Immortality Begins At Twenty: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

Sometimes being immortal or a member of a really long lived race means that you also have an [[Can't Grow Up|eternal]] or really extended childhood or puberty. And [[Not Growing Up Sucks|that would really suck]].

Averted with certain types of [[Undead Child]]. See also [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]] and [[Immortality]]. Contrast [[Elderly Immortal]], [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]. When this fails, you can have either [[Age Without Youth]] or [[Not Growing Up Sucks]].

 

 

* Vash and Knives from [[Trigun]] aged rapidly from birth (by the time they were a year old they were physically around 8), until they reached the physical age of men in their early twenties. Nearly a century and a half later and they haven't aged a day since.

* The Bounts in ''[[Bleach]]'' are mostly mid-twenties, although there are a few older.

** None of them seem to look older than 30 or so except one, and that's not because of his actual age. {{spoiler|He once went around eating living souls, which gives them great power but deteriorates their bodies.}}

* The titular half-youma warriors of ''[[Claymore]]'' are probably an example of this, the key word being ''probably''. While the few Claymores who ''do'' survive beyond the average human's prime don't show any signs of aging, most aren't likely to live even ''that'' long thanks to the dangers of their chosen profession.

* Neo Queen Serenity of ''[[Sailor Moon]]'' stops aging at 22 (as do the rest of her supernatural friends).

** Although the novels later reveal that {{spoiler|her true reason for waiting was so that her appearance would change enough that her lover's murderer (also immortal) wouldn't recognize her when she came seeking revenge.}}

* Played with in ''[[Hellsing]]''. Alucard was in his mid-forties when he died (just like the [[Real Life]] Dracula), but has the appearance of a man in his twenties because he is powerful enough to assume pretty much any form he wants. When his full power is unlocked, he resumes his original appearance (complete with [[Badass Mustache|mustache]]), but quickly resumes his usual form (and later the form of a [[Gender Bender|fourteen-year old girl]]). The artificial vampirization process used by [[Ghostapo|Millenium]] also restores their soldiers to a youthful state {{spoiler|most notably with Walter}}. Played straight with [[Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire|Seras]].

* In ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' it is shown that the Nation-tans age as children, but are usually stuck at 20 or so. It shows Italy as a chibi in the age of the Holy Roman Empire, but adult by [[World War I]].

 

* Wolverine of the ''[[X-Men]]'' aged normally until sometime during his prime, when his aging slowed down significantly. Stories set a couple hundred years in the future often show him looking like a normal person would at 50 or 60..

 

** Which makes a bit of sense when you realize that the radiation regenerates chromosomal DNA and through that, the organism. Aging is a result of the telomeres on those chromosomes shortening.

*** Which incidentally contradicts the fact that it cured Geordi's blindness, as he was blind since birth. Age reduction wouldn't affect that.

 

* Subverted in Ian Macdonald's ''River of Gods'' - one of the many enhancements given to the so-called "Brahman Babies" is a doubled lifespan. They age half as fast physically, but mentally (or at least legally) grow up at a more-or-less normal pace, leading to apparently ten-year-old night-club owners.

** A short story set in the same universe points out the rather nasty effect this has on marriages.

** If you look into the appendix at the end of ''Return Of The King'', it's stated that elves have much longer childhoods than humans, and hence an elven child may have the mental capacity of a human adult. Apparently it's all relative, in any case, because if you go back to the dwelling of the Valar in Valinor, and the arrival of the three primary elf races, the perspective on growth was very different, due to immortality/longevity being the standard state of being. And so, in effect, the aging process of humans and the races of middle-earth would have been seen as abnormal by the Maiar, Valar, and elven races. However, the overriding description of elves by Tolkien isn't so much that they look like they're in their early twenties, but that they assume an ageless quality over time. The idea is that there is no human comparison for such a state because they are an alien race to the concept of mortality (if elves die on the mortal plane, they find their way back to Mandos' halls, and (usually) end up living in Valinor).

** Also averted with Hobbits, who routinely live to 100 but mature more slowly in proportion, being considered to reach adulthood at 33. Their twenties or "tweens" are considered equivalent to Men's adolescent teens.

* Played straight in ''[[Duumvirate]]'', where it's referred to as "maximum age".

* A science fiction story called ''Start The Clock'' (available on Escape Pod, IIRC) was all about the results of averting this trope. An ill-defined plague stopped everybody aging (and apparently gave immortality as a side-effect). The worst-hit group seem to be the teenagers, since their hormone overproduction ''didn't stop'', turning most into what amounts to bunch of sex-mad orcs.

