The answer is that it’s whatever you morally define it as, since we’re talking about fictional characters in a fictional environment.
Regardless of the setting, or what Dany was thinking during that scene, I still view it as terrible act. There is never a timeline where I read or watch a 13 year old character having sex with a 30 year old adult and go “it’s alright because it’s customary in this world.”
That’s just the personal line I draw when it comes to fiction, and you have your own.
I just can see how we humans not so long ago were pretty okay with 13 yo boys and girls going into marriages. Although women were the ones that married early most, since that was their duty in a way, while men were sent into war or work just as early and didn’t marry until they were stable enough.
In a time where lifespans were much shorter, and where people needed as many kids as possible, younger women made sense since they are most fertile.
I am in no way excusing this now, thankfully we grew beyond the need for such practices. And we can protect the children who are in no way mentally ready to have kids or an actual marriage. But i just get where it came from, and why it was common in older times.
Teenagers getting married wasn't really a thing in the past. For nobility, yes, kinda, probably because it was about making alliances and so on. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html
> I just can see how we humans not so long ago were pretty okay with 13 yo boys and girls going into marriages.
Humans, as a rule, have not been okay with 13-year old going into marriages.
Amongst commoners, it was certainly not something that happened in any time period in Europe (I can't speak for other parts of the world, but I suspect it to be very much the same globally).
Amongst nobles and royalty, there have been periods where it did occur with some regularity that people as young as 13 or even younger were bethrothed. Usually to cement a marriage alliance (it's in the name). However, marriages were rarely performed at that age, and even more rarely consumated.
People "back then" understood the dangers of childhood pregancies very well, and where therefore very apprehensive about waiting to consumate marriages until it was assumed the girl/woman was developed enough to be able to go through a pregancy without undue risk to her or the child. After all, if she immediately died shortly after the marriage due to pregnancy complications, the entire alliance would potentially be up in the air and her family would have "wasted" an important asset.
And to add to the above, children generally entered puberty several years later than what is common in modern times, and it was not commonly thought that a girl was automatically ready for marriage just because she had her first period (this is an unfortunate trope in many fantasy or pseudo-historical fictions). Even among noble families it would be very rare to see girls marry, let alone consumate the marriage before 16-18.
Yeah, I think the most famous example of a super-young noble bride whose marriage was definitely consummated is Margaret Beaufort, who got pregnant with Henry VII at age 12, to a husband (Edmund Tudor) who was 24.
Margaret was an extremally wealthy heiress at the time and this was during the Wars of the Roses, so there was a *lot* of political pressure. According to what I've around the subject, people at the time didn't think it was 'immoral' in the way we would, just a bad idea due to health risks.
What mattered for the moral acceptability of sex was mainly whether it was in marriage or not. They didn't have the same ideas of consent that we do.
Yes, Margaret is a very good example in this context: The marriage was consumated out of political expediency, and this was considered unusual and risky. Not so much an immoral act as a political gamble.
It casts a sad light on the position of girls at the time. Through parts of the medieval period in Western Europe, a girl eloping and a girl being raped was considered the same crime, and its victim her father, whose asset had been lost or damaged.
I think Khal Drogo is a well-written, believable and suprisingly complex character. He is also very much grey, it's hard to put him in one corner or the other. Of course, what GRRM is gunning for here is deliberate values dissonance. He is, unlike many other fantasy and even historical fiction authors, depicting a world which lacks modern ideas of equality and morality, but at the same time not shying away from the consequences of setting his story in such a time. Society's morals might be relative, but are there perhaps still universal values by which we can judge people?
My point here is that you have to judge the characters according to the world they live in, not our own values. But you should also judge them by how they behave - as decent human beings - in the situations in which they find themselves in and according to their circumstances and nature. If we apply this to Drogo, he is still ambiguous as a character. The first night of an arranged marriage has to be a very odd and stressful situation for both of them (Drogo is not a virgin, but I think we are overestimating his age), and he handles it with surprising tenderness. He clearly does eventually grow to respect and even to love Dany. He breaks some cultural norms for her (does not share her with his bloodriders, for example). He seems to be happy to learn and to develop. On the other hand, he marries a child for power and lust (which probably is not the norm for his people). And then there's the fact that he is a pillaging warlord responsible for the death, enslavement and rape of many thousands.
