DE: What's my age again?

[bjornwilde]

 Lately I've been trying to wrap my head around how age is represented and used in various canons of mine; mostly the Star Wars universe where there really isn't a teenager. Children and young adults seem to be seen very much in a Victorian light, although this could just be the Outer Rim and Jedi/Sith. 

 So I was wondering, how are different age groups viewed in your canons? Does the age group we call teenagers exist? Are they seen as we see them? Are children meant to play and learn or are they seen as another resource? How does your pup feel about their society's view of these age groups?

Comments

[camwyn]

In Gordon's world they're still hashing out age groups all over again, because for sixteen years humanity couldn't reproduce and now there's hordes of small children running around. Gonna be a while before society shakes that one out.

Not too clear on how it is in Varric's world, esp. since different races view their kids differently, but I get the sense of there being 'children' and 'old enough to get married' among the humans and the elves, at least. I only get the sense because you can count the number of children of any species who appear in the Dragon Age games in person on one hand and still have fingers free to work the Xbox controller.

In Ellen's world it depends where you are. Vault 101 had children mostly doing learning and playing until the age of 10, at which point they got their first Pip-Boy and their first Vault job assignments, and then at age 16 they took the GOAT exam, which determined their job for the rest of their lives (I assumed that some people left schooling right after that and went into on-the-job training while others continued for a few more years and then went to their job tracks, since nobody seemed to treat the GOAT as if it were their graduation day in the game). But that's Vault 101, where it's safe to do that. On the surface I get the impression that younger children get a certain amount of play but are expected to work like hell pretty young, at least in the smaller communities; in Rivet City, where it's safer and the locals will tell you they have normal jobs, it may be different. In the Brotherhood you get education and training for all the children and they start nudging the kids towards either combat orders or studious orders in preadolescence, with the exception of Arthur Maxson, who's ten years old and is already a Squire (the stage before Initiate, which means that he's going to be a Knight and then a Paladin if he lives that long). In Oasis there's one child, who seems to spend most of her time either playing or talking to Harold the tree. In Little Lamplight everyone is a child; they take in orphans and they make you leave at age sixteen, and the kids do their own guarding, scavenging, etc. (I assume there are a lot of early teen pregnancies, too.) In the Republic of Dave the children go to school and learn in a classroom but also have jobs like gate guard and cattle minder, but the Republic of Dave is one oversized family and the 'school' gives the impression of being a cross between Chuck Norris Facts and history lessons from the Hermit Kingdom. All of this is compounded by the fact that Bethesda is awful at visually distinguishing age groups; there's one character in FO3 who's smaller than an adult but taller than children. No, wait, two, I forgot about Sticky in Little Lamplight. Everyone else is either child-sized or adult-sized, and you can't always tell who the old people are supposed to be, either.

[empath_wiggin]

Joshua, Helena, Fantine, and Mark have very real-world canons. Children are pretty much how we see them, with Helena and Fantine having a slightly more historical view of childhood, children growing up faster (Especially Fantine. But, Fantine was holding out hope that her daughter could be out there playing.).

I assume the Enchanted Forest is much like its real-world parallel when it comes to childhood for Peter.

And that leaves me with my novel for this DE.

Valentine Wiggin. Ender's Game portrays children, but only some children as a commodity to the IF. Small children were trained to be used as soldiers and commanders. Childhood was used as, well, as John Locke puts it a 'tabula rasa' or a blank slate, so the children would not be hindered by things an adult would believe of the world. These brilliant young people would save the world, basically through outside of the box thinking and their lack of inhibitions.

However, here's where it all breaks down. Outside of the little battle school bubble, life goes on as usual. Other rites of passage seem to either be lowered or waived for some people (Peter becomes Hegemon in his early twenties, at the latest), and there does seem to be more respect in general for youth. To some extent. Battleschoolers who came home, especially after Ender's battle were faced with a sort of retirement before they'd hit a quarter of their lives. It's awkward, it's a struggle, and to be honest, it's not fleshed out as well as most of the fans would have liked it to be. (I tend to work on/fix some of it in my Ender's Game fic)

Valentine, specifically, would rather she not grow up as fast as she had to. She makes a comment to Peter once 'how can I have a weekly column when I don't even have a monthly period!' and then something else about the two most powerful political figures not have three pubic hairs between them. (I love my snarky Valentine SO MUCH). Childhood is to be endured until her body catches up with her mind, but she has always wished that she could have had a normal childhood.

tl;dr: Ender's Game is about fucked-up childhoods, yo.

