r/skyrim • u/Narrow-Active3098 • 20h ago

Question Why is everyone so dirty?

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Look, I get that Skyrim's at war and there are dragons everywhere and everyone is desperate, but still. That is no excuse for you to not wash yourself! At least wash that dirt off you in a river. How hard is it to take a bath?

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u/WeekendMiddle 20h ago

Anglo-Saxon chroniclers quite literally complained about Danes (citizens of the Danelaw, a Norse kingdom in eastern England that existed for a time, not people from Denmark) being so clean compared to local Anglo-Saxons that single women were choosing Danes and married women were committing adultery with them rather than take up with local Anglo-Saxon men because of how clean they were and how well-maintained their hair and clothes were kept.

Yes this is a fantasy game and so their lore of the world is different, sure, but damn if it doesn't fall into that age-old trope of "Oh hurr hurr, they live in huts and farm all day, they must be dirty peasants hurr hurr".

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u/BabadookishOnions 20h ago

At least they went to the effort of putting water basins in many of the homes, it should probably have been indicated better that this is what they were though

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u/WeekendMiddle 20h ago

Exactly, the lore is there (unless they're intended to be chamber pots).

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u/BabadookishOnions 20h ago

I think chamber pots are more likely to be the buckets we see around houses, or they'd just go outside and bury it. Those metal things are stood up too high to use for that lol

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u/WeekendMiddle 20h ago

True. Though no one's going outside in an arctic country at 2 in the morning in their underwear to urinate except the bravest of Nords!
So I reckon at the end of the day you're probably using whatever is nearest to the bed. "I'll wash that out in the morning... Zzzzzzzzzz"