# Characters that Don't Age (and how they explain it, if at all) **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** movies\ **Created:** [October 30, 2023, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299 "2023-10-30T12:36:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/61 "2023-10-30T18:30:11Z")
The _Peanuts_ are remarkable in this respect because even within the premises of the strip, aging is inconsistent. We get to see Linus and Schroeder as babies, and Sally’s birth is an event that takes place during the run of the strip. These characters age and grow up, and in doing so they age much faster than those around them, such as Charlie Brown. The counter-example is _Doonesbury_, where, over the course of its 53-year run (which is still ongoing!), characters age (roughly) evenly and in real time. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/62 "2023-10-30T18:52:24Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I think it was Pearl Harbor. Dresden belonged to the enemy and I don’t think Captain America would have felt that bad about it. The comic, IIRC, just says that Captain has seen “this” before, without being specific about what “this” is. I think it’s referring to the urban devastation of Europe in general, and not about any specific city. Marvel comics have an in-universe reason for Magneto being a Holocaust survivor. In a silver age story, he was de-aged into a baby. A later story re-aged him, but not all the way up to his original age. This was used to explain why he was so young for a Holocaust survivor _back in the '80s._ ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/63 "2023-10-30T19:15:30Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > I think the publishers should just say, “A small percentage of the planet’s population have extremely long lifespans. Your next-door neighbor might be one of them. Don’t worry about it.” That’s actually pretty close to the wording used in the “Brief Lives” segment of **Sandman** : > [@](#): > > There are not many of them, all things considered: the truly old. > > Even on this planet, in this age, when people consider a mere hundred years, or a thousand, to be an unusual span. > > There are, for example, less than ten thousand humanoid individuals alive on this planet today who have personal memories of the saber-toothed tiger, the megatherium, the cave bear. > > There are today less than a thousand who walked the streets of Atlantis. (The first Atlantis. The other lands that bore that name were shadows, echo-Atlantises, myth-lands, and they came later.) > > There are less than five hundred living humans who remember the human civilizations that predated the great lizards. (There were a few; fossil records are unreliable. Several of them lasted millions of years.) > > There are roughly seventy people walking the Earth, human to all appearances (and in a few cases, to all medical tests currently available), who were alive before the Earth had begun to congeal from gas and dust. > > How well do you know your neighbors? Your friends? Your lovers? > > Walk the streets of any city, and stare carefully at the people who pass you and wonder, and know this: > > They are there too. The old ones. - Neil Gaiman ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/64 "2023-10-30T20:17:52Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The _Peanuts_ are remarkable in this respect because even within the premises of the strip, aging is inconsistent. We get to see Linus and Schroeder as babies, and Sally’s birth is an event that takes place during the run of the strip. These characters age and grow up, and in doing so they age much faster than those around them, such as Charlie Brown. Another example of this is _The Secret Life of Pets_ (2016) and its 2019 sequel. The movie is about a group of pets, mostly dogs but also a cat, a rabbit, a parakeet, and a guinea pig. The sequel brings back all of these animal characters back. The beginning of the movie shows the owner from the first movie meeting a man, getting married, having a child, and that child growing old enough to be going to his first day of school by the movie’s end. So at least five years have passed between in the course of the first and second movies. But none of the pets appear to have aged (and everyone is still living in the same building). Even Pops, an elderly dog in the first movie, is still around and doesn’t seem to have gotten any older in five years. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/65 "2023-10-30T20:23:28Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > > [@RealityChuck](#): > > > > Dick Tracy is only a few years older than when he was introduced in 1931. > > How the hell old is The Phantom, anyway? Running around the jungle in purple tights (great camouflage) must be his secret to eternal youth. The Phantom was originally envisioned as a series of people who took on the identity as the previous Phantom retired, giving the impression that the was immortal. I’m not sure if they followed through with that. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/66 "2023-10-30T20:33:44Z")
That is still canon ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/67 "2023-10-30T20:40:55Z")
