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.

[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.

[(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?

[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. :)

[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.