Ykw, i dont even remember if the lord manderly was in the black council in the books (probably not) but he's a fucking vibe, and now another diva is added, the lady frey. We didnt get yuri with sabitha frey but we got the judgmental duo-ness.
i think my biggest gripe with hotd is that it seems once a character dies, there’s almost no mention of them ever again. maybe for an episode or two they’ll be mentioned depending on their “importance” (in quotations because all the deaths have importantance) but other than that, gone.
harwin strong? i wanna say brought up for one episode, maybe two, then never spoken about again. laena? nothing. laenor (even though he’s alive in the show)? nothing. lucerys after season 2? nothing. jaehaerys? nothing. rhaenys? for a bit because of meleys, then again with corlys in s3 ep4, otherwise nothing. jace? feels like nothing after he haunted rhaenyra for like one scene.
my memory is probably shoddy, so take all of that with a grain of salt.
it’s like- how are we going to pretend like they didn’t exist after their death? so many of these issues happened BECAUSE someone died, you’d think they’d be brought up more.
If you notice that a man is respectful of women, please don't assume that it's because he was "raised right".
He could have been raised by abusive parents, struggled to understand right and wrong because of them, then figured it out after finding a better source of information and role models.
He easily could have become that way despite how he was raised, not because of how he was raised.
the concept of helaena being pregnant during blood and cheese the concept of her offering her necklace because offering her life would mean the death of her unborn child the concept of her probably worrying that the stress of the funeral ceremony would make her miscarry the concept of her refusing to go into battle not only because she didn’t want to hurt anyone but because she didn’t want to risk her unborn child the concept of her not telling anyone because she wanted it to be just for her
TG on Criston Cole: "He's not the step dad he's the Dad Who Stepped Up! 😍"
Criston Cole in F&B: Literally Humbert Humbert (or, at best, Woody Allen).
Afterward, he gave the seven-year-old Princess Rhaenyra the victor’s laurel and begged for her favor to wear in the joust.
“Ser Criston protects the princess from her enemies, but who protects the princess from Ser Criston?” *
*said at a point when Rhaenyra is the same age as Dolores Haze btw.
Among the changes to the character's ages in HOTD, it's ageing up Rhaenyra when she first meets Criston Cole that grosses me out the most. And to add insult to injury, they don't even get an older actor to play an older Criston Cole after the time jump - Emma D'arcy is actually older than Fabian Frankel.
And to those who say sympathetic jilted lover Criston Cole is more interesting... well we've heard that story before. With Jorah Mormont's depiction in GOT, for starters. And everywhere else in our culture, men like Criston Cole are afforded sympathy and fascination (it's honestly a relief that most audiences outside of tumblr thankfully hate Show Criston - pls leave the actor alone though), while their victims are depicted as seductive temptress 'nymphets'.
Look no further than JK Rowling's favourite 'tragic romance'.
(sure jk, trans women are the problem, but humbert humbert isn't?)
Book covers and film adaptations of Lolita love to age up and sexualise Dolores and completely miss the point, but Vladimir Nabokov named actress Catherine Demongeot as the most book-accurate casting. Who looks very disturbing up against the 1997 film's casting for Humbert Humbert:
She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock.
And wouldn't you know it, Daemon returns from the Stepstones when Rhaenyra (15) is around the same age that Dolores was, when Clare Quilty convinced her to run away with him.
And when Criston proposes to Rhaenyra ahead of her upcoming marriage to Laenor, she is again the same age as Dolores (17) when Humbert tries to get her to leave her husband for him.
Obviously Rhaenyra's story is by no means directly comparable to the horrific abuse suffered by Dolores Haze, and besides we don't know precisely what happened between Rhaenyra and Criston*. But Rhaenyra was also much much younger (7) when Criston came into a position to start grooming her, and at the end of the day she was still only a 12-year-old child when rumours of a sexual relationship began. The parallels are there, and CSA is a common issue throughout GRRM's work.
It certainly wouldn't be the first time GRRM has made a reference to Lolita in ASOIAF:
You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.
Littlefinger and Lord Petyr looked so very much alike. She would have fled them both, perhaps, but there was nowhere for her to go.
