the age conundrum in hotd and akotsk
Am re-watching akotsk bec I miss them :)) it struck me in one scene how much older daeron is from egg. I know henry ashton is 35 irl (fine man btw) but is playing someone in their early 20s. In the scene in the tent that they have together, for the non versed, he could easily be mistaken egg's father, rather than a brother. Even finn bennet as aerion, egg's other bro, looks older than he is supposed to be.
this got me thinking of hotd ageing confusions.
I was early sceptical about how sixteen years daeron would look as brother to basically grown up older brothers. iknow aemond is 18ish in the show but he looks older as the actor is older, so does aegon. but if a thirty five y/o actor can play a character in his twenties, that too a brother to a ten years old, I now think there would be no big problem with ages of daeron, aemond and aegon specially if they have no scenes together. Sure it would would hve been best if they had cast daeron in s1 like jace & luke. Daeron is supposed to be around jace age but it is what is.
The only flaw is that liv cooke as alicent looks way younger but thats the production issue. If they did not want to cast a third actor for alicent, put some veil and make up on her for aging. The olenna-like attire would not be bad. Alicent did have olenna like personality in source, her being dressed with veil would not be off character. At the least, akotsk maekar looks like father of two grown up sons. But green brothers themselves wont be big of an anomaly to me, after akotsk. Benjamin evans, the rumored actor of daeron is 17 irl so its not hard to imagine him as youngest brother to aegon and aemond. like egg is of daeron and aerion.
So here is the thing for me: I donβt mind age changes or small lore adjustments in AKOTSK because the show actually knows what it is doing.
The episodes are short, the whole season is centered around one main event, the writing is focused, and most of these characters are not going to carry years of plot afterward. So if an actor looks older than the exact book age, it does not really break anything for me. The story still works. The dynamics still work. The tone is still there. Amazing what happens when the writing is not held together with duct tape and delusion. π€£
HOTD, on the other hand, is a completely different fucking disease.
The problem with HOTD is not just βoh, this actor looks too youngβ or βthis character should be slightly older.β The problem is that the show has mangled canon, inverted lore, erased characters, blended characters together, invented ships, and then tried to pretend all of that is thoughtful adaptation. Years pass in one episode and then suddenly time stops for no reason. Children age, adults donβt. Alicent still looks too young because the production refused to commit to aging her properly (because Rhaenyra being shipped with an old woman is not attractive to them), even though a veil, stronger styling, and more severe court dress could have helped a lot. I agree with you, anon. Book!Alicent had that Olenna-like edge anyway, so leaning into an older, sharper visual style would not have been out of character.
With AKOTSK, Maekar looks like he could plausibly be the father of grown sons. The family structure still reads. Even if Daeron or Aerion look older than they technically should, the show has enough control over tone and writing that I can accept it.
I personally donβt think Daeron being younger than Aegon and Aemond in HOTD would be impossible to make work. If he is sixteen-ish while his brothers look older, fine. Families look like that sometimes, and actors rarely match exact ages anyway. The real issue is that HOTD failed to establish him early, failed to build the Green children properly as a family unit, and now everything around him feels like a patch job.
Age changes are not automatically the problem. Bad writing is. AKOTSK makes small changes and still respects the story. HOTD makes changes like it resents the book for existing.
