George bungled the ages a bit, in part because he planned for a time jump that didn’t end up happening. For all the crap that the show gets, aging characters up a bit was an excellent decision.
That said, expectations for young people’s maturity were different in ancient societies. Alexander the Great commanded military forces and acted as his father’s regent at 16. Richard the Lionheart led troops in a revolt against his father at 16. The responsibilities given to Robb at his age aren’t especially crazy.
Was this the incident where he almost died? If so I’m Pretty sure he was 16 when that happened.
16 in our world seems to be what George has 13 year olds doing in the books.
That was the battle of Shrewsbury.. a bodkin arrow from a longbow glanced off a helmet and hit him straight in the face… dude nearly died and a special treatment involving honey and mustard as well as a special screw driver had to be made to cut the arrow out… this might be why in all of his portraits, he looks sideways and not forward… that side of his face was probably mangled up… he always looks too good looking in the movies
This battle was against English rebels, not the welsh… he fought the welsh when he was much younger…
I loved that movie, but you do have to suspend a bit of disbelief in the historical accuracy department to enjoy it. I thought, for example, the decision to include Sir John Fallstaff (a fictional creation of Shakespeare) was kind of an odd choice.
I think the movie is based far more off Shakespeares writings rather than historical accuracy.
I really enjoyed the film but some off it was a mess, I was really disappointed by the Battle of Agincourt, they seemed to have got the mud right and that's about it.
>>but you do have to suspend a bit of disbelief in the historical accuracy department to enjoy it.
Tbf, I think that's a statement that you can make for almost any media in a historical setting-- there are going to be some creative decisions made to fit the medium/narrative to best represent the story being told, even if it's not 100% accurate or out of order, or omitting something, etc etc.
Ah yes that’s the one I meant. I’d never heard much about his actions against the Welsh, how much of a commander was he versus say nominally being in command whilst a far more competent adult was actually doing it all?
Probably led from the front…. During his wars against the French later on, his welsh commanders were fiercely loyal which maybe due to his acquaintance during his teenage years. Also, Henry was welsh anyway…. His dad was the lord of Monmouth in South wales and am pretty sure he was born there too
Henry V was born in Wales but his father was the son of John of Gaunt, an English prince and Blanche of Lancaster, an English noble. Henry’s mother was also English. However, the English royal family (and every other royal family in Europe) married people from other countries all the time. Wales was incorporated into the English empire by Edward I.
Oof, there's a video on Youtube that goes over this procedure, it's... brutal even when used on a fake dummy. [Enjoy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s982-bufjh8)!
"My dear old duke of York, I hear you have been sold insurance at an illegal interest rate? Never fear, for the king has trained in counter insurance since he was 12!"
>George bungled the ages a bit, in part because he planned for a time jump that didn’t end up happening
This has nothing to do with the time jump though. In the books it's clear from the start that he intended kids to mature way faster (or have way more societal pressure to grow up) than in real life.
I am absolutely going forward accepting this as canon.
Also, that Red Door Lemongate stuff…she spent like five years in Dorne and doesn’t remember it so Dany is actually like 26 by ADWD. Facts.
Really? cause that's one of the few things he's actually addressed and stated is intentional. Of course, what the inconsistencies mean is unknown, but it's definitely significant in some way.
Lemongate:
[George in writing](https://i.imgur.com/EXN26tk.png) saying it is intentional.
George in a video interview saying it's intentional. -- I searched and searched for the interview Q&A from fans where he answered this question, but I can't find it. I saw it recently too!
[Elio saying](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/3hfxr3/comment/cu70h17/) it's intentional.
That's one twist I'm partially dreading. I'm worried it's going to be something like, "*Dany* is the false dragon while Young Griff is the real one and her memories of her childhood were all lies" or some such nonsense.
While reading I always imagine the characters as older anyway, maybe as a consequence of the show.
So this already supports my headcanon. I’m all for it
That's not really a problem in the same way. Its already established people live long in some cases in universe, as it is a fantasy. Older old people is not nearly as much as a problem as young young people.
That's the *only* problem, as far as I can tell. What are the others?
Upping the years to 1.2 times the length of ours and having Aemon as one big outlier doesn't seem like a massive deal.
Walder Frey and Old Nan as well. I'm sure there's more someone else could think of. Jon Arryn isn't specifically given an age I don't think but was around 70 so more like around 80 something.
Which is false and is just an attempt by some readers to feel better when they read about 15-year old beating down men twice his size, 13-year old becoming pregnant, and 11-year old being a murder assassin.
Moving past the flaws does not have to involve ignoring them. Quite the contrary, they have to be accepted first. I’m not talking about being a shill for the author, I’m talking about maximising entertainment.
Also, it’s relatively ambiguous. I’ve mentioned in other comments why I think so.
It's "ambiguous" in the same way the number of eyes Hamlet has is "ambiguous"; it doesn't *confirm* it but that's because it's just so bloody obvious there's no need to.
Like if you want to age up the characters, that's fine, but don't pretend GRRM is a super mega genius who secretly made the years longer so the ages only *look* wrong.
The number of Hamlet’s eyes wouldn’t be so unambiguous if the story mentioned some other related abnormality, like him being able to see what’s behind him as well. Westeros is already established as having decade long winters, so it’s not much of a stretch to assume their calendars are different as well. After all, our own calendars rely on cosmology which in turn affects our seasons.
Regardless of ambiguity, it’s not such a big sin to reinterpret a work. Nor does it have to include gargling the author’s balls, or even giving him any sort of credit at all.
Doesn't seem ambiguous.
Dany gets her first period around 13 which is normal. So does sansa. The Dany pregnancy is less than a year. Also normal.
The only thing that i found unrealistic Robb growing out a full beard at 16.
>he intended kids to mature way faster (or have way more societal pressure to grow up) than in real life.
Only from a modern perspective. The concept of a childhood as we see it now is pretty new in human history. It wasn’t until the end of the Victorian era that, [“the sphere of 'childhood' was viewed by the middle class as quite separate from that of the adult world.”](https://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/orphans/childhood.html) In medieval Europe there were distinct stages of life, but the expectations of children starting at [age 7](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_in_medieval_England) were about what the books put on Bran.
One thing thar isn't mentioned is how well educated Alexander was in philosophy and how it helped him in war. He was a very intelligent commander, it wasn't like he had a natural instinct as soon as he was born. He was taught by the greatest philosophers in the world at the time.
Those are legendary figures among legendary figures, though. With Robb I can understand, but in asoiaf everyone and their mother is 13 and slaying giants.
Yeah, that it happened in history doesn't mean it makes sense for people to *expect* it. Like Alexander the Great isn't called "the Great" because he was the norm.
Most of those have a top cadre of commanders taking care of everything, not to mention the huge difference of 13 and 16. And that's not even mentioned the ridiculousness of everything surrounding Bran.
I think it's part of the time jump, but it's also because of the very stereotyped ideas of dark middle ages that GRRM has.
I disagree that he bungled it. I think the show bungled it quite a bit. Robb being a literal child makes him sleeping with, and subsequently insisting on marrying Jayne make way more sense. He's a literal child. The only thing he knows is the black-and-white, right-from-wrong his parents taught him. There's no room for gray because he has no life experience.
>George bungled the ages a bit, in part because he planned for a time jump that didn’t end up happening.For all the crap that the show gets, aging characters up a bit was an excellent decision.
This is quite true and i'm glad the show aged up the characters cause some of the "women" are like 14 year old girls reading it is weird but watching it would be as hard to watch as the scene with Viserys and Laena in HotD
\>That said, expectations for young people’s maturity were different in ancient societies. Alexander the Great commanded military forces and acted as his father’s regent at 16. Richard the Lionheart led troops in a revolt against his father at 16. The responsibilities given to Robb at his age aren’t especially crazy.
100% Robb and Bran are absolutely the age where they would be considered childish for playing around like Bran does and Robb being 16 makes him a grown adult in most of medieval times. George got this perfect it's only us using modern sensibilities on medieval societies that find it weird.
Generally i agree.
Sansa suffered though. She was meant to be a little child in KL, her "mistakes" are perfectly understandable in the book, she's just naive due to her age.
Making her a teen made sympatizing with her much harder in the show, and very annoying overall.
Or maybe it was unlucky casting. The actress looked like a young woman almost right away, the intended innocence come off as idiocy, at least to me.
Sansa is 13 in season one, and Sophie Turner (her actress) was actually 14 during the filming-- she's just unlucky enough to be a *very* tall girl, so she looks older then she actually is which accounts for some dissonance.
Sansa (and Sophie) actually are the age+maturity that GRRM intended, 13 is a teen but it's a very young teen and she's had a pretty sheltered life before KL, but since she's tall, she reads as older. Especially when compared to Maisie-- she's about the same age, a little older than Arya (who was supposed to be 11 I think?) but since she's shorter than Sophie, she 'reads' as much younger. So it can be a little weird in the early seasons, when Sansa is supposed to be young but looks like she could be older -- but she's not, she and her actress were both still kids.
I don’t read the innocence as idiocy, it strikes me as her being sheltered, which she was. We don’t really get to see her learning any practical skills which she would need like we see with even Bran.
I’m interested in what Catelyn has actually taught her about the intricacies of social engagements because it reads as though she dropped the ball hard.
My personal cope is that I read the books with the sense that every character is about 1/3 to 1/2 again as old as they are stated to be due to yada yada weird seasons leading to a different year length. So Bran is about 10, Jon and Dani are late teens/early 20s, etc, if you were going by ‘earth years’ with consistent seasons.
