Aging faster

[Mectojic]

I know a lot of fantasy readers like that anything can be possible with magic, and that kind of thing, but I've always felt a little uncertain about ageing quickly.

What I mean - in my book series, the main character is born, and seven days later, the best potion master in the world takes him in and, over seven days, he is grown in a semi-magical, semi-biological egg, which speeds up his growth, until he comes out, seven years of age.

I don't know if this can seem a little too silly... My series isn't hardcore magical fantasy - magic more accompanies the realistic elements of politics, war, religion etc.
No one else in the story ages like this character - as I said, only this most skilled master can do it, and he has saved it up just for our main character.
The reason behind speeding up the ageing is because the master says "I have seen the dark days that are coming. And they are coming sooner than I expected. His importance in future battles will be paramount to our success."

So yeah, what do you think of him aging 7 years in 7 days?

(P.S. I also should note that eight years later, the main character has sex and his lover bears him a son. Just felt a little weird, considering he would be truly 8 years old when he had sex, not 16...)

 

[DeathtoTrite]

...That's a little odd. But that's probably my American prudishness coming through. Maybe try to show his confusion and disorientation at his rapid aging? Or, avoid the question all together and have some "time flows differently" mumbo-jumbo, ala Angel.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

What I find odd (and potentially immersion-breaking) is the lack of early childhood and the development that comes with it. Maybe that's the teacher/parent in me.

I have a 7-year-old, a 5-year-old, and a 2-year-old. My 7-year-old could read at 5 and started chapter books at 6. My 5-year-old is slower on the reading, but better at keeping her temper in check. My 2-year-old plays like older kids because she plays with older kids. Also, my 7-year-old was one of two students who could read/write well in her kindergarten class. She's almost 3000 words into her WIP. So, yes, she writes!

Point is, childhood experience has a significant influence on the child's development. I can't imagine my oldest daughter's academic and social skills being even close to that of her 2-year-old sister if her age was magically fast-forwarded.

Also, if I were the kid's father in this story, I'd actually contemplate murdering the best potion master in the world for doing that to my kid—preferably before the potion master could get his hands on my baby.

If I were reading this story, I'd be asking questions:
* Why him? Why not an older person?
* If the vision of the future says he's important, why is he only important if aged seven years?
* If the vision of the future is clear enough to know when the "dark days" will occur, and it's a decade or so in the future, why can't the master figure out a way to stop the dark days without aging a newborn baby? I'd like to think, during that decade, he has time to explore other options.

 

[Nimue]

That is odd. Is there a reason he needs to be aged 8 years, and you can't simply timeskip that? Does the "I was aged in an egg" thing influence the MC's character development? Question your timeline, and whether the constraints you've put on yourself are really that necessary--because if you pull that, I guarantee your readers will be questioning your timeline.

(Also the "reason why" dialogue doesn't entirely make sense--it sounds like it's his importance that's important, not the guy himself. I'd rewrite that as "his presence in future battles is paramount" or "he is greatly important for future battles" except something that sounds better of course.)

 

[Devor]

That kind of magic speed aging has always been a breaking point for me. It just kills the whole story in one fell swoop. It is completely impossible to figure out how a child's psyche would behave with an older brain, and I've struggled with or given up on every portrayal I've come across, except maybe a comedy.

 

[Saigonnus]

Dreams seem to last longer than real life. Why not have him dream of being a child, with all the experiences that entails. Maybe such things are part of the magical process that ages him. It could allow him to learn what the mage deems important and skip the actual child part.

I would think though that despite the mage's best efforts, he wouldn't be very well adjusted emotionally or psychologically.


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[Legendary Sidekick]

Dreams seem to last longer than real life. Why not have him dream of being a child, with all the experiences that entails. Maybe such things are part of the magical process that ages him. It could allow him to learn what the mage deems important and skip the actual child part.

This adds to the believability that the child gained seven years of information the way Superman did while floating in space for seven years.

Still, I feel like it's like slapping a Band-Aid on what needs to be amputated.