[camwyn]

We need to get Ellen and Helena together for 'here's our holotape reader, here are some of our French books, can I pay you to translate' at some point soon if you're up for it.

[damncompass]

Yes we do. I'm sorry I've been a flake lately. My brain has just not been working right. Sometime between now and the weekend, I can either tag Ellen or give Helena a post. I promise!

[bjornwilde]

Jess comes from a world much like ours as for as kids and teens goes. She doesn't thin she really has a connection to them but will hurt anyone with extreme prejudice who takes advantage of those she sees as underage. I think it's due to her failed childhood.

Much like Jess, Andrea with shoot anyone she discovers has taken advantage of a child or teen. Her world isn't so cut and clear as to age groups though. There are street urchins and punks who have fallen through the cracks. I would say being able to be a kid or a teen in her world depends on your financial situation, even more so than ours.

Hank comes from a 60s much like ours and doesn't really have an opinion about it. It's just the way it is.

Brimstone wishes dearly that the children and youths of his people could enjoy their innocence.

Mulan is like Peter above, though given she comes from a Chinese fable, I imagine teens don't really exist and children are expected to work.

Which leaves Quin and Star Wars. As I said above, I don't think teenagers really exist in the SW universe, you are either a child or a young adult. Children are used in labor, at least in the Outer Rim worlds, and the Jedi are quite adamant that they can only start Force training at a very young age. As evidence, I present Anakin.

Quin disagrees with this and doesn't see why the Jedi temple had this dogma. He thinks emotional maturity is vital to Force training but then he also is a little looser with the Dark and Light sides of the Force. He thinks accepting your fears, and emotions, makes you stronger than denying them--as he thinks the Jedi taught--but that's another topic all together. He believes in protecting children and young adults but also giving them the skills and responsibility to protect themselves and others. As proof of this, he has started training his kids to sense disturbances in the Force, how to shoot, and how to pilot star ships.

[last_kallig]

Ibani would probably say that the Jedi Temple, like the Sith Empire of her era, chooses them young because it's much, much easier to brainwash indoctrinate people at that age. Someone who's never known anything else is much more likely to adhere to the dogma, as it were.

The Sith seem to choose them a little older than the Jedi, but they're still 8-12ish, maybe? Of course that might be due to the lethality of Sith training as much as anything else.

[1nv1nc1ble]

Mark is 18 years old. He just graduated high school, is about to attend college, and lives in American suburbia. He is, pretty much, a typical American teenager of the early 21st century.

On the other hand, he can lift more than 75 tons, survive the vacuum of space, fly somewhere around 800,000 kph, and survive damn near anything that tries to kill him. He also just found out that his father's people are a bunch of Space Nietzscheans* bent on conquering the rest of the galaxy. That sort of thing has a tendency to shock you out of adolescence faster than the average first year of college does.

* - So much more interesting than Space Nazis, don't you think? Or, at the very least, more of a meritocracy. :)

[a1enzo]

Sprite ages are expressed in binary, with each birthday roughly equivalent to five years for a human. Thus, where humans nowadays have teenagers, sprites have 11s (equivalent to human ages 15-19). Reaching three digits is coming of age; four digits means everyone gets to call you old and give you gag gifts.

However, Millicanonically, none of this is as important as the developmental stages: alpha version, beta version, and gold release. An alpha is a baby or small child; a beta is an older child who has not yet received or fully trained in their format. For example, as a cadet Enzo was still a beta, but when he graduated he "went gold". ("Gamma version" is a way of calling an adult immature.) These stages may be reached at different points by different sprites, and since programming is all for sprites, this might have an effect on their rate of physical development.

[fairy_fixit]

Heeehee, I like that Millicanon!

[bjornwilde]

I love how much detail you've built for your canon. = ]

[a1enzo]

A lot of it just kind of happened/made sense at the time. ;-)

[pullsneedles]

Video games almost always have teenagers, and both the Lunar series and the Mother series aren't exceptions. As for specifics, why don't I go in order of ages during canon?

Mother 3 is a little varied when it comes to party members. Perhaps not at the level of, say, Final Fantasy VI, but not bad for an aughties title. Tazmily is peaceful enough that children can run around doing whatever when not doing chores. At the beginning of the game, Alec teases that even Lucas could handle going through the Sunshine Forest by himself. Teenagers are more or less the same in degree of freedom, though the only examples we've really got are Lucas and Kumatora. There's not any school to report to. (They mention school in Earthbound, but your mom calls on your behalf to get you out of school while you save the world.) Adults of all ages can take care of themselves for the most part. The elderly, however, are forced to live in the retirement home Fassad builds.

