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Longevity Theme

Page history last edited by Tim 15 years, 11 months ago

Back to Literary Criticism

Longevity Themes

Throughout the Elemenstor Cycle and related works in the ELotH universe, there are many characters who have an unusually long life span, both by Human standards, and by standards within the world of Battal itself. The ages of Battal span tens of thousands of years of diverse civilization and culture so from a narrative perspective it becomes useful to create certain characters that will be able to have consequential impact across the entire work taken as a whole, as well as provide a framework of percieved continuity for the readers, most ostensably for the fans themselves who read and love many works set across many geographic and chronologic eras.

Given this story driven impetus there are many justifcations within the world for unusual life spans, and conversely, some life spans that are extended without mention or reason given, which makes for an interesting inferred world view that must be held by societies within the world of Epic Legends.

Unusually Long Life

There are many characters who are not in any way stated to be impervious to harm or immortal in a conventional sense who none the less appear across a large span of works. In some cases this is explained through manipulation of the time stream, for others it is stated or inferred that they have existed contiguously and continuously between appearances and so it must be inferred that they have tremendous life spans. For characters like Harbinger Portent this can be explained by his posession of the Starborn Gem. Other powerful elemenstors also often have unusually extended life spans, although this seems to be at random because some Elemenstors despite their power have completely normal human lengths of lives, where as others seem to live many multiple times the expected span through no intentional stated actions. Those that live normal spans carry no bitterness, and those with extended spans seem to be accepted for their longevity without comment, implying that this is the natural order of things.

Indeed, longevity is not limited to Elemenstors. Often characters with a great deal of Epic qualities will also have long lives, such as King Ronard. This of course does not imply that all epic characters live extended lives either, and there are characters who are not epic and yet are long lived. Gorsald the Pedantic and Fregor the Untruthful both have lives that end up spanning many hundreds of years, and there is no mention of this being unusual, although it is clearly not typical given observed life spans of typical humans.

It is not always the case that longevity goes unnoticed though. There seems to be a threshold beyond which people will begin to take notice, as evidenced by Ablongox the Particularly Unusually Long Lived, who was a Dwarven Forge-King that appeared through random fluke to have had a very long life span.

There are of course other characters who are stated as clinging to life and searching for artificial (magical) means to extend their spans, even reaching toward immortality that would allow them to persist even if their physical form were destroyed. This is universally a goal for "evil" characters, and no good character seems to strive for extended life spans in this way.

Immortality

Wholely apart from this are characters that are entirely immortal. They are revered and view as something entirely special and unique among inhabitants. Many (although not all) races of Elves are immortal. Others gain their immortality through items or incantations, or as a curse or gift from some higher (often mysterious) power.

Discussion

I think I remember reading in one of the ElemenstorLance books how S'yrf'yl the Immortal is reported to be immortal due to the ring forged by the Ringlings, but in a particularly candid conversation out of earshot of the Ringlings he confessed to having lost the actual ring and was wearing a simple gold band for at least a few thousand years. This seems to be consistent with the fact that Ringlings probably would not have been able to forge a ring so powerful, and it seems as though it was perhaps luck that they selected a champion who was destined for immortality.
I think it was later explained in the montly magazine that S'yrf'yl had not in fact lost the ring, but had accidentally dropped it into a muffin he was cooking and then proceeded to eat it. When he er, excreted the ring at a later date, it was but a simple golden ring and the immortality had somehow transfered into him as a fluke of the digestive process.

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