Enoch Root appears in several of Neal Stephenson’s books and is immortal, or close to it (the stories occur across a few centuries). No explanation is given, and the books contain no other supernatural elements. The name Enoch implies a Biblical connection, however, and the name Root hints that he may have “root access” to the universe in some way (perhaps he’s not immortal at all, but can time travel). ---
**Author:** ![WildaBeast](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wildabeast/32/6_2.png) [@WildaBeast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WildaBeast)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/68 "2023-10-30T20:41:42Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I believe Bart should be Supreme Court Justice by about now? Not counting the Tracey Ullman shorts, if Bart actually aged he would be the same age as me – Bart’s in the 4th grade, and I was in the 4th grade when the show started airing. And I’m 43 now, which I believe is actually older than Homer and Marge are supposed to be (IIRC they’re supposed to be in their late 30s). ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/69 "2023-10-30T20:44:31Z")
> [@Schnitte](#): > > The counter-example is _Doonesbury_, where, over the course of its 53-year run (which is still ongoing!), characters age (roughly) evenly and in real time. The one apparent exception is Duke, who presumably got lucky with one of his drug binges. ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/70 "2023-10-30T21:06:37Z")
The Midnight Louie mysteries by Carole Nelson Douglas (28 of them) were published over 25 years beginning in 1992. The story covers about 2 years in the characters lives. The main character, Temple, has a public relations business and goes from a rolodex to a day-planner to a computer to a smart phone for conducting business. The series is chock full of cultural references. I’ve thought about reading them again just to watch the world zip by. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/71 "2023-10-30T21:17:10Z")
[Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_McDuck#Age) discusses this. Essentially, it’s a question of which of the many artists who drew Scrooge McDuck you’re following - there are tons of inconsistencies between artists, but some of them try to maintain plausibility within their own work. The Don Rosa comics all take place in the 1950s, after Scrooge’s first appearance in Barks’ _Christmas on Bear Mountain_ of 1947. The exception to this are the chapters of Rosa’s _Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck_ biography, which depict lots of events pre-1947; but in those, Scrooge is depicted at a younger age, so that’s consistent. Apparently, Don Rosa puts Scrooge’s year of birth (or rather hatching?) as 1867. That would make him eighty in _Christmas on Bear Mountain_, which is plausible and still gives him enough years to live all his subsequent adventures Don Rosa drew. So I’d say at least the combined oeuvres of Barks and Rosa are consistent and show a plausibly aging Scrooge. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/72 "2023-10-30T21:34:32Z")
If childhood memory serves, the Hardy Boys remained the same ages throughout a helluva lot of books, but I don’t know whether those books were supposed to have spanned multiple years or just one incredibly eventful year. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/73 "2023-10-30T21:44:56Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Tarzan – He pretty much stayed the same through most of his 30+ year run. > [@mbh](#): > > In _A Princess of Mars_ John Carter states that he has no memory of childhood, and has always appeared to be his present age. I don’t think Burroughs ever said so, but many fans think that he is an incarnation of the Roman war god. Dangit, @mbh ,you beat me to it. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2023, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/74 "2023-10-30T22:03:56Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If childhood memory serves, the Hardy Boys remained the same ages throughout a helluva lot of books, but I don’t know whether those books were supposed to have spanned multiple years or just one incredibly eventful year. A massively underseen movie called The Kid Detective was terrific thinking about what happens to kid detectives that grow up. It’s inspired more by Encyclopedia Brown and what would happen is the kid genius detective fell out of fashion in his town and became a regular adult. And then one case… Ya’ gotta see it: > **[The Kid Detective](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kid_Detective)** > > The Kid Detective is a 2020 Canadian mystery comedy-drama film written and directed by Evan Morgan and starring Adam Brody, Sophie Nélisse, Wendy Crewson, Sarah Sutherland, and Tzi Ma. It was inspired by the Encyclopedia Brown book series. > The Kid Detective was screened in the industry program at the 2020 Toronto International Film Festival. It received a national theatrical release in the U.S. on October 16, 2020, as the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States took hold. > As a... ---