On Septon Eustace and Mushroom
*I do find it interesting to note that of the two accounts of Rhaenyra and Criston's 'split' (by two people who weren't in the room), it is Septon Eustace's account that puts Rhaenyra in a more favourable light. Mushroom tells the more pornographic account that casts Rhaenyra as the one trying to seduce Criston. Meanwhile Septon Eustace insists that Rhaenyra was the one to refuse Criston - including arguing that if his vows as a Kingsguard mean so little to him, then why should she trust he'd honour any marriage vows?
As I often argue, interpreting F&B is far more complicated than insisting one account always tells the truth, one account always tells propaganda etc. Neither account obviously views the relationship through the lens that Rhaenyra was only 7 when they met, neither of them care to raise concerns of grooming and CSA . This is still the same world after all that thought it was perfectly acceptable for a 12-year-old Laena to marry Viserys, or for a 12-year-old Sansa to marry Tyrion. This is the world that spread rumours of Rhaenyra's lost virginity when she had barely begun puberty.
Mushroom is clearly pro-Rhaenyra, and clearly fond of her (he wants us to know for instance how good it was to hear her laugh, his account expresses the most how broken she was after Luke's death) - but he's writing his account years after her death, and most likely after departing Aegon III's court for White Harbour. His priority, as a dwarf and entertainer, is to write was sells, and salacious tales sell. Just look at the pornographic tales the slavers spread of Daenerys, or how Shae depicts Sansa as a seducer withholding sex to convince her husband to commit regicide, or the play Arya performs in that bawdily depicts Tyrion raping Sansa for the masses. Mushroom at least wasn't the one to actually come up with the Brothel Queens story** - Archmaester Gyldayn credits Aegon II with making that story up - but any loyalty Mushroom had to a long-dead woman wasn't enough to stop him including a popular story. Mushroom's gotta eat.
**to those who still insist the story is true (despite Gyldayne attributing the rumour to Aegon II), do you honestly think if the Queen and Queen Mother had actually been gang-raped there wouldn't be multiple sources verifying it and expressing outrage?
Septon Eustace meanwhile is a misogynist who hated Rhaenyra and wished to justify his allegiance to the Greens. Which is why he'll make up ridiculous stories about Rhaenyra cutting herself on the throne while wearing armour, or Sunfyre eating her in 6 bites and leaving behind one leg for the Stranger, or how Rhaenyra got fat and ugly after giving birth to 5 children. Which is why he'll have Aegon II say "what sort of brother steals his sister's birthright?" - a statement that doesn't match with the rest of his documented words and actions:
Word of Rhaenyra’s coronation reached the Red Keep the next day, to the great displeasure of Aegon II. “My half-sister and my uncle are guilty of high treason,” the young king declared. “I want them attainted, I want them arrested, and I want them dead.”***
Cooler heads on the green council wished to parley. “The princess must be made to see that her cause is hopeless,” Grand Maester Orwyle said. “Brother should not war against sister. Send me to her, that we may talk and reach an amicable accord.”
Aegon would not hear of it. Septon Eustace tells us that His Grace accused the Grand Maester of disloyalty and spoke of having him thrown into a black cell “with your black friends.”
***spoken in response to Rhaenyra publicly offering him a pardon
So Eustace has a tendency to demonise and whitewash - which is what makes it interesting when he passes on the opportunity. For example, why would he refute the rumours that Rhaenyra's children are bastards? Surely that claim would have supported his case against her? Why does he give quite a positive, even glowing, account of Jacaerys? Probably because he approved of and genuinely had no issue with Jacaerys, other than that he didn't believe the throne could pass through the female line anyway. True or not, he didn't need to claim Jace as a bastard, and Jace's actions didn't fit any cultural stereotypes. Because it seems there are certain lines Septon Eustace won't cross.
So Septon Eustace has some commitment to telling the truth (some truths anyway). Which is why his own account of Aegon II often contradicts itself, as shown above.