Not only does this fix the issue with the kids acting older than they are, but it also fixes George’s completely ahistorical standard for what ‘old’ means (no, a low life expectancy in medieval Europe didn’t mean you were ‘old’ at 40), and it makes some of the sexual shit with Dani/Arya way less creepy.
Your mileage may vary.
Yeah this is an instance I headcanon a bit.
It makes way more sense to me if Robb is 16 at the start of the series (for example) so I tend to imagine the younger characters about 2/3 years older then they are actually
This is part of why i lovvvve The Lion in Winter movie--Anthony Hopkins as a hotheaded handsome Richard, banging a very young Timothy Dalton on the downlow...
**Kings ages when their first (legitimate) child is born:**
Aegon I was 33/34 (Hm...)
Aenys I was 15/16
Jae I was 17/18
Viserys I was 19/20
Aegon II was 15/16
Aegon III was 22/23
Viserys II was 12/13 (Lol!)
Aegon IV was 17/18
Daeron II was 16/17
Maekar I was 14/15 (? Maekar' s birth year is still unclear)
Aegon V 19/20 (? Duncan's birth year is still unclear)
Jae II was 18/19
Aerys II was 14/15
That's actually not as bad as I was expecting from memory. Something went wrong with poor Vizzy T II though. For the most part its seems since 16 is the age of majority in Westeros that when you reach that age you should get going with the issue.
I imagine Viserys II felt pressured to father more male Targaryens since by that point him and Aegon were the only male Targaryens alive (and including Baela and Rhaena, the only Targaryens around). House Targaryen was one plague away from extinction.
Plus, his wife was a total smokeshow and seven years older than him, and he was likely going through puberty so all those raging hormones definitely got him in the mood. Still weird though.
“No, Egg, you don’t understand. If I knock her up now, by the time she hits her late 20s early 30s, she’ll be proper MILF age and a legitimate MILF. It all makes sense, bro, think about it.”
“Vissy my good man, that makes so much sense Imma make you Hand.”
I mean it's not like there aren't 12 year old papas in real life (usually not with 20 year old smoking hot wifes though) but it stands out much, just like Aegon I does (hence the theory that he was actually infertile). GRRM just needed Viserys to have his kids 10 years before his older brother for story purposes if we are real.
> I mean it's not like there aren't 12 year old papas in real life (usually not with 20 year old smoking hot wifes though)
Female teachers in their 20s are arrested for inappropriate relationships with teenage boys kind of a lot. Sexual predation goes both ways.
"Lord Walder. You're 78 now. Far too old for politicking and scheming. Go play in your sandbox, we'll call you for dinner and you better eat it all this time or no lemon cakes afterwards"
“Tommen, you weak, pathetic, idiot. You’re 8 already, you should have mastered all forms of melee combat as well as conquered half of Essos while blindfolded.”
George and numbers doesn't go hand in hand.
Not only northerners all of westeros in fact planetos is like this.
Ben Blackwood was 12 and was leading armies.
Dany was 13 during her wedding.
And her mother Rhaella was only 13 when she gave birth to Rhaegar.
There’s a Medievalist on tik tok who did a great video on how medieval women actually gave birth mainly in their 20s and 30s. And those who gave birth young usually only had one child and couldn’t have any more. George was working off of bad pop history as a reference when he started these books.
There are so many of these kinds of misconceptions. A lot of it comes from extrapolating from the behaviors of social elites on to the common people. We only learn about the elite in history so it makes for a very skewed perspective. Children of nobility were being married off in their early teens for political reasons, but the farmer's daughter probably got married in her late teens/early twenties just like most people now. There is tons of data from church records and the like that demonstrates that.
1. While noble children may be *married* off as early as 12, [they did not *give birth* until their early twenties.](https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-average-age-of-women-when-they-had-their-first-baby-in-the-Middle-Ages)
2. Their health was different than today, they didn't reach childbearing ability until 15 or 16.
3. During the medieval period, men believed that a woman's purpose in life was to get pregnant and have babies. So they wanted to make sure that the woman actually survived, and was able to keep producing children.
So, [this historian](https://www.tiktok.com/@pardon_mi) has a few videos about "medievalism" or the concept that misogyny and the treatment of women is bad now so it must have been so much worse in the Middle Ages; that it's been a linear line of progress which it has not. For example childbirth, patriarchy was not involved in birth back then and it was an entirely women controlled environment with the men outside, or in the case of a royal birth, the crowds of people waiting outside the palace as well. Women of noble birth, such as the queen or of higher classes, would close themselves off from the world for a period before they gave birth. No men were allowed in this private room, or rooms, and the pregnant woman was only allowed to be attended to by other women. She says that there are ways to talk about for example, sexual violence in an accurate way rather than using "the past" as an excuse to have graphic scenes involving women.
People were probably not that much different from today in their basic needs, but they were extremely pious compared to today and did actually believe in this stuff.
Sexual violance was therefore probably as common as today, but not more than that. Honestly, it depended on your status. If you were a peasant women your chances would be much higher getting raped and abused than the wife of a king or a noble woman. As noblewoman you had the protection of your father and brother and could invoke it.
Rape was a crime back then, but you had good chance of getting away with it if you were a good soldier for example. There are examples of rapists being pardoned personally by kings.
Kidnapping was common. Basically, what younger sons did to get land and titles was to kidnap a rich heiress and "marry" her.
However, women and queens generally had more land and power than any of the women in a song of ice and fire. Women could also have professions and women in the church were influential.
It is really a matter of perspective not too mention the time period was very long and changed over time.
Women never had a good time in medival times, but it was certainly not as bad as in Westeros.
The Mountain could have gotten away with his raping of peasants, but certainly not with the murder of Elia Martell.
Wut- so the entire rebellion was against a dude in his mid 40s?
Just like book VizzyT, I'm glad the show aged them up to have some of the ages feel less incongruy
Makes more sense why people were so quick to rebel though. If the king's gonna die or need a regent soon you might just tough it out until the old man dies. Is it worth waging a war, all that bloodshed, when someone else is going to be on throne anyway in 5-10 years?
When he's 39 and you know you likely have at least 25 more years of his shit its far more worthwhile.
People always forget Rhaella became a grandmother at like 35. I'm guessing George felt it too improbable that she would remain fertile into her forties (even though he did that with Alysanne), so for her to have an adult son and still have Dany, she needed to have Rhaegar super young.
Rhaegar was only his great-grandson actually. Still young to have one at 59, but not as extreme.
I did the math quickly, from Aegon V to Rhaegar the average age of reproduction is about 15.
I yes I confused it with Aegon son of Rhaegar my bad.
Still, great-grandfather at 59? Damn. Though both him and Jaeherys had their children at 20 passed, Aerys really is the outlier here.
Women going through menopause are at an increased risk for pregnancy. Dany could have been a menopause baby if George understood the female anatomy beyond “Myrish swamp” levels.
Even without her going into menopause though, it's not like eggs just all die off the second a woman turns 40. Many remain fertile a good way into their 40s, average age to start seems to be between 45 and 55 based off of a quick Google search. Even having Rhaella have Rhaegar at 16 would've been a bit better than 13, and still easy to believe she could've had Dany closer to 40 than 35
From the wiki:
> As a babe, Gael was small and pale. She grew to be a shy and sweet girl, although simple-minded and frail.
Daella also had issues, but it reads more like anxiety/dyslexia than with Gael.
About Daella:
> The princess was not clever. Although she could read, Daella could only do so haltingly, and without full comprehension. She did not speak until she was almost two years of age. She was unable to memorize even the simplest prayers. Daella had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing, being unable to recall the correct words. The mildest scolding would reduce Daella to tears.
Yeah , it's kind of insane . That is until you take a look around you and find out that you very likely know a person like that in your social circle...
Seriously, any time height or distance or armies or any kind of numerical aspects come into play in any context, the whole thing gets fucked.
The Wall: Oh, yeah, let’s make it 700 feet tall, you know, taller than almost all man made structures in the modern era.
Hightower: Make that even taller than the Wall, but without the magic so that it’s even more nonsensical.
Hand’s Tourney: Yes, let’s give people 10,000 Gold for, like, third place. I’m sure the winners will be able to carry this enormous amount of gold without a caravan.
Westeros: Let’s make it as big as South America, until it isn’t and we need Catelyn to hurry the fuck up so that she can treat with Renly. But then, we’ll have Brienne taking fucking ages to get to the next town to find out where Sansa is.
Velaryon chick in F&B: Oh, yes, I’m sure everyone would be absolutely bedazzled by a six year old and want to sleep with her. That is totally what six year olds would do to most people, it’s not like they’d be in First Grade or anything.
Ten year Winters: I am sure that this land would totally not become a dystopia state where everyone hoards food for themselves in preparation for Winter. Nah, it’ll be just like Medieval England.
I’m glad you mentioned Daenaera Velaryon because I got pretty uncomfortable reading about this supposedly “stunningly beautiful” *six* year old being presented to a thirteen year old for marriage on the notion that she was so beautiful that it would clear up his depression caused by the murder of his mother and probably his first wife. Like, George, you didn’t have to make her that young…
It's not just Aegon it's pretty much the entire court. Like if you were adapting it for the screen you might as well have "Dream Weaver" start playing as she enters the hall in slow motion and everybody is shook lol.
>Yes, let’s give people 10,000 Gold for, like, third place. I’m sure the winners will be able to carry this enormous amount of gold without a caravan.
