Why Lifespans in Classical Fantasy Characters Should Never Be Thought Out

[zesty_pinto]

Thinking about the lifespans of D&D races and how drawn out their lifespans are supposed to be. Elves and dwarves are supposed to be longer-lived races, but they're also less common than humans. Why is that?

You would think that elves and dwarves would be more populous because they've been around much longer so know what's a good way to live versus bad. If they have kids every so often like humans, then you would think that would mean they'd have way more opportunities to breed since they know how to live longer on average.

The way I've seen it explained is that dwarves and elves live longer but because they take much longer to mature. Could you imagine what parenthood must mean for an elf? Imagine if you deal with a toddler undergoing the terrible twos then imagine it lasting for 10 years.

If you're a human, then could you even justify nursing an elf child at its worst for a decade? Imagine running a daycare in an elven neighborhood; you'd probably seem like a popup enterprise by the time you retire.

Because of things like that, it also makes me wonder if elves and dwarves have a fundamentally deep learning disability if they can't pick up on knowledge as quickly as humans. Like could you imagine what school is like then? Otherwise, would that mean that elves have a lot of skilled labor because too many of them pick up all their knowledge in the same timespan that would be the human equivalent of middle school?

Anyway, just randomly farting ideas in my head.

Comments

[notasupervillain]

I like to imagine a) elves and dwarves have elephant-long pregnancies, like years long, and b) they have birth control.

Between the two, I imagine most people decide to have very few children, if any.

[zesty_pinto]

If that's true, then the terrible twos must feel like they last forever since they literally last an entire human's childhood, ha!

[notasupervillain]

Another argument in favour of birth control...

[conuly]

Some people work around this by postulating that their childhood and adolescence is more or less human length, then the growth slows down.

[zesty_pinto]

That to me emphasizes that elven/dwarven society must be super lazy then. If we apply merit to all people, then the longer-lived people out there should be more likely to become masters of their craft compared to humans as a result.

Which makes sense since fantasy novels often talk about the majesty of their civilizations, but at the same time that makes me feel like humans are the equivalent of a "made in China" tag for everything, which amuses me because classic D&D had humans as the only race that could level up infinitely (I think 1st edition originally had elves as druids the only ones that could level up infinitely, which was impossible since Druids could only get to Grand Druid level and leave it at that).

Under that system, I would think that all lands and industries would be elven/dwarven enterprises as a result. Sure, they justify later on that humans have their own edge by being the race that thinks outside the box, but it's still like a war of attrition to get that recognition.

Furthermore, if social services exist for elves and dwarves, I can't help but think of Japan where there's economic problems because of there being so many old people too old to support versus working citizens.

I'm sure someone could make some amusing analogues out of this (which would be appropo since scifi/fantasy's purpose is usually to express social issues in ways that can not be expressed in a palpable real world scenario).