Daenaera was 6 at the Maiden's Day Ball of 133 thus born born around 127. Baela/Rhaena were born in 116; Baela was 17 in 133. She'd have to be around 11 when she birthed Daenaera.

I don't think she and Jace were having sex at 11 and 13 respectively when they were raised under the very watchful eye of the same parents for 10 or so years. Even if Baela had Daenaera with someone else, who? She, again, was in the Daemyra household for most of her life before the war and the parents were taking their time, perhaps waiting for Baela to be 16/17 before they actually married them for safety reasons. If not that, wait for the consummation until she's 16. Reminder she was 13 or so when the Dance began and during the Battle of the Gullet in 130/Jace's death, she was around 13-14.

As a headcanon and only if you aged Baela up, moved Laena and Daemon's marriage up--basically tweak the entire timeline--I personally don't find it all worth pursuing. Apart from that, it's superficially cute. in a way, thinking how Aegon is surrounded by close family and Daenaera is literally that much closer to her own family after having lost Daeron and Hazel Harte. Something abt it doesn't sit right...(and no, it's not the incest-shipping, I ship some brother-sister relationships in ASoIaF and Daemyra is one of my fav ships). Seems too wish-fulfillment for my own tastes.

(AWoIaF -- "The Targaryen Kings" -- "Daeron II")

The people you refer to who hate Daeron do so because he married off a 15 year old Daenerys to much older Maron Martell to build an alliance with Dorne and bring them into the official fold and under the crown's authority. AND because they believe that DaenerysxDaemon B. had a mutual love for each other, so Daeron separated two lovers. From what is told to us, the impression is that Maron treated her well, if his allowing her to bring critique of Dorne's class divides has any indication (the Gardens). Daemon hadn't been married at this time. And we don't have proof that their feelings was reciprocated or even which side had feelings for each other and which did not, etc. They also had only 2 years between them in age, Daemon and Daenerys.

"It has been said in the years after Daemon Blackfyre proved a traitor that his hatred of Daeron began to grow early."

One, like Fire & Blood, A World of Ice & Fire is, in-world, a historical text written by a maester and its geared towards showing Robert Baratheon & the Lannisters in a more positive light with typical maester/Faith anti magic, xenophobia, & ignorance (sometimes acknowledged) of Essos at certain points.

Two, It's possible that this relationship only exists for a way Daemon's supporters to maintain Daemon's rightfulness towards his legacy, or that they exaggerate. A few of his kids survived, as we know, and would birth/sire people who'd attempt to take the throne.

On the whole, I am like you, prefer to think about and discuss pre-conquest-Dance and the main series and largely because there's dragons and there's more women in the center of the narratives told. I'm the other side of the phenomenon of men losing interest in stories with women centered more; if I see stories with little active or centered women, irdgaf.

*EDITED POST* (4/13/24)

Ask comes in response to this reblog/post. This is about the show, yes?

No this isn't like anything with Aegon raping Dyana, taking her surprise and her yelling at him to stop. BUT I'd say that seeing that your wife doesn't want you to touch her means she hasn't given consent. Alicent was very obvious in her lack of desire to have sex with Viserys.

We have no scenes of show!Viserys marrying and living life with Aemma before episode 1, right? So we have to assume that in HotD, he also married Aemma at the ages in the original story/the bks. Age is definitely a matter we can look at here to determine grooming or no grooming, but since this is a world where:

we need to see who pursued who before the betrothal (not the marriage, the betrothal) AND why they did so? Because there is a difference b/t:

someone trying to preemptively make their future spouse more comfortable with them so the eventual consummation isn't awkward or a "failure" or stressful or something else I add below about the anxiety to perform one's duty

--AND--

them claiming they are doing such only to get the target to fuck them/be more vulnerable to their influence.

There's no strong proof of him wanting a sick sense of control or influence over Aemma before they married or betrothed. There's no proof of Viserys asking or pushing for a marriage with her for the express purpose of fucking with a child, because he wanted to have that type of control over her or any child. And they were arranged to be wed. He was around 16 to Aemma's 11 when they married and they consummated their marriage when she was 13.

Under this context, the 2 years of waiting might have been seen as "too long", as much as it shouldn't have been, but for whoever were willing to marry Aemma off at her 11 yrs of age are probably those who also applied some pressure to said couple to consummate, EVEN IF the couple actually liked each other, too.

Even without some external entity actively or purposefully making that sort of pressure--either maliciously or impatiently, like ordering a consummation versus constantly asking about it--the couple themselves could have both felt anxious to perform their "duties" to & for their parents/authority figures/families. But we simply don't know for sure and it wouldn't be mutually exclusive.

The couple lived & grew up in a world with little concept of a strong "legal" age, or a boundary for girls that was also enforced by laws. A world where doing your duty to your families, to your "God", to the authority figures around, to oaths you take you were often held as higher ethical standards than doing what some of us moderns would think is an ethical duty to "humanity".

