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Jul. 6th, 2005 03:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethAnother thing that is vaguely annoying me about the fantasy books I'm reading - the tendency to throw around millenia as if they're just really impressive scenery. There are two characters who are 1700 years old, and one who is 50,000 or something ridiculous like that, and really, they work better if you just read it as 17 and 50. Maybe a really immature pair of 20 somethings. But no way 1700.
One thing I loved about Methos was the writers gave him room to be *anybody*. They made him hugely old, but they didn't insist that he stayed the same person through all that time. Even Duncan MacLeod, who kept certain aspects of himself all along, had definite stages and progress.
But even in shows I love, it always seems like the potential for their personal development is vastly underestimated. I mean consider how much happens in the average year of television. Then multiply that by 400. Even assuming that most years were really boring, say that 400 year life adds up to 40 seasons of television. That is more than any television show ever. That is longer running than any character arc we've ever been able to see. So very much change would fit into those years. And yet mostly these characters are plausible as 30 somethings who have been at a lot of historical events, not really old men who *were* history.
One thing I like about Angel - how sometimes he drops into old guy reminiscing. And it is amusing, because he looks so young to be talking so old. But it happened a couple of times. Like when he got cranky about money because everything costs so much now.
I'm trying to write a couple of 50 year old men, and in doing the research I've realised all over again how much has changed in the 20th century, how much they would have lived through. And I'm not confident I can write them right, because they could fit in so many changes. In all the years we haven't seen they could have been so many different versions of themselves in a row and still ended up the characters we saw. And that is part of what makes them fascinating to write, but it is also somewhat daunting. I'm an immature 27, how am I supposed to write mature 50?
So, the casual throwing around of numbers like 50,000 without matching character development, the amount of change this author is putting her characters through in a decade whilst maintaining that they were essentially the same people for millenia beforehand, it is rather irritating me.
Change happens. And Time is really big.
One thing I loved about Methos was the writers gave him room to be *anybody*. They made him hugely old, but they didn't insist that he stayed the same person through all that time. Even Duncan MacLeod, who kept certain aspects of himself all along, had definite stages and progress.
But even in shows I love, it always seems like the potential for their personal development is vastly underestimated. I mean consider how much happens in the average year of television. Then multiply that by 400. Even assuming that most years were really boring, say that 400 year life adds up to 40 seasons of television. That is more than any television show ever. That is longer running than any character arc we've ever been able to see. So very much change would fit into those years. And yet mostly these characters are plausible as 30 somethings who have been at a lot of historical events, not really old men who *were* history.
One thing I like about Angel - how sometimes he drops into old guy reminiscing. And it is amusing, because he looks so young to be talking so old. But it happened a couple of times. Like when he got cranky about money because everything costs so much now.
I'm trying to write a couple of 50 year old men, and in doing the research I've realised all over again how much has changed in the 20th century, how much they would have lived through. And I'm not confident I can write them right, because they could fit in so many changes. In all the years we haven't seen they could have been so many different versions of themselves in a row and still ended up the characters we saw. And that is part of what makes them fascinating to write, but it is also somewhat daunting. I'm an immature 27, how am I supposed to write mature 50?
So, the casual throwing around of numbers like 50,000 without matching character development, the amount of change this author is putting her characters through in a decade whilst maintaining that they were essentially the same people for millenia beforehand, it is rather irritating me.
Change happens. And Time is really big.