Crazy Splatoon Fan Theory: It's Commonplace for Militaries in Inkling Societies to Recruit (and Possibly Draft) Teenagers as Young as 14-Years-Old (Reposted from my Reddit Account)
Piece of Evidence 1: Child Soldiers are Common in Splatoon
The Octarian military does not hesitate to recruit 14-year-olds who they train from an even younger age, as shown by Agent 8's age in Octo Expansion and Marina's backstory. Meanwhile, the Salmonids go even further by recruiting smallfries, who appear to be Salmonid children. Although these societies are separate from Inkling societies, this shows that the normalization of child soldiers is something that can be and has been accomplished in the world of Splatoon.
Piece of Evidence 2: Agent 3, Agent 4, and Neo 3 don't Seem Surprised When Offered to Join the New Squidbeak Splatoon
Agent 3, Agent 4, and Neo 3 don't seem surprised to be given the opportunity to join the New Squibeak Splatoon despite being 14-years-old at the time of their recruitment.* This reaction would make a lot more sense if the concept of 14-year-old soldiers seemed normal to them as members of Inkling societies which would require a normalization of such recruits in said societies. To be fair, this can explained by them being generic silent protagonists. However, I do think that it is worth mentioning given this theory's preposition (plus overthinking seemingly innocuous stuff is half the fun of fan theories).
Piece of Evidence 3: Nobody Seems to Care that Grizzco Hires People as Young as 14-Years-Old
Grizzco Industries is essentially a for profit military organization. The company recruits people to fight battles against entire armies of Salmonids. In addition, most of their employees are young teenagers. This includes Agent 4, who was recruited by Grizzco during the events of Splatoon 2 despite only being 14 at the time. This is worth mentioning as nobody seems to care that Grizzco is hiring kids as young as 14 to essentially become soldiers. In the games, there are no signs of criticism towards this aspect of Grizzco's hiring practices as there is an absence of all types of retaliation and backlash from whistleblowers to simple insults. At most, Grizzco is considered a shady business, but this could easily be due to Mr. Grizz's secret plans to cause the apocalypse and the company's usage of illegal weapons that violate safety regulations.
This fan theory is one I have been thinking about for a while. In fact, I haven't played Splatoon for a while, but I still wanted to share this theory so it wouldn't just stay in my head forever. This theory is cool because it provides a canon explanation for Splatoon's usage of the trope of the underage protagonist common in kids' games rather than just chocking it up to "It's a kid's game. What did you expect?"
This theory, like most fan theories, is probably not canon. Oh well. At least it would make a good fanfiction idea if any of you want to utilize it (you have my permission).
*(Neo 3 does not have a canon age. However, considering that the only other protagonists in the franchise were 14-years-old when first playable, it would make sense for her to be the same age. Even if she is not, the ages of Agent 3 and Agent 4 still make this piece of evidence apply).
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