Anyone Besides Me Disturbed by Dany's Age

[Le Cygne]

It's a medieval fantasy. The story, as he intended it, was a romance. He said so. Pretend it's not, and you might as well be reading something else.

[sweetsunray]

I as well was quite disturbed by the way Martin described the wedding night of Dany and Drogo. Not because he described the sexual abuse of a child, this is sad reality in our world too. But because he sugarcoated the child rape  by being consensual. The frightened thirteen year old girl suddenly open for erotic experimentation? Wishful thinking in my eyes. The show made pure and simple rape out of it which is in my eyes far more realistic. While I have less problems with the idea that Dany later takes the erotic initiative. Throughout the story she has been described as independent thinker who, once woken up, does not wait any longer for others to decide about her. So this fits with her personality. But the wedding night as consensual? Highly unbelievable.

Yes, I think all child characters should have been older, it would add credibility to the story without taking anything away. Robert's rebellion would have happened maybe eighteen years ago, so what? Cat, Cersei and Jaime would indeed be forty, Robert and Ned be a little older. The boys would be believably competent or seriously evil, Arya still a child, only Sansa's "flowering" would have to be postponed, everything else in her character could have stayed the same. And yes, a sixteen year old ruling Dany would be quite ok, still room for impulsiveness.

Sansa's flowering at the age of say 14 or 15, certainly in a feudal setting would be well within the average age. Yes, the age of first menses has decreased over the past century. This is related to affluence of food resources and children not needing to survive hunger periods. When nature has to choose between using food for physical development and survival or the actual ability to procreate to feed two bodies, then physical survival beats the other every time. Menarch is highly linked to nutrients, because it is around the corner after a girl's growth spurt slows. Here we see nature's choice to first invest in growth before reproduction at work. On top of that, the first year after menarch, the menstruation is not even related to ovulation much. It's irregular, and sometimes there isn't even an ovulation (and in some exceptional cases, a girl can ovulate before having menses even). Ovulation on average requires a girl to have some fat reserve. In feudal times the food was rather unvaried and poor in nutrients (in comparison to hunter gatherer societies), so the average age of menarch was actually between 14-16, whereas nowadays it is 12-14. Dany having her menses at 12-13 (especially with the begging life preceding it) in such a setting is comparable to a girl of 10-11 having her menstruation already. It's not rare, but still uncommon. Sansa flowering at 11-12 is comparable to a 9-10 year old menstruationn nowadays, which is uncommon. 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

He's friends with Gabaldon, though.

Looks like you're not taking her seriously because those are "her fantasies". How you know these aren't Martin's too? Also, "for fun" sounds like you think she decided to write about sex because "lol". She's telling a story as much as Martin is doing it. The fact it includes sex as a main point shouldn't be a factor for believin her books are less than ASOIAF because they are written "by a man".

Dude, what the hell? Why are you determined to see me as a sexist hater of romance writers? Have fun projecting opinions on me.

 

[sweetsunray]

 

There are many cultures where girls are married off at very young ages. In some countries, recognition of cultural differences leads to consent ages as low as 14. I may balk at it but its not my culture. Consent is placed at 16 yrs in my country.

GRRM was also reflecting in some ways an aspect of medival culture. People married earlier. They also had much a shorter life expectancy on the whole. Waiting till 30 to marry was like waiting till 65 in our times. You practically had one foot in the grave at 29 in medival times.

I just cannot work up outrage at Dany being 12 or 13 when she marries Drogo. At most I can do a mild "Ugh!".

It's a myth that people married at a young age. And while they had a shorter life expectancy, the average life expectancy often leads to wrongful conclusions as you make.

Average age of a man in the middle ages was late 20s. They had to be sure to have a stable living before starting a family. Meanwhile women on average married in their early 20s (same reason). The only class who married younger were the noble class, and even then average age for women was 16-18. When Shakespeare wrote about Juliet's mother declaring she was wed at 13 it was a scandal. Yes, child marriages happened but were not consummated before the proper age, which was 16-18. 14-year olds being married and bedded being the norm in the middle ages is a myth, and one of the reasons against it is that the average first menstruation age was 14-16 to begin with in those lean times.

As for life expectancy. There was a huge child mortality. A child living up to see the age of 5 was a coin toss, including with the nobility. This influences the figures tremendously. Once a child passed that critical age, their life expectancy would increase tremendously. As I have mentioned, late 20s was the common male age for men to marry - so no, you weren't regarded to have one foot in the grave already at 29 at all. But once you were 50 the living circumstances (damp, cold, lean food) were such that people would suffer from ailments much more. So, from 50 on life quality dropped quickly.

