Time is something that affects us all and as we age we become more aware of it because it seems to speed up, things become less permanent, and we become aware of our own mortality and mortality in general. Humans are a very long lived species as things go but we don't last forever… Watching the lovely anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, it has an interesting perspective on aging.
The titular character is an elf, an extremely long lived species. She's already 1000 years old when she joins a small party of heroes to finally rid the land of the Demon Lord. Normally the death of the big bad is the end of such a tale, but we pick it up 50 years later during a small reunion, all apart from her have aged considerably, and one passes away while they're meeting. 20 years later she meets those left and another of her friends dies, but she goes on, raising his adopted daughter and continuing her journeys and studies.
I found this a very charming rumination on time, death, and change. It's not a dimension that's tackled as much in stories, where everything exists in a permanent freeze-frame, an endless loop, or a discrete package of time with an arbitrary beginning and ending. This shows the long period of time that occurs and how it affects an individual, Frieren, who as a seemingly ageless creature she's developed vast knowledge and experience but is disconnected from the a lot of the world which to her seems very changeable and temporary. After her 10 year odyssey with her party to defeat the Demon Lord she developed attachments she never thought she would, and through friendship with these very mortal people and Fern (the adopted daughter of her friend), change, death, and life become more real to her.
This mirrors life. As I've aged I've become less connected to most popculture because it changes so fast, the fashions and cares of younger people become less relevant to me because I've seen so much change and repetition. But mortality has become more real to me as grandparents and many generations of pets have died, parents and friends have aged and become frail before my eyes. I haven't changed very much physically from 20 years ago but I ache more and my eyesight has began to fail. I'm more aware of the impermanence of life and existence, but because of that I work even harder to keep Drunk Duck alive as a spot of permanence on the web.
Is time a factor in your work? Do you have any fave stories that center around aging. mortality, change, and the passage of time?
Don't forget! The #quackchat has moved to BlueSky! Join us on Sunday evening for our Quackchat at 5:30PM(EST)!
You can also advertise on DrunkDuck for just $2 in whichever ad spot you like! The money goes straight into running the site. Want to know more? Click this link here! Or, if you want to help us keep the lights on you can sponsor us on Patreon. Every bit helps us!
Special thanks to our patrons!!
Justnopoint - Banes - RMccool - Abt_Nihil - Gunwallace - PaulEberhardt - Emma_Clare - FunctionCreep - SinJinsoku - Smkinoshita - jerrie - Chickfighter - Andreas_Helixfinger - Tantz_Aerine - Genejoke - Davey Do - Gullas - Roma - NanoCritters - Teh Andeh - Peipei - Digital_Genesis - Hushicho - Palouka - cheeko - Paneltastic - L.C.Stein - dpat57 - Bravo1102 - The Jagged - LoliGen - OrcGirl - Miss Judged - Fallopiancrusader - arborcides - ChipperChartreuse - Mogtrost - InkyMoondrop - Jgib99 - Hirokari - Orgivemedeath Ind - Mks Monsters - GregJ - HawkandFloAdventures - Soushiyo - JohnCelestri- Tottycomics - Casscade - Salexander - Willed - Sketchydrawer - Niccea
The Tyranny of Age and Time
Ozoneocean at 12:00AM, March 22, 2025
6 likes!
©2011 WOWIO, Inc. All Rights Reserved Mastodon
Ozoneocean at 7:06PM, March 23, 2025
@dpat57 - Thanks for finding that there! I didn't know it was on Crunchyroll too :)
Ozoneocean at 7:06PM, March 23, 2025
@hushicho - hmmmm, maybe I didn't explain things well because thet's not the feeling you get from that anime at all, it's extremely popular with all ages so something here isn't adding up LOL!!!!
Ozoneocean at 7:04PM, March 23, 2025
@PaulEberhardt - it's a good thing to play with in stories!
Ozoneocean at 7:03PM, March 23, 2025
@Anime Alpharie - exactly, though in a lot of fiction time seems frozen haha!
Ozoneocean at 7:02PM, March 23, 2025
@Andreas_Helixfinger - Ah, that's quite a different thing. Though I think if things live faster then they DO form strong relationshios and things, they just do it much aster because their life is so compressed- Like when we're children- we have epic memories for things that in reality happened over just a few days or hours haha!
Ozoneocean at 6:58PM, March 23, 2025
@Banes- Thanks man, it really was. I'd love to do a story like that myself I think.
dpat57 at 1:29AM, March 23, 2025
Found it on CrunchyRoll and I'm liking it, the pleasant art, the voice acting, all pretty good. https://www.crunchyroll.com/series/GG5H5XQX4/frieren-beyond-journeys-end
dpat57 at 1:15AM, March 23, 2025
Those mortality thoughts came swinging in like a wrecking ball, lol.
hushicho at 1:22PM, March 22, 2025
Horrible. That's the kind of anime that, ironically, doesn't age well. It's the kind of story that doesn't age well. It's fine to work it out yourself and even to do things that help you to work through it, but it's not something anyone else needs to see. It comes off as pretentious at best, but usually it just ends up being like the kind of person even goths get really tired of. And what audience could you possibly go for, especially with an anime like that? The kids who won't understand or enjoy it, or the adults who would rather watch something less heavy and up its own importance? No thank you. Poor writing handling heavy topics is how that almost invariably goes, and if my time is as valuable as that, I'm not spending it on that kind of story.
PaulEberhardt at 12:34PM, March 22, 2025
I like using floating timelines so I don't have to think too much about it, but time has a way of always sneaking itself in. Honestly, I'm sometimes kind of spooked by how old myself and everyone I know have become overnight and how their kids have grown - some of them able to drive them home after a party. This "overnight" of course turns out to be actually a decade or more, but where the hell did it go all of a sudden?? This is exacerbated by the fact that I don't feel old at all, most of the time. I just don't feel like I'm forty-something just because I am. But then, I guess reality begs to differ - I must be old to be able to use words like "exacerbate" without flinching. Also, acting my age for a change sometimes does have its perks: it's becoming easier and easier every year to silence people who get on my nerves just on the grounds that they're younger. As if biological age was a reason to get more authority. Take it from me: it's not! :)
Anime Alpharie at 10:53AM, March 22, 2025
Time is constantly flowing in my stories, and they are also connected! Growth doesn't happen without time passage!
Andreas_Helixfinger at 7:41AM, March 22, 2025
This new comic I'm currently writing the script for has a bit of this kind of theme in mind. It is primarily focused on how the passage of time, experience and repition can make antyhing feel like a prison or a loop, may it be your enviroment, your life situation or even your own being. In this story there is this one race of mutants who's most defining element is that they have an extremely short life-span, the flip-opposite situation of the main character you bring up here. So they're acclamated since their birth to have this live fast and die faster rythm to their existence and cannot form lasting, meaningful relationships with anyone since they know they simply won't last. On the flip-side, while everyone else - living in this isolated society that non of them can escape - feel more or less stuck where they are, this one race of mutants don't live long enough for that. They do however also end up being disconnected to the society around them, not having the time to settle in it.
Banes at 5:55AM, March 22, 2025
So well said. And so relatable...universal really. At least, when enough time goes by! Frieren sounds great; will have to take a look at that! It's the rare story that moves ahead in time. It seems like having a relatively eternal character in the middle of it would help the power of that kind of tale.