If you haven’t watched the final episode of Game of Thrones yet, stop reading now.

Spoilers, spoilers everywhere.

The last time we saw Robin Arryn before the series finale, he was failing at using a sword in season seven.

Lino Facioli was cast as the entitled, creepy Robin when he was just nine years old. The character is known for two things – he likes to watch people fall to their death through the hole in the centre of his throne room, and he’s still breastfeeding, despite being past the age where that’s considered acceptable.

Moving on to season eight, and he crops up again in the finale. Only now he’s not the anaemic brat of seasons past, but a virtually unrecognisable lord.

Here’s The Daily Beast:

Robin sits among a council of lords and ladies who vote to crown Bran Stark king of Westeros, a scene notable for depicting the invention of democracy and time-traveling plastic water bottles, and as fans noted on social media, the revelation that Lysa’s “good strong boy” Robin now looks like Prince Charming. Memes were born. Feelings were conflicted. “Milk Boy Got Hot” became a real headline. Not since Neville Longbottom in his post-Harry Potter days has a child star in a fantasy franchise seemed to benefit so unfairly from puberty.

Let’s do a quick visual map of his transformation:

In the beginning, we met the embodiment of what happens when you ‘over-parent’ your kids.

After his mom went through the hole in the throne room, they tried to make a man of the little twerp. It wasn’t working:

And now, this:

It took me a while to recognise him when I watched the finale.

In an interview, 19-year-old Facioli – an actor, talented sketch artist and painter with a love of vintage cars – had the following to say about all of the attention:

I love it. I loved it, I’m not gonna lie. I could never have imagined this was going to happen. I thought maybe tops there were going to be a few people emailing me, messaging me or whatever, but this was really beyond my expectations. It started off on Monday morning, I was just flooded with notifications. People calling me, people asking for interviews. It just kind of feels like I’ve stepped out of reality for a bit, really. It’s a real adventure; it’s been really fun so far.

He also spoke about what it was like to shoot those awkward breastfeeding scenes:

Uh, yeah, I wouldn’t lie to you, it was a new experience. Well, I mean obviously, I guess I’d done it as a baby. But I mean it was a new experience doing it as a conscious child-preteen in front of a bunch of other people.

And even though it wasn’t an easy scene to do, it was what my character did and it was a part of the role. And it also did help very much that the actress who played my mother [Lysa Arryn], Kate Dickie, was an absolute star who just really made sure, “If you’re not feeling comfortable, don’t do it.” So there was someone to guide me through it, to not make me feel immense pressure around this, so it really didn’t affect me as much as people think it did, I think.

Uhm, sure…

It’s still a little weird.

[source:dailybeast]