As for the age of consent nowadays. You make it sound as if those cultures are alien to western modern society. Canada has 14 as the age of sexual consent with someone who is maximum 5 years older than them. So, 14-19 is perfectly fine by Canadian law. Belgium too is discussing to lower the age of sexual consent to 14 with the same age limit. General sexual consent is 16 though. So, 14-30 is statuary rape, whereas 16-30 is not.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Let's see, indication Dany wants to have sex with Drogo.

She tells us point blank she was excited the first time. So since it's her story, we should certainly listen to her, or read another story.

Later:

And later:

She seems to dig him...

Jesus f*cking Christ, thanks...???

 

Danys later sexual empowerment is not at issue. I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

 

The problem is the wedding night. All the stuff you just quoted *is the exact problem we're talking about*, because prior to that Dany is terrified and not at all into it. But then Drogo molests her with his magic hands and then everything is fine????

 

GRRM does use romance tropes, which is mostly fine and good, but the whole young girl being ravished by a barbarian and liking it is really jarring as its deeply unrealistic in a series that's otherwise trying (and mostly achieving) realism about human nature. Note I'm not saying it's unrealistic for young girls to fantasize about being ravished by barbarians--but it is unrealistic for a young girl to enjoy the actual situation of being coerced into sex. 

[SeanF]

Yeah, it's disturbing to me, too. The way Dany is written throughout her arc is extremely sexualized, even if she's just kind of lounging around in her room. It doesn't help that once during an interview GRRM was asked which of his characters he'd like to hang out with IRL and said something to the effect of "Dany, because she's hot." I mean, ew.

Luckily Dany is otherwise a very strong character, with a complex personality and a lot of agency. But yeah, the way she is graphically sexualized, almost all the time, particularly during the wedding night scene, would be a smidge creepy even if she were 20-something and is real problematic considering she's 13/14.

While he's otherwise quite good at writing women and girls, GRRM has a serious problem with male gaze and his "hot" female characters. Arianne suffers from the same problem. You can even notice it in his other works, like the female detective in Skin Trade.

Eating habits in Martin's world seem to be far closer to our own, than to those of medieval Europe.  The upper classes in this world eat lots of vegetables, for example, whereas in medieval Europe, the rich only ate them as garnishes, or in broths.

It's quite possible that in his world, a girl with a good diet might well begin menstruating at a similar age to our world.

WRT Dany, my impression is that her and her brother's circumstances, prior to meeting Illyrio, are more shabby-genteel, rather than actually living out on the streets.  Viserys was able to organise a banquet for the leaders of the Golden Company, which wouldn't have come cheap.  His mother's crown must have fetched a tidy sum.

[Protagoras]

I get that some (including myself) are disturbed by Daenerys age - but my feelings and other persons feelings on the subject are not particularly relevant except for us.

Different cultures and societies, like different individuals, simply do, in fact, have very different moral values and moral rightness is indeed a matter of obedience to cultural values. The Dothraki decides what is "good" and what is "bad" in their society. You might not like it, but it hardly matters - Often, what is wrong in one culture is right in another. Is it really that shocking that Daenerys adapts to those cultural values in order to be seen as a moral person in the Dothraki culture?

Inventing a fictionally trans-cultural standard by which you can criticize a whole culture's values makes you kind of an asshole in my book. What right do you have to judge something that you are not a part of and how can you even prove that your so-called "moral truths" are truths and not simply your own preferential moral standard, which you try to give a status it does not possess?

I do not doubt that most people today and especially on this forum, have a moral standard that believes Daenerys wedding and marriage is problematic, but there is no reason for the Dothraki to rethink their values because of this - different strokes for different folks.

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Eating habits in Martin's world seem to be far closer to our own, than to those of medieval Europe.  The upper classes in this world eat lots of vegetables, for example, whereas in medieval Europe, the rich only ate them as garnishes, or in broths.

It's quite possible that in his world, a girl with a good diet might well begin menstruating at a similar age to our world.

WRT Dany, my impression is that her and her brother's circumstances, prior to meeting Illyrio, are more shabby-genteel, rather than actually living out on the streets.  Viserys was able to organise a banquet for the leaders of the Golden Company, which wouldn't have come cheap.  His mother's crown must have fetched a tidy sum.

I'm not sure what this has to do with Dany's character being sexualized. Did you quote the wrong person?

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

I get that some (including myself) are disturbed by Daenerys age - but my feelings and other persons feelings on the subject are not particularly relevant except for us.