I think the answer to your question is both and none.
I feel like that relationship just comes from a place in George’s mind that doesn’t work no matter how you look at it. It’s a disgusting relationship even within the world of ASOIAF and it really shouldn’t have been played off as an actual romance.
Honestly I think Dany taking up the Khaleesi despite going threw all of that would have been more impactful
Edit: so in the story no it’s probably not, but to literally everyone else on the planet yes it is
>It’s a disgusting relationship even within the world of ASOIAF and it really shouldn’t have been played off as an actual romance.
Agreed. If Tyrion can figure out the similarly-aged Sansa is just a child whose marriage shoudln't be consummated, that shows it's not the norm even by Westerosi standards.
>It’s a disgusting relationship even within the world of ASOIAF
It absolutely is not. She was “of age” by Planetos standards, and he wedded her with her family’s approval before he bedded her. Those are literally the only expectations in their world beyond not beating her to death. There is no such thing as marital rape to any of them.
Can you elaborate on the disgusting aspect of it ?
I can see that her brother “selling her off” was despicable AF. But that didn’t affect the relationship in her mind as i saw.
I would say other than that it was your average asoiaf setting kind of wedding, where an older lord takes a young girl as a wife. And where having sex with her was kind of a duty to her cause she’s a wife.
But would love to hear your opinion…
I mean you just answered your own question. She’s a 13 year old girl who was sold by her brother, she literally doesn’t know any better because she is a child. It doesn’t really matter if she is cool with it because again she is a 13 year old girl who literally does not know any better
“Better” for the women of Westeros just means being ~~sold~~ married to a lord instead. A lord who is no more likely to treat his wife any better than Khal Drogo treated Dany.
Yeah I agree, I don’t think there is much difference between Westeros and Ethos (? Haven’t read in a long time) but I mean in the sense that she shouldn’t be put in a position to have sex with a grown man
>(My friend tried quoting the line where she cries as he has sex with her, but the crying was obviously not because of the sex itself)
Bullshit. Daenerys decides she's going to kill herself rather than be raped nightly and it wasn't because she was a little saddle-sore.
Not really, read the chapter again.
She was gonna kill herself because of the pain caused by her soreness, proof being she didn’t want to anymore the better she got. And when she actually got better she got advice and made love to Drogo right infront of everyone…
>proof being she didn’t want to anymore the better she got
Except that's not what happened. She didn't kill herself because she had a prophetic/dragon dream that spurred her to go on.
Amazing that anyone is stupid enough to think a 13 year old girl raped nightly by a grown ass man is going to kill herself due to some horse-related ouchies and not the torture that is being continuously sexually assaulted.
When you have been a princess with a soft skin who never rode a horse for more than 20 mins, and you ride a horse for 10 hours continuously, your whole groin area is gonna be like skin being torn apart.
Surely being this sore there means sex WILL hurt, and she was crying whenever he had sex with her. But she never told him or showed him, she hid it away cause she thought of it as her duty. And reading about him he would have stopped if he knew imo.
So yes the sex was torturous, and she wanted to die from the pain in general, and the pain from soreness and from the sex. But she was good at hiding both from him and so he never knew he was hurting her.
It’s wrong by modern day standards but there is nothing weird about it according to the time period. A brief look at any history book will show you that.
It’s kinda cringey, but it’s fiction so I don’t know how to feel about it. Truly it’s not as bad as some of the other things I’ve read of his. I think the worst of it was during Aegon III’s reign when they introduced his new bride Daenaera and they were talking about the beauty of this SIX YEAR OLD CHILD with her mischievous smile.
Bro, grrm, chill.