I would think though that despite the mage's best efforts, he wouldn't be very well adjusted emotionally or psychologically.

Exactly. He'd have missed a lot of the basics because the mage obviously didn't deem childhood, parenthood, personal choice and free will important, or he'd consider it unthinkable to steal seven years from a newborn baby.

EDIT - I mean that if the mage gave magic dreams of childhood, it would be hard to believe the experience is anything like a real childhood. It would be more like childhood as defined by a government board of education.

 

[Saigonnus]

I agree with your assessment too. Unless the mage used their own memories of childhood, like Dumbledor did with the penzier, then perhaps it wouldn't be like that completely.

It is possible in these dreams that he'd react to the stimuli the mage faced differently, turning him into a different person.

It is also possible that he'd still have an incomplete childhood given humankinds necessity or propensity for only remembering important or meaningful memories and forgetting the rest.


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[Penpilot]

Sure why not. I'd suggest checking out the Tom Hanks movie BIG. It's about a kid who wishes to be an adult and get's his wish granted. He meets a woman and they get into a relationship. They did a great job of handing things tastefully and it might help you if you decide that the boy's mind doesn't age magically either.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

They do that trick a lot in sci fi - Trip's clone in Enterprise for example, and it never seems right to me. Look maybe you can grow the body in some way that fast, but I can never accept that you can acquire seven or eight years of memories, skills, knowledge and wisdom in just a few days.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Legendary Sidekick]

I thought it worked in Big, but Tom Hanks' character still had the mentality of a 13-year-old. He wasn't embarrassed to celebrate a birthday with his barely-teen friend, and his success at the toy company was that he could really get how kids think--because he still had the experience/mind of a 13-year-old.

They made the magical aging believable for that reason, and also, they "made it right" by having the character become a boy at the end. (Otherwise, the comedy would be soured by the MC's life span being 20 years shorter.)

 

[Saigonnus]

An option could be that he isn't grown in a bottle so to speak, but forced to confront the baddies as he is. This could mean he'd be young and have protectors during his trip, but he'd still have to face the same hardships the others do.

Maybe he is raised by the alchemist, and maybe he is given an elixir to increase his ability, but he still thinks like a child.


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[Tom]

Funny that I haven't contributed to this thread yet...it's what I'm interested in, after all.

So, my biggest problem with this idea is the impact it's going to have on the kid's psychology. Basically, early childhood is the period in which who and what you are is established. Those first 8 years of life are the foundation upon which everything else in your mind is built. Speech, original thought, sense of self, social interaction--these are all things that are learned in early childhood.

A person who is born, and then ages rapidly to an age of 8, will essentially be a baby still. Without those psychological milestones of early childhood, he may never be a fully functioning human being. Even if magic helped him along, I'd still expect him to exhibit delayed or severely impaired speech, difficulty with original thought and decreased self-awareness, and stunted social function.

 

[Trick]

Check out the movie The Island. Similar concept, people grown to adulthood in giant pseudo wombs. There isn't a lot of time spent on the exact details of how they develop once outside of the womb but they do show them learning on the level of infants - just because a body is larger doesn't mean development wouldn't hit the same milestones, probably just faster actually. The concept came across as believable in the movie.

I'd also say that sex is less about actual chronological age and more about physical and mental maturity - Is it creepy that Bella slept with Edward even though he was like 5 times her age? People joke about it (me included) but he looks young so it is "allowed"

In The Island, two characters who are actually only like 3 and 5 years old (having been formed as full grown adults) sleep with each other. Didn't make me feel weird.

The one thing I would add though, if you're planning on having him come out of the egg-thing walking/talking etc. what you will have is a sociopath if not worse. I'd recommend the infant in an 8 year old body thing with rapid learning thereafter.

EDIT:

I had another thought, instead of the egg growing him rapidly, how about it just moves time forward, like a warp and sort of swaps him for his 8 year old self? Then he could be a completely normal 8 year old because he would have grown up with his parents etc. and then been brought back in time... It brings up some arguments about how time travel works but it has less creep factor.

 

[Trick]

Oops, double post.