Rickon Has Aged Since We Last Saw Him On 'GoT'

The two youngest Starks have been on the bench a while — but as we make our way through Season 6, Rickon has finally (finally!) appeared back on the scene. Although, maybe not in the way fans wanted, considering he's at the mercy of Ramsay now. Anyway, since a lot of time has passed, how old is Rickon Stark now on Game of Thrones?

After almost three whole seasons, we're all in need of a bit of a refresher. He was last seen in the penultimate episode of Season 3 (aka the infamous Red Wedding episode), when he and his older brother Bran split ways — Bran continued north to beyond the Wall with Hodor and the Reeds (now how's that for a band name?), while Rickon stayed with Osha, where they presumably stayed in hiding, though we don't know for sure — hopefully, they'll catch us up soon.

Rickon's reappearance was a bit jarring, with only the tragically beheaded Shaggydog (and of course, Osha) to remind us of his identity — after all, the guy's almost unrecognizable since his last sighting on the show. It's not a case of recasting, as we saw with the two youngest Baratheons (or rather, Lannisters) — it's just the fact that a lot of time has passed. Art Parkinson has been with the series since the show debuted back in 2011. He was only 8 when the show started filming, and now he's 14.

As with many of the younger characters on the show (perhaps most notably Daenerys Targaryen, who was only 13 in the first book), Rickon was seriously aged up: At the start of A Song of Ice and Fire, his character was 3, while in the show's first season his age was 6. Going off of the book timeline, he would be around 5 or 6 now, as we head past the events of A Dance With Dragons — and on the show, he should be around 11, since the show follows a more elongated timeline than the books.

Between the actor, the book, and the TV series, there are a lot ages to go off of — but regardless of how many years he's spent on Earth and in Westeros, there's a lot to look forward to for the oft-forgotten Rickon. Parkinson himself revealed to The Huffington Post that his character (already deemed the "wildest" Stark child) would return to the show "a lot more independent and a little bit more feral." He couldn't reveal any spoilers (of course), but he did say that it'll be a big season for Rickon — so maybe all of those rumors you've been hearing about him being a part of the Umber's potential uprising against the Boltons could be true — though it's worth noting that, to HiffPost, he categorically shot down the theory that Shaggydog might still be alive (come on, that wolf head did look suspiciously small for a direwolf, didn't it?).

We may not know quite what's in store for Rickon — but it's bound to be interesting. After all, as Parkinson said to The Hollywood Reporter, "Dangerous times are ahead."

Images: Helen Sloan/HBO