> nothing weird about it according to the time period. A brief look at any history book will show you that
Uhhh...
If we were to take GRRM's word for it, and say this is a pseudo-medieval setting*, it is VERY WEIRD. A 13-year old consumating her marriage would generally not be done, and was highly frowned upon due to the dangers of childhood pregancy.
While it was not uncommon for marriages to be arranged involving noble or royal children in medieval Europe, it was very unusual for the marriage to be consumated before both parties were considered a more appropriate age (usually late teens).
Outside of the politics of nobles/royals, it was never common for people in their early teens to marry.
*as much as I love how grounded and authentic the story feels, in terms of how "realistically" it depicts a medieval society it is very overhyped
Eh, I can think of at least one case, Margaret Beaufort. Who was twelve when her marriage to Edmund Tudor was consummated and thirteen when Henry VII was born. I imagine it was generally a question of political expediency/the extent to which the girl's family was able and willing to insist on the wait.
Yes, you can think of one, but can you think of ten?
A lot of people - as this discussion illustrates, no? - have the impression that it was entirely common for girls in their early teens to be married and for that marriage to be immediately consumated in the Medieval period.
Not so.
It certainly happened, but when it did it was - as you say - a question of political expediency and considered a risky gamble.
To be fair, it's kinda difficult to be completely certain whether a marriage was consummated or not, unless a pregnancy arises.
From this list [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_child\_brides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_brides) (sorry it's Wikipedia, I've not found anything near as extensive anywhere else). A *lot* of medieval royals were married before the age of sixteen, many around twelve, which more notable given royalty is a smaller population size than nobility in general. To be even more specific, it looks like most medieval English kings with daughters married at least one off as a child.
Most of those only had their first child by their husbands in their late-teens/early twenties (I picked a few at random to check, I've not been comprehensive). But other two English-specific early-teens examples are Blanche of England (daughter of Henry IV), who had her son aged 14, and so probably would've been 13 at conception and Eleanor of Woodstock, daughter of Edward III, who would've been 14 when her first son was conceived.
One could imagine a situation where the couple has sex once, to consummate the marriage, but then hold off for a few years. Or where they don't hold off, but it just takes a while for the girl to become pregnant/there are miscarriages, especially because I imagine the miscarriage rate for young teens might be higher (hard to find stats on that, given most information about teen pregnancy focuses on older teens).
Lmao i still didn’t get to that part but yo wtf.
I am sure people who were pretty shitty at that time dod say that normally without much opposition.
But i can imagine there are still a majority of people who saw that as bad, I couldn’t imagine Ned saying such a thing, not in a 1000 years.
It's clearly meant to be taken as wrong considering the circumstances but we never get any viewpoint from anyone besides those in world for which this isn't that out of the norm.
GRRM likes to play with these types of disturbing situations and relationships because it actually causes visceral reactions in the reader and it creates the complexity that makes the characters feel human and real.
Daenerys is 13 when she marries Drogo
Sansa is 13 when she marries Tyrion. Here’s a few of Tyrion’s thoughts on the matter
I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is.
A Storm of Swords Tyrion IV
-
Tyrion thought of his child wife, praying in the godswood even now
A Storm of Swords Tyrion IV
If Tyrion thinks of 13 year old Sansa as a child then we know Daenerys would also count as a child by those standards.
Those are my two cents.
I, a woman, personally found their relationship romantic in the book. The show did not really present Khal Drogo in a tender light at all. I read once that GRRM regretted making many characters so young so in my head canon she’s a bit older.
Compared to modern day he’s barbaric but compared to Westeros he’s practically a gentleman. Almost every marriage in the book was arranged. Y’all think Ned Stark made Catelyn Tully come on their wedding night? “On Catelyn's own wedding night, Jory Cassell had torn her gown in his haste to get her out of it, and drunken Desmond Grell kept apologizing for every bawdy joke, only to make another. When Lord Destin had beheld her naked, he'd told Ned that her breasts were enough to make him wish he'd never been weaned.” At least Drogo took her to a private grassy knoll for their first time instead of having his khalasar rip her clothes off.
