I really loathe these kind of answers.As long as you want it to. It's fantasy.
Tell me... how long does your research say a pregnancy for an Alerian Milobyte last?If you're writing SF, otoh, you'll need to buckle up and study some biology.
Sorry, but I totally disagree with this statement. And if I ever read a book that uses this principle, I'll invite everyone to my first-ever book burning!In fantasy, all things are possible.
Hogwash. If anything, the serious fantasy writer has to take more care not to violate the 'natural rules' of his world!The rules are loosest for fantasy.
You're going to end up with a very big pile of books then.And if I ever read a book that uses this principle, I'll invite everyone to my first-ever book burning!
Yes, but the natural rules of their world are whatever they want.Hogwash. If anything, the serious fantasy writer has to take more care not to violate the 'natural rules' of his world!
I think you have to look to evolution here. On earth different creatures develop and mature at different speeds. They have evolved a certain way in order to survive.So it occurred to me last night that surely longevity must come with some form of trade-off, especially when it comes to fantasy races.
The obvious point would be a slow physical development process - so a race that might live for a few hundred years might spend the first few decades of their life effectively like a child, not hitting adolescence until humans would be reaching midde-age - I think Tolkien may have specifically related something about that with Hobbits and possibly also elves.
But something I don't recall is slow emotional development - that this may be particularly slow, resulting in long-lived races acting in a manner that may seem unduly childish by comparison to humans. Again, this may be featured in Tolkien, especially with regards to various meetings of elves singing playfully in the trees.
However, I don't get the impression that any of this really comes across in modern fantasy fiction.
In which case, is it traditional in literature for long-lived races to show relatively childish characteristics, and is this carried on into modern literature?
Just thinking aloud.![]()
You've hit the nail on the head for me, PN. Unless you are not worldbuilding to that sort of degree and therefore your fantasy race can be anything, this must be a major factor.I think you have to look to evolution here. On earth different creatures develop and mature at different speeds. They have evolved a certain way in order to survive.
If a baby antelope developed at the rate of a human it would be eaten because it couldn't run away, be carried or protected by it's parent.
Emotional development must to some degree be evolved. The rest is based on need and experience as others have already said.
So the question I would ask about any alien or fantasy race is why they have evolved as they have (including longevity) and what forces have been present to drive their emotional development?
Biologically no. Socially, I think maybe yes. Society seems to smile at prolonged 'adolescences' in people, at least in the western world.You've hit the nail on the head for me, PN. Unless you are not worldbuilding to that sort of degree and therefore your fantasy race can be anything, this must be a major factor.
Imagining a being that has a life span of thousands of years and hypothesising that such a being must also have a similar pattern of development as a human, but just stretched out, seems off to me. It depends, as you state, on the circumstances of their evolution.
But just taking humans as an example - life spans are increasing but it seems to me that it's the middle and ends of life that are driving that. We are not staying children any longer!
Actually I think what you have to worry about is the other end of life, old age. If we were to make breakthroughs in medical science and start to produce people that even had a couple of hundred years of life, it's not clear to me that our brain, mind and social bonds could cope with that length of time, and that they would need to undergo evolution to balance this out. Could a human brain really hold five hundred years of memories, never mind thousands? Or would it be a crazed mis-match of randomness?
Fair point. But I do think there is a large degree of relativity when we start to bring in society with regards to this question. Society is fluid and everchanging and we adapt to whatever we find, no matter what old grumpy men think their golden age 'way back then' actually did.Biologically no. Socially, I think maybe yes. Society seems to smile at prolonged 'adolescences' in people, at least in the western world.
Conversely, the rise of big money entertainment seems to be driving down the age at which one becomes an adult in a few small fields, which is then emulated to a certain degree by other ambitious less talented youths.
Oh, huge amounts of relativity. Unbridled oodles. But there's where the juice is here for me. Being different in and of itself isn't a particularly interesting thing for me in fantasy races (or at least the science of it isn't). Not boring, just not "Wow" either. But how that effects their lives, their cultures, their worldview? That's where the fun is.Fair point. But I do think there is a large degree of relativity when we start to bring in society with regards to this question. Society is fluid and everchanging and we adapt to whatever we find, no matter what old grumpy men think their golden age 'way back then' actually did.
In some ways I feel the 'prolonged adolescents' of today are in a better mental and emotional state than those of the same age fifty years ago. (And in other ways not, of course.)
Now you did it. You provoked me to regurgitate long debated musings of my own mind.Actually I think what you have to worry about is the other end of life, old age. If we were to make breakthroughs in medical science and start to produce people that even had a couple of hundred years of life, it's not clear to me that our brain, mind and social bonds could cope with that length of time, and that they would need to undergo evolution to balance this out. Could a human brain really hold five hundred years of memories, never mind thousands? Or would it be a crazed mis-match of randomness?