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Common causes for not being able to grow up include but are not limited to: Being a robot, [[Brain Uploading|virtual copy]], [[Golem|magically animated puppet]], being [[Curse|cursed]] or an [[Undead Child]].
 
May or may not overlap with [[Who Wants to Live Forever?]] and [[I Hate You, Vampire Dad]]. [[Sub -Trope]] of [[Blessed With Suck]]. Not to be confused with [[Not Allowed to Grow Up]], which is about characters being forced to remain the same age via [[Executive Meddling]], not any in-story reason. Closely related to [[Never Grew Up]] (which is a voluntary decision by the child to not grow up).
 
Contrast [[Elderly Immortal]].
 
{{examples|Examples:}}
 
== [[Anime]] And [[Manga]] ==
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* In Black Blood Brothers, there is a possible aversion; the younger brother is childlike and innocent, and still loves sweets and toys (and doing silly things, like wall graffiti).
* Thanks to being what amounts to a collection of organs put into a childlike artificial body, Pinoko from ''[[Black Jack (Manga)|Black Jack]]'' is stuck looking like a three-year-old. (Technically, she's eighteen... or one, depending on how you count it). She doesn't gripe about it too often, but it comes up now and then (one story shows she has a fun house mirror in her room so that she reflects as an adult).
* [[Astro Boy]] is a [[Replacement Goldfish]] permanently frozen at the age his human counterpart Toby died, which was nine-ish or so. Though, in most of the incarnations, [[Pinocchio Syndrome]] (and the negative aspects of this trope) is at most brief and sometimes [[Angst? What Angst?|skipped over,]] because [[Humans Are Flawed]], who wants to be one?
* In ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (Manga)|Fullmetal Alchemist]]'', Alphonse Elric is 14 years old, yet has the voice and mentality of a ten year old.
** That's because he's been nothing but a soul attached to a suit of armor since he was 10.
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* In a departure from the source material (see Literature below), Pinocchio in ''[[Fables]]'' had to deal with this. The Blue Fairy was, due to her [[The Fair Folk|fairy]] mentality, a [[Literal Genie]] when he asked to become a real boy. He got to be a real boy, but he was stuck as one, ''forever.''
* Lenore from ''[[Lenore the Cute Little Dead Girl]]''. A 10 years old girl, dead for ''100 years''.
* [[Marvel Comics]]' [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Agamemnon_:Agamemnon (Pantheon) |Agamemnon]] is immortal but never physically aged beyond 16. There was some [[Wild Mass Guessing]] at the time that at one point in the past he was [[Captain America|Bucky]].
** Also in Marvel Comics, there's the Eternal Sprite. He was so frustrated at seeing his fellow Eternals do adult things, and always being considered a child, that he masterminded the lobotomized resurrection of all of his peers in order to have access to the power of the Sleeping Celestial and become a human boy. {{spoiler|It worked. He got caught. He was killed. [[Tear Jerker|We cried.]]}}
* The modern-age Superboy was afflicted with this; a disease that affected only clones was killing him, and the only way Cadmus's scientists could stop it was to halt his aging at 16 years old. After they cured the disease, they couldn't find the aging genome to turn it back on until some time later, during the [[Young Justice (Comic Book)|Young Justice]] [[Crisis Crossover]] "Sins of Youth," when the spell that aged the rest of his teammates to adults started tearing him apart at the genetic level. Cadmus reactivated Superboy's aging, only to have him [[Brought Down to Normal|lose all his powers]] when the aging spell was lifted. Superboy just could not catch a break back in the day.
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* Detians in ''[[Undocumented Features]]'' can sometimes, if their immortality is activated by traumatic injury, be frozen in their current ages. This is called Edgerton's Syndrome, after the guy who took high-speed pictures of fast-moving objects, freezing the images forever in time.
* Most people agree that the teenage years suck. Now, imagine if you became undead while a teenager, and were more or less stuck that way forever. This is what happened to Adrius, a Forsaken teenager encountered in ''[[Travels Through Azeroth and Outland (Fanfic)|Travels Through Azeroth and Outland]]''.
* Bit of [[Fridge Horror]] used in a few ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' fics. [[Moe Anthropomorphism|Nations]] only age when their countries develop; the Italy brothers were stuck as prepubescents for two hundred years when under the thumb of Austria and Spain. In the 21st century, Sealand is personified by a twelve-year-old boy. He is eternally optimistic about his future, hoping to grow up and become a great empire, but since he has an official population of four people and his "land" is an old [[World War Two]] fort, this is unlikely. His human name is Peter, which may or may not be a [[Shout -Out]] to [[Peter Pan]]; either way it's been used as such in fanfic, since he'll presumably be twelve forever.
 