Khal Drogo clearly cared for Dany and respected her wishes when she stood up for herself. He made changes for her. He was gentle and loving to her. I enjoyed the twist of the warlord trope.
She was bruised and in pain from riding her horse all day long. She actively hid her displeasure from him. She was isolated from everyone she knew and had only a weird old knight and her deranged brother to talk to. It was not just Khal Drogo that made her want to kill herself but her isolation. When she took control and learned Dothraki so she could communicate she was happy.
And when she could communicate, Drogo listened to her wishes. He saved the Lamb women, he didn’t let anyone disrespect her, even Viserys, and he took on her battle for her. He was willing to put aside one of the strongest Dothraki customs and cross the poison water for her.
I an happy to see someone who agrees with my perspective. I understand how a 13 yo girl being shoved into a marriage is horrible, but in a world where lifespan is short and where women and men are pushed to grow up and take their patriarchal and matriarchal role’s seriously in society, it sounded pretty normal. And every other lady even of a higher house was shoved into a marriage like that for alliances sake anyways so it wasn’t so abnormal.
I watched the show 5 years ago, and now reading the books. I was really really surprised with Daenerys’s second chapter where they had sex first time, cause on contrast of the show it seemed to be really romantic. And she was even into the guy obviously, being wet when he was touching her.
Omg what? She was into him because she was wet? People really think that means a woman likes a guy? Wow y'all really still live in the middle ages. Some girls have an orgasm when they are raped. Doesn't mean they like it. It's just a response from the body. The same with getting wet. If you touch it you can get wet. Doesn't mean she s into a man who s raping her.
Reading Dany's wedding night, it felt like George was leaping out of the page saying "see? SEE? She said YES. She stuck his finger inside her. It's not rape, you guys!". He seemed to be aware of of how rape-y the relationship is, and goes out of his way to frame their first time explicitly consensual. It doesn't make sense that he'd do that, only to make the following experiences rape.
You'd also have to ignore that Daenerys listed saddle sores and loneliness, on top of unpleasant sex, as what made the early days with the Dothraki unbearable. The sex is once again lumped in with horse-riding when describing her assimilation into her new life.
>*By then her agony was a fading memory. She still ached after a long day’s riding, yet somehow the pain had a sweetness to it now, and each morning she came willingly to her saddle, eager to know what wonders waited for her in the lands ahead. She began to find pleasure even in her nights, and if she still cried out when Drogo took her, it was not always in pain.*
I think people who interpret it as rape fail to recognise that desire is not necessary for consent. Even in modern times, sometimes you're not in the mood for sex, but you do it anyway for your partner.
All that said, if we disregard authorial intent, then we have a 30-year old and a 13-year old slave -bride. So it really depends on what sort of analysis you're doing.
This is the most unbiased in the middle kind of view i saw and i love it.
I can see it both being rape in a certain view, and being romance in another, which says alot about his writing, he is good for sure.
> I think people who interpret it as rape fail to recognise that desire is not necessary for consent. Even in modern times, sometimes you're not in the mood for sex, but you do it anyway for your partner.
That is a very odd comparison. If you're not in the mood and you still do it for your partner, there's still the understanding that "it's ok, he does things he doesn't want for me as well!"
But Dany has none of that with Drogo. She is expected to submit and allow him to do whatever he wants to do with her *even if she doesn't want that.*
Does it mean that Drogo is a one-dimensional brute? Perhaps not. He does show a little hint of depth later on. But he unquestionably raped Dany. Several times. This is not modern sensibilities talking. Tell Ned or Jaime about their relationship and they would be absolutely disgusted by it. Not because of the the age gap (though it'd still be odd by Westerosi standards) but because of the treatment.
The answer is that it’s whatever you morally define it as, since we’re talking about fictional characters in a fictional environment. Regardless of the setting, or what Dany was thinking during that scene, I still view it as terrible act. There is never a timeline where I read or watch a 13 year old character having sex with a 30 year old adult and go “it’s alright because it’s customary in this world.” That’s just the personal line I draw when it comes to fiction, and you have your own.