Adult!Viserys expressly chose Alicent, though. And with Alicent being very obvious, I don't see how he couldn't have seen Alicent's reluctance or hesitance in all the times they had sex (at least 4 for each child)? From what little we see, they don't seem to be a couple where they (really Viserys) at least watch for each other's cues or signs of desire in bed. AllegedlyLola on TikTok says it best of HotD!Viserys (but much can the same shoudl be said for his book version): he says he loved Aemma, that he will always love her, etc. and pedestalizes Aemma to the degree that Rhaenrya could never be Baelon, her siblings can never be her, and all to never really give us a real picture of who Aemma was so he does not have to divulge how some of his actions have ruined Aemma's life. Helaena not having kids or at least stop having them before Rhaenrya becomes Queen/he dies would have even helped Rhaenyra...smh. He doesn't ever think to not let his daughter Helaena marry at 13 & have TWINS not long after (as Aemma died in part bc she started having children WAY too early after they consummated their marriage); he forces his daughter to marry Laenor to fix a problem he created instead of actually thinking about what would be better for her claim and position--which is not to marry a gay man!, esp when everyone knows he is gay; I mention Alicent already...this is the same guy who marries a 15 year old but gets angry with Daemon for seducing his 19 year old daughter and saying she is just a "girl"...bro...Add on the fact he allowed a faction against his heir and be lead by his second obviously hostile Hand & wife exist in court instead of properly intervening and diminishing Otto and Alicent's influence over Rhaenrya so she wouldn't have to escape to Dragonstone...no self reflection, just constant deflection, ignoring, placating the wrong people, putting his foot down at the wrong moments, not pursuing certain avenues or voids of information like in the Vhagar claim incident AND allowed the same thing that happens to his first wife happen to his next wife and his two daughters...ugh.

Getting back to Alicent, remember, consent is not a one-size-fits-all. You need to constantly ask for it and confirm it.

Keep in mind that this is an HotD Watsonian reading/analysis. The writers chose to make show!Alicent so vulnerable and defenseless to introduce something that modern viewers would easier think of her with their no-under 18s (and in certain age gaps, really under 25s) rule without making them really think about what these people themselves were going through. It's easier to assess a medieval setting or circumstance with the rules of conduct that we follow and know and then apply to them as if they would 100% understand how we think INSTEAD OF us FIRST trying to understand how they would think & react to what they have had to live with or learned so that we may expose how/where the double standards are.

I'm not saying that we should go back to marrying 15 year olds, I'm saying take a breather and assess how these people will think & act and assign the "fault" of such to the world instead of just them. Where it's appropriate. I am also not saying that you shouldn't feel uncomfortable, either. I'm saying do the activity fiction requires of us and see through the characters' eyes to understand them instead of trying to enforce you own views right away and all the time to find the nuance.

Example, this Youtube commentator perfectly describes Alicent's mindset within the lens & contextual vocabulary of what the feudal world asks of its people, acknowledging her victimhood but still holding Alicent accountable/showing/implying how wrong she isr:

Because I needed the visual reference as I typed:

Yes. And yes to Larys not literally terrorizing Alicent in the last pic. But he sure is taking advantage.

I think they're making it as if Larys is old because if he is supposed to be the age of his actor, he would be too old for Alicent to be so "intimate" with, but now we'd be splitting hairs bc I'm sure that the unrevealed/nonsupported character ages & their implications have not actually been thought of in the writers' rewrite of this story. We're just out here guessing for them. I mean, they said--after it was pointed out that mathematically he's 16 at the beginning of the war--that Aemond was 19 at the beginning of the war. So...yeah. I generally try not to use actor ages to guess what the real in-world HotD ages are because age is sometimes just a reflection; when I do, it's to anticipate the show writers' lore-building reasons or to offer people that particular perspective, i.e., reveal how dependent we are on what shouldn't really determine the characters' actual ages/how lost we all are due to bad writing. Why are we guessing most of the characters' ages? Why should we primarily use actual actors' ages to guess?

@theprettiesthead

As they are still babies and I assume you just mean their ages, I don't like how they are way younger than they are supposed to be in episode 10. Like way too young.

They both looked under 4, meanwhile, when the Dance ends, Aegon III is 10 and Viserys II is 8. The Dance only occurs for 2 years or less.

It's enough that a 10-year-old watched his mom get eaten by a dragon. Now, if the writers stay consistent with their own ages, we will watch a 5-6-year-old watch their mom die that way. And five year old get collectively kidnapped and married into the same "host" Lyseni family. God I hope Larra Rogare is at least 8 by then...oh wait, that would mean she becomes a child bride, too, as she would have birthed a kid by 11ish. And that's really stretching it, as she's canonically older but we can't have the possible show!her be too much older than him. A 20-year age dif for example. So we're stuck with two kid-kids getting married like Aegon III and Jaehaera of him and Daenaera and another supposed "child bride victim of the Targs" (greens stans would go berserk and argue for this in regards to Larra), or a YA going for an even younger-than-canon child.

