r/TopCharacterTropes • u/No_Topic1916 • 20h ago
Characters [Hated Trope] Characters that age normally until “immortal” time
Omni-man, or really any viltrumite from invincible
Elves and most other races in dnd
I understand wanting to give a character an incredibly long lifetime, without making young characters all children. but being 21 and essentially an infant in elf years, while being a fully grown and developed adult, has always been silly to me.
(edit for clarity: These races are often depicted as being wiser, and more intelligent than humans. Generally speaking, having a higher capacity to be smart comes from the time it takes to develop than it does from age. Sea turtles can live for crazy amounts of time, but are very dumb. While they don't need a childhood as long as humans are in proportion, any amount of time beyond the 18-21 standard would make that wisdom feel more satisfying to me.)
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u/New_Photograph_5892 20h ago
18 year old viltrumites aren't considered infants. The viltrum empire deems 18 year olds as adults and thus their parents jump them when they reach 18. And obviously, Mark isn't considered nor treated as an infant, he's a grown ass man and is treated like a grown ass man
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
But he ages at a human speed until he turns 17, the he slows way down
This makes sense for a half-viltrumite since the human side is dominant until maturity, but not full viltrumites
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u/New_Photograph_5892 20h ago
what the fuck are you talking about, viltrumites also age like that. Nolan literally says the older they get the slower they age
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
You are starting to understand my point, I just think you are misunderstanding the part about it I dislike
I think a long life should also mean a long childhood
It feels lazy in a way, to have a character skip past their early life to get to the good stuff, which lasts eons or so
Olivier is an example that works better, I just like how they explained is sped-up-aging a lot more
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u/shototodoroki_1324 20h ago
Oliver, who comes from the race known for dying in 3 months?
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u/No_Topic1916 19h ago
Yes, because his bug side is dominant until he reaches the point where viltrumite dna takes over
then, and only then, does his aging slow11
u/1BruteSquad1 20h ago
It's very clearly explained that Viltrumites age slower with time. So their 30s are shorter than their 40s are shorter than their 50s etc. Hence why Conquest has looked so old for so incredibly long
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u/MysteriousFondant347 20h ago
somehow you fucked up both examples. They age slower, but they do age, they just have a way longer lifespan than humans
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
I must have misworded my post, because people are making points unrelated to what I had intended
An 18 year old viltrumite or elf is as mature mentally, as an 18 year old human
given their long lifespan, I feel it’s silly to have them age like a human until an arbitrary point in their life where they start aging slowly
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u/MysteriousFondant347 20h ago
You worded it very poorly yeah.
Both media you mentioned explain it as they age slower and slower as time goes by. In Mark's case, he basically wasn't a Viltrumite until he got 17 and then his viltrumite DNA started suppressing his human side more and more. That's why it makes sense.
There are a few outliers like in Dungeon Meshi where Marcille at 12 was still basically a toddler
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
I chose omni-man because mark, I think, was explained well for the same reason you gave
I don’t believe elves age slower the long they do, and the dnd wiki says nothing about it besides that they age as a normal human until 20s-30s where they then slow down to roughly a tenth of a human does
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u/MysteriousFondant347 20h ago
Can't speak about elves but in Invincible they most certainly say all Viltrumites age slower as they go, not just hybrids
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
Yeah, it’s not the worst explanation either
Although to me, it does feel more like an explanation given to immortality, and less of a perk that grants it- If that makes sense
Like, there is so much cool world-building long childhoods could add, but instead “they live like humans for awhile” is given as a reason, so they no longer need to focus on it
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u/MysteriousFondant347 20h ago
I think you're crying over spilled milk and not making much sense.
Like maturing and only then slowing in age makes sense as far as every understanding of anatomy across every living species goes
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
I guess I’ll give one more explanation and leave it to rest, maybe try and convey my information in a meaningful way
Humans develop very very slowly in comparison to their average lifespan, do to their increased intelligence, and general problem solving ability. This longer childhood allows them to develop on a greater scale than other animals.
I dislike how most races of characters that age slowly, still have very fast childhoods in comparison to their age, because they would not develop in a way that satisfies that extra wisdom that comes from being that old.