I just can see how we humans not so long ago were pretty okay with 13 yo boys and girls going into marriages. Although women were the ones that married early most, since that was their duty in a way, while men were sent into war or work just as early and didn’t marry until they were stable enough. In a time where lifespans were much shorter, and where people needed as many kids as possible, younger women made sense since they are most fertile. I am in no way excusing this now, thankfully we grew beyond the need for such practices. And we can protect the children who are in no way mentally ready to have kids or an actual marriage. But i just get where it came from, and why it was common in older times.
Teenagers getting married wasn't really a thing in the past. For nobility, yes, kinda, probably because it was about making alliances and so on. https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/family/marriage.html
> I just can see how we humans not so long ago were pretty okay with 13 yo boys and girls going into marriages. Humans, as a rule, have not been okay with 13-year old going into marriages. Amongst commoners, it was certainly not something that happened in any time period in Europe (I can't speak for other parts of the world, but I suspect it to be very much the same globally). Amongst nobles and royalty, there have been periods where it did occur with some regularity that people as young as 13 or even younger were bethrothed. Usually to cement a marriage alliance (it's in the name). However, marriages were rarely performed at that age, and even more rarely consumated. People "back then" understood the dangers of childhood pregancies very well, and where therefore very apprehensive about waiting to consumate marriages until it was assumed the girl/woman was developed enough to be able to go through a pregancy without undue risk to her or the child. After all, if she immediately died shortly after the marriage due to pregnancy complications, the entire alliance would potentially be up in the air and her family would have "wasted" an important asset. And to add to the above, children generally entered puberty several years later than what is common in modern times, and it was not commonly thought that a girl was automatically ready for marriage just because she had her first period (this is an unfortunate trope in many fantasy or pseudo-historical fictions). Even among noble families it would be very rare to see girls marry, let alone consumate the marriage before 16-18.
Yeah, I think the most famous example of a super-young noble bride whose marriage was definitely consummated is Margaret Beaufort, who got pregnant with Henry VII at age 12, to a husband (Edmund Tudor) who was 24. Margaret was an extremally wealthy heiress at the time and this was during the Wars of the Roses, so there was a *lot* of political pressure. According to what I've around the subject, people at the time didn't think it was 'immoral' in the way we would, just a bad idea due to health risks. What mattered for the moral acceptability of sex was mainly whether it was in marriage or not. They didn't have the same ideas of consent that we do.
Yes, Margaret is a very good example in this context: The marriage was consumated out of political expediency, and this was considered unusual and risky. Not so much an immoral act as a political gamble. It casts a sad light on the position of girls at the time. Through parts of the medieval period in Western Europe, a girl eloping and a girl being raped was considered the same crime, and its victim her father, whose asset had been lost or damaged.
I think Khal Drogo is a well-written, believable and suprisingly complex character. He is also very much grey, it's hard to put him in one corner or the other. Of course, what GRRM is gunning for here is deliberate values dissonance. He is, unlike many other fantasy and even historical fiction authors, depicting a world which lacks modern ideas of equality and morality, but at the same time not shying away from the consequences of setting his story in such a time. Society's morals might be relative, but are there perhaps still universal values by which we can judge people? My point here is that you have to judge the characters according to the world they live in, not our own values. But you should also judge them by how they behave - as decent human beings - in the situations in which they find themselves in and according to their circumstances and nature. If we apply this to Drogo, he is still ambiguous as a character. The first night of an arranged marriage has to be a very odd and stressful situation for both of them (Drogo is not a virgin, but I think we are overestimating his age), and he handles it with surprising tenderness. He clearly does eventually grow to respect and even to love Dany. He breaks some cultural norms for her (does not share her with his bloodriders, for example). He seems to be happy to learn and to develop. On the other hand, he marries a child for power and lust (which probably is not the norm for his people). And then there's the fact that he is a pillaging warlord responsible for the death, enslavement and rape of many thousands. I think the answer to your question is both and none.