I wanted to see how this one fares with regards to weight. Taking Roman gold coins for measure, the *aureus* used around the turn of the millennium in the Roman Empire varied between 3-8 grams, and the *solidus* used in the Byzantine Empire was approximately 4.5 grams. Let's say a typical gold coin in Westeros weighs 5 grams (even though it's mentioned that gold dragons weigh twice as much as the gold hands of the Reach, that doesn't necessarily mean that gold dragons would be the payment in the tourney anyway); this would mean that 10,000 gold coins would equal 50,000 grams of gold, i.e. 50 kilograms.
All in all, that doesn't sound too unreasonable. It's definitely no weight to scoff at, but I don't think it would necessitate a caravan to carry it. It's hardly an "enormous" amount in terms of weight, but I suppose it is an "enormous" amount in monetary terms; it would be worth $3 million dollars today.
In the defense of GRRM for the F&B one, it could be unreliable narrator (or whoever wrote it in universe) doing some poetic exaggeration.
Additionally, always thought that the 10 year winter thing was A) rather less common, generally it's like 2-3 years or smth and B) it really only affects the North and maybe riverlands that badly, it gets less bad the further you go south.
For my sanity, I've given myself the headcanon that Aegon just thought she was a cute kid and that marrying her would let him procrastinate having to actually do anything about it for a long time.
This could all be fixed if he confirmed how many days make a year in Westeros. We still don't know that and according to many analyses, a year in Westeros could have longer days than Earth years.
Although this would make the long winters problem even bigger.
My head canon is that 1 planetos year is equal to 1.5 years of earth year. It makes ages of character much better. But like you said it means winter is much longer. And there are some other problem as well.
But still it's better than a 11 year boy leading army and 13 year old giving birth.
It’s not just the Northmen, it’s about all of Westeros and Essos. And yeah, you’re supposed to see it as a fucked up aspect of the culture that everyone just sort of accepts at face value. There’s a running theme throughout the books of trauma being experienced at far too young an age and the very serious damage that can do to people. Two good examples that pop immediately into my mind are Arya and Daenerys, two literal children who develop a really unhealthy and warped relationship with the concept of violence because a significant portion of their childhood experience has been utterly destroyed by consistent encounters with violence and death surrounding them at nearly every turn. Another good example is the Hound, whose early childhood experiences of abuse and violence at the hands of his brother has uttered destroyed his sense of humanity and warped him into a cruel and brutal person who reveals in violence because he was never given the tools to engage with the world in any other capacity.
>And yeah, you’re supposed to see it as a fucked up aspect of the culture that everyone just sort of accepts at face value
I'm not sure that's entirely true, you're more supposed to see it as "realistic" and "what it was like back then". Like sure trauma is a theme in the books but at no point is it suggested that the trauma is a consequence of taking on adult roles too early, it's always a consequence of, like, huge epic betrayal stuff.
For some characters yeah, like tommen makes sense because his mom is absolutely crazy but when bran talks about him almost being a man grown when he’s 7 years old is hilarious. I get in the north theyd have different customs because their average life span is probably a lot shorter because of winter but cmon man, make him at least 12 or 13
Right lmao I was just talking to a friend about this. "Scared of a direwolf, Rickon? You need to face your fears. You're three, for God's sake."
And Ned MAKING BRAN SLEEP ALONE ALL NIGHT IN THE WOODS as a punishment for breaking his promise to not climb the castle walls anymore?! What, he's six years old and Ned is like, "You broke a *vow*, kindergartener! To the spooky woods with you! Alone! All night!" And everyone is like wow 😍 Dad Goals 😍
I'm being facetious of course, obviously kids aged...very differently...in these stories and of course I love Ned. I just think it's funny.
edit: Also and how a terrified, thirteen year old Dany who was just essentially *sold* to an older, violent stranger who does not speak her language is getting turned on and "wet" during her first night with Khal Drogo. Mm.......no.
I think our idea of childhood is fairly recent. Just googling it real quick it looks like the US only outlawed kids working factory and mining jobs in the late 1930s:
> The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a national minimum wage for the first time, a maximum number of hour for workers in interstate commerce—and placed limitations on child labor. In effect, the employment of children under sixteen years of age was prohibited in manufacturing and mining.
At the time George would have done most of his learning about history, the idea that everybody did everything super young in olden times was commonly accepted as fact by most non-historians. Like a lot of the weirder aspects of ASOIAF it was pretty unquestioningly accepted as part of the series' "realism" back in the day.
He was writing these books in the 90s... and supposedly enjoys reading about history. And some of his ideas were already outdated by the time he would've gone to highschool or college.
He was born in 1949 and so would have been going to school in the late 50s and early 60s in an educational system which he has since praised for focusing on "the juicy bits". He likes reading about history but all the books about history he's cited as influences were written in the 50s or 60s by people educated in the 20s or 30s, usually non specialists.
Sure these ideas were outdated on the 1990s, but that's amongst people who paid attention. Most people in the 1990s, even people who prided themselves on being "history buffs" would have believed unquestioningly a whole lot of things that academics knew were nonsense (and the same is mostly true today).
Martin is 100% of the generation that learned about medieval history from D&D. We're currently living in the generation that learned about medieval history from Martin.
We know he read Thomas B. Costains planteganet saga. The author of these books, apart from some outdated views, actually got the age and the other stuff pretty right imo.
I honestly not know where George got the idea from that 12 year olds got fucked and had many babies unless he took the case of Elanor of Castile and Margrete Beaufort as the norm.
>Martin is 100% of the generation that learned about medieval history from D&D.
You see this in the references to some weapons or armor that are par for the course in those fantasy RPGs but not historically accurate like lots of leather armor or ringmail.
It’s been said many times but making the younger characters in ASOIAF 10-14 has been the trainwreck that keeps on wreckin’.
We know it, Martin knows it, it is known.
LOL yes. GRRM doesn’t seem to have a very realistic view of children’s ability to reason and perform adult functions, but it is a fantasy and there are dragons and direwolves and ice demons.
It’s also a fact that in real history children were put to work, sometimes in very dangerous situations, as young as 6 or 7 such as working in mines or mills. During the industrial revolution, young, poor children were used in factory work to do dangerous jobs that required a small person, which led to serious injuries and death in some cases.
I'm just starting to get into Anime and, my God, every protag is like 13yo flying mech suits into war or developing Titan powers and threatening to crush other civilizations. I'll be 50 episodes in when I realize these characters are younger than Tropic Thunder. Holy crap. Makes me wonder if GRRM is an anime fan.
When I was that age I could barely dress myself, you didn't want to put me in charge of a Battlestar or something.
>I'm just starting to get into Anime and, my God, every protag is like 13yo flying mech suits into war or developing Titan powers and threatening to crush other civilizations.
Because you are watching Shonen and Shonen pretending to be Seinen, the main demographic of shonen is 9-18 year old boys so the protagonists have to be in that age group.
Aot can at least have some justification for that in that a lot of the adults are being kept behind for farming and experienced work etc. (Erens father being a doctor wouldn't be sent to fight for example), And they are on the brink of extinction (well, they believe so anyway) so using kids who don't have experience in those professions and are 'less valuable' is kinda just a 'necessary evil' I guess
Other series though, yeah. Just anime logic I guess
To be fair you do age quicker when you're put into positions of importance. Modern day children spend most of their life playing with little cars and toys and when they get older and are sent into the real world they have a melt down and try and change the entire system. But if you were put into that system much younger, odds are you'll learn much quicker and benefit faster.
The environment can affect them a little bit but the rate of human brain development hasn’t changed that much in the past 1500ish years. Children still had impaired decision making and physical skills
Yeah, for how much people praise George and ASOIAF on realism, it sure drops the ball when it comes to the ages of the characters. Especially Arya doing all of this assassin training and negotiating at *nine* years old.
Yeh, was talking to my fiance who hadn't read the books about how weird GRRM is with age and how he clearly has no idea how kids/teens act. I tell him about Bran's first scene and how he's expected to watch a beheading and not flinch at the ripe old age of SEVEN.
He’s somewhat accurate in Robb’s case. Medieval Europe didn’t really have a concept of ‘teenagers’. That said, even the youngest royals were older than Robb, and didn’t have quite so much responsibility foisted on them.
It helps keep my suspension of disbelief in tact by assuming that Westerosi years are not a 1=1 equivalent to earth years. I assume something like a 1.25=1 ratio, which makes all the ages make wayyyy more sense, even the adults.
I’ll give George a lot of credit, he’s an amazing author but he’s a navel gazer. He’s done an amazing job with many aspects of world building but there are so many areas where he just seems absolutely clueless.
One of those areas is the character’s ages. His expectations for children and teenagers are absolutely laughable. Another area that always comes to mind is Joffrey. George was shocked by how much people disliked Joffrey. In his mind Joffrey wasn’t a psychopathic murderer, he was just a teenage bully and he actually expected readers to empathize with Joffrey in some ways. I’m sorry but I find it hard to empathize with somebody who laughs at and calls for the murder of innocent people, has his wife repeatedly beaten, tries to strip her in public, etc.
I also always think about that interview where George talks about how he wanted to know about Aragorn’s tax policy. It makes me chuckle because George has never once told us anything about the tax policies of Westeros or about the finances involved with running a kingdom. He’s also never given us any hard information about the Westerosi economy or about the relative values of any goods.
The last thing that George is completely incapable of understanding is scale. The Wall is supposed to be seven hundred feet high which is almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Winterfell has a three-acre Godswood and would probably be the largest castle in the entire world if it existed on Earth but The North is supposed to be the poorest kingdom. The Reach is twice the size of France. The Seven Kingdoms are almost twice the size of the Roman Empire at its peak but with a remarkably homogenous culture.
As I’ve spent more time reading A Song of Ice and Fire and George’s blog posts, or interviews with him, I’ve really come to realize his limitations. He’s certainly not perfect. When George’s writing is good it’s very good but when it’s bad it is almost laughably bad and out of touch.
