Talk:History

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)

Character age calculations

Our previous Administrator vote confirmed the new Timeline scheme we're working under:

• Both the first book and the first TV season occur in 298 AL, as confirmed by props (assuming the TV production team bothered to think this through, and they didn't just write "298 AL" because that's what year it was in the books, but later seasons haven't shown any props with dates on them)
• Robert's Rebellion occurred "17 years ago" in the TV series instead of "15 years ago" as in the books; having established that Season 1 is 298 AL (just as in book 1) this means that Robert's Rebellion occurred "two years earlier" in the TV continuity. So while Robert's Rebellion occurred from 282 AL to 283 AL in the books (it lasted about one year, stretched across two calendar years), in the TV series continuity Robert's Rebellion was from 280 AL to 281 AL.
• Time moves more slowly in the TV continuity, as we have seen with numerous examples. While book 1 took place in 298 AL, Joffrey's death in the middle of book 3 was on New Year's Day, 300 AL (the exact day was chosen to "ring in the new Lannister century"). So the first three novels take up about two years of time. The TV series, meanwhile, follows a general rule that "one TV season equals one year of story time" - probably because it has to deal with aging child actors. Renly says in Season 2 that "18 years" have passed since Robert's Rebellion (adding one year from Season 1), and in Season 3, just prior to the Red Wedding Talisa states that the war has lasted two years (Season 1 plus two years). Thus the current date is found by taking 298 AL (Season 1), then adding how many seasons/years have passed: Season 2 is one year later and thus 299 AL, Season 4 is three years later and thus 298 + 3 = 301 AL, not 300 AL. Obviously we're always going to be slightly off by a matter of a few months here and there (a "full year" hasn't elapsed in the first two or three episodes of a given season, but has by the end of the season). Generally we sort of assume that...if we had a 10 month year, each "episode 9" is a full year apart (though they do have a 12 month year in the storyverse) (in contrast, the Season 4 premiere is stated to occur a few "weeks" after the Red Wedding, in the second to last episode of the previous season). So with character ages we might always be off by a year in either direction due to a difference of a few months. This doesn't worry me much, I'm working with generalizations.

This being established, we've had some problems with new editors coming on and putting approximate ages in for characters like Eddard Stark. This is absurd. You only put in character ages in their infobox if we have an exact number to work with. We shouldn't assume "adult" characters are the same age in the TV continuity (indeed, the TV continuity actually changed Tywin's official age considerably).

So for the most part, character age calculations are for younger character for whom age is an issue - difference between nine and ten is big, difference between 39 and 40 is not nearly as significant.

So we're only working with characters for whom actual numbers have been given (and with one or two child characters such as Sweetrobin Arryn or Shireen, we're fudging it a bit by half-guessing their relative age to the Stark children in the books, but also noting that we're not sure if the age relationships are necessarily the same in the TV series). --The Dragon Demands (talk) 01:34, August 27, 2014 (UTC)

House Stark

• Robb Stark - similar to the novels, they've explained that Eddard impregnated Catelyn on their wedding night (or at least) before he left south for war, and Robb was born while he was away on campaign. His birth is tied to the date of the war. Because the war was pushed back two years, Robb's age is simply increased by two years, from 14 in the books to 16 in Season 1 of the TV series.
• Jon Snow - similarly, in the novels no one knows exactly how old Jon is (I'm not sure if Eddard ever told him his actual nameday, even)...but he was born during the war. Or at least, even if Eddard isn't his actual father, people think it plausible that Eddard impregnated a woman early in the war, then nine months later Jon was born, and he arrived at Winterfell as a baby. Either way, most think that Jon is a few months younger than Robb, but the same numerical age - both are listed as 14 in the novels. Again like Robb in the TV series, we simply increase this by two to get 16 in Season 1.
• Sansa Stark - directly states that she is "13" to Cersei in Season 1 episode 1.
• Arya Stark - ...I think she said she was 11 in Season 1 but I need to find the episode.  Arya was two years younger than Sansa in the books, it would be logical that she is two years younger in the TV series.  
• Bran Stark - directly states he is "10" to Jaime in Season 1 episode 1.
• Rickon Stark - Robb directly states that he is "6" in Season 1 episode 2.