So back to his account of Rhaenyra and Criston. Why not cast Rhaenyra a wanton seductress, trying to tempt Criston Cole away from his Kingsguard vows? Why depict Criston, a fellow Green, as an oathbreaker? Why tell us that Rhaenyra did the right thing, turning Criston down and even expressing disgust that he would abandon his vows? Because for all Septon Eustace dislikes Rhaenyra, casting her as a wanton seductress would be crossing a line. He doesn't need it to be against female succession - her great sin is being a woman who doesn't gracefully abdicate in favour of her brother, and that's enough.
And because his account is probably closer to what happened. While he wasn't in the room, no more than Mushroom was, he was in a position to hear about it from Criston. As a fellow Green, and above all as a Septon. Someone who Criston might confess to. And it is Septon Eustace's account that tells us Criston Cole was the one to slit Lord Beesbury's throat. While he may try (sometimes anyway) to sanitise Aegon II, he makes no such effort with Criston Cole. If you wanted to legitimise your support for the Greens but were unable deny their crimes, it makes sense to allow someone to be the villain.
And supposing Criston did confess, he probably would have displayed the same delusional self-pity and self-justification as Humbert Humbert. And Septon Eustace, just like everyone else in Westeros, certainly wouldn't have considered Rhaenyra a possible victim of grooming and CSA.
Just look at Catherine Howard as a historical example. When she was 13 she was molested by her music tutor, Henry Mannox:
“At the flattering and fair persuasions of Mannox, being but a young girl, I suffered him at sundry times to handle and touch the secret parts of my body, which neither became me with honesty to permit nor him to require.”
This 'affair' was used as evidence against her in her trial for adultery and subsequent execution.
The Princess and her White Knight
Again, we don't know what precisely happened between Rhaenyra and Criston. We don't know if their relationship is comparable to Catherine Howard and Henry Mannox, or if it escalated anywhere close to the horrors of Dolores Haze and Humbert Humbert. Or if anything actually happened at all, or maybe at least not till Rhaenyra was older. Maybe their relationship is more comparable to Soon-Yi Previn and Woody Allen, who had been her stepfather since she was 10.
We have snatches of the truth from Eustace and Mushroom, we have what we can determine of their access to the truth and their motives for telling their accounts the way they do. We have Rhaenyra's young age, Criston's constant access to her, the timing of the rumours, her later relationships with older men, the violent hatred Criston has towards her after she rejects him. We have the fact that CSA is a common reoccurrence in GRRM's work - Daenerys and Jorah, Sansa and Littlefinger, Jeyne and Ramsay, Tyrion and Tywin, Aeron and Euron. We have the salacious stories that are already spreading of victims like Daenerys and Sansa, and we can speculate how future maesters and septons and fools might write about them, the way they write about Rhaenyra.
Whatever happened, my understanding is that Rhaenyra was a child in a court that her stepmother was actively making a hostile environment for her. Who had to deal with the beginnings of puberty in this environment, where adults were already speculating on her sexuality, on top of all the other scrutiny she would face as heir. Yes she had a father who doted on her, but when it came to Alicent he always refused to take sides, he always tried to placate and please and keep the peace. Yes he was steadfast in his decision to keep Rhaenyra his heir, but he did nothing to reprimand Alicent, he allowed this hostile environment to flourish, leaving his barely pubescent daughter to deal with it on her own. Alicent even publicly quips about Rhaenyra's relationship with Criston Cole, and she gets away with it.
Daemon does not return from the Stepstones till after the 5th anniversary tournament Viserys throws for Alicent, when Rhaenyra is 14/15. Before then, Rhaenyra's main confidant, probably her only confident on the subject of Alicent, was her sworn shield and constant shadow Criston Cole. Whatever happened between them, she was young and emotionally vulnerable. And lonely. Yes she had a party of supporters at court - but what is that to a child? She needed a parent to confide in, and when it came to Alicent her own father could not be that parent.
We know Rhaenyra was a precocious child, 'bright and bold' and proud. But we also know that beneath that she was anxious - she was known to compulsively fidget with the rings on her fingers out of anxiety. What kid in her situation wouldn't be anxious? Just when did this compulsive habit begin? Rhaenyra may not have been in anywhere near as vulnerable a situation as Dany, but she was still a vulnerable kid. And so Criston would have been important to her.