In canon, Viserys married Larra around 130 A.C, not long after the Battle of the Gullet when he was found and brought into the household and they have a 7-year age difference, which wouldn't have been horrible if he wasn't 8 by that time. When he finally went back to Westeros, he was 12 and she 19 (so she was also a child bride if we go back to marriage-when-child as some moderns understand book!Alicent).

You're making me realize too many things.

But to get into magic age jump (most obvious with Aemond), it would probably go that way. Aegon III and Viserys II will somehow turn into their canon against despite math existing, just so that Condal can feel better about himself and pretend he didn't fuck up the timeline or breed a whole collective of reality-deniers who want to make the Targs at fault for every little wrong done in the world of AsoIaF.

Anon refers to this POST.

Yeah, in the book/canon lore they were betrothed long before the Dance and never married. They were still betrothed when the two boys died.

Rhaenyra announced their betrothal in 118 A.C. while Baela/Rhaena (twins) were born 116 and Jacaerys was born in 114. Lucerys was born 115.

(Jace died when he was 15-16. Luke died when he was 14....just saying.)

goodqueenaly explains HERE why Alicent would have pressed or approved of the marriage b/t Helaena and Aegon even though Helaena was 13. And since they aged down Alicent, Show!Helaena should be younger than in canon (if my math is good in the linked post).

In canon, Helaena marries Aegon in 122 A.C. (again when she is 13). 

But in the show, it is 125 A.C. that Aemond claims Vhagar and the two are still unmarried, going by how Aemond and Aegon talk. In my post talking about the show vs the canon ages, I say that by 125 A.C., in the show, Helaena is supposed to be 11-12. And we do not have a specific date for whe tney marry, but even if she did marry him when she turned 13 like in canon, Helaena, by the green’s estimation, would still be a child bride. And pressed into it by her mother.

Yes, so interesting that the green stans didn’t think about this.. Especially when the show made it a point to say that Aegon maritally rapes her with Helaena speaking about how he ignores her except when he is drunk and looks for her in episode 8:

...hmm.

You reminded me to check and confirm what you say. In this WinterisComing post, it is said that Ryan says, “Young Joffrey is around 6 or 7. As for the other kids, showrunner Ryan Condal says they’re all in “the 17-21 age range.” As if that helps things at all.... In this Elle article, we see the writer themselves not really knowing what’s happening. So I had to buckle up and do some....math (dun, dund\, dun).

By episode 2, we hear Viserys say that Rhaenyra is 15 and in the very beginning -- with a black screen -- we find out that the show’s events occur 172 years before 284 A.C. when Daenerys was canonically born. 

So we are supposed to be in 112 A.C when Viserys is hosting a tourney for his soon-to-arrive son Baelon. Rhaenyra is still 15, but Alicent’s been aged down to match her (when she would have been already married to Viserys I for 6 years by then [in canon, they marry at 106 A.C., when Alicent is 18 and Viserys is 29/30]).

These are the Book Ages at 112 A.C.:

And the Book Ages at 131 A.C. (end of the Dance):

The Show Ages at 111-2 A.C. for everyone is the same as canon except Alicent, who is 15. She and Show!Viserys marry episode 2, where Rhaenyra and Alicent are still 15.  

Three years pass after episode 2 and Alicent is heavily pregnant with Helaena and has already had Aegon the Elder, who Viserys says is 2 years old.

Since Alicent is aged down 9 years, her children are aged back.

So by episode 3/115 A.C., the Ages are:

It’s only a few months to episode 4. Helena is an infant, Aegon is maybe still 2 or he’s 3 in episode 5. None of the Velaryon boys exist yet.

Episode 5 passes straight after the events of episode 4, so the things of episodes 4 and 5 all happen in under a year.

By episode 6, 10 years pass and it is 125 A.C.

The Ages in 125 A.C./episode 6 are:

Rhaenys says she last saw Corlys 6 years ago in episode 8. The Ages in 131 A.C./episodes 8 - 10 are:

Again, since Ryan Condal and the other writers changed the age for Alicent and basically moved everything forward, this is the result of what the ages were. I used the canon ages and calculated when I could. Let me know of anything to consider changing.

I think they are mostly conformists, people who directly benefit from the status quo, or people who want to make the status quo work for their desires. Or some that feel like through the status quo, they will be validated or happier than they actually are or have lived. Kinda like Viserys I.