Different cultures and societies, like different individuals, simply do, in fact, have very different moral values and moral rightness is indeed a matter of obedience to cultural values. The Dothraki decides what is "good" and what is "bad" in their society. You might not like it, but it hardly matters - Often, what is wrong in one culture is right in another. Is it really that shocking that Daenerys adapts to those cultural values in order to be seen as a moral person in the Dothraki culture?

Inventing a fictionally trans-cultural standard by which you can criticize a whole culture's values makes you kind of an asshole in my book. What right do you have to judge something that you are not a part of and how can you even prove that your so-called "moral truths" are truths and not simply your own preferential moral standard, which you try to give a status it does not possess?

I do not doubt that most people today and especially on this forum, have a moral standard that believes Daenerys wedding and marriage is problematic, but there is no reason for the Dothraki to rethink their values because of this - different strokes for different folks.

You know it's not a documentary, right?

And we're not even criticizing the Dothraki--we're criticizing Viserys, Illyrio, and GRRM.

[Knight Of Winter]

Way too much strawmaning going on here. It seems that if you oppose some pairings in ASOIAF, you're either not accepting romance or refuse to accept girls as sexual beings. While, in fact, there are good arguments for this opinion.

The thread title mentions Dany's age, so I'll start with that. No matter how well it's written, no matter how much actual hints GRRM put into it, I'll always find these romances and implied romances between girls entering puberty and adult men creepy and inappropriate (I'll refrain from mentioning word starting with -pedo and ending with -philia). Such pairings deserve the exact same opposition as if they were in real life: namely that they can't be a relationship between equals. Adults are by definition more mature, smarter and more stable then children. And before anyone accuses me of denying complexity of children or children's characters - I'm not, I'm just stating a simple fact of biology. Compare 13-year old self to your adult self and you'll see what I mean. All in all, if an adult is truly mentally at the level of an 13-year old, that adult has a problem.

Second factor is that it's unrealistic. I know plenty of people in their twenties, being one myself, but I don't know even one who is sexually or romantically attracted at boys/girls half their age. And yet, it's ever-present in ASOIAF-verse: Sandor, Tyrion, Petyr, Illyrio, Viserys, Drogo, Raff, random men in Braavos... you name it. Perhaps GRRM truly wrote a fiction where human behave like humans in our world, have some psychology and biology as humans in our world, and for all intents and purposes are exactly like humans in our world (which is one of the best things in the series, but I digress) with the sole exception that their sexuality works differently and it's normal be be attracted to pubescents. Maybe that's the case, but I still find it creepy.

 

The other thing is how lot of these relationships come of as (or start as) flatly abusive. For example, this Dany/Drogo supporting quote, somehow conveniently fails to mention this:

Even the nights brought no relief. Khal Drogo ignored her when they rode, even as he had ignored her during their wedding, and spent his evenings drinking with his warriors and bloodriders, racing his prize horses, watching women dance and men die. Dany had no place in these parts of his life. She was left to sup alone, or with Ser Jorah and her brother, and afterward to cry herself to sleep. Yet every night, some time before the dawn, Drogo would come to her tent and wake her in the dark, to ride her as relentlessly as he rode his stallion. He always took her from behind, Dothraki fashion, for which Dany was grateful; that way her lord husband could not see the tears that wet her face, and she could use her pillow to muffle her cries of pain. When he was done, he would close his eyes and begin to snore softly and Dany would lie beside him, her body bruised and sore, hurting too much for sleep.

Day followed day, and night followed night, until Dany knew she could not endure a moment longer. She would kill herself rather than go on, she decided one night …

 

Does this sound like a happy relationship at this point? Does this look like consensual sex to any of us. To me, it just seems that Drogo has sex whenever he wants and completely ignores Dany's pain and wishes. Replace Drogo with Robert and Dany with Cersei and you basically get a description of royal couple's sexual life which Robert (rightfully) gets lambasted for. But here, such rape and abuse is not a dealbreaker, it simply an obstacle Dany should overcome. You see, if you could only ignore this  "abuse" silliness and suggest your husband a different sex position, everything will be fine. He'll even start to fall for you. Attagirl. And frankly, I find this very disturbing, to say the least.

 

[SeanF]

I'm not sure what this has to do with Dany's character being sexualized. Did you quote the wrong person?

I'm afraid so.  I thought I was quoting Sweet Sunray.

