wool smells when wet

[Obligatory WOT Reference]

i was just thinking that wool really smells bad when it's wet. seeing how most of their clothes are made out of wool, when it rains they must stink. i mean you gotta wonder if the reason in tEotW that rand and mat didn't get accepted at more people's homes was that their clothes smelled of wet wool and sweat. that just seems nasty to me.

[mb]

I do not recall Rand & Mat getting wet any time during their trip to Caemlyn.

The most likely time would have been in the lightning storm Rand (unknowingly) caused in chapter 32, yet there was no rain then.

Nor have they slipped into the river at Whitebridge.

 

[Obligatory WOT Reference]

well like, just in general, when it's raining and they're travelling somewhere and they're wearing wool it will get wet. and smell. there's probably a whole lot of smelly, sweaty people walking around in randland is all i'm saying

[Kaznen]

I do not recall Rand & Mat getting wet any time during their trip to Caemlyn.

The most likely time would have been in the lightning storm Rand (unknowingly) caused in chapter 32, yet there was no rain then.

Nor have they slipped into the river at Whitebridge.

 

 

Rand didn't cause that lightning storm, and it did rain, hard.  The night ended for them when they tried ot make a tent out of their cloaks in the shrubry so the pelting rain wouldn't drive them insane.

[water_seeker]

I do not recall Rand & Mat getting wet any time during their trip to Caemlyn.

The most likely time would have been in the lightning storm Rand (unknowingly) caused in chapter 32, yet there was no rain then.

Nor have they slipped into the river at Whitebridge.

 

That was not the only night they spent with just their cloaks to protect them fromt he wind, and sometimes the rain, cold and soaking.

...and a haystack, even one without a tarp over it, kept all but the heaviest rain off...

 

Then there's Four Kings, which has been pointed out.  Btw...if Rand didn't cause the lightning to strike the inn in Four Kings, what was the deal with Rand getting the strange sickness afterward?  And if you say it was from being out in the rain I'll smack you, becuase it wasn't a natural sickness.

 

So yeah, it rained and they probably did stink though the rain probably washed away a good portion (but definately not all) of the sweat and dirt they built up.

[Serenla]

Rand didn't cause the storm, it was raining when he went outside to see Gode's coach.  He did however cause the lightning that blinded Mat and let them out of the room. 

 

Yes, they had to smell very bad at this point.  The last time either of them had a bath was in Baerlon, as far as we can tell.  Two teenage boys without soap and deodorant for weeks wearing the same clothes without washing them?  The wet wool probably smelled more pleasant. 

[arkinia]

I think given how often even anyone bathes in the series people have to have some sort of desensitization. They probably aren't so squeamish to body odor as we might be today.

[Orange Fescue]

I think given how often even anyone bathes in the series people have to have some sort of desensitization. They probably aren't so squeamish to body odor as we might be today.

They wouldn't be. An elderly friend has told me that, when he was growing up in the 1930s and 1940s, many if not most Americans still bathed once a week (whether they needed it or not) or at most, they bathed every few days. He's also said men didn't begin wearing deodorant openly until quite some time after women did because it was considered effeminate. He says the whole world smelled different but nobody really noticed at the time.

[arkinia]

Yeah, even today when people complain about body odor I'm thinking, "What a baby."

[Epic]

People from the Two Rivers didn't seem to mind bathing or washing up, when they bathed in Baerlon they just about died about how nice it was, in Shienar they had the communal baths, and in the Aiel waste they had the nightly(near enough) sweat tents.  If you want stinky in WoT then just think about all the refugees that clog up the roads during the DO's endless summer.

I think that the boys probably washed when they came across a creek or farm that offered hospitality.

[Angel of Death]

I think given how often even anyone bathes in the series people have to have some sort of desensitization. They probably aren't so squeamish to body odor as we might be today.

 

That was my thought as well, they don't have plumming so bathing regualrly would be a luxury beyond all bar royalty and the highest nobles, Aes Sedai also probally.

[Mr Ares]

I think given how often even anyone bathes in the series

About every other chapter...

[Builder]

I think given how often even anyone bathes in the series

About every other chapter...

 

Yes but given the length of the chapters, at least later in series...

[Elgee]

I think given how often even anyone bathes in the series

About every other chapter...

 

Yes but given the length of the chapters, at least later in series...

 

Every 27 pages. Unless it was really small print, then they would only bath every 25 pages.

[arkinia]

And I suppose "pages" are now a reliable unit of time now!

[Neemo]

given that everyones wool would smell when wet i dont think it would be a major issue...

 

i'm sure other people would have gotten wet woolens as well...especially if they were farmers and whatnot  :P

[Elgee]

And I suppose "pages" are now a reliable unit of time now!

 

Slightly less than chapters, I'm afraid  :(

[Shard]

You guys might as well be discussing why we don't see them go to the bathroom more often.  ::)

[Elgee]

You guys might as well be discussing why we don't see them go to the bathroom more often.  ::)

 

"More often" would require that we see someone do it at least once?

 

Have you?

 

If so, please provide quotes.

 

;)

[deathgate]

You guys might as well be discussing why we don't see them go to the bathroom more often.  ::)

 

"More often" would require that we see someone do it at least once?

 

Have you?

 

If so, please provide quotes.

 

;)

 

I actually vaguely remember Mat using an old word for it once but that is all I remember. Has any author used that as a plot device for humour? Would be sort of funny for a hero to have to run off to the bathroom right before or during a fight scene.

[Barmacral]

"Quick, we need to flee the position before the trollocs overrun it!"

"Alright, everybody out. I have to Poop! NOW!"

*everyone flee's except Rand, who drops his drawers*

[mb]

well like, just in general, when it's raining and they're travelling somewhere and they're wearing wool it will get wet. and smell. there's probably a whole lot of smelly, sweaty people walking around in randland is all i'm saying

It seems rare in the series of characters going out in the rain and even rarer that those characters wear wool at the time.

Smell of wet wool, I do not recall any character making that kind of comment.  Comments about smell seem to be limited to other things.

 

[Cillian]

People from the Two Rivers didn't seem to mind bathing or washing up, when they bathed in Baerlon they just about died about how nice it was, in Shienar they had the communal baths, and in the Aiel waste they had the nightly(near enough) sweat tents.  If you want stinky in WoT then just think about all the refugees that clog up the roads during the DO's endless summer.

I think that the boys probably washed when they came across a creek or farm that offered hospitality.

 

I seem to recall at one farm they stopped at the wife washed their clothes for them and let them use her husbands or sons clothes while they worked? Or am I remembering wrong?

[Barmacral]

mb, thats beause its a common smell for them, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for those boys to smell that way; they live by very different standards in their society than we do, because we're so much more advanced than them. And there's been rain mentioned often enough to show that it happens in their world probably as much as it happens in ours, the unnatural summer aside, I should hope he doesn't need to relate every time its raining.

[arkinia]

"Quick, we need to flee the position before the trollocs overrun it!"

"Alright, everybody out. I have to Poop! NOW!"

*everyone flee's except Rand, who drops his drawers*

He does seem to mention women's bottoms hurting a few times. Maybe we are missing something.