He wants me, she realized. He loves me as he loved her, not as a knight loves his queen but as a man loves a woman. She tried to imagine herself in Ser Jorah’s arms, kissing him, pleasuring him, letting him enter her. It was no good.
It was a long kiss, though how long Dany could not have said. When it ended, Ser Jorah let go of her, and she took a quick step backward. “You … you should not have …”
My great bear, Dany thought. I am his queen, but I will always be his cub as well, and he will always guard me. It made her feel safe, but sad as well. She wished she could love him better than she did.
My bear, my fierce strong bear, what will I do without him?
My bear, she thought, my old sweet bear, who loved me and betrayed me. She had missed him so. She wanted to see his ugly face, to wrap her arms around him and press herself against his chest.
We don't know how much or in what way Criston took advantage of Rhaenyra's dependence on him, or how 'receptive' Rhaenyra might have been (friendly reminder that no matter how 'receptive' she might have been, it's still CSA). Again, it may be that nothing physically happened at all until Rhaenyra was 17 (after 10 years of grooming of course). Whatever happened, we can certainly imagine that Rhaenyra was devastated to lose him, and to Alicent of all people. He had been her confidant and her champion, he had been at her side since she was 7 years old, not long before losing her mother (who was the same age as Criston btw).
My understanding of Criston meanwhile is that he genuinely adored her for those 10 years as her sworn shield. That he was passionately protective of her, fiercely devoted to her, and possessive. Much like Jorah with Dany. Maybe, like Jorah, he tried to kiss her. Maybe much worse happened, and he deluded himself as many abusers do that theirs was a misunderstood romance. Maybe he never touched her at all, but fantasised about it. Maybe he convinced himself that he was a man of honour, maybe he spent those years waiting till Rhaenyra was older, by her side the entire time (cough, grooming).
Whatever happened, he was enraged that 10 years of grooming were ultimately unrewarded. He probably, deludedly, cast her just as cruel and selfish and ungrateful as Humbert Humbert did Dolores Haze.
Despite our tiffs, despite her nastiness, despite all the fuss and faces she made, and the vulgarity, and the danger, and the horrible hopelessness of it all, I still dwelled deep in my elected paradise - a paradise whose skies were the color of hell-flames - but still a paradise.
There is nothing more atrociously cruel than an adored child.
But I was weak, I was not wise, my schoolgirl nymphet had me in thrall. With the human element dwindling, the passion, the tenderness, and the torture only increased; and of this she took advantage.
Don't you love living in a world where multiple think pieces debate whether or not Rhaenyra abused Criston Cole? (Also a world where a book like Lo's Diary gets published...)
If there is any truth to Septon Eustace's account that Criston wanted to elope with her to Essos, then I can imagine that he wanted to possess Rhaenyra entirely for himself (however romantic he may have believed his motives). The 'black fury' that descends on him during the wedding tourney certainly tells us he is violently jealous to see Rhaenyra begin a relationship with Harwin. He probably stewed in fury while Rhaenyra's attention was on Daemon (maybe hypocritically casting him as the villain the way Humbert Humbert does Clare Quilty), celebrated when Daemon was banished, and grew desperately possessive at the thought of losing his exclusive access to her again. Much like Jorah:
“You have been a better friend to me than any I have known, a better brother than Viserys ever was. You are the first of my Queensguard, the commander of my army, my most valued counselor, my good right hand. I honor and respect and cherish you—but I do not desire you, Jorah Mormont, and I am weary of your trying to push every other man in the world away from me, so I must needs rely on you and you alone. It will not serve, and it will not make me love you any better.”
I can't believe I'm giving Jorah Mormont credit here, but at least he doesn't respond to rejection with violent hatred of Dany. Or at least, he hasn't yet.
Now Rhaenyra's relationship with Daemon is another matter, and will require another essay. In sum, there is a broad spectrum between 'pedophile' and 'healthy relationship', and when I say Daemon's relationship with Rhaenyra is healthier than her relationship with Criston I have to admit the bar is very low indeed. Though I do take into consideration GRRM's description of Daemon as a grey character, 'equal parts light and dark'. Anyone is at liberty to declare death of the author and interpret Daemon as they see fit, but authorial intent (however fallible you may consider it) is not irrelevant. That authorial intent is the foundation upon which the characters, relationships, events, themes etc is built.
