misaele

I believe that in aSoIaF, incest is used as a way to shock the reader or show that a character is bad, in a way that simply can't exists in F&B because there are a million incestuos relationships and it wouldn't make sense. Cercei, Jaime, Tywin, Viserys, Euron, Bloodraven, Aerys, Craster, are the villains of the story. I don't believe that we've ever been shown a "good" character having incestuos thoughts, except briefly for Daenerys.

George R.R. Martin has been criticized for his representation of child marriages, claiming that they're not accurate to the middle ages, but I think they're just exaggerated if you compare similar circumstances in medieval Europe.

The women who marry in times of peace, such as Catelyn and Cersei, marry at reasonable ages. Catelyn was supposed to marry at 18, then got married at 19, and Cersei got married at 18. Elia Martell was married at 23. Historically accurate for a noble woman in medieval times.

Things change when we're talking about child hostages and orphaned girls. Sansa's marriage is emblematic, since she was a political hostage and potential heir to the North, and the circumstances of the story justify it, but I want to take Daenerys as an example. Daenerys got married at 13 and immediately consumed the marriage.

One very similar case to hers was the life of Petronilla of Aragon. She became queen at the age of one, and immediately betrothed to a man 23 years her senior. It is said he raised her as a father, and then he married her at 14, consuming the marriage as soon as she turned 15.

Daenerys is in a similar situation, since she's second in line for a whole continent and is claimed to have "magical blood". If she hadn't been an orphan, it's way less likely that she would have been married that young. Even in Targaryen history, kings who force to marry their daughters that young, such as Jaehaerys II, are represented as crazy and prophecy-obsessed.

Reading the history of the Mongols, I was surprised by how much of the Dothraki is inspired by the ancient Mongols and how Daenerys is similar to the mother of Gengis Khan. She was already married to another man at 16, when she was abducted and raped by Gengis Khan's father. From the same book, it seems that the mongols did marry at 14 or 15. So Daenerys's story is taken to the extreme, but not that far from actual medieval history.

I think that representing child marriage is a valid and important topic, especially since it did happen in the past and keeps happening in the present.

Ages at marriage of Daenerys, Catelyn, Cersei, Elia Martell, Rhaella Targaryen taken from a Wiki of Ice and Fire.

I found the story of Petronilla on "Vita di Eleonora d'Arborea, principessa medievale di Sardegna" by Bianca Pitzorno, but the hard facts are also present on Petronilla's wikipedia article. Since this book talks about a lot of political marriages, I shows the vast range of ages a marriage could take place in medieval Italy, Sardinia and Spain. It really depended on political necessity, occasion and luck.

What is even more interesting, I found information on Gengis Khan's mother in "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" by Jack Weatherford. Great book, I would recommend.