What little piece of canon do you wish you could tweak/change?

[rotting sea cow]

I'd change who gave the dragon's eggs to Dany. Illyrio giving the eggs creates some issues down the road. I'd make Drogo who gave the eggs to Dany. It would also make a more interesting story about the intentions of Drogo re:Dany.

[Morte]

12 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Throughout history there was always someone, who married his 13 year old cousin, but it was never the norm in Europe. That's just a very persistent misconception. For sure not in the 19th century, where the rule of thumb was actually to never marry someone, who is younger, than half your age plus added 7 years.

Just to clarify the bolded: The misconception comes from often not being given the age of a girl, but her "having flowered", aka: having the menarche. But the menarche is triggered by body fat (just as any menstruation will stop with not enough body fat), nothing else, so if we take the nutrition of historical societies into account, we don't get very early marriages/consummations even for societies like ancient Athens, where a girl was presumed fully grown after it's menarche (all the thirteen years old brides were most likely 15 or 16 years old).

And still: Even the examples of very early marriages were often not consummated until much later.

[Nagini's Neville]

2 hours ago, Morte said:

Just to clarify the bolded: The misconception comes from often not being given the age of a girl, but her "having flowered", aka: having the menarche. But the menarche is triggered by body fat (just as any menstruation will stop with not enough body fat), nothing else, so if we take the nutrition of historical societies into account, we don't get very early marriages/consummations even for societies like ancient Athens, where a girl was presumed fully grown after it's menarche (all the thirteen years old brides were most likely 15 or 16 years old).

And still: Even the examples of very early marriages were often not consummated until much later.

Agreed. Especially among commoners girls got their periods on average much later than todays average age. GRRM has based asoiaf on medieval history, but he borrowed the importance of "flowering" from different time periods, because there wasn't special importance put on starting your period and that being the sign, that a girl was perceived as a woman now in the MA. Marriage for girls was possible at 12 and for boys at 14- so the Tommon- Marg marriage would not have happened. But the marriage usually wasn't consummated (there are of course always exceptions) until both were at least 16 and bride and groom lived like children either separated, especially if one party was much older, or as "brother and sister" like you've said having their guardians making life decisions for them.

[Morte]

48 minutes ago, Nagini's Neville said:

Marriage for girls was possible at 12 and for boys at 14- so the Tommon- Marg marriage would not have happened.

That's also why the "Tysha-incident" would have been solved by a simple annulment in the MA. The age of consents is not dispensable in Canonical Law.

[Lollygag]

13 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

I absolutely agree with that, which is why it seems odd that Tyrion/Jaime don't even think about that.

Joffrey doesn't remember being a baby, and their lack of closeness is part of Joffrey's theorized motive (a "pat on the head" from a distant father).

To be fair to Joffrey, after first bringing up Sansa he probably was confused by Tyrion going back to something earlier and (in Joffrey's mind) unrelated, particularly as Robert was killed by a boar rather than a human (unlike Ned Stark). Later on when Joffrey rebukes Tywin compared to Robert and insists "a king must be bold" citing him, we get the impression Joffrey did look up to Robert.

But why do they both reach the SAME conclusion on such weak evidence? It seems to me like GRRM was trying to tell the audience to believe them.

Perhaps GRRM hadn't initially planned for Joffrey to be responsible, particularly as Jaime became a more sympathetic character. He defends himself against the accusation of sending the catspaw by insisting he'd do his killing himself, but in AGOT when he goes after Ned's men he just sits back and lets his goons handle it.

I thought he was hostile toward Robb, which is why Catelyn wanted Bran sent along with them to bridge the gap.

Trying to not derail too much, so just to clarify, I do think it's Joff just as GRRM says, but I think we haven't been told who helped him or the nature of that help.

Bold: Tyrion's slap was over Joff not paying his respects over Bran. That scene began with Joff wanting to kill Summer for all of the howling and ended with Sandor's ominous warning that Joff would remember that slap over Bran.

 

[Vaith]

20 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

The ages of the main characters.

Marriages involving 13 year old brides have no place or precedent in medieval Europe. As a matter of fact, most of the world doesn't even deem it as acceptable. It is wiser and more valuable to have a 16-17 year old bride; it's another to have girls who are 12-13 years old be presented as brides and wives. I understand that Sansa's marriage to Tyrion Lannister is an abhorrently cruel act of war (and frankly, an act of genocide) but Dany's marriage to Drogo was established to be a normal marriage of a Dothraki khal to a foreign woman with a good name. I don't know if Drogo is the youngest Dothraki khal in ______ years, it was absurdly unrealistic for a 13 year old girl to be ceremoniously married into a foreign culture and then immediately expected to bear children. As high as the mortality rate of pregnant women and newborn/unborn children, one would think that they would know better. Or at least know enough to recognize that their interests are far better served if the girl is in her late teens at the earliest.

It goes for the boys too. Like there is absolutely no reason for Joffrey (a Crown Prince and then king no less) to be pressured into marrying any girl at 13 years old. Much less Tommen who is like 8. Absolutely no reason. Isn't the whole point of it all was to link younger women with older men. Older men because they are more likely to have gained maturity, experience, respect and power and the ability to actually impregnate their wives and younger women so that their biological clock can be maximized. Jaehaerys I waited until the age of majority to get married and people still complained that it was much too soon. Aegon III and Jaehaera were both hitched before the age of 12 and people -- while acknowledging that thought it was done out of necessity in order to bring a very bloody, ugly civil war to an end -- still found it to be deeply unpleasant.

Not only that. But Bran is 7 year old. Can most people clearly remember being 7 years old? Even your brightest, most well-behaved and your oldest of old souls 7 year olds are still 7 years olds. They have only just begun to learn what the world is, much less how they are to fit in. In the medieval world, 7 years old isn't even old enough to be fostered away. 7 year olds have no value in apprenticeships; you'd spend more of your time raising them, than actually teaching them how to do the job. Even in the ancient world, 7 years old is when the Spartans -- as cold, harsh and borderline barbaric as they were -- would BEGIN training the male youth at age 7....not the age where male youth are thrusted into battle and given responsibility. Yet, Bran is expected to be the Stark in Winterfell and beccome Bloodraven's successor as this powerful greenseer. He can barely even knows how to keep his body clean.

This is a good one. Not only did gapscrap happen meaning that the characters should be at least 5 years older than they are, but I believe GRRM's original intention was for more time to pass in the novels themselves (AGoT has the largest timespan of all of them, then more details get added in later books when active war is going on). Knowing that characters would not age that much between AGoT and ADWD would probably make Martin choose the characters to start out older.

Although I do think that it is indeed made clear that some marriages (e.g. Sansa) are happening due to wartime; in peacetime the characters do indeed tend to marry older (although I would change some things like the marriage of Aemma Arryn, which did not have to be consummated so young).

Still, if Sansa was 18/19 instead of 13/14 now, the semi-romantic undertones that she has with Harry would make more sense. As would a 16 year old Arya doing what she does in "Mercy."

[FictionIsntReal]

6 hours ago, Lollygag said:

Trying to not derail too much, so just to clarify, I do think it's Joff just as GRRM says, but I think we haven't been told who helped him or the nature of that help.

Bold: Tyrion's slap was over Joff not paying his respects over Bran. That scene began with Joff wanting to kill Summer for all of the howling and ended with Sandor's ominous warning that Joff would remember that slap over Bran.

 

Joffrey was more indifferent to Bran than hostile. Sandor was the one complaining about him not dying quickly enough, while Joffrey was just annoyed that the wolf howl kept him up (and amused that Sandor offered to kill it). The catspaw wasn't sent to kill a wolf (which wouldn't have been keeping Joffrey awake after he'd gotten back on the kingsroad), but Bran himself. And Bran was "nothing" to Joff,  in his own words. Joffrey actually is hostile to Tyrion, but didn't hire a catspaw to kill him (why Mandon Moore tried to kill him still hasn't been answered, I like the theory that he acted on his own initiative).

[Nevets]

If I were to change one thing, I would add one year to each characters age.  This would make some of the more problematic aspects of some stories a little easier to take, while keeping the basic stories.  If you raise the ages too much, many actions look excessively immature or completely idiotic.  Either that or a complete rewrite of some stories, which is hardly a tweak.  

That many of the characters are too young for their stories is part of the point.  They are thrust into roles they are in no way ready or prepared for, and it shows.  They are manipulated by others, and make mistakes older or more experienced individuals would be less likely to make.  But adding a year makes, for example, Dany 14/15 wen she marries Drogo, and Sansa 13/14 when marrying Tyrion.  Still too young, but somewhat more acceptable, especially given the specific circumstances. 

[Jiriki]

So this may not meet the definition of "a small change", but the one change I would make is to not have Tyrion murder Shae. I really felt Tyrion was better than that: Tyrion is supposed to be incredibly clever; he's supposed to be above all the killing and violence of those around him. He could easily have come up with a better and more ironic way to get back at her, if he chose to do so. It felt out of character and IMO way too dumb for Tyrion, who started off as one of the series' intellectuals, but gradually just became another person reacting violently to those around him.

[BlackLightning]

22 hours ago, Morte said:

The marriages at that a young age are not that uncommon, albeit it is absurd for them to be consummated (Romans tended to marry very young, and it also was a tradition in parts of Jewish mediaeval culture; and there are a couple of political marriages in which bride or/and groom were very young), but bride and groom would live like brother and sister (or guardian and ward - if they even lived together!) for at least three, four years (if they are married at thirteen, in Tommen's case it would be like ... eight years?), because of the reasons you stated, but also because, even if they could be married away, they were still considered children. That's what bugs me, even for Jon and Robb and the likes: A fifteen years old in mediaeval context is a boy, he might be the (future) crowned and anointed king and emperor, but he is a boy. He may throw a tantrum, not wanting to marry a twenty-five years old widow, but he will do as his custodians say. End of story.

And don't let me start with Joffrey... If a fourteen years old king tells you to do something abhorrent - you go to his tutors and custodians, you don't beat a highborn lady bloody. It's not something your Lord Commander has to explain to you as a knight, it is something you simple do, because the king is a minor.

And Bran... I wholeheartedly agree.

As you say: Even the Spartans would just begin with their training at that young an age. As for the mediaeval Ages, we have an example of someone who, by all account, might have not only bordered on genius (Bran is far away from that level), but what did Friedrich II of Hohenstaufen do at age 7? Holding court or audiences? No, he was tutored and educated - and ran away to play in the street, whenever he could. Because a seven years old is a seven years old.

I think you have betrothals confused with marriages. Betrothals are one thing, it is not uncommon for them to be made at birth, much less in the preteen years. Marriages, sex and childbirth and all that entails are a completely different thing.

Clearly the Lannister marriages of Ermesande Hayford and Sansa Stark are power grabs and acts of war. Dangerous, exploitative and socially and economically unconscionable to be honest, particularly in Sansa's case.

A lot of people view Cersei's reaction to Tommen, Joffrey, Myrcella and even Sansa's betrothals and marriages (but especially Tommen) as irrational but they actually were quite rational. It is not normal. Notice how Joffrey and Sansa still had not been married and not been made to share beds and living spaces? That is a normal betrothal. Even Robert Baratheon knew better.

Robb was betrothed to Roslin Frey. Yet Walder Frey did not deign to pressure him to call for the marriage. Robb is nearly of age and who knows how old Roslin is.

Tommen is 8-years-old, he is the king on the Iron Throne with a heir to boot, the War of the Five Kings is essentially over and his mother is the legitimate Queen Regent and the ruling Lady of Casterly Rock. The pressure was unnecessary, rude and, frankly, insubordinate. Tywin served Aerys for decades as Hand of the King and their friendship was well-known to all; although Aerys' refusal of Tywin was socially inept and he made the mistake of gravely insulting him, Aerys was well within his rights to deny Tywin's marriage proposal as he was the king. Cersei was literally the king until the king becomes of age. There is literally no reason why his marriage to Maragery had to happen IMMEDIATELY and why he has to share a bed with what's essentially a grown woman. The Tyrells overreached, particularly since they owe the Iron Throne fealty anyway; I would've been furious.

Also betrothing Myrcella (she was also 8 at the time) to Trystane Martell and then sending her hundreds of miles away to Dorne in wartime without a family member when the Prince's loyalties were dubious at best, Stannis an active aggressor controlled Blackwater Bay and Renly controlled the Stormlands and the Reach is also kind of extreme. And in poor taste. Although Tyrion was really desperate and Tywin understood that completely, Tywin found it distasteful.

Catelyn Stark didn't even feel comfortable allowing 7 year old Bran to go and live in King's Landing at peacetime and he would've been with his father...who was legally the second most-powerful man in the country. And Catelyn is an infinitely more rational woman than Cersei.

It is unusual.

20 hours ago, ThotKiller said:

But it is actual accuracy. Edgar Allan Poe was 27 years old and marry his 13 years old cousin.

It is not accurate. Edgar Allen Poe's marriage was done secretly and kept secret for quite some time. They actually had to forge her age on the marriage certificate (and of all ages, they chose 21).

Why do people marry in secret?

Marrying someone that young at his age (especially with the career he had at the time in the military) was very unusual.

And he wasn't even that popular and well-liked back then.

14 hours ago, Morte said:

That's also why the "Tysha-incident" would have been solved by a simple annulment in the MA. The age of consents is not dispensable in Canonical Law.

Exactly.

The only way a person can marry under the age of 16 is if their parents give consent. Legally, they cannot consent to marriage. Consummation be damned. Didn't Tyrion had to bribe or intoxicate that septon so that the two could be married anyways?

3 hours ago, Nevets said:

If I were to change one thing, I would add one year to each characters age.  This would make some of the more problematic aspects of some stories a little easier to take, while keeping the basic stories.  If you raise the ages too much, many actions look excessively immature or completely idiotic.  Either that or a complete rewrite of some stories, which is hardly a tweak.  

That many of the characters are too young for their stories is part of the point.  They are thrust into roles they are in no way ready or prepared for, and it shows.  They are manipulated by others, and make mistakes older or more experienced individuals would be less likely to make.  But adding a year makes, for example, Dany 14/15 wen she marries Drogo, and Sansa 13/14 when marrying Tyrion.  Still too young, but somewhat more acceptable, especially given the specific circumstances. 

Good point on aging.

But one year? Giving the kids a one year bump up works for Robb, Jon and Dany.

It however, does not work for Arya, Bran and Rickon. Not even for Sansa.

Take Rickon for example. Rickon is three years old in A Game of Thrones. He probably has only just been weaned off breastmilk. And has he even been completely potty-trained at that point? A lot of 3-year-olds can barely speak. Multiple characters go so far as to state that Rickon is way too young to be separated from his mother for extended periods of time (which is still true -- if not more true -- in today's culture) yet Catelyn leaves him to gallavant halfway across the country and fails to immediately return at multiple opportunities.

It honestly makes Catelyn look like a cluelessly bad mother and it makes Robb look like an idiot.

However, if Rickon is 6-7 years old, then you have a different story. Catelyn's decision to leave Winterfell is more measured and responsible and Robb isn't asking for too much when he asks that his mother stay by his side.

11 hours ago, Vaith said:

This is a good one. Not only did gapscrap happen meaning that the characters should be at least 5 years older than they are, but I believe GRRM's original intention was for more time to pass in the novels themselves (AGoT has the largest timespan of all of them, then more details get added in later books when active war is going on). Knowing that characters would not age that much between AGoT and ADWD would probably make Martin choose the characters to start out older.

Although I do think that it is indeed made clear that some marriages (e.g. Sansa) are happening due to wartime; in peacetime the characters do indeed tend to marry older (although I would change some things like the marriage of Aemma Arryn, which did not have to be consummated so young).

Still, if Sansa was 18/19 instead of 13/14 now, the semi-romantic undertones that she has with Harry would make more sense. As would a 16 year old Arya doing what she does in "Mercy."

If he wanted more time to pass between the novels, then he should've made the War of the Five Kings in A Clash for Kings longer/more complicated. Maybe rope in the Summer Islands someway, add another war theater or add another king to prolong the conflicts.

18 hours ago, Morte said:

Just to clarify the bolded: The misconception comes from often not being given the age of a girl, but her "having flowered", aka: having the menarche. But the menarche is triggered by body fat (just as any menstruation will stop with not enough body fat), nothing else, so if we take the nutrition of historical societies into account, we don't get very early marriages/consummations even for societies like ancient Athens, where a girl was presumed fully grown after it's menarche (all the thirteen years old brides were most likely 15 or 16 years old).

And still: Even the examples of very early marriages were often not consummated until much later.

You made a very good point,

Notice how the characters say nameday instead of birthday. Free Folk and the mountains clans in the North and the Vale give theri children milk names and don't actually start naming their children and counting their age until after they are no longer being breastfed. Which happens at age 2.

So, if the rest of Westeros follows this somewhat, a lot of characters are actually one or two years older than what they are.

 

[BlackLightning]

On 5/31/2020 at 10:11 PM, Nagini's Neville said:

Honestly I think the kids being/staying that young is a side-effect of gardening. GRRM said before he initially intended for the young characters to grow up during the story. But yeah it's no explanation for Dany's marriage. And I don't think the right solution to that problem should have been necessarily to just normalize it within Westeros for no logical reason.

Marrying Dany to Drogo and as you say, expecting her to be able to bear children right away is really stupid on Viserys' and also Drogo's part. 

But the same goes for Tywin and Tyrion with Sansa. I never really understood, what Tywin's goal was. When Tyrion argues before the marriage, that Sansa is a child, Tywin states it's just about the consummation and after Tyrion "can wait a couple of years", from their pov politically that would make sense. But the next time they talk Tywin tells Tyrion Sansa needs to get with child asap. The man, who lost his own wife in childbed, thinks it's a clever idea to impregnate a not even 13 year old valuable political pawn, the only, who'll give them access to the north? And Tyrion, who has quite a bit of trauma connected to "having killed" his mother during his birth doesn't think to bring that up either, not even to use as a counterargument against his father? Bit weird.

There were however quite a few boy-kings throughout history.

This is a little off-topic but Tywin's goal was to destroy House Stark both in reality and in name.

By marrying Sansa to Tyrion and killing off Robb after their other siblings are assumed to be dead, Tywin ensures that there will be no more people born with the name Stark. The name Stark will first become a cautionary tale and then it will be a footnote in Westerosi history only remembered by maesters. And then long after that, no one alive will know what a Stark is....they'd have to look it up in a book somewhere.

During the Bosnian War in the 90s, one of the genocidal tactics of war used by the Serbs was to kill all of the men, rape the women until they bear children, kill or lock away the women and then raise the children as your own away from their mothers....only to breed them with more Serbs when they come of age. That was the plan. By doing this, you are completely destroying the bloodline of ____ ethnic group and forcibly replacing it with your own bloodline and then breeding out the "bad blood."

It's a form of ethnic cleansing and it's devious. It'd be cleaner to just kill them all and be done with it.

So, in the same way, installing Tyrion Lannister as the ruling Lord of Winterfell by way of marriage (Sansa would not even be allowed to claim her own inheritance and rule) and then insisting that Tyrion sire a male Lannister on Sansa means that Tywin seeks to permanently replace House Stark with House Lannister and pass off all of what belonged to the Starks belong to the Lannisters.

It's awful. That's the reason why Sansa was so horrified and resisted. She understood what it meant.

What makes it all worst is her age and the actual match -- in and of itself -- was trash.

Sansa is the eldest daughter and -- as far as Tywin was concerned -- the last living child of a Lord Paramount. As her maternal line is of the Tullys who began petty kings and her paternal line is of the Starks have been kings with a capital K for ~8,000 years, Sansa is doubly of king's blood. Not just any king's blood but old, magical king's blood. The king's blood of the First Men. As far as we're concerned, the Starks played a key role in saving the world during the Long Night. Prestigious doesn't even begin to cover it.

Marrying a pretty, elegant girl (Sansa is the quintessential medieval lady!) descended from a long line of kings, lords and warriors to a disfigured dwarf with a bad reputation....who also happens to be the youngest son of another Lord Paramount. Not only is Tyrion not even first in line to Casterly Rock, Tywin has removed him from the chain of succession. So Tyrion stands to inherit nothing. Although Lannister blood is king's blood, it doesn't have the legacy or the sterling rep or the literal magic that Stark blood has. Lann the Clever took Casterly Rock with trickery and deceit (if not outright thuggery); he didn't take it in battle nor did he make it nor was it surrendered to him. That's a ding against the Lannister name.

And then there's their ages. Sansa may be half Tyrion's age.

There's just no other way of slicing it.

Sansa Stark and Tyrion Lannister, as a married couple, are a bad match. Especially since literally everyone on the continent knows that Sansa is a prisoner married at proverbial gunpoint (which makes it practically state-sanctioned rape of a highborn lady). It's intentionally done that way because Tywin means it to be a slap in the face to Catelyn, Robb and all who swear allegiance to them, a last attack on them before they meet their deaths at the Red Wedding or suffer the boot of Roose Bolton. And it is a massive slap in the face.

If the Princess of Dorne felt insulted when Tywin proposed a marriage between Tyrion and Elia, then Sansa and Tyrion are a bad match. If Arianne Martell outraged when her father entertained the marital inquiries of Walder Frey, then Sansa and Tyrion are a bad match. If you had Northmen and rivermen very bothered by Walder Frey's presumption to pressure Catelyn into agreeing to marriages for Robb and Arya, then Sansa and Tyrion are a bad match.

Cersei repeatedly acknowledges how bad of a match it was before and after Sansa flies the coop...and she doesn't even like Sansa.

Tyrion also understood what it meant. The fact that he saw it for what it was and still agreed to it (and in a self-serving, entitled way to boot) tells us that Tyrion is not a good person.

19 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I'd change who gave the dragon's eggs to Dany. Illyrio giving the eggs creates some issues down the road. I'd make Drogo who gave the eggs to Dany. It would also make a more interesting story about the intentions of Drogo re:Dany.

Agreed.

 

[Nevets]

3 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

Good point on aging.

But one year? Giving the kids a one year bump up works for Robb, Jon and Dany.

It however, does not work for Arya, Bran and Rickon. Not even for Sansa.

Take Rickon for example. Rickon is three years old in A Game of Thrones. He probably has only just been weaned off breastmilk. And has he even been completely potty-trained at that point? A lot of 3-year-olds can barely speak. Multiple characters go so far as to state that Rickon is way too young to be separated from his mother for extended periods of time (which is still true -- if not more true -- in today's culture) yet Catelyn leaves him to gallavant halfway across the country and fails to immediately return at multiple opportunities.

It honestly makes Catelyn look like a cluelessly bad mother and it makes Robb look like an idiot.

However, if Rickon is 6-7 years old, then you have a different story. Catelyn's decision to leave Winterfell is more measured and responsible and Robb isn't asking for too much when he asks that his mother stay by his side.

I'm with you on Rickon.  He could probably use a couple of years added.  Bran maybe as well, although I think  you can make do with one. 

Arya and Sansa I would give just one though.   Add too much, and you starting mucking up their stories.  Arya at Harrenhal at 10 is bad enough.  She's young enough nobody pays attention to her.  Arya at 13 doesn't even bear thinking about.  And incidents such as the fight between Joffrey and Arya, or Sansa going to Cersei about her father's plans make little sense once  you add more than a year or so.

[Lollygag]

15 hours ago, FictionIsntReal said:

Joffrey was more indifferent to Bran than hostile. Sandor was the one complaining about him not dying quickly enough, while Joffrey was just annoyed that the wolf howl kept him up (and amused that Sandor offered to kill it). The catspaw wasn't sent to kill a wolf (which wouldn't have been keeping Joffrey awake after he'd gotten back on the kingsroad), but Bran himself. And Bran was "nothing" to Joff,  in his own words. Joffrey actually is hostile to Tyrion, but didn't hire a catspaw to kill him (why Mandon Moore tried to kill him still hasn't been answered, I like the theory that he acted on his own initiative).

I think our wires are very crossed here and we're talking past each other. Don't want to derail further. If you want to continue the discussion in a new thread (tag me), then I'm happy to continue it there.

[Morte]

11 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

I think you have betrothals confused with marriages.

No, I don't; trust me. Actually, I think it is the Maharam (Meir of Rothenburg), but it might have been Rashi, who stated that the secret of his happy marriage was that he and his wife were married according to the tradition at a very young age (thirteen). It was of course a tradition already in decline in Ashkenas by the time he wrote this, but there were still remnants of it in the Jewish community in 19th century Kazakhstan. Just to make this clear: there was of course no consumption, the groom lived in the house of the brides parents and they lived like brother and sister till they came of age.

Also note that both the Roman and the Jewish tradition saw (first) marriages with a large age gap as something to frown upon, as this was seen as a sure way for the marriage to be unhappy or even fail.

11 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

Betrothals are one thing, it is not uncommon for them to be made at birth, much less in the preteen years. Marriages, sex and childbirth and all that entails are a completely different thing.

Yes, betrothals could be made as early as birth, but I would go even further: Marriage itself was seen a completely different thing than having sex and children together. The first was something one could make quite early (not as early as eight, might you), but even in a situation like the marriage of Sansa and Tyrion nobody, nobody would have thought much about it not being consummated, in fact - it would have been the other way around, it would have been talk and evil glares if Tyrion would have gone though with the consumption.

11 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

Tommen is 8-years-old, he is the king on the Iron Throne with a heir to boot, the War of the Five Kings is essentially over and his mother is the legitimate Queen Regent and the ruling Lady of Casterly Rock. The pressure was unnecessary, rude and, frankly, insubordinate. Tywin served Aerys for decades as Hand of the King and their friendship was well-known to all; although Aerys' refusal of Tywin was socially inept and he made the mistake of gravely insulting him, Aerys was well within his rights to deny Tywin's marriage proposal as he was the king. Cersei was literally the king until the king becomes of age. There is literally no reason why his marriage to Maragery had to happen IMMEDIATELY and why he has to share a bed with what's essentially a grown woman. The Tyrells overreached, particularly since they owe the Iron Throne fealty anyway; I would've been furious.

Exactly. You don't force something like this on the king, it may happen the other way around (out of dynastic reasons, power grasps etc.), but not from a vasall to his liege. No way.

11 hours ago, BlackLightning said:

Exactly.

The only way a person can marry under the age of 16 is if their parents give consent. Legally, they cannot consent to marriage. Consummation be damned. Didn't Tyrion had to bribe or intoxicate that septon so that the two could be married anyways?

He had to bribe an already drunken septon, me thinks... Forget it, the marriage is null and void; the sex is irrelevant, it's the vow that counts, and both Tyrion and Tysha can't swear legally. Tywin would not even have had to write to the Pope in Mediaeval Europe.

[Universal Sword Donor]

If Micah were indeed a knight ... 

[The Commentator]

Duncan lied about getting knighted.  It does not sit well with me.