** And according to [[Word of God]] if you become a vampire while pregnant, you remain pregnant for all eternity. Or however long you manage to live.

* The dragons in ''[[The Inheritance Cycle]]'' grow up within a few years, despite having very long lifespans. This is taken to the logical extreme in film.

* In ''The [[Wheel of Time]]'' Aes Sedai use an Oath Rod (originally produced as a [[Restraining Bolt]] for criminal mages) as part of their [[Initiation Ceremony]]. As a side effect, it makes them "ageless," which [[Author Appeal|means]] "attractive." Oh, and it cuts their lifespans in half, which they don't know until they meet wrinkled mages who are 400 years old.

** Fans who have way too much time on their hands have deduced (Based on in-book descriptions of the oath process and of the Aes Sedai themselves) that the cause for the "ageless" appearance is that, in addition to aging more slowly, they never get wrinkles (They explicitly compared this to botox).

* Inverted in ''The Meq''. The Meq attain immortality at 12 and lose it when they are ready to mate.

* In Kim Harrison's ''[[The Hollows]]'' it is implied that witches grow up like humans and age little for about a century after they reach their twenties, resulting in a natural life span of about 160.

* Joan of Arc in ''[[The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel]]'' was turned immortal when she was a teenager, so she has this. Averted with many other immortals, though.

 

* Inverted in an episode of ''Moonlight'' where a vampire who was turned as a young adult has to spend the rest of his immortal life in the midst of puberty.

** Also Claire.

** Adam says in the webcomic that he stop actually ageing (at least, he noticed it) when he was about 40. His ageing had probably slowed down before this.

* ''Stargate'' has this to an extent with the Ancients. While they (presumably) grow up at a normal rate compared with regular old humans, once they reach maturity they seem to be capable of staying this way for a very, very long time (millions of years if they happen to be encased in ice, as was seen in one episode... though there was limited degeneration, the Ancient in question was still perfectly able to walk, think, and understand modern humans).

* ''[[Highlander the Series]]'' both averts and explains this. Immortals are always frozen at the age when they died, so you can get child immortals, but because immortals also tend to hunt each other down, the children don't last long, so you don't see many... the ones that survive the first few years... [[Manipulative Bastard|tend to]] [[Axe Crazy|be off]].

* In ''[[Young Dracula]]'', vampires age normally until they turn 16 years old. From the looks of Dracula, they probably still age a bit after that, but not much.

* ''[[Becoming Human]]'' averts this. Adam was turned at 16 and is stuck as either a schoolkid or someone in a badly-paid school-leaver job forever, since he'll never be able to pass for much older.

* In ''[[Kamen Rider Double]]'', Philip {{spoiler|died at age five and then was resurrected as a stream of data composed from the memories of the Earth.}} Towards the end of the show, he's confirmed to be seventeen years old, but Delusion Diary #11 hints that he won't age beyond that {{spoiler|because his body is made of data.}} It may or may not be true given that the scene was part of Shotaro's daydream.

* In ''[http://nerdreactor.com/2011/10/15/curiosity-can-you-live-forever-starring-adam-savage/ Can You Live Forever?]'', Adam finally achieves this after a long series of experimental medical procedures using [[Sufficiently Advanced Technology]].

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** Adverted ''hard'' for half dragons (in some version) who may not have left adolescence by the time others have died of old age. This is in line with dragon aging where 101 years is considered adult, even considering the half part that's adulthood at 50 ish.

** Also, the Terrestrial Exalted age more continuously and gradually over the centuries (or else their Exaltations would leave a good number of them as semi-eternal children), but do not move past their (physical) fifties or so until their lifespan draws close to an end.

** Strangely enforced for Infernal Exalted; part of the deal is having vitality restored, so the general body warping process of the chrysalis grotesque includes being brought back to a physical appearance that roughly resembles their twenties (ironically, the Infernals are, by default, the shortest lived Exalted, with a mere 150 year lifespan).

* Inverted in ''[[Promethean: The Created]]'', where ''mortality'' begins at twenty - a Promethean who completes the Great Work becomes a human in young adulthood, and can expect a normal lifespan from there on out.

 

** As discovered later in the game, {{spoiler|Kratos and Yuan}} both had their aging halted at twenty-something. {{spoiler|Mithos}}, on the other hand, got it stopped when he was still a kid, and had to learn a special technique to make himself look older.

