User blog comment:SmellyMelly06/Character ages.../@comment-9788768-20130529234137/@comment-5.70.80.167-20130531230719

The actress is older than 16, but the character is 16. In the books she is 13. But due to some of the scenes, for obvious reasons, a 13 year old girl cannot be used to play this, the ages of every character are 3 years older than the books. There's also a bit in the first book where Arya gets naked due to having smelly dirty clothes, so she swims in a river and then washes her clothes in it. If they were to have had THAT scene in the TV show then Arya would have had to be much older and an older actress used... The only reason Daenarys couldn't be played by a younger actress and have any scenes cut due to legalities, were because of the importance of some scenes. They cut quite a lot of important stuff out as it is, not to mention the amount of character cuts and changes too!