Ultimately, Daemon was not in Rhaenyra's life between the ages of 8 and 15 - he was in a relationship with an adult Mysaria, and then he was off to the Stepstones until Viserys and Alicent's 5th anniversary tourney. This isn't to endorse whatever may have happened in the 6 months Daemon was in King's Landing before his banishment - however you interpret his actions and motives. But simply to say that when it comes to grooming and abusing pre-pubescent to early-pubescent girls (oh this has been a disturbing essay to write) - Criston wins the "Creepy Even By Child Brideros Standards" Award.
So... is Criston the Step-Dad Who Stepped Up? Sure, if your Step-Dad is Humbert Humbert or Woody Allen.
all this dany vs jon as if they’re not the wokers of westeros and essos, and won’t join forces to spread a wave of woke so intense cersei lannister will disintegrate on spot :(
I hate people using the excuse "well, why shouldn't alicent want her child to sit on the throne?"
Emm, alright, why shouldn't aemma want her child to sit on the throne? She literally died for that sole reason, to birth a child that would sit on the iron throne, and she did. She birthed rhaenyra. Her mama would be proud.
Viserys made Baelon his heir over his grown daughter and he only named Rhaenyra heir to replace Daemon an uncle -- not a son and not because he believed daughters should inherit over sons. Viserys himself set the precedent.
So when Alicent was forced to marry the king, why wouldn’t she believe that if she gave him a son, that son would become heir? If Aemma’s newborn son was automatically considered Rhaenyra’s replacement, why wouldn’t Alicent expect the same for her own living sons after everything she was forced to sacrifice?
The logic in this post falls apart on three massive false equivalences, completely rewriting how succession actually works in Westeros.
First, comparing Rhaenyra to Baelon makes absolutely no historical sense. Viserys didn't name Baelon heir to arbitrarily bypass a grown daughter: he did it because the Great Council of 101 AC had just heavily favored the male line over Rhaenys. Viserys was simply adhering to the realm's current decision. However, when Viserys later named Rhaenyra his successor, he explicitly broke that cycle, overturned the 101 AC precedent, and forced the lords of the realm to swear sacred, binding oaths of fealty to her. Viserys then spent the next twenty years refusing to change his mind, meaning the actual, standing royal precedent at the time of his death was Rhaenyra.
Second, the idea that "if Aemma’s newborn son replaced Rhaenyra, Alicent’s sons should too" completely misunderstands the timeline. Rhaenyra was never named heir before Aemma died. She was only elevated to official heir after both Aemma and the newborn baby passed away, specifically as an emergency measure to keep Daemon away from the throne. Rhaenyra’s status as heir was never an unstable placeholder waiting for a boy it was an absolute royal decree designed to settle the succession permanently. Trying to retroactively apply standard Andal birth order rules to an active, permanent royal decree is an exercise in pure delusion.
Third, Alicent can "expect" whatever she wants based on Andal customs, but she married into a Targaryen absolute monarchy where the King's word is law. Viserys rejected every single opportunity to replace Rhaenyra with Aegon. Expecting a decades long, explicit royal decree to just magically evaporate because you gave birth to a boy isn't a "right" it's wishful thinking that required a treasonous, middle of the night coup to actually enforce.
It's interesting to think about how fans perceptions of characters would be radically different if we had book accurate casting.
Emily Carey (aged 18-19 here) is perfectly age-accurate to play an 18-year-old Alicent.
Meanwhile Paddy Considine, at 48, was pushing it a fair bit to play a 29-year-old Viserys.
For reference, Tom Glynn-Carney was 28 while filming Season 2.
So not that he's my fancast for young Paddy or anything, but let's be real. You would all be writing self-insertxVizzy fics. Alicent would have no more agency in the marriage if Viserys was his book age than his show age, but fan perceptions of Viserys would definitely be different if he was played by a young and attractive actor (no offense of course to Paddy, he is serving Targaryen realness etc.)
Or look at Fabian Frankel. He would have been around 27/28 while filming season 1. You were shipping Alicole back when Emily Carey was still in the role, after all.