* Apparently the case for True Ancestors in ''[[Tsukihime]]''. Arcueid looks to be slightly older than Shiki does, and looked that way around eight hundred years ago as well. Fridge logic implies that either she grew from infancy to full maturity very quickly, or she has ''always'' been an adult.

* In the ''[[Suikoden]]'' series; the True Runes keep their bearers from aging ''at all'', leading to one character who's been physically a child for over ''three hundred years''. The effects lasted long enough that they didn't even age while {{spoiler|the Fog Ship Guide held onto the Soul Eater}} in ''[[Suikoden IV]]''. Needless to say, {{spoiler|Ted's}} a bit annoyed about this.

** However at least the runes allow bearers to hit puberty before the whole immortality thing sets in. Otherwise characters like Luc and Sasarai who are implied to have had their runes since birth would still be infants. The theory is that the rune stops aging at its prime as defined by JRPG standard (i.e. mid to late teens).

** Averted with non-Veldime demons, who typically have 500 years worth of puberty to look forward to.

** Angels also have the same problem as demons from netherworlds apart from Veldime. [[Love Freak|Flonne]] is the oldest from the trio of main characters of the first game at 1509 (Etna and Laharl are [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|1470 and 1313 respectively]]) yet all of them look like there's no real difference apart from height.

** The fairies may not fully fall under this trope as they are elemental embodiments that are reborn each time they die (which may occur with the changing of seasons according to some interpretations) rather than being immortal or long lived.

* After her powers manifested, Aya Brea of ''[[Parasite Eve]]'' actually got physically younger. While she actively refused to use her abilities between games, by the time ''Parasite Eve II'' rolls around, Aya is permanently 21.

* Played with in ''[[Mass Effect]]''. Averted by the asari, who are generally thought to leave childhood at forty, and considered mature adults at 80. Krogan play the trope straight.

** Miranda states that because she was heavily genetically modified, she will likely live 50% longer than a normal human, and it is stated that her body is in its twenties even though she is in her thirties. She makes no mention of whether this affected her growth rate as a child, though {{spoiler|her genetically identical, but much younger, sister Oriana}} grew up having a normal life, which would presumably be impossible if all ageing happened slower than normal, so presumably they play this trope straight.

* Nobodies from ''[[Kingdom Hearts]]'' appear to have a case of this. [[Word of God]] states they don't age, however the Nobodies who lost their heart at a young age all seemed to age normally since the time when they would have become Nobodies, while their fully-grown counterparts haven't aged a bit in the intervening decade-or-so.

 

* The elves of ''[[Elf Quest]]'' grow to maturity at about the same rate as humans before entering "the long golden afternoon" of elfin longevity.

* Averted and lampshaded in ''[[Irregular Webcomic]]'', when one of the characters in the ''Fantasy'' theme (Mordekai) asks the elf Alvissa why her race hadn't outbred everyone and overpopulated the world. Her answer: "Elven children breast feed for 30 years, teethe for 20 years, throw tantrums for about 100 years, and don't take to toilet training until they're about 200... Elves invented effective contraception before we could use fire."

* In ''[[Pandect]]'', Aces (animals with human souls and the ability to switch to a human body) stop aging entirely in their animal bodies, and the human body ages to about mid-20s and then remains there for the rest of their (very long) lives. Justified in that they have to earn Ace: the prolonged period of youth is part of the reward.

* Genetic elites in ''[[The Cyantian Chronicles]]'', though their age catches up to them quickly as they reach the end of their lifespan (ranging from 120 years in foxes to nearly a millennium in wolves).

** Also elite wolves don't reach their full height of about 7'6" for several decades, as Darius and his classmates are teenagers or mid-twenties they tend to be pretty short (~6 feet) by their species' standards.

** In the case of the Cubi their major abilities do not awaken until their early 20's, and as one of those abilities is shape-shifting they can look any age they wish for the rest of their lives.

** As demonstrated by Cyra herself [http://missmab.com/Comics/Vol_1213.php here].

'''Haley''': Oh. }}

 

** There's an aversion, though - there's [http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Health/Story?id=7880954&page=1 a girl] who has a genetic condition that ages her at one twelfth of the rate of a normal human. She's 16 and still stuck in the body of a 1 year old, and for that matter [[And I Must Scream|the mind.]]

*** The really bad part about that though is that because, as just stated, maturity and old age are caused by different things in your body so she might not actually live any longer than normal. Even if she lived to be a hundred, she would only be eight years old, biologically and mentally.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Youngsters]]

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:This Index Will Live Forever]]