Not routinely, no. But then, one of the criteria for _good_ fantasy is sometimes held to be retention of reality in the non-fantasic parts of the background setting. Perhaps we're dealing with the question of how much fantasy writing is good. Of course, a few people have always lived to be (objectively?) old -- though I have some doubts about the age ascribed to a character named "Methusalah" in one widely-popular fantasy book.
Also subject to questioning, I think, is the youthful attitude and behavior of (historical) fantasy characters in, say, their mid- or late-twenties. They have been living under the full obligations and responsibilities of being adults since they were sixteen years old, and maybe fourteen. To see them behaving like modern adolescents strains one's ability to suspend disbelief. But then, so does the presence of more than (at most) one or two people who evidence the sensibilities of a liberal 21st-century American. (The latter are also all too common in historical mysteries, but they seem to include almost all of The Good Guys in modern fantasy.)
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Date: 2005-05-25 02:58 am (UTC)Also subject to questioning, I think, is the youthful attitude and behavior of (historical) fantasy characters in, say, their mid- or late-twenties. They have been living under the full obligations and responsibilities of being adults since they were sixteen years old, and maybe fourteen. To see them behaving like modern adolescents strains one's ability to suspend disbelief. But then, so does the presence of more than (at most) one or two people who evidence the sensibilities of a liberal 21st-century American. (The latter are also all too common in historical mysteries, but they seem to include almost all of The Good Guys in modern fantasy.)