**Author:** ![epbrown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e47774/32.png) [@epbrown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/epbrown)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/75 "2023-10-31T00:13:03Z")
But he’s not 63, is he? It’s not long ago I got chewed out by fans for pointing out he should be in his 60s now. Even on the current Prime series, he’s got his mom’s medal from WW2 in his personal effects when he’s booked. There are similar issues with Bob Lee Swagger, who’d be pushing 80 now. The last one I read had a Viet Nam vet with a bad hip taking on multiple ninjas. ---
**Author:** ![Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/q.q.switcheroo/32/5713_2.png) [@Q.Q.Switcheroo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.Q.Switcheroo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/76 "2023-10-31T01:07:49Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But none of the pets appear to have aged (and everyone is still living in the same building) _Beethoven_ has the opposite situation. The title St. Bernard grows from a puppy to a full-grown adult, which should take two to three years, yet none of the human characters are seen to age. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/77 "2023-10-31T14:51:05Z")
Almost twenty years ago I started a [somewhat related thread](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-the-longest-lived-fictional-character/234587) when I realized that P.G. Wodehouse had written about Jeeves and Wooster from 1916 to 1974, a “lifespan” for the characters of 58 years. I revived it 11 years later, to add Ross Poldark (57 years), and by the end of that thread we had determined, thanks to @bibliophage, that Wodehouse’s Lord Emsworth had an even longer span, 60 years. (@Exapno_Mapcase went above and beyond and found more than a dozen other mystery writers’ characters with spans above 40 years.) My criteria were characters in works written by the (single) original author, with the cutoff date being the author’s death, not publication date. I excluded comic book and comic strip characters, which seem to have made up the bulk of of the discussion in the present thread. In preparing this post, I found that John Norman’s Tarl Cabot is still going strong, moving him up from “only” 47 years to 56. Larry Niven, while still alive, seems not to have written about Louis Wu since 2015. (Please correct me if I’m wrong about these two authors.) Here’s the final list, as of the summer of 2015: > - 60 years: Lord Emsworth (Wodehouse) > - 58 years: Jeeves and Wooster (Wodehouse) > - 57 years: Ross Poldark (Graham) > - 56 years: Tarl Cabot (Norman)\* > - 55 years: Hercule Poirot (Christie) > - 55 years: The Saint (Charteris) > - 53 years: Eliots (Bradbury) > - 53 years: Billy Bunter (Richards) > - 51 years: Tommy and Tuppence (Christie) > - 51 years: Eddie Wilson (Haywood) > - 51 years: Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom (Updike) > - 49 years: Ramona Quimby (Cleary) > - 49 years: Stainless Steel Rat (Harrison) > - 49 years: Det. Steve Carella, et al – 87th Precinct (McBain) > - 49 years: Reginald Wexford (Rendell) > - 49 years: Mike Hammer (Spillane) > - 49 years: Parker (Westlake) > - 49 years: Giles Habibula (Williamson) > - 47 years: Elric of Melnibone (Moorcock) > - 46 years: Woodrow Wilson Smith (Heinlein) > - 46 years: Fu Manchu (Rohmer) > - 44 years: Louis Wu (Niven)\*\* > - 43 years: Nero Wolfe (Stout) > - 41 years: Hari Seldon (Asimov) > - 41 years: Adam Dalgleish (James) > - 41 years: Inspector Jules Maigret (Simenon) > - 40 years: Sherlock Holmes (Conan Doyle) > - 40 years: Perry Mason (Gardner) > - 40 years: Gandalf (Tolkein) > > \*Author still alive, updated from original post. > \*\*Author still alive, but no new works since 2015. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/78 "2023-10-31T15:37:31Z")
The list is interesting, and relevant, but not identical. The question is – which characters on that list don’t age (Like Nero Wolfe, Archie, and the rest of Rex Stout’s gang) versus those that do. (Woodrow Wildson Smith, being one of Methuselah’s children, does so more slowly, but you can observe him changing through time. Hari Seldon aged and died) I’;m not familiar with most of the ones on that list, so I can’t say. ---
**Author:** ![sciurophobic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cab0a1/32.png) [@sciurophobic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sciurophobic)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 4:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/79 "2023-10-31T16:06:27Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > I believe that it’s semi-canon that Bruce Wayne/Batman is now 45-ish, How old were Bruce and Dick Grayson when the latter was Robin and does that match up with Nightwing’s current age? ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2023, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299/80 "2023-10-31T17:27:45Z")
Right. I’m not familiar with most of them, either, but I thought the list could be grist for this mill if other Dopers know them well. ETA, it doesn’t seem that anyone in this thread has mentioned Jeeves and Wooster, who, AFAIK, didn’t significantly age over their 58 years. I’m not so sure about Lord Emsworth, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/characters-that-dont-age-and-how-they-explain-it-if-at-all/992299.md?page=5)