The Targaryens are immune/highly resistant to Greyscale and a number of other highly communicable diseases. One of the Stone Men grabbed Tyrion underwater by the leg. He didn’t get it either, did he? Coincidence?
[B]No.
[/B]Our introduction to Tyrion Lannister is in Jon I, in A Game of Thrones. The description reads as follows:
[I]“He was a dwarf, half his brother’s height, struggling to keep pace on stunted legs. His head was too large for his body, with a brute’s squashed-in face beneath a swollen shelf of brow. One green eye and one black one peered out from under a lank fall of hair so blond it seemed white. Jon watched him with fascination.”
[/I]Later in that same Chapter (Jon I):
Jon was in no mood for anyone’s counsel. “What do you know about being a bastard?”
“All dwarfs are bastards in their father’s eyes.”
“You are your mother’s trueborn son of Lannister.”
“Am I?” the dwarf replied, sardonic. “Do tell my lord father. My mother died birthing me, and he’s never been sure.”
“I don’t even know who my mother was,” Jon said.
“Some woman, no doubt. Most of them are.” He favored Jon with a rueful grin. “Remember this, boy. All dwarfs may be bastards, yet not all bastards need be dwarfs.” And with that he turned and sauntered back into the feast, whistling a tune. When he opened the door, the light from within threw his shadow clear across the yard, and for just a moment Tyrion Lannister stood tall as a king.
A book isn’t a TV show, so the fact Tyrion’s hair is almost white is not before the reader’s eye. His facial hair, which is a different color, is mentioned frequently as wiry and a mix of black and blonde throughout the novel. His hair, on the other hand, is basically white and is only mentioned that once. It’s a deliberate deception on the part of GRRM.
Tyrion being a “kinslayer” for killing Tywin? Once again, not true. He’s not Tywin’s son, he’s the son of Aerys, who raped Joanna Lannister. If she had told Tywin, he would have gone to war againstr the King and House Lannister would have been destroyed. So she kept quiet about it. She was Tywin’s 1st cousin and was a trueborn Lannister, not merely one by marriage, and she was fiercely loyal to her family and her husband.
But Tywin suspected, he always did. That was indeed the very reason why Tywin treated Tyrion differently. It wasn’t merely because he was a dwarf.
The resistance to the greyscale is a Targaryen trait, and Tyrion is the Mad King’s bastard. His dwarfism and mismatched eye color is a genetic flaw from his Targaryen inbred blood. And in the introduction to the reader, where Tyrion stands “as tall as a King”, GRRM’s is blatantly hiding the truth in plain sight from the very start of his epic. GRRM does the same when he compares Jon to Arya, commenting that of all his siblings, Jon only looked like Arya. (Arya is later described to look like her Aunt Lyanna.)
Tyrion is accosted by the Stone Men far more in ADWD than is shown in the episode - but the result is the same. Jon Connington gets the disease from a casual contact and Tyrion does not from a far more thorough exposure. Tyrion also doesn’t get the plague from the besieging army surrounding Mereen either, though Jorah falls ill as do most of the others slaves in the tent in which Tyrion is kept.
He’s a Targ - the Third Head of the Dragon.
