With Pants-Wetting?

[messyboy]

Okay, so, I've been reading A Song of Ice and Fire (A Game of Thrones, A Clash of Kings, etc., by George R. R. Martin) and I've noticed the weirdest thing: people pee themselves all the damn time! Little kids pee themselves when they laugh, grown men pee themselves when their afraid, one character spends weeks in bed rest after taking a sword to the face, and Martin vividly describes how he wets and soils his bed, and how it smells. It's like, dude, why do you talk about this so much? How often in real life do grown men wet themselves? I'm not opposed to it, but it makes me wonder if he has some kind of fixation.

[Morv]

Perhaps you're just focusing on it a bit more than the average person. It's been a while since I've read the books, but I remember some of what you're talking about. Part of Martin is that he's gritty. One could also say he's obsessed with cruelty and sadism. Or whores, or brothels, and prostitution. Or incest. Or blowjobs. I remember Tyrion, I believe, once saying that he wanted to die with his cock in a whore's mouth.

Anyway, unless you've had to handle someone who is incontinent and bed-ridden, you have no idea how gross it can be in rather short order. And if you're not already doing or thinking about that stuff as much as we are, you're not desensitized. Even those of us here who aren't into messing can probably summon up a far more detailed and vivid image than a member of the general population at the mention of wetting or a soiled bed, etc. For Joe Shmoe on the street, without decent description it just never becomes as real... it is a detached foreign concept.

I think Martin chooses these gritty situations to allow characters to act as foils for each other. Characters demonstrate their similarities and differences in the way that they handle similar situations, in comparison to their fellows. It's a standard literary technique for fairly elegant character building.

[I M Soaked]

One also must remember, that this series takes place in the middle ages. Those time didn't have the advanced medicine, we have today. A sword to the face, in those days could bring on infections like you wouldn't believe. And the sicknesses could leave you bed ridden for months. Bran, for example, was tossed 50 feet to the ground and parylised by the fall. No such thing as diapers in those days, so soiled clothes and bed clothes were a constant thing with him. Also, women, who were on their monthly, tied rags in between their legs, to control their flow. Hence the saying "On the rag".