Date of the arrival of the First Men
The HBO viewer's guide says the First Men arrived in Westeros "12,500 years ago". This appears to be another error. In the "Complete Guide to Westeros", written by Bryan Cogman, they are clearly stated to have arrived "12,000 years ago" as in the books. Werthead should probably send them another e-mail to correct this.--The Dragon Demands 01:19, June 23, 2012 (UTC)
Sansa is 15-16?
Where exactly does the show states this? It hasn't been a year or two years since season 3 and given the timeline of both the books and the tv series s4 takes place right after season 3.
Which would make Sansa remain 14 in the show wouldn't it? Mandon (talk) 20:52, April 6, 2014 (UTC)
We follow the rule, implied in the show, that "1 season = 1 year of story time"
TV-Sansa states on-screen that she is 13 in Season 1.
She should be 15 by two years later, in Season 3.
Yet she says that she is "14" when Tyrion asks on her wedding night. I explain this on the Timeline page. The assumption is that either A - she was almost 15, and/or B - was lying (or exaggerating) to stress to Tyrion that she was being forcibly married at a very young age.
One year passes since then, so by Season 4....three years after Season 1 = 16 years old, though her comments on her wedding night (which may have been lying) place her at 15 years old in Season 4. Thus, "15-16" until we get more information.
...but your question is that you think she must be fourteen, because she said this in "Second Sons"? Again: one season equals one year. In real life this would be complicated - someone born in January and someone born in December would be different ages at different times. Thus their ages are relative within the show.
Nonetheless, she's not listed as "14" but "16" because that's how old we're going to list her for all of Season 4.
I mean when Sansa stated she was 13 in Season 1, was she therefore 14 by episode 10 of Season 1? Was Arya "11" in early season 1 or late season 1?
The "Age" listing is for that entire year within the story.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 20:59, April 6, 2014 (UTC)
One season doesn't equal one year. Seasons 3-4 both take place in a similar time frame since they're based off the same book, which means both seasons 3 and the very first episode of S4 take place in 299 AL a year after the start of the series, making Sansa 14-15 if anything. For example, Joffrey's wedding takes place on the first day of 300 AL which was shortly after the Red Wedding which was shortly after Sansa's wedding, and saying she was lying about her age is conjecture. Mandon (talk) 00:09, April 7, 2014 (UTC)
1 - the dates mentioned in the TV series indicate that time is moving differently in the TV series: only about 2 years pass between Jon Arryn died and Joffrey's wedding (which is stated to be on New Year's, 300AL, to ring in the glorious new Lannister century). The TV series has to acknowledge that the child actors are aging at a rate of one year a season.
2 - As a result, one year passes each season. Renly mentioned in Season 2 that it had been "18 years" since Robert's Rebellion, and in Season 3, Talisa says to Robb's council that the war has lasted for two years.
3 - Well the key word there is based on: Seasons 3-4 are based on one book, but time moves differently in the TV series to accommodate the rate at which Sansa and Arya are aging.
Thank you for being observant about this, really. I'm very particular about getting the timeline right. So we should be on the lookout for any time someone mentions dates within Season 4.
But a problem I explain in the Timeline article here is that we don't know what year it actually is. When the moved up the timeline by two years, 15 years between Robert's Rebellion and the War of the Five Kings....did they start Robert's Rebellion two years earlier, or the War of the Five Kings two years later? We don't know.
I am keenly looking forward to see if Joffrey's wedding scene mentions on-screen that "it just turned year 300 After Landing". We shall see.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 00:31, April 7, 2014 (UTC)
That's the thing though.. The show never explicitly states these characters to be age you're suggesting. It comes off as a little unprofessional to use speculation on the timeline to decide what ages you list on the infobox. A safer route would be to take a specific age they mentioned in the past, [such as Sansa being 14] and just say, "14 in Season 3". I just feel that would be a safer course of action, even though you do bring up excellent points, I don't think it's safe to use the logic that one season = one year for every season. To put it more bluntly, I think that more time probably passed between seasons 1-3 than it did between seasons 3-4. Mandon (talk) 02:30, April 9, 2014 (UTC)
Well this is an ongoing problem....so what we can do is keep a running list of times when the TV series explicitly states in on-screen dialogue how old any character is. Such as Sansa saying she's 13 in the first episode, etc. I tried to do this with some of the more problematic ones in the final section of this article, where I talk about the Lannisters and Sansa.
Well I already updated everything and this vague, so please don't change it on the other character articles, but let's focus on collecting what we do know on here....hopefully there wasn't be too many surprises. This is one of the things we'd explicitly ask writers about if we ever got the chance. Thank you for being concerned about this, it's one of the things I've been trying to figure out myself.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 04:21, April 10, 2014 (UTC)
No problem. Although at this point I'm skeptical if D&D even understand their own timeline themselves. They state Jaime to be 40 in the latest episode which I believe contradicts the timeline in it's own right, unless they changed the age Jaime was when he slew Aerys. Mandon (talk) 21:32, April 13, 2014 (UTC)
- Actually, as I explain in the (very length and drawn out) examination of Lannister ages, based on past references Jaime and Cersei actually should be around 39 in Season 4...leading me to believe that they're either rounding to 40, or that 39 was close enough to 40 (given that namedays can be earlier or later in a year; I don't blame them for a year's leeway for adult characters). Jaime was 17 when named to the Kingsguard, right before Robert's Rebellion began, which lasted under two years. Cersei was then made queen at age 19, when the war ended. Then 17 years passed, so 17+19 = 36 years old in Season 1. Add three years for the passage of Seasons 1 through 3, and they should be about 39 in Season 4. So I actually thought their statements last episode that Jaime is "forty" didn't cause any problem.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 21:37, April 13, 2014 (UTC)
On the use of AL and BAL, contrasting with George RR Martin's own system.
Based on the sample from The World of Ice and Fire George R. R. Martin has released on his site here , It appears he uses the terminology AC (After the Conquest) or BC (Before the Conquest). This being dates counted from his crowning as king in Oldtown, 1-2 years after his landing in Blackwater Bay. Should this timeline potentially be updated to account for this? -- IronSean (talk) 12:43, May 6, 2014 (UTC)
While the "AC" notation is superior, props within the TV show still use "AL" - so we will use "AL" until the TV continuity introduces props that say "AC" on them...at which point we will drop "AL" like a dead weight.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:18, August 27, 2014 (UTC)