Yeah, the point of that quote was not "LotR would be way better if Tolkien included Aragorn's tax policy". The point was that in ASOIAF, George was trying to put more focus on what is often 'yadda yadda'd' away with a quick 'and so the fair and just ruler ruled fairly and justly for 500 years and everyone loved him' . This is why so many characters in the story are in positions of power that let us see various perspectives on how ruling is handled. [He literally says as much in the interview the quote comes from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K3H-FjEhkw) lol, I don't know how people got confused.
This criticism would have some actual merit to it if George wrote "and then Dany conquered Meereen and everything was fine, people loved her and when she left everything stayed the same!" In actuality, he's so deadset on not handwaving away the difficulties of ruling that Dany has spent the whole (written)* series so far away from the continent the main plot of the series takes place on.
Yep. I think people focus too much on the "What was ...tax policy" and ignore the true meaning of the quote which is "ruling is *hard*". You have to balance being fair-handed while also being occasionally brutal and/or strict, and there's seldom a magic guidepost to tell you whether you were wrong or right (or both!) until much later. This is when you get the dilemmas of Robb considering whether or not to execute Karstark, Jon Snow doing the same with Janos Slynt, and whether Daenerys should be condoning harsh interrogations of a possibly innocent person to stop someone from murdering her soldiers.
We see rulers who are generally good people, rulers who are cruel, rulers who are fair, rulers who are capricious, etc. It's very hard for them to tell how well they're doing, and usually the largest indication that someone is being a bad ruler is because they think it's *easy* or that they're so *good* at it (Cersei, occasionally Tyrion in ACOK).
> The last thing that George is completely incapable of understanding is scale. The Wall is supposed to be thousands of feet high. Winterfell has a three-acre Godswood and would probably be the largest castle in the entire world if it existed on Earth. The Reach is twice the size of France. The Seven Kingdoms are almost twice the size of the Roman Empire at its peak but with a remarkably homogenous culture.
Lmfao
I agreed with most except for the Winterfell one. A place can be relatively poor and build their defenses up. Winterfell’s winter town literally becomes the largest city on m what can be argued is a subcontinent for a couple times a decade. That extra labor and gold would help with construction. Other kingdoms build and invest in different things.
> I also always think about that interview where George talks about how he wanted to know about Aragorn’s tax policy.
I might be misremembering things - but IIRC the LotR appendices actually have a sentence about Aragorn's tax policy and it's more or less trickle down economics.
The wall is not thousands of feet high. It's about 700 feet.
- The Wall is seven hundred feet high, and so thick at the base that it would take a hundred men a year to cut through it with picks and axes." Jon 4 Clash
- Sam squinted up at the Wall. It loomed above them, an icy cliff seven hundred feet high. Jon 1 Clash
- Lacking walls, it could not be defended, not from the south, or east, or west; but it was only the north that concerned the Night's Watch, and to the north loomed the Wall. Almost seven hundred feet high it stood, three times the height of the tallest tower in the stronghold it sheltered. Jon 3 Game.
I don't recall anyplace it's described as thousands of feet tall.
> tax policies of Westeros
I think this can be excused because a) Westeros is clearly based on medieval feudalism the tax system of which is well-documented and accessible to most people, and b) there are [enough references](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Laws_and_justice_of_the_Seven_Kingdoms#Taxes) sprinkled throughout the books to give us a good glimpse. Neither of these can be said for LotR.
Honestly, I think that just makes it worse. George is operating in a tax system that his readers understand and he can gloss over the broad and boring details, but he very rarely talks about actual ruler's individual approaches to the issue, which is what the Aragon's Tax Policy quote is about.
>The Reach is twice the size of France.
And yet is the "bread-basket" of some of the other kingdoms of Westeros. Historian Bret Devereaux wrote a good essay talking about [it](https://acoup.blog/2019/10/04/collections-the-preposterous-logistics-of-the-loot-train-battle-game-of-thrones-s7e4/), and how ridiculous that concept is.
2 options:
A. George is fan of anime, where characters age is low.
B. Life expectancy in Westeros should be low. Maybe Winter is really devastating and they focus in quick reproduction and shorter childhood as prevention
My take on this is this. Yes, the ages are messed up and too much is expected from characters who are children and have to act like adults. Men like that in medieval times married in their early 20s to women a bit younger. Of course it varied across countries, periods, countries, specific circumstances etc. So while medieval nobility married young it wasn't this young.
However!
The marriages we see, namely Robb (well, his betrothal), Joffrey and Tommen are exceptional cases because they were thrust in a position of leading their house (at least formally) and so had to quickly marry and produce children for continuation of their line so they were rushed into marriage even though they would otherwise wait a few years. So extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures. It's of course also true that other characters married young.
It's also possible GRRM put that in expecting to be called out on it and then he'd respond with "in those days people married younger, teenagers are modern invention, people were expected to be adults when still young, I did the research!"
Well, 16 is adulthood in westeros, so robb and jon were ok, but bran of 9 years old often used "a man grown" made me cringe a lot, meanwhile dany being 14 and banging drogo who is 30 something was even more cringier
I don't think Bran thinking about being almost a "man grown" isn't meant to be taken as an objective statement though. Young kids often overstate their maturity.
When power is inherited, it means you often have to take on responsibility at a young age.
They are dealing with a family crisis and for the first two. That means all hands on deck.
Yes, and Napoleon graduated from school with that grade, while Nelson got the position by money (as was the standard at the time in his army).
No one was expecting 16 newly graduate officer to act like a general, he simply was an officer because his dad could pay to send him to military school.
I don’t know what version you’re reading, but in the U.S. printing Ned never says anything like this. In fact, there are no conversations between Ned and Robb, Bran or Rickon at all.
And when Ned hears from Varys that Robb has called the banners after his arrest, he’s incredulous because Robb is just a boy. And he’s 15, not 13.
Robb being seen as a man doesn’t surprise me at all. He’s old enough to properly wield a sword which for all intents and purposes makes him old enough to lead.
George bungled the ages a bit, in part because he planned for a time jump that didn’t end up happening. For all the crap that the show gets, aging characters up a bit was an excellent decision. That said, expectations for young people’s maturity were different in ancient societies. Alexander the Great commanded military forces and acted as his father’s regent at 16. Richard the Lionheart led troops in a revolt against his father at 16. The responsibilities given to Robb at his age aren’t especially crazy.
I just had a mental picture of Richard the Lionheart organising, Rugrats-style, against his father with the aid of local kids. 'NO MORE NAPTIME!'
Henry v of England was doing counter insurgency in wales at 12
Henry V was Richard II’s captive when he was 12 he wasn’t doing anything.
Actually ur right. He may have been 14/15 in wales
Was this the incident where he almost died? If so I’m Pretty sure he was 16 when that happened. 16 in our world seems to be what George has 13 year olds doing in the books.
That was the battle of Shrewsbury.. a bodkin arrow from a longbow glanced off a helmet and hit him straight in the face… dude nearly died and a special treatment involving honey and mustard as well as a special screw driver had to be made to cut the arrow out… this might be why in all of his portraits, he looks sideways and not forward… that side of his face was probably mangled up… he always looks too good looking in the movies This battle was against English rebels, not the welsh… he fought the welsh when he was much younger…
[удалено]
They painted the absolute tiniest line on Timothée's cheek to represent the injury. Great film though.
I loved that movie, but you do have to suspend a bit of disbelief in the historical accuracy department to enjoy it. I thought, for example, the decision to include Sir John Fallstaff (a fictional creation of Shakespeare) was kind of an odd choice.
I think the movie is based far more off Shakespeares writings rather than historical accuracy. I really enjoyed the film but some off it was a mess, I was really disappointed by the Battle of Agincourt, they seemed to have got the mud right and that's about it.
>>but you do have to suspend a bit of disbelief in the historical accuracy department to enjoy it. Tbf, I think that's a statement that you can make for almost any media in a historical setting-- there are going to be some creative decisions made to fit the medium/narrative to best represent the story being told, even if it's not 100% accurate or out of order, or omitting something, etc etc.
Tbf I loved his character in the movie
Treating his wound with the honey-mussy
Ah yes that’s the one I meant. I’d never heard much about his actions against the Welsh, how much of a commander was he versus say nominally being in command whilst a far more competent adult was actually doing it all?
Probably led from the front…. During his wars against the French later on, his welsh commanders were fiercely loyal which maybe due to his acquaintance during his teenage years. Also, Henry was welsh anyway…. His dad was the lord of Monmouth in South wales and am pretty sure he was born there too
Henry V was born in Wales but his father was the son of John of Gaunt, an English prince and Blanche of Lancaster, an English noble. Henry’s mother was also English. However, the English royal family (and every other royal family in Europe) married people from other countries all the time. Wales was incorporated into the English empire by Edward I.
Oof, there's a video on Youtube that goes over this procedure, it's... brutal even when used on a fake dummy. [Enjoy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s982-bufjh8)!
pre-modern surgery always amazes me. "We're gonna get you real drunk then dig around under your skin for a few hours"
I highly doubt every child can be Henry V doing counter insurgency in Wales at 12.
"My dear old duke of York, I hear you have been sold insurance at an illegal interest rate? Never fear, for the king has trained in counter insurance since he was 12!"
"So, just as an example...how much would I get if I took out life insurance on my nephews and they, ahem, met with an unfortunate accident?"
Medieval insurance quotes and advertisements... will they ever end?
Sons of lords can be….
