Age of characters

[madclairvoyant.livejournal.com]

This has been debated for a long time, but I thought that there is some evidence i should type out before I forget it all in my scatterbrain-es. (That is probably not a word) Anyway, from the short story Eddis, she is 9, and Gen is 4. Therefore, we know that she is 5 years older than him. Next, Eddis has been queen for five years, if my memory serves me correctly, so she should have taken the throne when she was 15, I think. Also, in Thief!, Gen is 10, and she would be 14, and her brothers and father was dying or dead already. Now, we know that Irene is not much older than Helen, but ruled longer than her, so I think that it is safe to say that she was probably 16 in her first marriage. And since she was engaged and married younger than Gen, that means Gen is only 14-16 in QoA.

???

Okay, I give up; it is too late on my side for my brain to be functioning. Your thoughts?

Comments

[sandtree.livejournal.com]

I found my old post about the age of the characters:

http://sounis.livejournal.com/151165.html#comments

Obviously I still think I'm right, that Gen was 15 in The Thief and Eddis was 20, and then you can just calculate from there. :P I also think Attolia was about 2 years older than Eddis, but that could be pure speculation on my part. I haven't read the books in a long time, and I can't remember how much time passed between the end of TT and the beginning of QoA.

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much how I calculated it, too. And if Gen is somewhere in the 18-20-ish range during QoA, that's plenty young enough for both the "golden age" statement and Attolia's calling him a "boy". (I'm 23 myself and "They're like, 12!" = anyone younger than me. :P)

[agentmaly.livejournal.com]

I'm 23, too! *high five*

I absolutely agree that Gen is in the 18-20 range in QoA. How much time is covered throughout the book? I know it's at least a year, but is it maybe even more? I see him as 18 at the beginning, and almost 20 at the end - because I think he's 20 in KoA, and so he'd have to be nearing a birthday at the end of QoA to reach it in time.

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

This is pretty much my mental ages for them as well. We certainly know about Gen and Eddis's age, moreso than Attolia, but those feel about right to me. =P

I believe that between TT and QoA, a year has passed. Between QoA and KoA, a few months have passed (I think I remember the battle at the end of QoA being fought in spring, and that it took many weeks for them to settle on an agreement; by KoA, it was the height of summer of the same year, and I think I got this impression from Costis's fellow guards who fainted with the heat.) ACoK is a little harder to estimate, but I think it was during the next spring that Sophos managed to free himself from slavery, which means the latter half of ACoK is about a year later from KoA.

[madclairvoyant.livejournal.com]

QoA takes place across 2 years. Gen said that he has been building his defences against our dear queen for 2 years, at the incident at Pricas Spring. (too lazy to get book)

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I meant that the end of QoA is only a few months away from the beginning of KoA, but yeah, QoA does take place over a span of 2 years.

[rj-anderson.livejournal.com]

Every time this subject comes up I'm reminded of the old folk song "The Trees They Do Grow High":

O father, dear father, you've done to me a great wrong
To go and get me married to one who is too young
For he has only sixteen years, and I am twenty one...

...close enough.

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

haha, close enough indeed.

Except Attolia's father did her wrong by NOT having her marry our thief earlier ;-)

[(Anonymous)]

I do not know why, but I was always under the impression that Gen was 12 in thief, spent his 13th year spying in Attolia, 14 to 16 in qoa, and then 17 when engaged and 18 when crowned in koa. (Almost wrote drowned instead of crowned)

MadClairvoyant

[lizzyazula.livejournal.com]

What are the chances of Megan revealing their ages after the series is over?

Or on her deathbed, do you think we'd be able to get the info from her then?

[freenarnian.livejournal.com]

No, her gravestone will read Not Telling, I'll wager. But I think her work is done in that she dropped enough hints for her clever readers to figure it out for themselves, and she'll be proud of us maybe. Also, I remember her saying she wanted readers to be able to envision the characters whatever age they liked, especially in the case of younger readers.

[lizzyazula.livejournal.com]

Hahaha I can definitely see her tombstone saying that! Yeah, I've read several interviews and enough Sounis posts to know her status on the whole thing, and I'm happy with the ages I have envisioned for each character. But still, it's one thing to wonder and another thing to know.

While on the topic of ages, I want to add that I have a much bigger beef with Sophos's age. Not exactly sure where to place him. My natural instinct is to make him the same age as Eugenides, because if I make him a few years younger (as specified in The Thief), then he's REALLY young....buuut since Megan so kindly has given us the freedom, I'll make him Gen's age, and count that detail from The Thief as unreliable narration.

[lunefin.livejournal.com]

That's about how I feel too about Gen, old enough to feel embarrassed about his height, young enough to still grow. Except I've always pictured Irene as the same age as Eddis? You know that feeling of competition that you can only have with someone who is the exactly the same age?

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

I actually made a timeline trying to figure how old Gen was at different points in the story. It's not quite done yet, but here's what I got so far.

-

Age 4: Events of the short story Ediss, Helen is eight.

