Scenario: Main character is a hunter/explorer. Woodsman or ranger type. His race's life expectancy is around 500 years. If my story, the reader sees him first as 35 years old. In a sequel, he might be 50 or 60 years old because of the need to begin the second book 15-20 years in the future.

Questions: Is it difficult to believe or get into the main character if he is that old and yet acts like a young man? Granted, it's all in perspective, but which would a reader see in their mind, Aragorn or Harrison Ford?

What if it was more extreme, that the main character was 70 years old but is written as if he were a 30 year old and still full of youth and strength(since he still has 430 years left of his life ahead of him). Would that be easily accepted of believed? A good point was made last time, that his actions need to reflect his choices.

Again, your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

Thanks

In any fantasy world there will be differences from reality. Look at it as if you were the reader. Have you read books where main characters were long lived? Did you have any problems believing in a old person by our standards looking young and acting it? If not then why would you expect your readers to not feel the same?

Imagine Society A, in which the general expectation is that by age sixteen a young man should be working a job of his own and thinking about starting a family.

In Society B, the general expectation is that young men don't really start acting as mature adults until their late twenties, at which point they are generally expected to settle down, find a job, and start a family.

I think a twenty-year-old from A would be far more mature in his outlook than one from B. He's "grown up" faster because society expected him to.

An aged character would mature much over a long period of time, but his society's definition of "mature" might be much different than ours.

An older character will be older. Sure, they might still have the bodies and hormones of comparative youth, and be regarded within their own culture as juvinilles, but there will be profound differences in life experience between a 70 year old youth and a 15 year old youth. The 70 year old youth will have 55 years worth of experience that the 15 year old will not have had.

Christine's point about physical maturity is important, but has to be modulated by the fact that 70 years is a lot longer than 15...or to take her case above, 50 is longer than 16. We expect a lot of silly behavior from 16 year old girls, but not all of that is a matter of hormones. Most of the stupidest stupidities common to teenage girls have more to do with lack of experience than overabundance of hormones. They lack the depth of experience to realize that their peers are all idiots with no practical experience. A 50 year old might still have the impulse to follow the crowd, but would also have 50 years of experience of what a bad idea that can be. Teenage girls have a limited number of real examples by which to judge their own prospective mates. And again, more experience is more.

Christine, to answer your question. I see the races as people who mature physically and mentally the same as we do but with a little of the "Bewitched" quality also. To me, they would reach a level of basic strength and knowledge the same that we reach at 30, and also look mostly grown up physically. Then the aging would be much, much slower, until the latter 10% of their lives. So at 250, they might start wrinkling or getting a few gray hairs, but it would be a very gradual thing so that after another 200 years they would look like you or I at 70 or 80.

But the difference is in their studies and abilities. A young man might enjoy the forests at age 30 but lack the knowledge to survive in them. But after devoting 50 years, he might be able to track as good as Aragorn or run while making a bare minimum of noise. A hunter/explorer might not even begin to explore until he was 75 because he lacked the knowledge or skills. And knowing he lives 500 years, what would his hurry be? Also in my story, the characters with the longest life expectancy have mental gifts that need to be practiced and trained for hundreds of years.

I pretty much knew I could write it however I choose, as long as it's within the boundaries of making sense, but it's wonderful to get the different insights other people have that had not crossed my mind.

Thanks again!

It is kind of weird when Aragorn says right out, "I'm 87 years old." But it wasn't too weird till that point or after. Theoden remembering that Aragorn rode to battle when Theoden was only a child and all that, and Eowyn's clear respect for this proof that Aragorn comes of the fabled line of the kings.

I do have to say that it didn't add anything particular for me, because I think that Viego Mortensen (I have no idea how to spell that or even at least make it look like a real name) did a brilliant job of making Aragorn feel truly ageless, experienced beyond the measure of ordinary years.

Getting back to the subject, I have to mention that I personally know a few people in their 60's or older who not only aren't in their second childhood, they haven't left their first. I happen to be related to some people like that, people who simply have not grown up. While it is difficult to hold onto the good parts of being young, it is quite easy to retain the less attractive bits.