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Old 01-01-2014, 04:46 PM   #47
cellurdur
Shade of Carn Dûm
 
Join Date: Dec 2012
Posts: 276
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Galadriel55 View Post
What bothers me is not how young the children are, but how old they are in the TV series. There is a trend among fantasy novels to make young children do things that are not meant to be done by such young children, and many novels/series are worse than GOT in that respect. At least in GOT its mostly some charisma or character of the children, and that's partially explainable by the fact that you get married at puberty and have to know how to act as a head (or any other notable position) of the household. Noble boys are also taught how to lead people, so by puberty they would have some idea, even if not that much experience. Compare that to children of 9-15 years old who do physically impossible things. My siblings have recently been reading the City of Bones series and Percy Jackson series, both of which I have read, which reminds me once again about how these little children get to rule their world at least in part due to physical feats that are simply not performed by children. And in the Percy Jackson movie, the 12-year-olds look 17. Just like in GOT. 'Nough said.

(If I ranted away without being clear on what I'm saying, it doesn't bother me as much, but I agree that the children are a bit too grown up, but that's not as big of a deal in GOT as it is in some other books. What really bothers me is the movie adaptations.)
They are not the same age in the TV show. Virtually everyone except Sansa has been aged up. Dany, Robb, Jon etc are all 18.

Boys rarely got married at puberty and back then puberty would often start later for girls due to the poor diet. Marriage at 13 was very rare. Girls tended to marry at 16.

I have never read Percy Jackson, but I assume it's designed for children. Children want to read books about people their age so authors have to give a bit of leeway. ASOIAF does not have this problem, though Arya is as super as any of those characters I would imagine.

The very best military minds in history led maybe a battle or two before they were 16. None of them were military genii like Robb or political genii like Dany.

I commend the show for doing a lot better with the ages. Only Joffrey needs to be aged back down to make things fit.
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