Books have a slower pace than television, and this could either be an advantage or disadvantage depending on the situation—unfortunately, Game of Thrones moved faster than its source material. George R.R. Martin has yet to complete A Song of Ice and Fire, and that’s why the showrunners came up with their own ending.
While this proved to be an issue for almost everyone, the author also shared another problem regarding the characters and the cast. Their ages no longer matched, at least not after a couple of seasons since the first one, and Martin saw this as a huge obstacle.
George R.R. Martin shared an inevitable problem with Game of Thrones
Television adaptation has its own limitations, and it’s understandable why some things need to be adjusted or changed completely. In Game of Thrones, most of the young actors played characters who were close to their age. This was true for Season 1, but eight installments in and almost a decade of work, the cast members were now all grown-ups yet the roles they played were still stuck in the same age.
This is the issue with screen adaptations; productions take a lot of time to prepare. We cannot blame the creatives behind this because sets are built from the ground up, costumes need to be sewn, and scripts must be written and reviewed. George R.R. Martin saw this as a pressing issue for the original show, as revealed in his interview with Vanity Fair:
I don’t want to sound too glib about this. This is a serious concern. We’re going forward, and the kids are getting older. Maisie was the same age as Arya when it started, but now Maisie is a young woman and Arya is still 11. Time is passing very slowly in the books and very fast in real life.
Since the actors had grown up in the show, they could no longer act like children. Remember when Arya shared an intimate scene with Gendry in Season 8? That never happened in the books because she’s still a child. Some viewers were not thrilled with the idea, while others believed it established the character as a fully autonomous adult.
House of the Dragon may also suffer from the same age gap dilemma
The same setback could eventually happen with the House of the Dragon series. We have very young characters such as Rhaenyra’s children—Joffrey Velaryon, Aegon III, and Viserys II—whose actors are surely growing up faster than the progress of the production. The prequel show notably has a two-year gap between seasons.
In this case, the cast members would no longer match the age and supposed appearance of their character, losing some sense of authenticity and perhaps requiring a drastic adjustment again in the storyline. This would become a major trouble since the prequel series already had so many modifications, which the author already noted and criticized before.
Game of Thrones and House of the Dragon are currently available to watch on Max.
This post belongs to FandomWire and first appeared on FandomWire