[he was born] Four years ago. - p13 Eddis

Age 6: Gen visits Kathodicia with his grandfather in northern Attolia where Phresine was raised.

I was six. My grandfather took me. I don't remember anything but towers of rock. - p273 KoA

Age 7: Helen's nose is broken in a practice sword fight.

My brother Temenus had broken her nose with a practice sword when they were eleven... - p270 TT

Age 7-10: Gen sees Irene dancing under orange trees in Attolia.

And how old were you? Six? Older than that. - p248 QoA

Age 10: Helen's brothers die, Gen's mother dies.

Fall out of a window when I was ten? - p275 TT

Age 10-11: Gen's grandfather dies, Helen's father dies, Helen becomes queen.

Age 11-13: Fights with the Minster of War.

Age 13: Gen tears up his enrollment papers and swears to never take a sword by the hilt.

I explained that I hadn't held a sword in the two years since I'd torn up my enrollment papers in the Eddisian Guard. - p269 TT

Age 15: Events of The Thief, Gen wanders around Sounis and is locked in prison for an unspecified number of months, steals Hamiathes Gift after about a month long journey. Helen has reigned for five years.

The watermelons were as big as my head, so it was later in the summer than I'd thought. It had taken a long time to get out of prison. ...the late-summer winds, the etesians*, hadn't come yet. - p27 TT

*“The etesian winds are the prevailing annually recurring summer winds, blowing over large parts of Greece, the Aegean
Sea and eastern Mediterranean. The name derives from the Greek 'etesios', annual. They blow steadily from northern to
northwestern directions, bringing cold continental air and clear skies between end of May and beginning of October."
- Wikipedia

In her five-year reign she'd won the loyalty and love of her subjects. - p270 TT -- Note: This gives us cannon evidence that Gen is fifteen in The Thief, based on the fact that Helen began her rule when he was ten.

Age 16: Start of the events of The Queen of Attolia, Gen is captured in Attolia and his hand is cut off, Gen is returned to Eddis after a little over two weeks.

Before she cut off my hand. (...) Maybe ten days? - QoA

Age 16-17: Gen recovers in Attolia from fall into early spring (about 6 months?), blows up Sounisian navy in spring

Age 17-18: Second half of the QoA.

Age 19-20: Gen becomes King of Attolia.

-

I need to add more quotes and details, but I need to re-read the books again. :)

[manderelee.livejournal.com]

Age 17-18: Second half of the QoA.

Age 19-20: Gen becomes King of Attolia.

Oh, so there is a year gap between the end of QoA and beginning of KoA? I didn't get that impression. I thought they were the same year... must really be time for a reread.

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

I mean to say that the second half started with him being about 17 or 18 and there was about a year from then until the end of the book. QoA covers about two years altogether. So if he was 16 when it started, he would be 18 or 19 by the time it ended, depending on when his birthday is. There appears to be only a month or two between the end of the QoA and the beginning of the KoA, and the KoA events appears to take place over a couple of months.

The timeline is still under construction, so I know its a bit confusing. I also need to find more quotes to back up my theories about his ages during the QoA and the KoA. Once I get around to re-reading the books, I'll post it when it's done. :) I want to see if I can work out Irene's, Helen's, and Sophos's timeline, as well. Fitting in Cok will be tricky...

[madclairvoyant.livejournal.com]

I always thought that Eddis was nine in the short story Eddis.

[(Anonymous)]

I just re-read the quote and you are correct, Helen is nine in "Eddis". "She had her belt knife, and her own crossbow hung on the saddle with the cranking mechanism geared for her nine-year-old arms."

[ninedaysaqueen.livejournal.com]

Opps... Typo. XD As I said, the timeline is still under construction. I'll get it right one of these days. :)

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

A couple more interesting threads about age of characters:

http://sounis.livejournal.com/35458.html (http://sounis.livejournal.com/35458.html)

http://sounis.livejournal.com/43335.html (http://sounis.livejournal.com/43335.html)

[shelver506.livejournal.com]

This is all so fascinating, yet it also makes me sad for Gen. He's so tired and jaded by the end of ACoK, and he's only twenty. Our poor boy.

[(Anonymous)]

idk if anyone is reading this thread anymore, but just in case, I want to put my bit in. I have my own ideas about how old Gen was in TT, but one thing is for sure: from the time he BEGAN spying on Attolia to the the END of QoA, four years had passed. At the end of QoA, he says he'd been spying on her for 2 years. Then he got his hand cut off, and about 2 years passed from there until the end of QoA, making a total of four years. We can never really know how old Gen is because we don't know how shortly after TT ended he started spying. Eddis says it was a short time, but that is a totally relative term. I interpreted it as a few weeks or maybe a month, but some people have interpreted it as a year or even years later. I always thought Gen was 13-15 in TT, then 17-19 at the end of QoA, and still being 17-19 throughout KoA and CoK. That's just me.

[checkers65477.livejournal.com]

Those are the ages I was thinking, too, Anon. And if you really study all the hints about ages that seems spot-on. Hey, and welcome!