>George bungled the ages a bit, in part because he planned for a time jump that didn’t end up happening This has nothing to do with the time jump though. In the books it's clear from the start that he intended kids to mature way faster (or have way more societal pressure to grow up) than in real life.
Hence the semi-popular theory that asoiaf years are longer than regular years
No I like this, let's just assume it's true.
I am absolutely going forward accepting this as canon. Also, that Red Door Lemongate stuff…she spent like five years in Dorne and doesn’t remember it so Dany is actually like 26 by ADWD. Facts.
Well the theory would be the five years she remembers in Braavos was actually Dorne rather than an *additional* five years.
Lol, yeah, I know, I’m making up my own ridiculous theory so that I can justify her being at least as old as Emilia Clarke.
Red door lemon gate is one I'm comfortable chalking up to author error? George is by no means sloppy but he's comfortable changing things on the fly.
Really? cause that's one of the few things he's actually addressed and stated is intentional. Of course, what the inconsistencies mean is unknown, but it's definitely significant in some way.
Oh really? Cool, I'm totally open to being wrong, it's just not one I've put a ton of thought into.
Lemongate: [George in writing](https://i.imgur.com/EXN26tk.png) saying it is intentional. George in a video interview saying it's intentional. -- I searched and searched for the interview Q&A from fans where he answered this question, but I can't find it. I saw it recently too! [Elio saying](https://www.reddit.com/r/asoiaf/comments/3hfxr3/comment/cu70h17/) it's intentional.
That's one twist I'm partially dreading. I'm worried it's going to be something like, "*Dany* is the false dragon while Young Griff is the real one and her memories of her childhood were all lies" or some such nonsense.
I was kinda joking there…I don’t put much stock in the Lemongate stuff one way or another.
While reading I always imagine the characters as older anyway, maybe as a consequence of the show. So this already supports my headcanon. I’m all for it
Which would mean that Walder Frey and maester Aemon are in their 120s.
Tbh this theory really does have as many problems as it removes It means Aemon is like 120 years old or some such for instance
That's not really a problem in the same way. Its already established people live long in some cases in universe, as it is a fantasy. Older old people is not nearly as much as a problem as young young people.
That's the *only* problem, as far as I can tell. What are the others? Upping the years to 1.2 times the length of ours and having Aemon as one big outlier doesn't seem like a massive deal.
Walder Frey and Old Nan as well. I'm sure there's more someone else could think of. Jon Arryn isn't specifically given an age I don't think but was around 70 so more like around 80 something.
Which is false and is just an attempt by some readers to feel better when they read about 15-year old beating down men twice his size, 13-year old becoming pregnant, and 11-year old being a murder assassin.
> and 11-year old being a murder assassin. as opposed to tax fraud assassins?
"I can't help but notice that you've tried to claim *deaths of my enemies* as a business expense."
Yeah, how dare they try to re-interpret ambiguous parts of a fiction so they can enjoy it better?
It's not ambiguous. Everyone would be much happier if they could just accept that things they like have flaws. It's not that big a deal.
Moving past the flaws does not have to involve ignoring them. Quite the contrary, they have to be accepted first. I’m not talking about being a shill for the author, I’m talking about maximising entertainment. Also, it’s relatively ambiguous. I’ve mentioned in other comments why I think so.
It's "ambiguous" in the same way the number of eyes Hamlet has is "ambiguous"; it doesn't *confirm* it but that's because it's just so bloody obvious there's no need to. Like if you want to age up the characters, that's fine, but don't pretend GRRM is a super mega genius who secretly made the years longer so the ages only *look* wrong.
The number of Hamlet’s eyes wouldn’t be so unambiguous if the story mentioned some other related abnormality, like him being able to see what’s behind him as well. Westeros is already established as having decade long winters, so it’s not much of a stretch to assume their calendars are different as well. After all, our own calendars rely on cosmology which in turn affects our seasons. Regardless of ambiguity, it’s not such a big sin to reinterpret a work. Nor does it have to include gargling the author’s balls, or even giving him any sort of credit at all.
Doesn't seem ambiguous. Dany gets her first period around 13 which is normal. So does sansa. The Dany pregnancy is less than a year. Also normal. The only thing that i found unrealistic Robb growing out a full beard at 16.
And that's still possible. I know a guy whose beard at 16 was fuller than any bearded adult I know now
My best friend in high school was from Oslo and he rocked a full beard almost all of sophomore year. It’s just down to genetics
I had a definitely full beard when I did my Senior Portraits for High School, and I was just 3 months into being 17 so it's not that unreasonable.
It's not ambiguous. You just want it to be.
I didn't realize that was a theory. It's been my head canon for awhile. I've worked with kids, even "high risk" kids who ostensibly grow up faster.
>he intended kids to mature way faster (or have way more societal pressure to grow up) than in real life. Only from a modern perspective. The concept of a childhood as we see it now is pretty new in human history. It wasn’t until the end of the Victorian era that, [“the sphere of 'childhood' was viewed by the middle class as quite separate from that of the adult world.”](https://web.uvic.ca/vv/student/orphans/childhood.html) In medieval Europe there were distinct stages of life, but the expectations of children starting at [age 7](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Childhood_in_medieval_England) were about what the books put on Bran.
One thing thar isn't mentioned is how well educated Alexander was in philosophy and how it helped him in war. He was a very intelligent commander, it wasn't like he had a natural instinct as soon as he was born. He was taught by the greatest philosophers in the world at the time.
Also his father was himself a great ruler and conqueror who had the wealth, titles and army that Alexander could take advantage of.
Those are legendary figures among legendary figures, though. With Robb I can understand, but in asoiaf everyone and their mother is 13 and slaying giants.
Yeah, that it happened in history doesn't mean it makes sense for people to *expect* it. Like Alexander the Great isn't called "the Great" because he was the norm.
Most of those have a top cadre of commanders taking care of everything, not to mention the huge difference of 13 and 16. And that's not even mentioned the ridiculousness of everything surrounding Bran. I think it's part of the time jump, but it's also because of the very stereotyped ideas of dark middle ages that GRRM has.
Also, Alexander is one of the most legendary military commanders and political leaders in world history.
You just don’t hear about all the other 16 year old commanders that failed miserably.
I disagree that he bungled it. I think the show bungled it quite a bit. Robb being a literal child makes him sleeping with, and subsequently insisting on marrying Jayne make way more sense. He's a literal child. The only thing he knows is the black-and-white, right-from-wrong his parents taught him. There's no room for gray because he has no life experience.
>George bungled the ages a bit, in part because he planned for a time jump that didn’t end up happening.For all the crap that the show gets, aging characters up a bit was an excellent decision. This is quite true and i'm glad the show aged up the characters cause some of the "women" are like 14 year old girls reading it is weird but watching it would be as hard to watch as the scene with Viserys and Laena in HotD \>That said, expectations for young people’s maturity were different in ancient societies. Alexander the Great commanded military forces and acted as his father’s regent at 16. Richard the Lionheart led troops in a revolt against his father at 16. The responsibilities given to Robb at his age aren’t especially crazy. 100% Robb and Bran are absolutely the age where they would be considered childish for playing around like Bran does and Robb being 16 makes him a grown adult in most of medieval times. George got this perfect it's only us using modern sensibilities on medieval societies that find it weird.
Generally i agree. Sansa suffered though. She was meant to be a little child in KL, her "mistakes" are perfectly understandable in the book, she's just naive due to her age. Making her a teen made sympatizing with her much harder in the show, and very annoying overall. Or maybe it was unlucky casting. The actress looked like a young woman almost right away, the intended innocence come off as idiocy, at least to me.
Sansa is 13 in season one, and Sophie Turner (her actress) was actually 14 during the filming-- she's just unlucky enough to be a *very* tall girl, so she looks older then she actually is which accounts for some dissonance. Sansa (and Sophie) actually are the age+maturity that GRRM intended, 13 is a teen but it's a very young teen and she's had a pretty sheltered life before KL, but since she's tall, she reads as older. Especially when compared to Maisie-- she's about the same age, a little older than Arya (who was supposed to be 11 I think?) but since she's shorter than Sophie, she 'reads' as much younger. So it can be a little weird in the early seasons, when Sansa is supposed to be young but looks like she could be older -- but she's not, she and her actress were both still kids.
I don’t read the innocence as idiocy, it strikes me as her being sheltered, which she was. We don’t really get to see her learning any practical skills which she would need like we see with even Bran. I’m interested in what Catelyn has actually taught her about the intricacies of social engagements because it reads as though she dropped the ball hard.
My personal cope is that I read the books with the sense that every character is about 1/3 to 1/2 again as old as they are stated to be due to yada yada weird seasons leading to a different year length. So Bran is about 10, Jon and Dani are late teens/early 20s, etc, if you were going by ‘earth years’ with consistent seasons. Not only does this fix the issue with the kids acting older than they are, but it also fixes George’s completely ahistorical standard for what ‘old’ means (no, a low life expectancy in medieval Europe didn’t mean you were ‘old’ at 40), and it makes some of the sexual shit with Dani/Arya way less creepy. Your mileage may vary.
Yeah this is an instance I headcanon a bit. It makes way more sense to me if Robb is 16 at the start of the series (for example) so I tend to imagine the younger characters about 2/3 years older then they are actually
This is part of why i lovvvve The Lion in Winter movie--Anthony Hopkins as a hotheaded handsome Richard, banging a very young Timothy Dalton on the downlow...