There is also a term I've seen on Tumblr and the people I follow called "tradcath" which is supposed to mean "traditionally Catholic" or "traditional Catholicism". "Traditional" as in sociopolitically conservative. There are those folks, too.

The insidiousness is especially remarkable when they think of themselves as "woke" or advocates of human rights, think that because some Western modern societies have a retrospective understanding that human tech and knowledge has advanced in some places that we are in a position to label other current societies and premodern societies as inherently evil, making us "good" and the absolute moral authority. That a marriage between a 23 year old and a 14 year old automatically means that the older person is a pedophile or a groomer ...meanwhile it is the parents, ruler, or those with authority that usually arranges the betrothals and marriages customarily. And in the cases where the older is seeking a betrothal or marriage, we'd have to inspect whether they are there because they feel the 14 year old is attractive because they are a child in their eyes, the economic and or political advantages that will come with the 14 year old, or whether it's both. Cerys Hightower, 23, was married to Maegor Targaryen who was 13 at the time. This was obviously a marriage of business and power and Maegor would later use his royal and physical power against her and her family, after abandoning her for two other women in hopes for an heir that he never got.

Things be different. They need engagement before we put a name to a thing in an ient and medieval events. But bastardry and itself will always introduce a danger to a child, even one like Ramsay Bolton (cunning, ruthlessness, and circumstances elevated him and gave him the means to survive). And things like homophobic, ableism, transphobia, xenophobia, classism, misogyny, racism, etc similarly create make the body evidence of the person's validity as a human being in of itself.

We don't know how old Rhea Royce was when he married her. Fire and Blood says that she inherited Runestone not long after 101 A.C. and they married in 97 A.C.. Her father, Yorbert, would have died for her to inherit Runestone, so again, if she was under 16 (age of majority/adulthood), then we should have heard mention of a sort of “regent”. Unless those are only for “big” houses, like the Arryns or Starks? 

Doubtful, since there’s not strong or apparent evidence of that.

She could have been younger than Daemon, the same age, or older. Unless GRRM answers, this is a mystery.

Not to elevate this show past what I think it deserves, Show!Rhaenyra happens to be in a position that looks better than Alicent's because some people think that Viserys has never actively tried to suppress Rhaenyra's actions into models of female aristocratic "respectability" before he named her heir. Thus they often conflate Rhaenyra's princess title and status as her having a better deal than dragonless, nonTarg Alicent.

The problem with this assessment is even the Targ women are victims of patriarchy, even if we argued with what they argue what makes Alicent a victim:

Book!Rhaenyra is forced into child marriage. Canonically, she was 17. In the show, she marries Laenor at 18 and when he's presumably 20.

Book!Rhaenys was 16 when she married 37-year-old Corlys canonically (and of her own will). There is no indication or announcement that the show changed this. She also wasn't allowed to become Queen Regnant due to her gender and could be casually mocked as the "Queen Who Never Was" as if she were some of an upstart who got taught a lesson--witnessing how no one wanted her to rule for herself. She herself says as much to Rhaenyra is episode 2.

And the show made an emphasis Rhaenyra's fear of motherhood because Rhaenyra lost a mother to this compulsion to produce a male heir for the sake of her husband's house. Childbirth endangers the woman and it is considered her duty, but she has little real compensation or praise for it other because it is considered her natural role to produce heirs for the sake of her husband.

Show!Rhaenyra is afraid of being relegated to the side when she is pregnant or in labor and having interloping, doubting men encroach her already-doubted authority--the little political participation and authority that she never asked for but is compelled to perform for the sake of her father's contentment (episode 10).

Basically, Older Rhaenyra is doing everything for her father as well, and little for herself. Just like Aemma. And it really kicks in when Laenor's lover dies.

The thing is anon, that the shows’ ages do not match the book/original lore's ages and people don’t know/care about 🔗 the different types of Queens. 

By canon/original lore, Alicent was 18 when she married Viserys. Rhaenyra was 9 when Alicent married Viserys.

So it's hard to keep track of how old the characters are in the show without doing some research.

So either way, Alicent would have never been the Queen Regent and making decisions for him by custom and right, because her son would have been in his majority. 

So, yeah Alicent of the original lore/canon lore/book was a lot more determined and decisive--using whatever at her disposal and planning for a long time to manipulate things for herself and her son for after Viserys’ death. Much more competent that HotD Alicent.

In the book, she purposefully makes way for Aegon’s coronation by going against tradition and the monarch’s-word-is-law precedent by seizing the small council with Otto and Criston Cole:

AND

[Canon] Ages of ASoIaF Characters When Wed (Pt.7)

Rhaegar Targaryen (20) x Elia Martell (23-24)  

Daenerys “Stormborn” Targaryen (13) x Khal Drogo (*30s)

Daenerys “Stormborn” Targaryen (14-15) x Hizdahr zo Loraq (?)