I’m looking for fantasy or scifi or horror stories where someone is at least 40 years old when it is revealed that he or she is the chosen one who is destined to save their people or the kingdom or the whole freakin’ world (you know the trope).
Note I don’t mean stories where the chosen one is currently middle-aged or elderly now but they’d been the chosen one for ages already in the prequels and/or their backstories, but only tales where the news is sprung on them when they’re already over 40. For their first 4 decades or more they were just an average Joe or Jill, and them some dude with a staff or a scroll came to reveal their destiny and changed everything.
And just beings with a normal human lifespan please - no one like Bilbo Baggins or Rachel Mariana Morgan who, being hobbits or witches, will live a couple hundred years so a 40-year-old is still quite young for their species. They don’t need to be human, but should have a very similar lifespan.
Thomas Covenant, the Unbeliever? I don’t remember if his age was actually established in the books, but my vague memory is that he seemed like he was supposed to be early middle age in the first book.
Paladin of Souls, by Louis McMaster Bujold. Low fantasy featuring a middle aged widow who’s chosen by one of the setting’s pantheon of gods to put down a demonic incursion.
I don’t think he was older than mid-thirties in the first book. He was supposed to be a young parent when he was diagnosed with leprosy, and his kid is still too young to safely be a part of his life at the start of the story. Dealing with his disease has aged him a lot, though, both in physical appearance and mental outlook.
laugh I was going to say Lupe de Cazaril from The Curse of Chalion (more or less the prequel to Paladin of souls) is 35 at the time the story takes place, although there are bits . . .well, that would be telling. Suffice to say, he’s a worldly adult when he finds himself at the center of the story. Not 40+, but at least close.
Another possible is Wellspring of Chaos by LE Modesitt Jr. It’s part of the greater Saga of Recluse, but stands pretty well on it’s own. He’s probably in his 30s, but don’t remember if there is a specific age given. Old enough to consider a teenage girl to be young enough to be his daughter. And he’s a married parent when things turn south for him.
If you read Japanese Light Novels or Web novels, there is a plethora of salaryman isekai these days, where you have an adult (but normally mid 20s to early 30s at most) who finds himself in the fantasy universe. So a good 10 years older than the 15 + norms of the genre. Relatively few of those are a really good read though.
Do hobbits have especially long lives? I’m not one of the big Tolkien geeks on the board, but my recollection was that Bilbo living to 111 was considered a notable age for a hobbit, and that was expressly attributed to his exposure to the Ring.
Hobbits aren’t considered to be adults until their 33rd birthday, they’re seen as being “middle aged” once they are in their 50s, and have an average lifespan of 100. So, a little longer-lived than humans, but not tremendously so.
A semi-answer is available in Dalinar Kholin from The Stormlight Archives. He is one of the “Chosen Ones”, the leader of them, and takes it on late in life.
Part of why it was notable was that he had, indeed, made it to 111, though with an average lifespan of 100, it’s not really that outside the realm of possibility. What the Ring did was slow his aging, so that, at 111, he still looked “well-preserved.”
At least in the books, he lived to 131 (the oldest recorded hobbit), at that age, he sailed into the West.
And, I will nominate Sparhawk, the knight from David Eddings’ Elenium and Tamuli novel series, who does turn out to be a sort of “chosen one” of the gods, and becomes the father of a reborn goddess, who chose him to be her father prior to her reincarnation.
I don’t think his exact age is ever given in the books, but he starts out the first book having returned from a ten-year exile, and is substantially older from the queen who becomes his wife – a little googling shows some speculations that he’s in his late 30s when the series starts. So, not definitively 40+, as per your OP question, but probably close.
Oh, good example. As I recall he’s at least his late 30s if not older because it’s mentioned he’s “more than twice” Elana’s age and she was in her late teens.
Dalinar’s older brother Gavilar is somewhat eligible too; he was the one the Stormfather chose to impart the visions to, with Dalinar receiving them after Gavilar was assassinated.
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that one. As formulaic as Eddings’s writing is, I absolutely loved both the Elenium and Tamuli, as well as the Belgariad and Malloreon.
In Jack Chalker’s Dancing Gods series, a fellow from Earth is saved from death and magicked away to a fantasy world to be a hero with a magic sword. He becomes Joe the Barbarian, and names the magic sword Irving, after his son.
Which he acknowledged as being a conscious decision. After failing to be successful in writing in other genres, but noting that The Lord of the Rings and other fantasy fiction sold well, he studied the genre, documented its tropes, and wrote to match them. Though it produced formulaic stuff, it did make him a very successful author.
Have to give him credit for making the way the sequel series for each main series was a point-for-point recreation an actual plot point. It worked for me!
