The deadly condition known as “greyscale,” sometimes known as “Prince Garin’s curse,” can leave the flesh hard and lifeless, the skin split, flaking, and feeling stone-like to the touch. It is typically fatal. Even if a person is lucky enough to survive an illness, they will be entirely immune, but the skin-related scars the illness leaves behind will never go away.
Princess Shireen Baratheon conquered a childhood sickness called greyscale, although the experience left scars on the lower portion of her face. Only one other documented greyscale survivor, Jorah Mormont, had a full recovery, in contrast to Shireen.
People with the condition are sometimes referred to as “Stone Men” because it makes their skin hard and dead. Stone Men are regularly exiled from civilization in Essos and made to live in deserted cities like Old Valyria.
Because the skin is still relatively thin and delicate in the early stages, movement of the body causes the hardened tissue to shatter into a web of lines. This is because greyscale causes the skin’s surface to harden and calcify. Later and more severe phases produce a pattern that mimics scales due to the tightened and cracking skin. It also has a thin ice fractures appearance.
What is a greyscale disease in ‘Game of Thrones’? What causes it and is it a real-life disease?
Given the information available, greyscale appears to be a cunning illness most likely brought on by an HPV or virus similar to smallpox. Skin-to-skin contact may facilitate the rapid transmission of this infection.