 
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* The child vampire Homer in ''[[Near Dark]]'' is considerably pissed off by his condition.
* The boy in ''[[The Tin Drum (Film)|The Tin Drum]]'' stays a three-year old until he's well into his twenties. He does this out of his own free will, although changes his mind later when he makes this realization.
* Baby Herman in ''[[Who Framed Roger Rabbit]]'' smokes humongous cigars, and has "a fifty-year lust and a three-year-old dinky" concerning his [[Hello, Nurse!|nurse]]. That's not his only problem, as seen in [http://toontownantics.blogspot.com/2009/09/roger-rabbits-toontown-issue-1-part-2.html the comics].
* ''[[Let the Right One In]]'' is a film about a 12 year old boy's friendship with a vampire who was turned at about the same age.
* Claudia in ''[[Interview With a Vampire]]'' felt the pain most keenly.
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** There is also Godric, Eric's maker, who is over 2000 years old, but looks like roughly 16. It's not really clear if his apparent age has any disadvantages for him, although Eric did complain at first (he felt that "Death" should look more impressive).
* ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' has Anna, a girl who looks about 15, but is really the same age as the Salvatore brothers. At least Stefan might count, too, being eternally stuck at 17.
* [[Truth in Television]] example: ''[[Series/Law And Order Special Victums Unit|Law And Order Special Victums Unit]]'' did an episode about a young woman, chronologically an adult, whose [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner%27s_syndrome:Turnerchr(27)s syndrome|rare medical condition]] kept her permanently looking about 11 years old. Her consensual relationship with an adult man caused a lot of [[Squick]], the more so in that he's implied to be a pedophile who only likes her ''because'' she looks prepubescent. Her parents, naturally, want him busted for rape because they think of her as a child.
* ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)|Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' briefly featured a child vampire known as The Anointed One.
* ''[[Being Human (TV)|Being Human]]'''s third season had an episode with a forty year old vampire who was still stuck as a teenager. He had been taken care of by his family, but when they died of old age he was left alone to fend for himself. Complicated by him still being mentally 14 as well as physically.
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* [[Aion]] has a Daeva in Sanctum explain that she became a Daeva at a very young age, and so still looks very young (the player has the option of making a childlike character as well). This could be a subversion, as she doesn't seem troubled by it at all, but it provides some Fridge thinking on the subject.
* {{spoiler|Porky}} in ''[[Mother 3 (Video Game)|Mother 3]]'' - and is also a {{spoiler|[[Time Abyss]]}}.
* ''[[The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Video Game)|The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time]]'' has ''a race of [[Our Elves Are Better|forest-dwellers]]'' called the Kokiri, who are born directly from the Deku Tree somehow... Only one of them seems to care about the fact that they can't grow up, but their physical deficiencies are a big deal when monsters move into the forest. This trope is more seen by Link (and the player,) because it comes as a surprise to him when the Kokiri children he was raised with haven't aged a day after [[Time Skip|seven years]].
* In ''[[Aoi Shiro]]'', we have the oni Kohaku who got frozen in age as a young teenage girl. Kohaku resents this mostly because being stuck in the body of young teenage girl makes her a worse fighter. ''[[Aoi Shiro]]'' also has Yasuhime and {{spoiler|Nami}} stuck in young girls' bodies although they don't angst about it during the game.
* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia (Video Game)|Tales of Symphonia]]'', Presea Combatir was subjected to an experiment when she was a child, giving her immense physical strength but severely suppressing her emotions and stopping her from aging. After regaining her emotions and learning of just what she has been made to do all these years, she has a breakdown. In the ending, it's revealed that she's actually 28 years old chronologically, yet still looks no older than 12.
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* In the ''[[Jack (Webcomic)|Jack]]'' arc "Megan's Run," Susan Lancaster and Megan Fairchild are not only [http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3284 not able to die, get sick, or remain injured], but neither will [http://www.pholph.com/strip.php?id=5&sid=3298 grow old or mature any more than their current state].
* Forever Boy from ''[[Sidekick Girl]]''. He was a forty-something who stopped aging around age 12. It eventually drove him insane.
* A slight variation: Chibi Sue of [[Ghastlys Ghastly Comic]] is the only [[Super -Deformed]] person in her hometown, and perpetually looks like a child to the normal human populace, despite being thirty-six. Thanks to this, she's still a virgin because she's creeped out by the idea of pedophiles using her as a substitute (one could argue it's preferable to the alternatives, but the poor woman's allowed her squicks). Cybersex doesn't work either, as she has no fingers and can't type properly.
 
 
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== [[Real Life]] ==
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Greenberg:Brooke Greenberg|Brooke Greenberg]] still has the body and mind of a toddler even though she was born in 1993.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Turner%27s_syndrome:Turnerchr(27)s syndrome|Turner's Syndrome]] is one of a number of genetic disorders that can result in the appearance of extreme youth.
* Many low-functioning, non-verbal autistic kids (which make up less than 10% of all diagnoses) have this issue. Those with higher-functioning autism or Asperger's syndrome can, and very often do, function as adults without insurmountable problems. When they can't, it's usually a case of [[My Beloved Smother]] and/or [[Meddling Parents]], though this is rare.
* [http://en.[wikipedia.org/wiki/Bart_de_Graaff:Bart de Graaff|Bart de Graaf]] was a well known Dutch television presenter who suffered a growth disorder which caused him to look and sound 12 for most of his life.
* Would you believe [[The Andy Milonakis Show|Andy Milonakis]] is 36 years old?
 
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[[Category:This Index Will Live Forever]]
[[Category:Not Growing Up Sucks]]
[[Category:Trope]]
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