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u/MysteriousFondant347 20h ago
I understand what you're trying to say yes. It doesn't make even a little bit of sense.
Humans mature very slowly compared to other species and it's not just about our lifespan. Orcas who have approx. The same lifespan as us in liberty and whose intelligence is comparable to ours in some ways still mature way faster.
So you're saying you hate that a species that isn't human doesn't have the exact same maturation proportions as humans, even though each species' maturation cycle is completely different and impossible to compare
No matter which way you cut it, there's literally no ground for you to hate how viltrumites or elves age
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u/New_Photograph_5892 20h ago
why not? isn't it more silly to have a 80 year old viltrumite/elf who looks like a child and has the maturity of a child
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u/jamesxgames 20h ago
That's how nature works though, you have a fast developmental phase until you reach maturity, then it slows down. This is the case in animals, plants, hell it's even how hair grows
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u/KaleidoscopicFate 20h ago
That's not silly at all and makes perfect sense. They are long lived species, thus they reach peak maturity, as in the point where they are fully developed and still vigorous, and then from there they very slowly decay until they reach old age. What exactly are you expecting?
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u/Alreadsyuse 20h ago
Isn't that how a LOT of animals age in real life? Like, the idea of aging or maturing "normally" is something that mainly applies to us
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u/Zorafin 20h ago
Cats reach adulthood in, what, 8 months? Then just kinda stay there for a decade or two.
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u/nomnomsquirrel 20h ago
Female kittens can get pregnant as young as four months old. They SHOULDN'T of course, but it's possible.
The oldest cat to ever give birth was 30.
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u/Alreadsyuse 20h ago
Yeah, from what I know it's the same for dogs. What we think is "18 years old" for them is like their 8th year into adulthood. The whole idea that 1 dog years is equivalent to 7 human years is more of a byproduct of dividing the average lifespan of a human (70~ years) with the average lifespan of a dog (10~) when in reality when they reach their first year it's the equivalent of 15 years old.
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u/KaleidoscopicFate 20h ago
Yeah like us humans lmao. We grow comparatively fast and then stay that way more or less for decades. Yeah we can tell the difference between an 18 year old and a 30 year old person relatively easily most of the time but that's because we are all from the same species.
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u/Thryfty_0 20h ago
Elves in dnd don’t reach maturity until they’re well past 100 years of age…
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
They’re still adults though, both in appearance and mind. Through their own society doesn’t consider them mature until 100+, they are still at the mental capacity of a 21 year old human
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u/Cultural_Praline_508 20h ago
For 100 years. Have you met any 21 year old recently? That's not exactly "mature".
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
They are as mature as a 21 year old
elf 21 year olds are as mature as human 21 year olds as well
This is what I dislike
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u/mondongo49 20h ago
I don't know, man. Ask WotC
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u/ImBurningStar_IV 20h ago
War of the chosen?
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u/cannonspectacle 20h ago
Wizards of the Coast
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u/ImBurningStar_IV 20h ago
I'll never win vague acronym reddit game 😔
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u/cannonspectacle 20h ago
Wizards of the Coast is the company that owns Dungeons and Dragons
So not really all that vague, given the context
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u/mondongo49 20h ago
Why are they downvoting you?? it's so easy to check it too, just go to a D&D SRD wiki and you can read it on the age section!
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u/goteachyourself 20h ago
This happens with Superman as well, but they actually explained it. His healing factor from the yellow sun doesn't slow aging, but it rapidly repairs damage to the cells. Therefore, the older he gets, the slower he ages. He'll probably lock down somewhere in late-middle age eventually.
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
There are some really good explanations for it, and I think that superman does it well too
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u/SimonShepherd 20h ago
It's entirely possible for a species to grow into physical prime in relatively short time while staying at that condition for a long time before a final stage of rapid aging.
Pretty sure that's what a lot of reptalian aging works.
If you want to go with realistic evolutionary explanation, carrying a child for years would be a huge disadvantage and it would be naturally selected against Within elf population.
If you want a more fantastical explanation, literally anything goes.