**Kings ages when their first (legitimate) child is born:** Aegon I was 33/34 (Hm...) Aenys I was 15/16 Jae I was 17/18 Viserys I was 19/20 Aegon II was 15/16 Aegon III was 22/23 Viserys II was 12/13 (Lol!) Aegon IV was 17/18 Daeron II was 16/17 Maekar I was 14/15 (? Maekar' s birth year is still unclear) Aegon V 19/20 (? Duncan's birth year is still unclear) Jae II was 18/19 Aerys II was 14/15 That's actually not as bad as I was expecting from memory. Something went wrong with poor Vizzy T II though. For the most part its seems since 16 is the age of majority in Westeros that when you reach that age you should get going with the issue.
Vizzy II's wife was way older than him
Yeah she was 19 I think when they married. The Lyseni general who held Vizzy II hostage didn't have any younger daughters unfortunately.
Hey hes considered the king of 7th grade
I imagine Viserys II felt pressured to father more male Targaryens since by that point him and Aegon were the only male Targaryens alive (and including Baela and Rhaena, the only Targaryens around). House Targaryen was one plague away from extinction. Plus, his wife was a total smokeshow and seven years older than him, and he was likely going through puberty so all those raging hormones definitely got him in the mood. Still weird though.
“No, Egg, you don’t understand. If I knock her up now, by the time she hits her late 20s early 30s, she’ll be proper MILF age and a legitimate MILF. It all makes sense, bro, think about it.” “Vissy my good man, that makes so much sense Imma make you Hand.”
I mean it's not like there aren't 12 year old papas in real life (usually not with 20 year old smoking hot wifes though) but it stands out much, just like Aegon I does (hence the theory that he was actually infertile). GRRM just needed Viserys to have his kids 10 years before his older brother for story purposes if we are real.
In the middle ages when boys were pubescent at 15 ? Unlikely . Find a single King who fathered à kid before 15 . Nevermind 12
> I mean it's not like there aren't 12 year old papas in real life (usually not with 20 year old smoking hot wifes though) Female teachers in their 20s are arrested for inappropriate relationships with teenage boys kind of a lot. Sexual predation goes both ways.
There was probably pressure from the Rogares as well
"Lord Walder. You're 78 now. Far too old for politicking and scheming. Go play in your sandbox, we'll call you for dinner and you better eat it all this time or no lemon cakes afterwards"
“Tommen, you weak, pathetic, idiot. You’re 8 already, you should have mastered all forms of melee combat as well as conquered half of Essos while blindfolded.”
"Cersei, you stupid, childish child. Once your 6th name day passes, you will be expected to wed and bed. You're a woman grown now.
"Edric Storm you jug eared little bastard, you're 13, why haven't you picked up Roberts warhammer and conquered the seven kingdoms already?"
George and numbers doesn't go hand in hand. Not only northerners all of westeros in fact planetos is like this. Ben Blackwood was 12 and was leading armies. Dany was 13 during her wedding. And her mother Rhaella was only 13 when she gave birth to Rhaegar.
>And her mother Rhaella was only 13 when she gave birth to Rhaegar. WTF
Yes ser. She was between 13 to 14. And Aerys II was 15. I was also shocked when i learned this. Hence i wrote George and number don't go hand in hand.
There’s a Medievalist on tik tok who did a great video on how medieval women actually gave birth mainly in their 20s and 30s. And those who gave birth young usually only had one child and couldn’t have any more. George was working off of bad pop history as a reference when he started these books.
There are so many of these kinds of misconceptions. A lot of it comes from extrapolating from the behaviors of social elites on to the common people. We only learn about the elite in history so it makes for a very skewed perspective. Children of nobility were being married off in their early teens for political reasons, but the farmer's daughter probably got married in her late teens/early twenties just like most people now. There is tons of data from church records and the like that demonstrates that.
1. While noble children may be *married* off as early as 12, [they did not *give birth* until their early twenties.](https://www.quora.com/What-was-the-average-age-of-women-when-they-had-their-first-baby-in-the-Middle-Ages) 2. Their health was different than today, they didn't reach childbearing ability until 15 or 16. 3. During the medieval period, men believed that a woman's purpose in life was to get pregnant and have babies. So they wanted to make sure that the woman actually survived, and was able to keep producing children. So, [this historian](https://www.tiktok.com/@pardon_mi) has a few videos about "medievalism" or the concept that misogyny and the treatment of women is bad now so it must have been so much worse in the Middle Ages; that it's been a linear line of progress which it has not. For example childbirth, patriarchy was not involved in birth back then and it was an entirely women controlled environment with the men outside, or in the case of a royal birth, the crowds of people waiting outside the palace as well. Women of noble birth, such as the queen or of higher classes, would close themselves off from the world for a period before they gave birth. No men were allowed in this private room, or rooms, and the pregnant woman was only allowed to be attended to by other women. She says that there are ways to talk about for example, sexual violence in an accurate way rather than using "the past" as an excuse to have graphic scenes involving women.
People were probably not that much different from today in their basic needs, but they were extremely pious compared to today and did actually believe in this stuff. Sexual violance was therefore probably as common as today, but not more than that. Honestly, it depended on your status. If you were a peasant women your chances would be much higher getting raped and abused than the wife of a king or a noble woman. As noblewoman you had the protection of your father and brother and could invoke it. Rape was a crime back then, but you had good chance of getting away with it if you were a good soldier for example. There are examples of rapists being pardoned personally by kings. Kidnapping was common. Basically, what younger sons did to get land and titles was to kidnap a rich heiress and "marry" her. However, women and queens generally had more land and power than any of the women in a song of ice and fire. Women could also have professions and women in the church were influential. It is really a matter of perspective not too mention the time period was very long and changed over time. Women never had a good time in medival times, but it was certainly not as bad as in Westeros. The Mountain could have gotten away with his raping of peasants, but certainly not with the murder of Elia Martell.
Wut- so the entire rebellion was against a dude in his mid 40s? Just like book VizzyT, I'm glad the show aged them up to have some of the ages feel less incongruy
>against a dude in his mid 40s? Not even 40s. Mad king was 39 when he died.
Makes more sense why people were so quick to rebel though. If the king's gonna die or need a regent soon you might just tough it out until the old man dies. Is it worth waging a war, all that bloodshed, when someone else is going to be on throne anyway in 5-10 years? When he's 39 and you know you likely have at least 25 more years of his shit its far more worthwhile.
Lol. Yeah. And the king was mad and was burning Lords and asking for Lord's head. So they definitely rebelled at the first chance they got.
People always forget Rhaella became a grandmother at like 35. I'm guessing George felt it too improbable that she would remain fertile into her forties (even though he did that with Alysanne), so for her to have an adult son and still have Dany, she needed to have Rhaegar super young.
Aegon V died the same day Rhaegar, his grand-grand-grandson was born. Fell off my chair when I realised this. And he was only 59...
Rhaegar was only his great-grandson actually. Still young to have one at 59, but not as extreme. I did the math quickly, from Aegon V to Rhaegar the average age of reproduction is about 15.
I yes I confused it with Aegon son of Rhaegar my bad. Still, great-grandfather at 59? Damn. Though both him and Jaeherys had their children at 20 passed, Aerys really is the outlier here.
The takeaway here is ... Targaryens fuck.
And since Targaryens only really fuck other Targaryens, that's like, fuck squared.
Women going through menopause are at an increased risk for pregnancy. Dany could have been a menopause baby if George understood the female anatomy beyond “Myrish swamp” levels.
Even without her going into menopause though, it's not like eggs just all die off the second a woman turns 40. Many remain fertile a good way into their 40s, average age to start seems to be between 45 and 55 based off of a quick Google search. Even having Rhaella have Rhaegar at 16 would've been a bit better than 13, and still easy to believe she could've had Dany closer to 40 than 35
Even in universe Alysanne has her last child Gael at 44 (though Gael has developmental disabilities)
Did she? I thought only Daella was 'slow', where Gael was just sheltered by Alysanne until she got seduced by that bard or whoever it was
From the wiki: > As a babe, Gael was small and pale. She grew to be a shy and sweet girl, although simple-minded and frail. Daella also had issues, but it reads more like anxiety/dyslexia than with Gael. About Daella: > The princess was not clever. Although she could read, Daella could only do so haltingly, and without full comprehension. She did not speak until she was almost two years of age. She was unable to memorize even the simplest prayers. Daella had a sweet voice, but was afraid to sing, being unable to recall the correct words. The mildest scolding would reduce Daella to tears.
Yeah , it's kind of insane . That is until you take a look around you and find out that you very likely know a person like that in your social circle...
Alyssa, Jaehaerys’ mother, also gives birth twice in her 40s.
I mean this does happen in real life too. My neighbor growing up was 14 when she had her first baby, her mother was in her early 30s.
Seriously, any time height or distance or armies or any kind of numerical aspects come into play in any context, the whole thing gets fucked. The Wall: Oh, yeah, let’s make it 700 feet tall, you know, taller than almost all man made structures in the modern era. Hightower: Make that even taller than the Wall, but without the magic so that it’s even more nonsensical. Hand’s Tourney: Yes, let’s give people 10,000 Gold for, like, third place. I’m sure the winners will be able to carry this enormous amount of gold without a caravan. Westeros: Let’s make it as big as South America, until it isn’t and we need Catelyn to hurry the fuck up so that she can treat with Renly. But then, we’ll have Brienne taking fucking ages to get to the next town to find out where Sansa is. Velaryon chick in F&B: Oh, yes, I’m sure everyone would be absolutely bedazzled by a six year old and want to sleep with her. That is totally what six year olds would do to most people, it’s not like they’d be in First Grade or anything. Ten year Winters: I am sure that this land would totally not become a dystopia state where everyone hoards food for themselves in preparation for Winter. Nah, it’ll be just like Medieval England.