Lunar has everything from babies to creatures that can live for centuries. Being some flavor of old-time-y yet still modern, babies and children aren't permitted to go on big adventures. But once you've hit 15 and have been diligent in taking care of the family cow, you're good to go to the continent I guess! (Alex's parents know he and his friends have been going in the woods. They're also kind of laid back.) Your party is almost always teenagers, but occasionally adults will join you in the fight. (And sometimes you'll have to take on boss battles AGAINST adults.) Lunar has proven to be one of those worlds where getting older is one of those signs of being badass. Every adult party member is at level 99, the highest the game offers, and equipped with kickass spells or multiple attacks in a single turn. This remains true to some degree for elderly characters, especially mages who remain mentally sharp.

The world of the story is vague and most of the important characters probably fall under the category of teenager to mid-twenties adult. Characters that are old enough to act without being ineffectual children and young enough to not be the wise old king or curmudgeonly wizard who are there to provide sage advice. Younger children and older adults are certainly in stories, just usually not these stories.

[fairy_fixit]

Fairy Fixit and Amascut come from the same canon but very different species. Fixit is one of the Zanaris fairies who seem to be maybe moth-people? Canon treats their anatomy as a physical wrapping around a bunch of concentrated magic, but it could be that fairies have some sort of magic sloshing inside them instead of haemolymph. Canon doesn't reveal the lifecycle of the Zanaris fairies and only gives one hint that it's several centuries long. At least the adult phase. I want to give them an insect-like lifecycle but I am weird like that.

As for Amascut, she's a god, but that is entirely meaningless since gods ascended from a variety of origin species. But even amongst the gods, Amascut's family is unique. The fact that they are a family is unique in the first place, then there is the whole animal head on a human body thing. Also, Tumeken and Elidinis are the only two gods that have mated and had children, so Amascut and Icthlarin are the only born gods (funny how they are both gods of death). Seren and Zaros where created gods (well, god-toys to be more accurate) but only Amascut and Icthlarin were gods as infants. Unless they popped out fully formed like Athena and Aphrodite, of course. Every god seems to go through a bratty teenager phase, but hey, with great power comes great irresponsibility.

As for canon in general itself, there is a whole mess of races, and so a whole mess of life cycles. But generally, there are infants, kids, and adults. Some kids go to school, but nearly everyone learns to read somehow. Heck, even in a random event that might only count as a fever dream or weird alternate dimension kind of thing now, even zombie kids can go to school. But at some age, probably around the teens for humans and some other age for other races, comes a general point when keeping kids in school against their will isn't worth it, so that's when they are adults and can decide to keep going to school, start working full time, or go out adventuring/causing trouble in the wider world. I base this on Meg the adventurer, who for some reason or another gives me the impression that she is 14.

There are only a couple kids visible in canon, besides all the kittens and puppies and chicks available as pets. The only character canon shows us growing up is a human kid called Kennith, who had weird powers and suddenly decides to grow up. So he does. Then an Ezekial Lovecraft joins his adventuring party and starts chucking rubidium (called rubium in game) grenades at things and then a paladin named Eva Cashien joins and they defeat the ancient horror below the sea which I have alluded to before at times in Millicanon as a mutated Combine Advisor.

And then the whole playerbase collectively facepalmed.

[last_kallig]

Ibani was working in a crystal mine at the earliest age she can remember, so her idea of 'age appropriate' was a bit skewed from the start. Then she got taken for Sith training, which was essentially training from Hell. Childhood innocence, what's that? Ibani is aware that what happened to her isn't RIGHT, and she has vague ideas of what a childhood should be, but she hasn't thought about the concept much.


Kreyu is from the Mythological Age, so they don't really have the idea of 'teenager' or 'adolescent' either, at least not yet.

[hey35andholding]

Clementine: There are tons of teenagers in Reno and most are the victims of the department's half-assed attempts at education.

Dixie: Teens in Brisco serve to worship the hero and be adorably rescued.

Juliet: Modern day America, modern day view on teenagers. But they don't pop up a lot on Psych.

Eponine: Are revolutionaries. Booyaaaa

Pinkie: Fillies are between the learned mares and the tiny foals. They seem to be in a constant state of wanting to grow up.