House Lannister

• Tywin Lannister - Tywin was 58 years old when he died in the books (AWOIAF did the math and figured out he was born in 242 AL, and he died in 300 AL; he was stated to be in his "mid-fifties" when introduced in 298 AL - keeping in mind that medieval people didn't tend to live as long and aged more quickly, TV-Tywin is still slightly older than him in appearance). The TV series, however, directly stated that in Season 4 Tywin was 67 years old - making him nine years older than his book counterpart. This may have been to acknowledge that the actor was older, or to bring it more in line with modern conceptions of life expectancy, and/or to emphasize the point that "Tywin isn't a young man...who the hell do you think will hold House Lannister together once he's gone?" Because Season 4 was in 301 AL, 301-67 = 234, so TV-Tywin was born in the year 234 AL.
• Cersei and Jaime Lannister - twins, in the books both were around 33 years old when Tywin died in 300 AL. AWOIAF did the math and they were born in 266 AL. The books give no specific statements about Cersei's age, but she is Jaime's twin, so we have to base her age on his age because they match. Jaime is stated in the White Book to be 15 when he was raised to the Kingsguard, not 17 as in the TV series. Jaime was formally inducted into the Kingsguard during the Tourney at Harrenhal - the same Tourney at which Lyanna Stark caught the eye of Rhaegar Targaryen; Robert's Rebellion began one year later, and lasted one year, thus Jaime was 17 when he killed Aerys II at the end of the war, "15 years ago". During the Battle of the Blackwater (about a year later, 299 AL) Tyrion recalls that Jaime was named to the Kingsguard "18 years ago" - 15 + 1 (events of books 1 and 2) + another 2 (the time between the Tourney at Harrenhal and when Jaime killed the Mad King) gives us 18.
  • The TV series has changed their ages: it is stated that Jaime was named to the Kingsguard at 17, and that Cersei became queen at 19 (right after the war ended)...the White Book's entry on Jaime mistakenly lists him as 16 at the time, but on-screen dialogue supersedes this. The problem of course is that Robert's Rebellion happened two years earlier in the TV series, which would make Jaime and Cersei four years older than their book counterparts in Season 1. If Jaime and Cersei were both 19 when Robert's Rebellion ended "17 years ago", that makes them 19+17= 36 years old in Season 1. Adding another three years for time that passes in TV seasons, they are both 39 or so in Season 4. Joffrey's comment that Jaime is "forty" in Season 4 can easily be explained as that he was simply rounding by a few months, and speaking generally. Meanwhile, this means that Cersei and Jaime in the TV continuity were born in 298 - 36 = 262 AL (thus TV-Jaime and Cersei are about four years older than their book counterparts in Season 1, and a year or two older beyond that by Season 4 because time moves a little more slowly in the TV series).
  • There is no plausible way that Cersei could remember the Reyne Rebellion.  Tywin became Hand of the King right after the Reyne Rebellion because Aerys II was impressed with how he crushed the rebellion.  He was then Hand "for twenty years" (give or take), then resigned soon before the war (I believe he resigned when the Mad King made Jaime a Kingsguard, a year before the war broke out).  Even in the TV continuity the math just doesn't make sense:  how could Cersei and Jaime be 18 when Robert's Rebellion started, yet Cersei remember a rebellion that happened 20 years ago?  (My only explanations are 1 - Cersei was lying to intimidate Margaery, or 2 - when she said she "remembers seeing the bodies above the gates, they were left to rot there all summer" -- we have to remember that summers can last for *years* in Westeros, and she may have seen their rotting skeletons years later when she was like four or something.  
• Tyrion Lannister - in the books, Tyrion says that he was "around 10 years old" when Jaime killed the Mad King, and based on other factors AWOIAF calculated that Tyrion must be about 8 years younger than Jaime and Cersei (give or take a few months), and thus their mother Joanna died giving birth to him when Cersei and Jaime were both about 8 years old. Oberyn also says that when he visited Casterly Rock when Tyrion was a baby (some months after his birth) that Cersei and Jaime were "about 8 or 9 years old". While Tyrion is 8 years older than them in the books, the TV series stated that Cersei's mother died when she was only four years old (to include that anecdote that she didn't know what death was because she was so young). This would make Tyrion about 19-4 = 15 years old when Robert's Rebellion ended "17 years ago", making him 32 years old in 298 AL in the TV continuity...placing his birth year in 298-32= 266 AL (while in the books he was born around 274-274 AL). He says he married Tysha when he was 16 in the TV series, not 13, but either way this places the Tysha incident after Robert's Rebellion in books or TV series.
• Martyn and Willem Lannister - In the books they are fraternal twins, and described as "12 or 13" when they died in 299 AL. The TV series said that Martyn is 15 and Willem 14 when they die....meaning they are not twins; apparently they thought the ages of the actors didn't match enough so they just dropped that. Season 3 is 300 AL, making Martyn born in 285 AL and Willem in 284 AL.

House Baratheon

• Shireen Baratheon - Shireen is the same age as Arya in the books, we might assume that they are the same age in the TV series until stated otherwise (if Shireen looks slightly younger, it may be due to being a sickly child, etc.)
• Gendry - did they ever say how old Gendry is in the TV series?