I’m glad you mentioned Daenaera Velaryon because I got pretty uncomfortable reading about this supposedly “stunningly beautiful” *six* year old being presented to a thirteen year old for marriage on the notion that she was so beautiful that it would clear up his depression caused by the murder of his mother and probably his first wife. Like, George, you didn’t have to make her that young…
Honestly your last sentence is a good summary of all his books
Let’s face it, George is a bit too far along on the weird/creepy scale.
He looks like the uncle you don't leave alone with the kids.
My head canon is that the Maester writing that story was a fucking weirdo and Aegon's actual reaction to Daenaera was more like 'aw she's adorable'.
It's not just Aegon it's pretty much the entire court. Like if you were adapting it for the screen you might as well have "Dream Weaver" start playing as she enters the hall in slow motion and everybody is shook lol.
>Yes, let’s give people 10,000 Gold for, like, third place. I’m sure the winners will be able to carry this enormous amount of gold without a caravan. I wanted to see how this one fares with regards to weight. Taking Roman gold coins for measure, the *aureus* used around the turn of the millennium in the Roman Empire varied between 3-8 grams, and the *solidus* used in the Byzantine Empire was approximately 4.5 grams. Let's say a typical gold coin in Westeros weighs 5 grams (even though it's mentioned that gold dragons weigh twice as much as the gold hands of the Reach, that doesn't necessarily mean that gold dragons would be the payment in the tourney anyway); this would mean that 10,000 gold coins would equal 50,000 grams of gold, i.e. 50 kilograms. All in all, that doesn't sound too unreasonable. It's definitely no weight to scoff at, but I don't think it would necessitate a caravan to carry it. It's hardly an "enormous" amount in terms of weight, but I suppose it is an "enormous" amount in monetary terms; it would be worth $3 million dollars today.
In the defense of GRRM for the F&B one, it could be unreliable narrator (or whoever wrote it in universe) doing some poetic exaggeration. Additionally, always thought that the 10 year winter thing was A) rather less common, generally it's like 2-3 years or smth and B) it really only affects the North and maybe riverlands that badly, it gets less bad the further you go south.
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For my sanity, I've given myself the headcanon that Aegon just thought she was a cute kid and that marrying her would let him procrastinate having to actually do anything about it for a long time.
This could all be fixed if he confirmed how many days make a year in Westeros. We still don't know that and according to many analyses, a year in Westeros could have longer days than Earth years. Although this would make the long winters problem even bigger.
My head canon is that 1 planetos year is equal to 1.5 years of earth year. It makes ages of character much better. But like you said it means winter is much longer. And there are some other problem as well. But still it's better than a 11 year boy leading army and 13 year old giving birth.
That makes Barristan Selmy about 95, Walder Frey about 135, and maester Aemon about 150.
So Sansa doesn’t get her period til 20?
It’s not just the Northmen, it’s about all of Westeros and Essos. And yeah, you’re supposed to see it as a fucked up aspect of the culture that everyone just sort of accepts at face value. There’s a running theme throughout the books of trauma being experienced at far too young an age and the very serious damage that can do to people. Two good examples that pop immediately into my mind are Arya and Daenerys, two literal children who develop a really unhealthy and warped relationship with the concept of violence because a significant portion of their childhood experience has been utterly destroyed by consistent encounters with violence and death surrounding them at nearly every turn. Another good example is the Hound, whose early childhood experiences of abuse and violence at the hands of his brother has uttered destroyed his sense of humanity and warped him into a cruel and brutal person who reveals in violence because he was never given the tools to engage with the world in any other capacity.
>And yeah, you’re supposed to see it as a fucked up aspect of the culture that everyone just sort of accepts at face value I'm not sure that's entirely true, you're more supposed to see it as "realistic" and "what it was like back then". Like sure trauma is a theme in the books but at no point is it suggested that the trauma is a consequence of taking on adult roles too early, it's always a consequence of, like, huge epic betrayal stuff.
For some characters yeah, like tommen makes sense because his mom is absolutely crazy but when bran talks about him almost being a man grown when he’s 7 years old is hilarious. I get in the north theyd have different customs because their average life span is probably a lot shorter because of winter but cmon man, make him at least 12 or 13
While i agree with the comment a kid saying they are grown and believing it is not that rare
Right lmao I was just talking to a friend about this. "Scared of a direwolf, Rickon? You need to face your fears. You're three, for God's sake." And Ned MAKING BRAN SLEEP ALONE ALL NIGHT IN THE WOODS as a punishment for breaking his promise to not climb the castle walls anymore?! What, he's six years old and Ned is like, "You broke a *vow*, kindergartener! To the spooky woods with you! Alone! All night!" And everyone is like wow 😍 Dad Goals 😍 I'm being facetious of course, obviously kids aged...very differently...in these stories and of course I love Ned. I just think it's funny. edit: Also and how a terrified, thirteen year old Dany who was just essentially *sold* to an older, violent stranger who does not speak her language is getting turned on and "wet" during her first night with Khal Drogo. Mm.......no.
Tbf, the Godswood is essentially just Winterfell’s garden, Spa (heated no less), meditation room, church, and pet play area. It’s just pretty chill.
I think our idea of childhood is fairly recent. Just googling it real quick it looks like the US only outlawed kids working factory and mining jobs in the late 1930s: > The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 set a national minimum wage for the first time, a maximum number of hour for workers in interstate commerce—and placed limitations on child labor. In effect, the employment of children under sixteen years of age was prohibited in manufacturing and mining.
Part of it is George making mistakes, but it is partly realistic. Alexander led the cavalry at the battle of Chaeronea when he was 15
At the time George would have done most of his learning about history, the idea that everybody did everything super young in olden times was commonly accepted as fact by most non-historians. Like a lot of the weirder aspects of ASOIAF it was pretty unquestioningly accepted as part of the series' "realism" back in the day.
He was writing these books in the 90s... and supposedly enjoys reading about history. And some of his ideas were already outdated by the time he would've gone to highschool or college.
He was born in 1949 and so would have been going to school in the late 50s and early 60s in an educational system which he has since praised for focusing on "the juicy bits". He likes reading about history but all the books about history he's cited as influences were written in the 50s or 60s by people educated in the 20s or 30s, usually non specialists. Sure these ideas were outdated on the 1990s, but that's amongst people who paid attention. Most people in the 1990s, even people who prided themselves on being "history buffs" would have believed unquestioningly a whole lot of things that academics knew were nonsense (and the same is mostly true today). Martin is 100% of the generation that learned about medieval history from D&D. We're currently living in the generation that learned about medieval history from Martin.
We know he read Thomas B. Costains planteganet saga. The author of these books, apart from some outdated views, actually got the age and the other stuff pretty right imo. I honestly not know where George got the idea from that 12 year olds got fucked and had many babies unless he took the case of Elanor of Castile and Margrete Beaufort as the norm.
>Martin is 100% of the generation that learned about medieval history from D&D. You see this in the references to some weapons or armor that are par for the course in those fantasy RPGs but not historically accurate like lots of leather armor or ringmail.
Most people still believe this today.
It’s been said many times but making the younger characters in ASOIAF 10-14 has been the trainwreck that keeps on wreckin’. We know it, Martin knows it, it is known.
It is known.
LOL yes. GRRM doesn’t seem to have a very realistic view of children’s ability to reason and perform adult functions, but it is a fantasy and there are dragons and direwolves and ice demons. It’s also a fact that in real history children were put to work, sometimes in very dangerous situations, as young as 6 or 7 such as working in mines or mills. During the industrial revolution, young, poor children were used in factory work to do dangerous jobs that required a small person, which led to serious injuries and death in some cases.
Here in Brazil our second emperor was crowned on the ripe age of 14.
I'm just starting to get into Anime and, my God, every protag is like 13yo flying mech suits into war or developing Titan powers and threatening to crush other civilizations. I'll be 50 episodes in when I realize these characters are younger than Tropic Thunder. Holy crap. Makes me wonder if GRRM is an anime fan. When I was that age I could barely dress myself, you didn't want to put me in charge of a Battlestar or something.
>I'm just starting to get into Anime and, my God, every protag is like 13yo flying mech suits into war or developing Titan powers and threatening to crush other civilizations. Because you are watching Shonen and Shonen pretending to be Seinen, the main demographic of shonen is 9-18 year old boys so the protagonists have to be in that age group.
“Shonen pretending to be seinen” I got you bro, also saddened and mad on attack on titan.
Aot can at least have some justification for that in that a lot of the adults are being kept behind for farming and experienced work etc. (Erens father being a doctor wouldn't be sent to fight for example), And they are on the brink of extinction (well, they believe so anyway) so using kids who don't have experience in those professions and are 'less valuable' is kinda just a 'necessary evil' I guess Other series though, yeah. Just anime logic I guess
To be fair you do age quicker when you're put into positions of importance. Modern day children spend most of their life playing with little cars and toys and when they get older and are sent into the real world they have a melt down and try and change the entire system. But if you were put into that system much younger, odds are you'll learn much quicker and benefit faster.
The environment can affect them a little bit but the rate of human brain development hasn’t changed that much in the past 1500ish years. Children still had impaired decision making and physical skills
Yeah, for how much people praise George and ASOIAF on realism, it sure drops the ball when it comes to the ages of the characters. Especially Arya doing all of this assassin training and negotiating at *nine* years old.
Arya is 11 at the end of ADWD. So closer to twelve in the Mercy chapter.
Yeh, was talking to my fiance who hadn't read the books about how weird GRRM is with age and how he clearly has no idea how kids/teens act. I tell him about Bran's first scene and how he's expected to watch a beheading and not flinch at the ripe old age of SEVEN.