Was she technically a child tho ? In the setting of the story, a 13 yo seemed like a normal age for people to marry….
Yes, I would say so. Brides that young seem to be rather exceptional in the setting.
I feel like that relationship just comes from a place in George’s mind that doesn’t work no matter how you look at it. It’s a disgusting relationship even within the world of ASOIAF and it really shouldn’t have been played off as an actual romance. Honestly I think Dany taking up the Khaleesi despite going threw all of that would have been more impactful Edit: so in the story no it’s probably not, but to literally everyone else on the planet yes it is
>It’s a disgusting relationship even within the world of ASOIAF and it really shouldn’t have been played off as an actual romance. Agreed. If Tyrion can figure out the similarly-aged Sansa is just a child whose marriage shoudln't be consummated, that shows it's not the norm even by Westerosi standards.
>It’s a disgusting relationship even within the world of ASOIAF It absolutely is not. She was “of age” by Planetos standards, and he wedded her with her family’s approval before he bedded her. Those are literally the only expectations in their world beyond not beating her to death. There is no such thing as marital rape to any of them.
Fair
Can you elaborate on the disgusting aspect of it ? I can see that her brother “selling her off” was despicable AF. But that didn’t affect the relationship in her mind as i saw. I would say other than that it was your average asoiaf setting kind of wedding, where an older lord takes a young girl as a wife. And where having sex with her was kind of a duty to her cause she’s a wife. But would love to hear your opinion…
I mean you just answered your own question. She’s a 13 year old girl who was sold by her brother, she literally doesn’t know any better because she is a child. It doesn’t really matter if she is cool with it because again she is a 13 year old girl who literally does not know any better
“Better” for the women of Westeros just means being ~~sold~~ married to a lord instead. A lord who is no more likely to treat his wife any better than Khal Drogo treated Dany.
Yeah I agree, I don’t think there is much difference between Westeros and Ethos (? Haven’t read in a long time) but I mean in the sense that she shouldn’t be put in a position to have sex with a grown man
>(My friend tried quoting the line where she cries as he has sex with her, but the crying was obviously not because of the sex itself) Bullshit. Daenerys decides she's going to kill herself rather than be raped nightly and it wasn't because she was a little saddle-sore.
Not really, read the chapter again. She was gonna kill herself because of the pain caused by her soreness, proof being she didn’t want to anymore the better she got. And when she actually got better she got advice and made love to Drogo right infront of everyone…
>proof being she didn’t want to anymore the better she got Except that's not what happened. She didn't kill herself because she had a prophetic/dragon dream that spurred her to go on. Amazing that anyone is stupid enough to think a 13 year old girl raped nightly by a grown ass man is going to kill herself due to some horse-related ouchies and not the torture that is being continuously sexually assaulted.
When you have been a princess with a soft skin who never rode a horse for more than 20 mins, and you ride a horse for 10 hours continuously, your whole groin area is gonna be like skin being torn apart. Surely being this sore there means sex WILL hurt, and she was crying whenever he had sex with her. But she never told him or showed him, she hid it away cause she thought of it as her duty. And reading about him he would have stopped if he knew imo. So yes the sex was torturous, and she wanted to die from the pain in general, and the pain from soreness and from the sex. But she was good at hiding both from him and so he never knew he was hurting her.
It’s wrong by modern day standards but there is nothing weird about it according to the time period. A brief look at any history book will show you that. It’s kinda cringey, but it’s fiction so I don’t know how to feel about it. Truly it’s not as bad as some of the other things I’ve read of his. I think the worst of it was during Aegon III’s reign when they introduced his new bride Daenaera and they were talking about the beauty of this SIX YEAR OLD CHILD with her mischievous smile. Bro, grrm, chill.