[Woman of War]

Sansa's flowering at the age of say 14 or 15, certainly in a feudal setting would be well within the average age. Yes, the age of first menses has decreased over the past century. This is related to affluence of food resources and children not needing to survive hunger periods. When nature has to choose between using food for physical development and survival or the actual ability to procreate to feed two bodies, then physical survival beats the other every time. Menarch is highly linked to nutrients, because it is around the corner after a girl's growth spurt slows. Here we see nature's choice to first invest in growth before reproduction at work. On top of that, the first year after menarch, the menstruation is not even related to ovulation much. It's irregular, and sometimes there isn't even an ovulation (and in some exceptional cases, a girl can ovulate before having menses even). Ovulation on average requires a girl to have some fat reserve. In feudal times the food was rather unvaried and poor in nutrients (in comparison to hunter gatherer societies), so the average age of menarch was actually between 14-16, whereas nowadays it is 12-14. Dany having her menses at 12-13 (especially with the begging life preceding it) in such a setting is comparable to a girl of 10-11 having her menstruation already. It's not rare, but still uncommon. Sansa flowering at 11-12 is comparable to a 9-10 year old menstruationn nowadays, which is uncommon. 

yes, you are right and thank you for your thorough post. But maybe some girls from nobility, though maybe not Dany, were well nourished and had their menarche earlier.

This maybe means that basically Martin could have picked any age between 12 and fifteen and Sansa's onset of menses would still have been believable.

p.s., I am a tiny woman like Dany and I had my menarche at 11, meaning quite early. The idea to start having  sex with an adult guy at that age or at twelve would have been simply cruel. Not romantic.

 

Jesus f*cking Christ, thanks...???

 

Danys later sexual empowerment is not at issue. I don't think anyone has a problem with that.

 

The problem is the wedding night. All the stuff you just quoted *is the exact problem we're talking about*, because prior to that Dany is terrified and not at all into it. But then Drogo molests her with his magic hands and then everything is fine????

 

GRRM does use romance tropes, which is mostly fine and good, but the whole young girl being ravished by a barbarian and liking it is really jarring as its deeply unrealistic in a series that's otherwise trying (and mostly achieving) realism about human nature. Note I'm not saying it's unrealistic for young girls to fantasize about being ravished by barbarians--but it is unrealistic for a young girl to enjoy the actual situation of being coerced into sex. 

this

yes, we all have our fantasies. But some should not be sold as positive if coming true. They should stay private, where you can fantasize yourself into leaving out the real pain, the terrible fear, the humiliation and the dirt of getting forced.

If sold as a good way for young women to enter sexual relationships those same personal private fantasies become rape ideology.

[SeanF]

 

Second factor is that it's unrealistic. I know plenty of people in their twenties, being one myself, but I don't know even one who is sexually or romantically attracted at boys/girls half their age. And yet, it's ever-present in ASOIAF-verse: Sandor, Tyrion, Petyr, Illyrio, Viserys, Drogo, Raff, random men in Braavos... you name it. Perhaps GRRM truly wrote a fiction where human behave like humans in our world, have some psychology and biology as humans in our world, and for all intents and purposes are exactly like humans in our world (which is one of the best things in the series, but I digress) with the sole exception that their sexuality works differently and it's normal be be attracted to pubescents. Maybe that's the case, but I still find it creepy.

 

 

 

While I think very few adults in a modern Western society would admit to being attracted to girls (or boys) aged 12-16, there are enough cases that come before the Courts to suggest that quite a large number of adults are so attracted.  And, there have been times and places where people have been quite frank about expressing such attraction.  In the Ancient World, for example, teachers would frequently engage in sexual activity with their pupils.  So, leaving aside the morality of it, I don't think there's anything unrealistic about the degree of sexual interest in Dany or Sansa. 

[Blind Beth the Cat Lady]

Yeah, dudes being attracted to young teenagers is totally realistic. Young teen having a healthy romantic relationship with a 30yo dude, on the other hand, not so much.

The Dany's Wedding Night apologists should go find some of the thousands of modern day girls in developing countries who were married off to older men at age 13 and ask them how romantic their wedding night was.

[Woman of War]

Of course there are adults who desire children or very young teens, that is not unrealistic at all.

And before we shame people who have those desires many of us do not understand and agree with we should be aware that it counts what people do with their desire..If people never touch a child, never get offensive verbally  and never influence  a child to do things a child is too young for - then I have no right to condemn this person for his or her private fantasies, they simply are not my business( (this does not include child porn since you need a child to produce child porn). Pedosexuals only are condemnable if they get active. If they never harm any child they are people who deserve help and and pity for their difficult situation instead of condemning them.

Tyrion and Sandor refrained at the last moment from raping Sansa, seeing how much in the wrong they were. And Martin gave us two beautifully written chapters about those two complex characters, even if they themselves formally are not the POV's. While Drogo did the deed and sorry to say, this part of the books is less well written. Not because sexual abuse has been described but because it has been romanticized.

