Rereading Tortall as I Age
I’m rereading the Tortall books. When I first started in 2000 or 2001 in the middle of Kel then back to the beginning with Alanna, mixed in with Emelan, then caught up and have read by publication date ever since.
Well I never really paid attention to their ages.
At this reread, I decided I really wanted to pay attention to their ages.
Alanna was easy to follow enough with her four books. I could tell she was early twenties ish when we leave her.
Then Daine begins. We leave a mid twenty something and return to the world of a 13 year old.
This is where it gets interesting.
I’ve known these characters for at least 15 years now. Daine has been my favorite because I’ve claimed Numair as my literary husband.
So I start Daines book with a handwritten timeline I coppies from Tammy’s website with everyone’s updated ages.
In the first Daine book, things are going along swimmingly.
Then we get to the scene where Jon is grilling Daine on her father and her magic and Numair is arguing with him about going with Daine to Pirates Swoop.
So I decide to check my timeline because just how old are these people now anyway. When I was 13 and reading about Daine, the big 5; Alanna, George, Jon, Thayet and now Numair were all “adults” meaning aged “40-50”.
They are 30, 36, 32, 30 and AND 24.
Numair is 24 and telling off the King who is 32.
This country is being run by a bunch of CHILDREN in the 7th year of their reign because Jon took the throne 7 years ago at like 25.
And he’s being told off by my now 24 year old husband who is really just a trussed up post-doc who thinks he’s an academic.
He even says so to Daine that he forgets not everyone is an academic. Numair, you are 24. I was finishing grad school at 24. Oh no.
But look again. When you read the descriptions of this country, it has mandated schools for everyone, open job opportunities for anyone who can complete the training, and a king who comes down to help everyone out when some enemies attack where he lives, women can get fighting jobs and the queen regularly helps out the program of fighters that she partially oversees. Then they ask a 13 year old for help.
Is this what would happen if you left a kingdom to some mid twenty somethings? Jobs for everyone, education, talking to teenagers for help and advice. Especially teenage girls.
When I was 13 and I read about their trouble with the emperor in Carthak...
The Emperor of Carthak is 26.
My brain is hurting. Where I work, I’m one of the youngest out of 100 people, and yet I’m of this age group that is governing Tortall.
I don’t know what to make of this information yet.
Share when you also were no longer 13 and started figuring out relative ages of everyone and as you got older and had different opinions about your life long literary friends.
Reading these books at 31 still holds that special magic. I grieved when I had to close Alanna and leave her, only to feel the tearful joy when she comes back in the first Daine book. It’s like Tammy knew we wouldn’t be able to let go.
(Be kind if you fact check me and I’m wrong. I did quick math from Tammy’s timeline on her website).