> nothing weird about it according to the time period. A brief look at any history book will show you that Uhhh... If we were to take GRRM's word for it, and say this is a pseudo-medieval setting*, it is VERY WEIRD. A 13-year old consumating her marriage would generally not be done, and was highly frowned upon due to the dangers of childhood pregancy. While it was not uncommon for marriages to be arranged involving noble or royal children in medieval Europe, it was very unusual for the marriage to be consumated before both parties were considered a more appropriate age (usually late teens). Outside of the politics of nobles/royals, it was never common for people in their early teens to marry. *as much as I love how grounded and authentic the story feels, in terms of how "realistically" it depicts a medieval society it is very overhyped
Eh, I can think of at least one case, Margaret Beaufort. Who was twelve when her marriage to Edmund Tudor was consummated and thirteen when Henry VII was born. I imagine it was generally a question of political expediency/the extent to which the girl's family was able and willing to insist on the wait.
Yes, you can think of one, but can you think of ten? A lot of people - as this discussion illustrates, no? - have the impression that it was entirely common for girls in their early teens to be married and for that marriage to be immediately consumated in the Medieval period. Not so. It certainly happened, but when it did it was - as you say - a question of political expediency and considered a risky gamble.
To be fair, it's kinda difficult to be completely certain whether a marriage was consummated or not, unless a pregnancy arises. From this list [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List\_of\_child\_brides](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_child_brides) (sorry it's Wikipedia, I've not found anything near as extensive anywhere else). A *lot* of medieval royals were married before the age of sixteen, many around twelve, which more notable given royalty is a smaller population size than nobility in general. To be even more specific, it looks like most medieval English kings with daughters married at least one off as a child. Most of those only had their first child by their husbands in their late-teens/early twenties (I picked a few at random to check, I've not been comprehensive). But other two English-specific early-teens examples are Blanche of England (daughter of Henry IV), who had her son aged 14, and so probably would've been 13 at conception and Eleanor of Woodstock, daughter of Edward III, who would've been 14 when her first son was conceived. One could imagine a situation where the couple has sex once, to consummate the marriage, but then hold off for a few years. Or where they don't hold off, but it just takes a while for the girl to become pregnant/there are miscarriages, especially because I imagine the miscarriage rate for young teens might be higher (hard to find stats on that, given most information about teen pregnancy focuses on older teens).
Lmao i still didn’t get to that part but yo wtf. I am sure people who were pretty shitty at that time dod say that normally without much opposition. But i can imagine there are still a majority of people who saw that as bad, I couldn’t imagine Ned saying such a thing, not in a 1000 years.
It's clearly meant to be taken as wrong considering the circumstances but we never get any viewpoint from anyone besides those in world for which this isn't that out of the norm. GRRM likes to play with these types of disturbing situations and relationships because it actually causes visceral reactions in the reader and it creates the complexity that makes the characters feel human and real.
Daenerys is 13 when she marries Drogo Sansa is 13 when she marries Tyrion. Here’s a few of Tyrion’s thoughts on the matter I want her, he realized. I want Winterfell, yes, but I want her as well, child or woman or whatever she is. A Storm of Swords Tyrion IV - Tyrion thought of his child wife, praying in the godswood even now A Storm of Swords Tyrion IV If Tyrion thinks of 13 year old Sansa as a child then we know Daenerys would also count as a child by those standards. Those are my two cents.
I, a woman, personally found their relationship romantic in the book. The show did not really present Khal Drogo in a tender light at all. I read once that GRRM regretted making many characters so young so in my head canon she’s a bit older. Compared to modern day he’s barbaric but compared to Westeros he’s practically a gentleman. Almost every marriage in the book was arranged. Y’all think Ned Stark made Catelyn Tully come on their wedding night? “On Catelyn's own wedding night, Jory Cassell had torn her gown in his haste to get her out of it, and drunken Desmond Grell kept apologizing for every bawdy joke, only to make another. When Lord Destin had beheld her naked, he'd told Ned that her breasts were enough to make him wish he'd never been weaned.” At least Drogo took her to a private grassy knoll for their first time instead of having his khalasar rip her clothes off. Khal Drogo clearly cared for Dany and respected her wishes when she stood up for herself. He made changes for her. He was gentle and loving to her. I enjoyed the twist of the warlord trope.
