31 US States and all of Canada, the age of consent is 16.

9 US States, it's 17

10 US States, it's 18

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ages_of..._North_America

Age of consent has nothing to with child pornography, the latter applying to anyone under the age of 18 (in the US).

just got spoilered pretty hard by the "trending" news on facebook (lol me for still logging in to facebook I guess). Anyway it looks like some pretty big casting / plotline info for s5 is out there so tread carefully if you want to remain unsullied.

I guess we need the definition of "child pornography" and that must not include being topless in a movie, since Thora Birch was only 17 when she did her topless scene in "American Beauty".

FWIW, we talking about ages of fictional characters in a fictionalized world (not earth). Who's to say that 14 in Westeros isn't analogous to 18 here on Earth?

Pretty tough to avoid. There was an article on Yahoo that mentioned the spoiler in the title itself. It's barely a spoiler even by our standards IMO.

Yeah I don't even really consider that a spoiler. I mean, it is I guess but meh, not angry about seeing it.

Hmm. Good point. How are they supposed to measure age if winters and summers are of inconsistent length? Anyone read anything about the mechanics behind the weird seasons? Or is it just a hand wavey magic/fantasy world thing

That can't be right. She has to be at least 17. She was born at the very end of Robert's Rebellion and the show tells us that 17 years have passed since the rebellion when Season 1 starts, so she can't be younger than 17.

For now, let's treat season 5 casting news as spoilers. They're not allowed in this thread.

You seem to be correct if they do say that.

Very weird that one official site says 15 while gameofthrones wikia says 16.

Both not being from outside sources either.

I think they still measure years just like we do, it's just that their winters and/or summers don't have an exact length and can last multiple years. For example, they say the last winter lasted 5 years I think, so their seasons do not match ours but I think the years are the same.

You can determine the passage of a year in ways other than the change of the seasons. For example, the movement of the stars would work.

I've always wondering about their seasons and their planet's orbit around the sun. Do they just have some kind of wonky orbit that leads to these long seasons or is there some kinda magic involved. How can they use normal years for ages when the same meter we use for time is fixed and their's is so erradic. LOL would love an entire breakdown of whats going on in that area.

Maybe they still have the cyclical long and short days throughout the year like we do and can reckon a years length by the time between the longest day of the year to the next, but something else, maybe atmospheric like a volcano spewing dust into the atmosphere on the other side of the world, causes the particularly long "winters" from time to time.

Anyone explain to my why Ariya just bursts out laughing when she is told her auntie is dead? It just didn't feel right to me like it was too unnatural.

Also I was wondering in the trial by combat is there any way Tyrion can claim a retrial or draw if the mountain dies as a result of wounds sustained in the fight? I know we see him being experimented on so its unlikely he doesn't survive I was just wondering if both men died what would the verdict be?

Just checked and gameofthrones wikia uses my logic but gets to a slightly different conclusion. It states that when people refer to 17 years since the end of Robert's Rebellion, they are counting from the Sack of King's Landing, not when Dragonstone was captured (which is when Dany was born). Thus, they say she's slightly younger than 17 when Season 1 starts.

The ages in general seem a bit inconsistent. For instance, Joffrey is listed as the same age as Dany, but that doesn't seem to fit the general timeline since he would have been born at the earliest 18 months after the end of Robert's Rebellion (since Cersei married Robert after the rebellion and had a still birth before Joffrey, so even assuming she got pregnant immediately both times, that is still 18 months).

What we identify as seasons are caused by the periodic variation of the tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation with respect to the mean orbital plane, not the path of the orbit itself. Thus the long (and seemingly erratic) seasons in the GoT world could be a consequence of their axis tilt having a different frequency with respect to the orbital period, and may include additional harmonics. I dunno whether the books go into more detail on this.

I always imagine that when the characters mention "years," they are actually using different time units that make sense in their world, but everything is being translated to our time system so we can understand it. Just like I don't think they are "actually" speaking English.

So, probably the wrong place to ask this, but why does the periodic tilt of the earths axis coincide with the length of the orbit? Is that coincidence?

The tilt of earth's axis is stable (not quite, but it's wobble is measured in millennia) and always points to the same spot in the galaxy. That's why we can have a "north" star. It's the one that is closest to where our axis points.

The reason that we have seasons is not because the tilt changes, it's because it doesn't change. As we go around the sun, we alternate between the north and south poles pointing towards the sun. During spring and fall, neither pole is tilted toward the sun.

I could see a planetary system behaving something like the one on GOT if it was some kind of complex multiple star system with intricately balanced orbits. I'm pretty sure GRRMs take on it is "**** it... magic." though.

I think my last post was unclear. The Earth's tilt is fixed relative to the orbital plane, so the periodic variation relative to the sun direction is induced by the orbit itself. So no, it's not a coincidence.

The GoT world may have erratic seasons due to a nonzero axial tilt variation expressed in an inertial frame.

Another strange coincidence - our moon's rotational period matches its revolutionary period, which is why the same side of the moon is always facing us. There's gotta be a reason for that.

Aliens

There is a reason.

Not to get all scientific here, but I believe Mercury is similar. The same side always faces the sun.

Again not sure if people on here watch twitch besides me and Doggz. But there was a spoiler in someone's name on the donation section of Hearthstone streamer Amaz. Just a heads up, thankfully I already knew it