Was there ever any stated reason as to WHY the author decided to write so many of the characters as “too young” for their situations and actions?
Robb, the “King of the North” is only what, 16 or 17 when he dies?
All the young characters could have had 3 or 4 years added to their ages and it would have been more believable, IMO.
Umm.. thanks for the spoiler?
WTF is wrong with people on this board lately?
There were a lot of angry people in the TV series threads when some posters alluded to things they knew from the books that hadn’t been on the show. Some episodes had three separate threads - totally book free, only including the book version of things covered by the show at that point and open slather with spoilers as a response. Maybe Sarabellum1976 was being hypercautious to avoid a backlash.
I thought they aged up the actors because some of them (Dany) would be having sexy time on screen. I think that the general public would be a little iffy on the very adult Khal Drogo and the 13 yr old virgin Dany on their wedding night.
As for the other age ups, Bran in particular, I think it makes sense to have him a little older, he is dealing with some very grown up responsibilities. Just my opinion…
Probably because that’s how things rolled back in the medieval day here on Earth.
Things haven’t always been run by old farts in their 50s, 60s and 70s- William the Conqueror was Duke of Normandy at 7, and had his first major battle in 1047 at the age of 19. He was only 38 when he was victorious at Hastings. Harold Godwinson was Earl of East Anglia at 23, and died at Hastings at 43. Henry “Hotspur” Percy was knighted at 13, and was only 28 when he commanded the English forces at the Battle of Otterburn.
It’s not at all unrealistic that if it was a feudal medieval-ish society, that the ages people typically do things at would be very different.
Can we get a Mod to edit post 21? I’m not usually a spoiler alarmist but Sarabellum1976 gives away a pretty huge plot point that has not yet occurred in the show.
I can see it working as a strategic war game, but I dunno about a role playing game. There’s very little magic, no races other than human…though I suppose the barbarian guys and the wildlings could be considered variants. No healers, no real casters, you’d pretty much be limited to melee types and archers.
I can’t be arsed to look up the quote, but I seem to recall Martin lamenting the fact that he didn’t make the characters older as their ages kind of screwed with how he wanted the story to go.
He also regrets not giving the major houses (ie the lords paramount) a clear superior feudal rank than the minor houses (the ordinary lords).
GRRM’s original plan was for there to be a 5 year gap between books 3 and 4 where all the young characters would have a chance to grow up, thus making their future heroics more plausible. Somehow this changed as he wrote the stories, although I’m not sure exactly what plot development required this change.
Often what happens is the thrust of the story is so immediate that you can’t come up with a satisfactory reason for there to have been YEARS where nothing of note happened…and if anything of note happened your audience is going to want to have “seen” it..and you probably want to have written it.
He started writing it with that gap, but pretty much everyone was speaking in the past tense all the time to explain what happened. Grrm scraped like 200 pages which contributed to the delay for affc.
It’s not 5 years later, but I think george has said the characters are where he was planning. This is a source of hope cor the next books, but he’s not far along at all.