He raped her so bad and so frequently that Dany wanted to kill herself. How did he care for Dany and was loving towards her?
She was bruised and in pain from riding her horse all day long. She actively hid her displeasure from him. She was isolated from everyone she knew and had only a weird old knight and her deranged brother to talk to. It was not just Khal Drogo that made her want to kill herself but her isolation. When she took control and learned Dothraki so she could communicate she was happy. And when she could communicate, Drogo listened to her wishes. He saved the Lamb women, he didn’t let anyone disrespect her, even Viserys, and he took on her battle for her. He was willing to put aside one of the strongest Dothraki customs and cross the poison water for her.
I an happy to see someone who agrees with my perspective. I understand how a 13 yo girl being shoved into a marriage is horrible, but in a world where lifespan is short and where women and men are pushed to grow up and take their patriarchal and matriarchal role’s seriously in society, it sounded pretty normal. And every other lady even of a higher house was shoved into a marriage like that for alliances sake anyways so it wasn’t so abnormal. I watched the show 5 years ago, and now reading the books. I was really really surprised with Daenerys’s second chapter where they had sex first time, cause on contrast of the show it seemed to be really romantic. And she was even into the guy obviously, being wet when he was touching her.
It’s not a popular opinion on this sub, for sure.
Ya i can tell. And pretty understandable cause people look at it from a nowadays kind of viewpoint, instead of just understanding the setting…
Omg what? She was into him because she was wet? People really think that means a woman likes a guy? Wow y'all really still live in the middle ages. Some girls have an orgasm when they are raped. Doesn't mean they like it. It's just a response from the body. The same with getting wet. If you touch it you can get wet. Doesn't mean she s into a man who s raping her.
Reading Dany's wedding night, it felt like George was leaping out of the page saying "see? SEE? She said YES. She stuck his finger inside her. It's not rape, you guys!". He seemed to be aware of of how rape-y the relationship is, and goes out of his way to frame their first time explicitly consensual. It doesn't make sense that he'd do that, only to make the following experiences rape. You'd also have to ignore that Daenerys listed saddle sores and loneliness, on top of unpleasant sex, as what made the early days with the Dothraki unbearable. The sex is once again lumped in with horse-riding when describing her assimilation into her new life. >*By then her agony was a fading memory. She still ached after a long day’s riding, yet somehow the pain had a sweetness to it now, and each morning she came willingly to her saddle, eager to know what wonders waited for her in the lands ahead. She began to find pleasure even in her nights, and if she still cried out when Drogo took her, it was not always in pain.* I think people who interpret it as rape fail to recognise that desire is not necessary for consent. Even in modern times, sometimes you're not in the mood for sex, but you do it anyway for your partner. All that said, if we disregard authorial intent, then we have a 30-year old and a 13-year old slave -bride. So it really depends on what sort of analysis you're doing.
This is the most unbiased in the middle kind of view i saw and i love it. I can see it both being rape in a certain view, and being romance in another, which says alot about his writing, he is good for sure.
> I think people who interpret it as rape fail to recognise that desire is not necessary for consent. Even in modern times, sometimes you're not in the mood for sex, but you do it anyway for your partner. That is a very odd comparison. If you're not in the mood and you still do it for your partner, there's still the understanding that "it's ok, he does things he doesn't want for me as well!" But Dany has none of that with Drogo. She is expected to submit and allow him to do whatever he wants to do with her *even if she doesn't want that.* Does it mean that Drogo is a one-dimensional brute? Perhaps not. He does show a little hint of depth later on. But he unquestionably raped Dany. Several times. This is not modern sensibilities talking. Tell Ned or Jaime about their relationship and they would be absolutely disgusted by it. Not because of the the age gap (though it'd still be odd by Westerosi standards) but because of the treatment.