School spirits ghosts + aging
The ghosts are physically frozen in time to the day of their death, but I think that they are still capable of “mentally aging” on some level (aside from physical brain development.) I don’t believe that they are stuck in the same state of mind and maturity as the time of their death (shown with how Wally and Rhondas personalities have gone though big changes since they were alive) Experiences and time shape a person just as much (if not, more) as a body does.
[One way this is proven, Is through the rapid maturation, and developmental arrests seen in kids and adults with complex PTSD. Maddie is actually an in-show example of this, but that’s too big to talk about in this post.]
But, with that being said, I think that our ghosts have mentally aged very little within the decades they’ve been in the school. I would argue that their maturation is significantly more limited by how they are stuck in the school, and in the support group, than they are limited by their ageless bodies.
For example: Rhonda has been around longer, and has experienced more things than Dave Nears has. But! Dave has experienced life as an adult, while Rhonda has not. Rhonda’s mind has changed and grown throughout the 60 years she’s spent in the afterlife, but not as much as how Dave was able to grow and mature through his role as a father, and as an adult in society. His experiences carry much more weight and growth in that shorter time span, due to the nature of them. The ghosts at the school, have been encouraged to think of themselves as students, and to reject maturation by Mr. Martin. That, plus the physical limits of the ghosts having a full relationship with the world around them, is what really stunts them from maturing. It doesn’t stop them, but it limits the direction that their growth can take.
Wally is a big example of this. He has matured a huge amount through his relationship with Charley. But it is a form of maturation that is encouraged by the environment that the ghosts are stuck in.
Ever since Maddie arrived, the ghosts have shown much more personal and relational growth due to the circumstances pushing them out of the “students in a support group” role they’ve been confined to. They have been maturing faster than they ever previously were, because of these new outside influences.
It’s not as simple as “they are all teenagers” or “they are teen bodies but 75/35/49” It’s such a deeply complex and interesting concept that I think the show expresses well.
Going into deeper more headcanon-y territory, I'm thinking about how the age of their death could affect their maturation. Charley is a great example of “having a teenager brain.” He and Yuri are both younger ghosts, so they both hit their living maturing limit before the others, and at the same time. And that is shown in their characterization. Charlie definitely acts the most like a teenager out of the group, and Yuri matches a similar energy in a different way with his teen-like coping mechanisms.
Yuris death was even directly related to how not ready he was to think of himself as an adult.
Ghosts like Rhonda, Wally, and Quinn died at the age where they were preparing for adulthood. In their final year of school, where they were beginning to explore the ideas of where their adult life would take them, at varying levels of readiness. Rhonda was excited and eager to explore herself and the world. Wally was happy where he was, and probably wasn’t looking forward to his graduation. I imagine Quinn was somewhere between the two.
It’s another interesting layer to think about. They are stuck in the image of their place in the world. “Almost an adult, and free.” “Not ready to leave, but I have to.” “I’m still a kid, I can’t handle my sudden approaching adulthood.”
Overall, these characters are at really interesting mental places that I, as an autistic bitch with cptsd, find so fascinating. They are all more mature and “older” than someone living as the age they died as, but they are also not at all as “old” as the years they’ve existed since birth.
Bonus: