[Minor Book Spoilers] How will the show deal with aging children?

[All-for-Joffrey]

So, for obvious reasons, HBO has decided to up the age of the children and some of the adults. However, despite this, some of the kids, such as Bran, Arya, Sansa, Rickon, Joffrey, Myrcella and Tommen are still quite young. If each book covers at least one season (with some books, like ASOS, potentially taking more seasons) it stands to reason that the rate at which they film will exceed the general time period of the story as portrayed in the books. This means that, by the end of the series (if it gets that far), the children will be 7-8 years older than they are now and I don't think ASOIAF is going to cover that length of time. So my question is how does HBO intend to deal with this? Are they going to stretch out the story/scale and portray events as taking place over a longer period of time than they do in the books? This seems like the easiest solution but I'm wondering if Martin or the producers have ever commented on this issue.

[Hyper]

If they can keep it to being one book per season, I think it will work well. If they don't, it could be a problem. Eventually the actress who plays Arya won't be able to pass for a boy. :)

[Trebla]

The only issue I see is Hodor carrying around a teenage Bran take after teake. But that can be fixed of the most part by having Bran mounted and in his Tyrion saddle.

[All-for-Joffrey]

The only issue I see is Hodor carrying around a teenage Bran take after teake. But that can be fixed of the most part by having Bran mounted and in his Tyrion saddle.

What about the Cersei-Tommen relationship in AFFC? A lot of the plot's momentum would be lost if you have a teenage Tommen being dominated by Cersei (in the book a lot of his character's punch comes when he stands up to his mother and does things like try to outlaw beets). If he were a teenager, there's no way she could realistically control him in the manner she does and he'd be doing the dirty with his wife, so a lot of Cersei's insane adultery accusations would be null and void. Basically it'd render the entire King's Landing plot line and Cersei's character throughout the book unfeasible and useless.

[Myrddin]

In the Casting subforum, someone posted the great idea of filming ahead for Bran's scenes. Since Bran is on his own for most of book 3, it seems doable.

Aside from suddenly healing the boy, I bet we'll see Bran recast in a few years. Sad, since the current Bran is so spot on.

As for Tommen, I bet he'll definately be recast by the time the Feast season comes, otherwise it would be weird having even a pre-teen boy king obsessed with writing his signature and using his royal seal.

Hopefully the rest of the kids won't grow out of their roles. Recasting Arya would be worse than when they recast Octavian in Rome. Bloody shame, that.

[Padraig]

How old is Tommen in the TV series? In the book he is 8 in aFfC IIRC. I don't see why Cersei can't control him at 12 or even 14 but I don't believe he would be that old in any filming of aFfC anyhow. OTOH if they have to write Tommen a bit older than the 8 in the books, thats fine. His love of using the seal is funny but not neccessary.

I would be shocked if they filmed Bran's scenes ahead of time. They have enough on their plate just doing another season (and wouldn't be thinking of the next few). Recasting is possible depending on how quickly the actor playing the guy grows. I doubt we'll have to worry about it until S4, if we get that far.

But I don't think there will be a problem with Arya or Sansa. They might have to change a few minor things about what they do but Sansa been older is good. And Arya is under the protection of the BwB/Sandor/FM from mid aSoS, so nobody is going to mess with her either way.

[Pentalion Drive]

There could certainly be some issues with the children aging, but having about a book per season, the continuity w/in the HBO series itself shouldn't be too bad.

When they filmed the Sound of Music Movie back in '65 they had major issues with the children growing up, and that was just one movie!

[The Scabbard Of the Morning]

Passing for a boy is only important for Arya's story in season 2,

[Hnim]

Is it wrong for me to find Sansa attractive? I'm 16 so.

[Scion of Valyria]

Is it wrong for me to find Sansa attractive? I'm 16 so.

As is the actress, I think. Seems fine by me.

Chances are they might just recast for the minor ones. Tommen doesn't really do much...ever. So I don't think anyone would have a problem if they switched him with another actor who looked similar enough. Same with Myrcella.

I'm not exactly sure how much time passes throughout the books. For the most part, I considered each book about a year long. It gets tough in AFfC since Arya and Sansa either don't know their age or change it.

If anything, they might have to recast because the actors look too young. Maybe.

[Asha—Not Yara!]

The actors that play Arya, Sansa and Brandon are so great that I really hope they can write their aging into the story if it does become an issue. I'm also hoping the girls that play Arya and Sansa are mostly done growing, but boys can change even more dramatically with puberty so Brandon is the biggest concern in my opinion.

[Hyper]

The actors that play Arya, Sansa and Brandon are so great that I really hope they can write their aging into the story if it does become an issue. I'm also hoping the girls that play Arya and Sansa are mostly done growing, but boys can change even more dramatically with puberty so Brandon is the biggest concern in my opinion.

LOL, Maisie Williams (Arya) doesn't look anywhere close to being mostly done growing. (she was 12-13 during filming of season 1) :D And she won't be able to pass for a boy much longer. But after season 2 they should be able to handle that organically in the adaptation, I would think. Sophie Turner (Sansa) will be much less of an issue - she already towers over her Septa.

[Asha—Not Yara!]

Yeah, I agree, Maisie Williams definitely doesn't look as though she's done growing. I was honestly surprised when I read that she was 12-13 during filming as she seemed to look a lot younger than that to me. It's possible her final height might be shorter than average though and girls tend to get their big growth spurt around the age she already is, so we'll see. I'm sure she's going to grow taller; the question is how much taller. Regardless, I hope it won't be problematic as I really do like the child actors very much.

[lifefullofwords]

If the show does progress beyond its second season I don't think they'll recast the kids. They'll have already had too much screen time. Instead they'll probably use various tricks involving makeup, lighting, staging, etc. to try to make them look younger. These are usually only partly successful. But TV is full of actors playing characters (especially kids and teens) that they look too old to play anyway so GoT will hardly be the only one.

[Prankster]

I honestly don't understand why this is an issue. I thought it was pretty clear that each book took place over the course of roughly a year--isn't Jon Snow described as being 14 in aGoT and 17 in aSoS?--so having the kids age naturally seems like it fits the story. In fact, didn't GRRM originally plan to have the books jump forward several years in time at one point? At any rate, the story seems to be following a "coming of age" throughline whereby the kids will end as adults, a la Harry Potter. Arya in particular seems like her storyline will make the most sense if she ends it as a grown-up. (Trying to remain non-spoilerish here.)

Even if I'm wrong, aside from the aforementioned Arya-as-boy plotline, I don't see how their age directly affects the plot. Why couldn't Bran be 13 or whatever for the events of aSoS? Other than poor Hodor's back, of course. It doesn't seem like a big deal to me, certainly not big enough to merit recasting (why on Earth would you want to lose these amazing kid actors??!)

[Asha—Not Yara!]

I think you're right, Prankster. The main concern for me anyway is that in books a lot of the events take place very closely together, but there's a lag between when those scenes will be filmed and when they'll start filming for next season. It could potentially be jarring if for example at the end of season 1 Arya goes off with Yoren and we see her at the beginning of season 2 looking very noticeably different and older despite the fact not that much time has passed story wise. At the age, kids can grow and change very fast. Hopefully they won't run into any issues though that can't be worked around with some dialogue. (Using my Arya example, Yoren could make a comment about how they've been on the road for some months, traveling very slowly due to trying to avoid the fighting, etc.).

[Bronn Stone]

I don't see any issue with Kristian Nairn being able to carry Isaac for the next two years. After that, who knows. We won't know until July (can't wait, can't wait) what awaits Bran in the fourth season, but as Trebla points out you just have him mostly mounted for the outdoor stuff. If Isaac gets too big for Kristian to comfortably carry around, even if it isn't in the books, it shouldn't be a major problem to add some sort of era-appropriate wheeled conveyance to the adaptation for his indoor study.

With the girls, Sophie is already pretty darned tall (taller than Mark Addy?, might well be...) That only helps the Sansa/LF and Sansa/Hound dynamics seem a tiny bit less creepy than if she was a small child. Her developing a womanly figure is a plot element in the second and third books.

I think Maisie will have a growth spurt during the series, but enough time elapses that Arya would naturally as well. They might have to give her a different haircut (her hair now is rather girlish), but unless she somehow wakes up with a VERY curvy figure, she'll be fine. And if she does, that is why costumers use tape.

[Humble Asskicker]

While it does present some problems that need to be worked around, the advanced aging of the actors in the movie vis a vis the characters in the books is one of the advantages the show has over the novels. As long as the show doesn't get into specifics about the calender and keep how much time elapses vague, it should work favorably. I much prefer the idea of a seventeen year old Arya learning to become an assassin over a eleven/twelve year old Arya. Likewise, a fifteen/sixteen year old Lord Commander is silly; a Lord Commander in his twenties is far more believable. It just works better to let them age.

[Aganerral]

Agree that the aging won't be too big an issue for the actors barring major physical change, with one exception. HBO's shows haven't always been able to stick to the 1 season/year format (most notably, Sopranos had some very long breaks between some seasons). If that happens in the case of GoT, that could disrupt the rough correlation of 1 season of shows per year to the approximately 1 year of story time passing per book and result in actors more drastically outgrowing their characters

The other big problem could be the timing of the seasons that would correspond to book 6 and 7, depending on GRRM's writing schedule. That's obviously a few years down the road and will hopefully not be an issue :)

Overall, though, I have great confidence in the ability of costume and makeup to keep the apparent ages of the actors in line with the books.

[Prankster]

Again, though, I don't see any point in which the characters HAVE to remain small. Even with Arya's disguise, an older girl can pull off being disguised as a boy. Yes, I suppose there's a few bits of business like the gap between S1 and S2 potentially happening only a few days apart, and if Maisie Williams or Isaac Hempstead-Wright suddenly shoots up or their voice changes it might be a little odd. But there are also lots of periods in which the characters could reasonably go through puberty, which does indeed seem to happen overnight for some kids. If Arya spent a few months hiding out in King's Landing between S1 and S2, and she changed noticably, that would be a perfectly believable time frame. Same with her trek with Yoren.

Really, the key thing is that if we spend several months away from the characters and then come back and they've gone through puberty, we'll naturally accept it. It'd only be watching the two seasons back-to-back on DVD that we might notice anything, and even then that's a pretty minor issue. And once they're through puberty, who's going to notice? There's no reason a 16-year-old can't play a 14-year-old, and in fact most teenage actors are a little older than the characters they play.