Well! Everybody kind of has their niche, and mine is old people. :3 Also you are not the first to notice, haha. It seems to be the unspoken trend among people who know me. “Oh yeah, Steph’s the one with all the old people.” :D Not that I mind, mind you. I always get a kick out of it.
But more to the point: I’ve uh, outright said I have crushes on people like Gandalf, so there’s that factor. But I guess I’ve always really liked the Mentor/Senex Archetype characters. They’re usually older, have REALLY FUN personalities, and usually they’re pretty badass in one way or another.
But y’know what usually happens to the mentor?
THEY DIE. THEY GODDAMN DIE and that ALWAYS infuriated me. In almost every story across every medium, if there’s an old person, their chances of dying sometime in the movie is like 80-90% and I always hated that. You know what I wanted to see instead? A story where the old person is either the main character (UP was a godsend), or continues the journey with the protagonist, and the protagonist comes into their own without being SHOVED into it with the death of the mentor. Do you know how often the “death of the mentor propels someone’s journey thing” happens in real life? Almost never.
Basically, I was tired of my favorite kinds of characters always being slotted for death. So I decided to change that. Which is why if I’ve got an old person, you will almost never see them die.
There’s also this pervasive idea that only younger people can be related to and I think that’s crap, myself.
So, in all, old folks are a group of characters that are mostly yet untouched, and I want to change that. Unless you die young, you grow old and face the same problems, and we all know this at heart. Which is why I absolutely think they’re relatable.
Also Gandalf’s hot and Galadriel would agree with me.
I was about to say I don’t make my undying adoration for old men NEARLY obvious enough in this fandom but then I remembered who one of my favorite characters is.
I think you all get the point.
ANYWAY
I agree with all of this so much. It’s so sad how in our culture we seem to think that once you get old life just kinda…stops (just try mentioning the idea of older people having a sex life of any kind. Funny how even the most perverse person will make a face and insist that can’t be true). There’s so much more yet to DO and older people have such a fascinating perspective on the world. I don’t know why we take it for granted or treat it as being irrelevant.
plus come on who doesn’t love a handsome silver fox if you say you don’t you are LYING
did someone mention old dudes
i like those