House Arryn

• "Sweetrobin" Arryn - In the books, he is six years old, a year younger than Bran - though this stretches across two calendar years, apparently because they were born in the middle of the year (Bran was born in 290 AL but Robert was born in 292 AL). Bran was actually seven at the start of book 1, but this was increased by more than the standard two years, not nine but stated to be "ten" in the first TV episode. We have no way of knowing what his relative age is supposed to be. Going by the "he's a year younger than Bran Stark" definition, that would make him 9 years old in Season 1, and 12 years old in Season 4.  I shaved this down to 11 in Season 4, though, because he might be nearly two years younger than Bran.  No way to confirm.  In Season 4, Yohn Royce mentions that Lysa was breastfeeding Robin when he was "ten" years old. So he's at least ten in Season 4...assuming Lysa ever stopped breastfeeding him before her death.

House Greyjoy

• Theon Greyjoy - In the books, Theon was taken from Pyke nine years before at the end of the Greyjoy Rebellion, when he was 10 years old, making him 19 in book 1. He's actually about five years older than Robb Stark. Now the TV version did state that the Greyjoy Rebellion also happened "nine years ago" at the beginning of the narrative. Thus while Robert's Rebellion took place two years "earlier" in the TV continuity, 280 AL to 281 AL, the year 298 AL as the start of the narrative is the same in both book 1 and Season 1 - thus "nine years ago" is 289 AL in both versions. Thus in the book version the Greyjoy Rebellion happened six years into Robert's reign, but in the TV version it was eight years into Robert's reign. At any rate, I have not yet found a mention of how old Theon was when he was taken from Pyke at the end of the Greyjoy Rebellion - the TV series may have mentioned something, I just can't find it at the moment.

House Targaryen

• Daenerys Targaryen - born towards the end of the war, after her father died in the books (think late 283 AL). Because her birth is tied so heavily to the date of the war, like Robb Stark, we simply add two years to the TV date: Daenerys is stated to be 13 years old at the very beginning of the novel, though she apparently turned 14 relatively early in the first book - if the war was "15 years ago", and she was born at the end of it. Granted, it took months for the rebels to assemble a fleet to assault Dragonstone, at which point the Targaryen children were smuggled out across the Narrow Sea (anyone with major fleets like the Redwynes had stayed loyal to the Targaryens). Moreover, during the Small Council scene in which Eddard and Robert argue about sending assassins to kill Daenerys, Eddard says she's only 14 years old, even though it is the same calendar year. To top it off, the text outright states that Daenerys learned she was pregnant with Rhaego on her 14th nameday - corresponding to Season 1 episode 3 "Lord Snow"; so while she starts the books at her wedding at age 13, she doesn't stay 13 for long. Assuming the books start near the beginning of each year (and there's no reason to think that) she might have just been born early in the year. The gang over at AWOIAF's calculations page have already struggled with this, and concluded that the only plausible explanation is that Daenerys was born early in 284 AL, months after "the war" is held to have ended (i.e. the war may have ended in Septemberish, and she was born in Februaryish of the next year, and they were just hiding on Dragonstone during that time - and no one considers Stannis's assault on Dragonstone part of "the war" because it was entirely bloodless and the remaining servants simply surrendered without a fight). Thus TV-Daenerys was 15 in the first few episodes but quickly turned 16. Thus in Season 4, the short answer is that she is "19", though she may have been 18 in earlier episodes. Martin's ages given in the Appendices are kind of arbitrary - I'd have listed her as "14" because that's the age she is for MOST of the novel. Short version: we say she was 16 in Season 1 because she was born some months after the war ended "17 years ago". No reason to complicate the TV version with such minutiae.--The Dragon Demands (talk) 02:19, August 27, 2014 (UTC)

Other characters

• Samwell Tarly - in the books, Sam's father Randyll threatened to kill him if he didn't join the Night's Watch on the morning of his 15th nameday...inexplicably changed to his "18th" nameday in the TV version...which makes no sense. Did they want to change the age of majority from 16 in the books to 18 in the TV series? Well and good. But why have Randyll say "You're almost a man now"...on the ACTUAL DAY that Samwell legally became a man? Why not his 17th nameday? In which case, should this have been his 17th nameday, and it's just a dialogue error? (most other characters got aged-up by exactly two years...). Ack. Well, those are the numbers given for Samwell in the TV series.
• Walder Frey - just as in the books, it is said that Walder will be taking a new wife "by his 90th nameday", and then we see him with a new wife when we reach the Twins near the end of book/Season 1, after he has turned 90. Early in book 3, it is also said that Walder will be turning 92 "soon". So he apparently has a nameday in the middle of the year. Given that he tends to appear near the end of seasons I wouldn't clutter this, so the simple way of saying it is that he is 90 in Season 1, and thus 93 in Season 4. Thus placing his birth, as in the books, in the year 208 AL.