And then there's Rhaenyra, who was 8 during the events of the first episode, and 9 when Viserys married Alicent.
Milly Alcock, roughly 21 here, is just a tad older than 8-year-old Rhaenyra.
Amelie Child-Villiers would have been 12-13 while filming Rings of Power, so older than Rhaenyra at the very beginning but can pass for younger.
To anyone who thinks a child Rhaenyra wouldn't have been interesting to follow, er... have you read ASOIAF? There are quite a few prominent child POV characters, you may have noticed. And Alicent doesn't automatically become uninteresting if she's 18 rather than 15... or 40.
I mean I get it, Rhaenycent shippers, you prefer the sapphic dynamic in HOTD... and it is absolutely fine to prefer something! But it isn't inherently deeper or more interesting. It isn't objectively better. BFFesbians can be just as one-note as you claim step-mother/daughter relationships are with the wrong writing, and step-mother/daughter relationships can be richly complicated.
Now, I've already gone through the absolute horror that is book Rhaenyra and book Criston
Criston Cole was 22 when he met a 7-year-old Rhaenyra, 23 during the events of the first episode. So Fabian at 27 (pictured here) is a a few years older, but his age gap with Amelie is the same as Criston and Rhaenyra. And yikes. This is why 'Criston the Dad who Stepped Up' posts make me throw up in my mouth. (Also it is so weird that Criston is never recast after the time jump even though the actor is younger than Emma D'Arcy - Criston is 47 during the Dance).
And yes, Daemon has a similar age gap with Rhaenyra
Daemon was 24 during the events of the first episode. Though I would add that Daemon wasn't, contrary to popular opinion by greens, grooming Rhaenyra when she was a young child. There isn't really any indication that he paid particular attention to his 8-year-old niece - he was mostly sulking on Dragonstone in a relationship with an adult Mysaria for starters, and then he was off in the Stepstones till Viserys and Alicent's 5th wedding anniversary tourney.
From then, no I'm not in favour of a 30-year-old Daemon and a 15-year-old Rhaenyra... I am not in favour of childbrideros. But considering he'd been absent from her life between the ages of 8-15, and there is no indication he ever paid any attention to her before then... it is less creepy than Criston Cole being Rhaenyra's shadow from the age of 7, with rumours of a sexual relationship beginning at a point when she would have been 12-14.
By Westeros standards Daemon unfortunately falls into the 'culturally normalised and could have a whole lot worse' category (and tbf, considering the popularity of ships like SanSan...). This isn't a pro-daemyra or anti-daemyra post, I'm not really going to go into their relationship or whether or not it's healthy here, just clarifying that Daemon isn't the Humbert Humbert of this story - that would be Criston (not being Humbert Humbert of course is a very low bar).
And when it comes to the casting and how that impacts audience perceptions... Matt Smith at 39 was too old for both 24 and 30 year-old Daemon (though exquisite in the role of course).
Considering how his haters condemn Daemon for his actions in episode 1 while excusing Aegon for rape and Aemond for murdering Luke (and burning alive many many other children)... Let's have a look at an age-appropriate actor for 24-year-old Daemon and see if that changes anything.
Ooh would you look at that, Ewan Mitchell at 24 while filming S1.
Or Tom at 28 during S2, just two years younger than 30-year-old Daemon. With a face that wins hearts over rape. You telling me if Daemon was his book age you wouldn't be excusing his actions? You wouldn't be taking all the rape apology arguments Aegon stans use and applying them to Daemon's seduction of a 15-year-old Rhaenyra?
Especially if you still had him acting alongside 21-year-old Milly, who was supposed to pass for a 14 to 18-year-old Rhaenyra.
Hopefully though no one would be excusing a younger Daemon played by Tom Glynn-Carney if he had been put against an actual 14/15 year-old like Evie Allen. Who would have been a more age-accurate (and disturbing) casting for Rhaenyra...
Oh wait, how old was Maddie Evans (Dyana) while filming S1 again? 15? Never mind.
