the wheel of time - Average lifespan of non-channelers in Randland?

Do we get told the ages of enough characters in The Wheel of Time to make a guess to life expectancy?

I'm interested in characters we can assume to have normal life spans:

They are in the main land, not Seanchan or from beyond the Aiel waste

Are alive in the Third Age

Are not channelers or bonded to a channeler

Are human (sorry, no Ogiers)

If we don't have many ages, who are the oldest people we know that fit this criteria?

Books, The Companion, interviews and released notes are all acceptable sources.

Answer

Here's a useful resource to look at in answering your question. It looks like most of the ages are pulled from The Companion. You can't really assess average lifespan, but you can see how old non-channelers survive to as a loose upper bound.

Cenn Buie immediately leaps to mind, and he's listed at 68. Bair is also listed as being quite old.

Bair “had to be seventy or eighty” (Lord of Chaos, Courage To Strengthen). According to The Wheel of Time Companion, she was in her late nineties or more.

Lini (Elayne's nurse) is also listed at 75. Then of course Pedron Niall made to 89.

Based on the linked reference, at least, living to 60 certainly seems commonplace, into one's 70s does not seem unusual, and surviving to 90 seems within reach for non-channelers.

As for an average, I don't think you can get enough data. You might be able to interpolate based on the ages known, but many of those characters are still alive.

Below are some of the notable characters listed on that page, oldest first. If a range was provided, I narrowed it to the most reasonable estimate.

95 Bair

89 Pedron Niall

75+ Lini

75 Jain Charin Farstrider

70 Thom Merrilin

68 Cenn Buie

65 Astoril Damara

63 Brandelwyn al’Vere

63+ Mattin Stepaneos

63 King Paitar Nachiman

61 Gareth Bryne

60 Brys Noromaga'

60 Tam al’Thor

60 King Easar Togita

58+ Gerard Arganda

57 Elyas Machera

50 Haral Luhhan

48 Master Aldragoran

46 Bayle Domon

45 Abell Cauthon

45 Alsbet Luhan

Comments

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.

star wars - What "exactly" happens when someone turns to the Dark Side?

When I saw the original Star Wars saga as a kid, the concept of the Dark Side imprinted in me was quite simple. You did a bad thing, so you're a bad person so you go to the Dark Side and keep doing bad things. Now, obviously this doesn't hold true in reality. In my mind it is perfectly reasonable for Luke to kill the Emperor and Vader and then just flee the Death Star and rejoin the Alliance. After all they are at war, those are enemy officers that have captured him and are taunting him by threatening with death of all loved ones and the whole operation was intended to kill the Emperor anyway. The same would hold true for Anakin. He could have killed Mace Windu to save the Chancellor and Padme but that doesn't mean he's going to then go mad and kill all Jedis including children. It doesn't add up from a merely psychological point of view. He had a set of objectives and that made him want to keep the Chancellor alive (quite valid by the way, Mace Windu is quite clums...

star trek - Warning regarding forward saucer section in Nemesis?

In Star Trek: Nemesis , just before the Enterprise rams into the Scimitar, Picard sends a text message from his captain's chair arm pad to Troi — who is manning the helm in lieu of the crewman who was just blown out through what was once the view screen — indicating that she should put full impulse on standby. (Literally, if you watch the scene closely, Troi's console prefaces the order with "TXT MSG" !) My question is: Did Picard also somehow warn crew members in the forward saucer section about what was about to happen? The ramming of the Scimitar was a heat of the moment decision. Considering that he also resorted to calling the auto-destruct sequence shortly after (which ended up being offline), he probably was of the mindset that any losses would be acceptable in order to hault Shinzon's march to Earth. Still, I'm curious. Answer The original script indicates that he called for the crew to " brace for impact ". Whether that call (or the comma...

Blog

Search This Blog