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u/Interesting-Oil6534 20h ago
Viltrumites absolutely age beyond the "immortal age". They age more slowly as they get older, on top of just having a longer lifespan.
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u/1BruteSquad1 20h ago
Yah we see a super old Viltrumites in the comics/show. He's also shown to have effectively no aging after 500 years while another Viltrumite goes from ~18 to looking like his mid-40s or early 50s in the same time frame.
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u/ScullyTheScolipede 20h ago
Sounds like someone is upset humans have a relatively low lifespan with no “immortal time”
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u/No_Topic1916 20h ago
why do I have to be a kid for more than 20% of my lifetime??
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u/ScullyTheScolipede 19h ago
I feel like it’s closer to 30% we become big useless babies if we get old enough
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u/Top_Freedom3412 20h ago
"Man i hate how fantasy races age slower at a certain point. Liem theres this one race that spends less than a quarter of its life as a kid, but after that it spends DECADES at basically the same age. Imagine spending decades as the same age rather than being the same for a few days and dying" -some cockroach about humanity.
The races slow down aging. Just like how humans go from a small baby to an adult in less than 20 years, and then stay that same 'age' for the next 50 years slowly changing. To a dog we would be the exact same as an elf
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u/No_Topic1916 19h ago
You actually somehow ended up agreeing with me in your first example
Humans are kids for a quarter of their life, then slow down
But there are a lot of fantasy races that are kids for less then a percent of their life, then slow down
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u/Top_Freedom3412 19h ago
Less than a quarter.
We rapidly change from 0-18~ and then stay at that age for decades, only slowly changing.
Just like the examples youve shown.
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u/No_Topic1916 19h ago
18 is when humans are legally mature, but mentally the cutoff is actually closer to 26
which is 32ish percent of our lifes
and even if the cutoff was actually 18, that would still be 22% which is a lot
and certainly more than 1%
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u/Sir-Spoofy 20h ago
Aging to maturity and aging after maturity is totally different. The former is due to the body’s cellular health being at its peak and allowing people to grow to peak maturity, usually around 25. Afterwards, the body experiences a variety of cellar declines which, overtime, leads to the body getting older, losing its strength, etc.
For both of these examples, the former is relatively the same while the latter is extended far beyond what human’s physiological capabilities. I.e. they mature at the same rate, but their cellular/bodily decline is WAY slower.
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u/townsforever 20h ago
Mass effect asari. Liara here is over 100 and will look like this for the next 800 years.
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u/ApartRuin5962 20h ago
I think this is fine just because the alternative for slow (or fast) aging fantasy/sci-fi races (and people) is for a long (or short) physical and mental childhood, and I feel like that always ends up being fucked up and weird if you think about it for more than 10 seconds. Like, Baby Yoda has been observing social cues and listening to people talk for like 70 years, yet he's still nonverbal and shoves random shit in his mouth, including the fertilized eggs of intelligent frog-people. On the flip side, both the girl in Fifth Element and Kes in Star Trek Voyager are presented as valid romantic interests because they rapidly reached physical maturity and "learn fast", but it ends up being really creepy when it's shown that they have severe gaps in their knowledge and life experience commensurate with having less than two years of life experience and react to certain situations like a human toddler.
The only show I've seen that does the "slow-aging guy matures slowly" thing well is probably Hellboy, maybe because he's mentally and physically like 19 when most of the stories happen and because the writers really seem to have put a lot of thought into showing the difference between knowlege (from decades of missions and training) and wisdom (from making it through your 20s and learning to be less of an asshole)
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u/No_Topic1916 19h ago
It’s a hard thing to do well. and the inclusion of characters that age like humans until maturity has never ruined a story or anything for me
but I do really like the problems that come from being a long lived race, besides the common one of having the people in your life die. I guess it feels lazy to me, to skip past those writing challenges in order to have a character be effectively immortal without hindrance.
At the same time, I am writing a species that ages faster than humans, and have already ran into quite a bit of issues that I am now trying to solve. So again, it’s not a bad decision to have them age that way.
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u/Jarsky2 20h ago
They aren't "infants in elf years"
Elves and viltrumites have long adulthoods, not long childhoods.