Casting teenagers in such scenarios is of course a difficult business - above all the first priority is to protect underage actors. Milly was well-suited to convincingly play Rhaenyra from early teens to late teens, and it's impossible to constantly re-cast for absolute age-accuracy across the time jumps. But it does impact perception - while the first priority is to protect underage actors, the casting of older actors to play teenagers does contribute to society's perceptions of teenage girls in particular as mature adults, rather than children.
Meanwhile the attractiveness of adult male actors - and the younger they are - does indeed shape what some audiences are willing to forgive or excuse. Reactions to Daemon and Viserys by fans (especially green fans) would be radically different if they were cast with their book ages - sorry to say it greens, but your objections to their characters is in large part due to the fact that you are not attracted to DILFS (or leprosy!). And even if we still aged up Rhaenyra like the show does when she first met Criston Cole, reactions to him during the Dance would be vastly different if he was played by a book-accurate 47-year-old. Again, Fabian Frankel is younger than Emma D'arcy.
Of course, the bar for age accurate casting is clear in the way we were supposed to accept Olivia Cooke playing Tom Glynn Carney's mother (they are two years apart).
Because again if Alicent had been 18 at the start of the show and 41 at the start of the dance she would have ceased to be an interesting character or something I guess. Because no one wants an older woman (ew gross!) as the series co-lead alongside a non-binary lead. And because mother/stepdaughter relationships are inherently one-note while BFFesbians are inherently rich, deep and complex... apparently. It has nothing to do with, you know, the writing quality.
Final Round!!! Aegon and Aemond picking fights with kids
Harvey Sadler here is 8/9 years old when he played young Lucerys. Which makes this baby face 2-3 years older than... a six-year-old Book Jacaerys when 10-year-old Aemond was 'pummelling him savagely'.
So yeah, "3 against 1" - the oldest of those 3 being younger than Harvey Sadler. And honestly, 6-year-old Jace has my undying respect for the sheer balls on him to go up against a bigger kid twice his age and size. Does he care that Aemond has just claimed the largest dragon in the world? No, he pushed over his baby brother!
"But it's more interesting if Aemond and Jace are peers" Maybe. If HOTD gave Jace equal screentime and character development perhaps. But they didn't. Any value added by making the antagonist interesting and sympathetic is cancelled out if the cost is ignoring the protagonist or making the protagonist boring (especially in a family civil war drama!).
"But sympathetic Aemond is much more interesting" I am not arguing against making him sympathetic. He is still a kid here, and he still has Aegon to bully him and earn him pity points and trigger a cycle of bullying as he takes out his grievances on others who don't deserve it etc. You don't need to age up his victims or remove sympathy or screentime from them. Sympathy doesn't have to be zero-sum.
Leo Hart was 13 at the time of filming, so the perfect age to play a 12-year-old Jace during the dinner scene where a grown-ass Aegon picks a fight with him over asking Helaena for a dance. Also an accurate age to play a 13-year-old Luke when Aemond murders him.
Elliot Grihault who played teenaged Luke was meanwhile actually closer in age to Book Jace during the dance than Harry Collett (no offence Harry, you still made a more believable teenager than 24-year-old Jon Snow did).
And lest we forget Aegon's true nemesis... 13 year old girls on tiny dragons 'no bigger than a horse'. No offence to a 24-year-old Bethany Antonia, but Shani Smethurst at 12 was perfectly cast to play Baela during the Dance and absolutely would have been the next Arya if this show didn't hate black girls.
But hey, at least we got adult Baela saying "I am blood and fire" while the script struggles (*cough doesn't bother) to find her anything to really do. That sure is an improvement over book Baela acting out, causing chaos, kissing kitchen boys and crying to save them from punishment, grieving alone on dragonstone after the gullet, trying desperately to get the adults around her to believe her suspicions about Grey Ghost, wrecking Aegon on her tiny dragon, being forced to grow up quickly under captivity and fiercely defending her rescuers from execution.
because Ormund Hightower getting in his teenage nephew’s face and coke ranting about the glory of the Hightower Reconquista that he has made up in his head that they are divinely ordained to accomplish to because of their special blood and no one understands but them IS exactly how Daemon was moving with fifteen year-old Rhaenyra in the first season of this show. kind of insane
baratheonpilled
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