Real people grow up then grow old. Fictional characters are different. They seldom grow up. They are adults in every story. They seldom grow old. They are in their prime forever.
Of course characters are sometimes children, like Newt in Aliens. She never grew up, however. She is a child forever. Darth Vader was a child… but after he died an old man.
I write books. I create fictional characters. Each is the age I need it to be for the story. Few of them are ever children. Few of them ever grow old. They are what they are forever.
Ages are phases in real lives. They are personality traits in fictional characters. Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, for example, looks like “wisdom” as an old man. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz looks like “innocence” because of her youth. James Bond looks like “virility” because he is in his prime… and stops looking like James Bond as the actor becomes too old.
A fictional character is an idea. Its aspects convey the idea, its meaning. The following are the general meanings that decide the age of a fictional character:
CHILDHOOD: innocence and hope or selfishness and ignorance
ADOLESENCE: discovery and maturity or irresponsibility and immaturity
ADULTHOOD: responsibility and accomplishment or liberty and guilt
ELDERLY: experience and wisdom or weariness and decay
Hilarious what you said about Bond. Funny enough, he had another side to him which was "dignified male," which was why Sean Connery was trained in the art of vocal fry. Another example of this was the character Thurston Howell, III from Gilligan's Island, although that was done more for comedic effect. The point is that although Bond became less believable as a sex symbol, he still very much felt like the perfect man for the job.
ReplyDeleteJames Bond was turned from a virile cad into a dignified gentleman... in the same way but in reverse how Anakin Skywalker was turned from the epitome of evil into a champion of hope.
DeleteI like to see people becoming who they are. Still, fiction does benefit from its characters being the ideal age. Their perspective definitely affects the way they are known.
ReplyDeleteThe age of a fictional character is more meaningful than it is for real people. They are all "Peter Pan" though most are not children. Their worlds are "Never Never Land" as fictional settings.
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