[ so the queen is an old man, huh... he cracks a bit of a smile at that impression, but it only lasts a second. ]

Well, not that blatantly. But if their goal is to drive people to kill each other, chipping away at things slowly is a better way to make despair take root. This could just be an early, subtle way of demonstrating that they know what's in our heads, beyond what went into the portrait profiles.