 

[7-KG]

At the beginning i was disturbed by it, too, but as the series moved on and worse things started to happen, i forgot it.

[John Suburbs]

Sansa's flowering at the age of say 14 or 15, certainly in a feudal setting would be well within the average age. Yes, the age of first menses has decreased over the past century. This is related to affluence of food resources and children not needing to survive hunger periods. When nature has to choose between using food for physical development and survival or the actual ability to procreate to feed two bodies, then physical survival beats the other every time. Menarch is highly linked to nutrients, because it is around the corner after a girl's growth spurt slows. Here we see nature's choice to first invest in growth before reproduction at work. On top of that, the first year after menarch, the menstruation is not even related to ovulation much. It's irregular, and sometimes there isn't even an ovulation (and in some exceptional cases, a girl can ovulate before having menses even). Ovulation on average requires a girl to have some fat reserve. In feudal times the food was rather unvaried and poor in nutrients (in comparison to hunter gatherer societies), so the average age of menarch was actually between 14-16, whereas nowadays it is 12-14. Dany having her menses at 12-13 (especially with the begging life preceding it) in such a setting is comparable to a girl of 10-11 having her menstruation already. It's not rare, but still uncommon. Sansa flowering at 11-12 is comparable to a 9-10 year old menstruationn nowadays, which is uncommon. 

You also have to account for the widespread use of accelerated growth hormones in the beef and swine industries. They cause the animals to reach maturity quicker, so it is cheaper to feed and house them before slaughter, and they also produce fatter, juicier meat. The thing is, those hormones don't disappear just because the animal is killed. They stay in the meat, which is consumed by the public and, viola, fatter children who reach sexual maturity sooner than past generations. 

[dornishdame]

In medieval England, one of the periods and places Westeros is meant to represent, women could marry at 12 and men at 14 (there were a few examples of earlier marriages among the high born - though these were political, and were not consummated, such as the marriage between Prince Richard of York and Lady Anne Mowbray in the 1470s).  Those who married at that age tended not to consummate the marriage immediately; for example, Catherine of Aragon married Prince Arthur at the age of 15, but the was contemporary acceptance to her assertion that it was not consummated. When Henry VIII's illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy married Lady Mary Howard at the age of 14, there was no consummation.  He died 3 years later. 

Dany's experience with Drogo does, to a certain extent, mirror that of Lady Margaret Beaufort.  As the fatherless daughter of a member of the extended royal family, her marriage was essentially in the gift of King Henry VI.  She was betrothed when a young child to John de la Pole, the young son of one of King Henry VI's ministers.  This was later broken off, and a new betrothal made to Henry's half-brother Edmund Tudor, Earl of Richmond.  Margaret married Edmund when she was a small and slight girl of 12, and less than half his age.   While other fourteenth century couples such as Richard, Duke of York and his wife Cecily Neville appear to have waited a number of years after their marriage to consummate it, Edmund was determined to provide himself with an heir given the political situation (1450s; start of the Wars of the Roses). Margaret subsequently became pregnant at 12.  By 13, she was a mother and a widow after Edmund died of the plague. 

While Dany's age is disturbing by the standards of today, what she experiences upon her marriage to Drogo was perfectly legal in the sort of world on which ASOIAF is based. 

[JonCon's Red Beard]

The Dany's Wedding Night apologists should go find some of the thousands of modern day girls in developing countries who were married off to older men at age 13 and ask them how romantic their wedding night was.

You should tell that to Martin, the one who called their night romantic Why don't you?

[Maxxine]

I feel like this thread may have gotten a little off track. I didn't necessarily want to judge if it was right for 13 yo girls to marry and consummate a marriage to 30 yo man in medieval times or debate if this kind of behavior in fact happened in medieval times. Different historical time periods have different social taboos & norms. My issue and the creepy part about her age to me was GRRM intentional  chose to make Dany 13 when he didn't have to. He could have easily made her at least 16 and it takes nothing away from the plot and it doesn't do anything to misrepresent the time period he is trying to portray. And even if he had to make Dany 13 why did he had to writer her sex scenes and anything involving her sexuality with so much detail. When he discusses Ned & Catelyn having sex he only says "Ned took his pleasure" (or something to that effect), but he goes into to vivid detail about the sex the 13 year old is having. Creepy.

I appreciate the literary devices and that "he uses this as symbolism of her gaining her sexual freedom and overall empowerment." That would be all well & good if she were older. I'm all for female empowerment & women embracing their sexuality and not being ashamed of it. But not for a 13 year old girl. The fact that he chose to make her 13 when it was completely unnecessary (at least in my opinion) makes it creepy.