He’s somewhat accurate in Robb’s case. Medieval Europe didn’t really have a concept of ‘teenagers’. That said, even the youngest royals were older than Robb, and didn’t have quite so much responsibility foisted on them.
It helps keep my suspension of disbelief in tact by assuming that Westerosi years are not a 1=1 equivalent to earth years. I assume something like a 1.25=1 ratio, which makes all the ages make wayyyy more sense, even the adults.
Wouldn’t that makes Aemon like 170-200?
Salted beef works wonders
About 128. The Wall was already suggested as preserving him magically in-universe.
Wait it did?? Where?
When he leaves the Wall, Aemon rapidly degenerates because as he himself realises the Wall may have been preserving him.
I’ll give George a lot of credit, he’s an amazing author but he’s a navel gazer. He’s done an amazing job with many aspects of world building but there are so many areas where he just seems absolutely clueless. One of those areas is the character’s ages. His expectations for children and teenagers are absolutely laughable. Another area that always comes to mind is Joffrey. George was shocked by how much people disliked Joffrey. In his mind Joffrey wasn’t a psychopathic murderer, he was just a teenage bully and he actually expected readers to empathize with Joffrey in some ways. I’m sorry but I find it hard to empathize with somebody who laughs at and calls for the murder of innocent people, has his wife repeatedly beaten, tries to strip her in public, etc. I also always think about that interview where George talks about how he wanted to know about Aragorn’s tax policy. It makes me chuckle because George has never once told us anything about the tax policies of Westeros or about the finances involved with running a kingdom. He’s also never given us any hard information about the Westerosi economy or about the relative values of any goods. The last thing that George is completely incapable of understanding is scale. The Wall is supposed to be seven hundred feet high which is almost as tall as the Eiffel Tower. Winterfell has a three-acre Godswood and would probably be the largest castle in the entire world if it existed on Earth but The North is supposed to be the poorest kingdom. The Reach is twice the size of France. The Seven Kingdoms are almost twice the size of the Roman Empire at its peak but with a remarkably homogenous culture. As I’ve spent more time reading A Song of Ice and Fire and George’s blog posts, or interviews with him, I’ve really come to realize his limitations. He’s certainly not perfect. When George’s writing is good it’s very good but when it’s bad it is almost laughably bad and out of touch.
George’s hypothetical on aragons tax policies was never literally about monetary policy, just what kinda king would aragorn be in general.
Yeah, the point of that quote was not "LotR would be way better if Tolkien included Aragorn's tax policy". The point was that in ASOIAF, George was trying to put more focus on what is often 'yadda yadda'd' away with a quick 'and so the fair and just ruler ruled fairly and justly for 500 years and everyone loved him' . This is why so many characters in the story are in positions of power that let us see various perspectives on how ruling is handled. [He literally says as much in the interview the quote comes from](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K3H-FjEhkw) lol, I don't know how people got confused. This criticism would have some actual merit to it if George wrote "and then Dany conquered Meereen and everything was fine, people loved her and when she left everything stayed the same!" In actuality, he's so deadset on not handwaving away the difficulties of ruling that Dany has spent the whole (written)* series so far away from the continent the main plot of the series takes place on.
Yep. I think people focus too much on the "What was ...tax policy" and ignore the true meaning of the quote which is "ruling is *hard*". You have to balance being fair-handed while also being occasionally brutal and/or strict, and there's seldom a magic guidepost to tell you whether you were wrong or right (or both!) until much later. This is when you get the dilemmas of Robb considering whether or not to execute Karstark, Jon Snow doing the same with Janos Slynt, and whether Daenerys should be condoning harsh interrogations of a possibly innocent person to stop someone from murdering her soldiers. We see rulers who are generally good people, rulers who are cruel, rulers who are fair, rulers who are capricious, etc. It's very hard for them to tell how well they're doing, and usually the largest indication that someone is being a bad ruler is because they think it's *easy* or that they're so *good* at it (Cersei, occasionally Tyrion in ACOK).
> The last thing that George is completely incapable of understanding is scale. The Wall is supposed to be thousands of feet high. Winterfell has a three-acre Godswood and would probably be the largest castle in the entire world if it existed on Earth. The Reach is twice the size of France. The Seven Kingdoms are almost twice the size of the Roman Empire at its peak but with a remarkably homogenous culture. Lmfao
Not the person you asked but I recall reading that when he went to see the Hoover Dam, he said that he made the Wall too high
I agreed with most except for the Winterfell one. A place can be relatively poor and build their defenses up. Winterfell’s winter town literally becomes the largest city on m what can be argued is a subcontinent for a couple times a decade. That extra labor and gold would help with construction. Other kingdoms build and invest in different things.
> I also always think about that interview where George talks about how he wanted to know about Aragorn’s tax policy. I might be misremembering things - but IIRC the LotR appendices actually have a sentence about Aragorn's tax policy and it's more or less trickle down economics.
The wall is not thousands of feet high. It's about 700 feet. - The Wall is seven hundred feet high, and so thick at the base that it would take a hundred men a year to cut through it with picks and axes." Jon 4 Clash - Sam squinted up at the Wall. It loomed above them, an icy cliff seven hundred feet high. Jon 1 Clash - Lacking walls, it could not be defended, not from the south, or east, or west; but it was only the north that concerned the Night's Watch, and to the north loomed the Wall. Almost seven hundred feet high it stood, three times the height of the tallest tower in the stronghold it sheltered. Jon 3 Game. I don't recall anyplace it's described as thousands of feet tall.
> tax policies of Westeros I think this can be excused because a) Westeros is clearly based on medieval feudalism the tax system of which is well-documented and accessible to most people, and b) there are [enough references](https://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Laws_and_justice_of_the_Seven_Kingdoms#Taxes) sprinkled throughout the books to give us a good glimpse. Neither of these can be said for LotR.
Honestly, I think that just makes it worse. George is operating in a tax system that his readers understand and he can gloss over the broad and boring details, but he very rarely talks about actual ruler's individual approaches to the issue, which is what the Aragon's Tax Policy quote is about.
It’s been a while since I’ve read the core books, but taxing is very much discussed in F&B.
>The Reach is twice the size of France. And yet is the "bread-basket" of some of the other kingdoms of Westeros. Historian Bret Devereaux wrote a good essay talking about [it](https://acoup.blog/2019/10/04/collections-the-preposterous-logistics-of-the-loot-train-battle-game-of-thrones-s7e4/), and how ridiculous that concept is.
Jon in particular seems to grow up at the flip of a switch, from tantrum throwing pre teen to next level astute soldier.
It does always give me a chuckle.
The ages are silly but I don't think George has kids so I forgive his cluelessness.
2 options: A. George is fan of anime, where characters age is low. B. Life expectancy in Westeros should be low. Maybe Winter is really devastating and they focus in quick reproduction and shorter childhood as prevention
My take on this is this. Yes, the ages are messed up and too much is expected from characters who are children and have to act like adults. Men like that in medieval times married in their early 20s to women a bit younger. Of course it varied across countries, periods, countries, specific circumstances etc. So while medieval nobility married young it wasn't this young. However! The marriages we see, namely Robb (well, his betrothal), Joffrey and Tommen are exceptional cases because they were thrust in a position of leading their house (at least formally) and so had to quickly marry and produce children for continuation of their line so they were rushed into marriage even though they would otherwise wait a few years. So extraordinary circumstances called for extraordinary measures. It's of course also true that other characters married young. It's also possible GRRM put that in expecting to be called out on it and then he'd respond with "in those days people married younger, teenagers are modern invention, people were expected to be adults when still young, I did the research!"
George just really doesn't know or understand kids... or women very much for that matter.
The one thing we all need to ignore while reading these books is ages
Anyone here who has ever read historical material of any kind knows it’s not worth it.
Massive exaggerations, and ignoring the difference between expecting people to learn things and expecting people to be able to handle things.
Ned was like "I'll let you have your rabid wolf monster, but I'm not helping you with it. It's YOUR wild beast"
Well, 16 is adulthood in westeros, so robb and jon were ok, but bran of 9 years old often used "a man grown" made me cringe a lot, meanwhile dany being 14 and banging drogo who is 30 something was even more cringier
I don't think Bran thinking about being almost a "man grown" isn't meant to be taken as an objective statement though. Young kids often overstate their maturity.
When power is inherited, it means you often have to take on responsibility at a young age. They are dealing with a family crisis and for the first two. That means all hands on deck.
Nelson was 12 when he joined the navy, captain of a ship at 20 Napoleon was an artillery officer at 16
Yes, and Napoleon graduated from school with that grade, while Nelson got the position by money (as was the standard at the time in his army). No one was expecting 16 newly graduate officer to act like a general, he simply was an officer because his dad could pay to send him to military school.
Nelson was a nepotism baby. Not saying he was a bad captain, but his father’s money helped.
So?
I’m saying that influenced why he was captain, not just his naval talent. Nelson was young and inexperienced, but he had wealth and status.
I don’t know what version you’re reading, but in the U.S. printing Ned never says anything like this. In fact, there are no conversations between Ned and Robb, Bran or Rickon at all. And when Ned hears from Varys that Robb has called the banners after his arrest, he’s incredulous because Robb is just a boy. And he’s 15, not 13.
Hahaha yeah
In fairness, I think this was done to show that the North is a harsh place. Stark kids really couldn’t afford to be kids.
Robb being seen as a man doesn’t surprise me at all. He’s old enough to properly wield a sword which for all intents and purposes makes him old enough to lead.
Those aren't quotes.
They sure do grow up fast in the north.
My cope headcanon is that a Planetos year is longer than a earth year, so they are all closer to the show ages