Lines: 44 X-Admin: news@cs.com From: nystulc@cs.com (Nystulc) Newsgroups: rec.arts.books.tolkien Date: 17 Jun 2001 04:34:27 GMT References: Organization: CompuServe (http://www.compuserve.com/) Subject: Hobbit Aging (was Re: List of movie "consistencies" Message-ID: <20010617003427.07876.00004149@ng-fz1.news.cs.com> Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!pinatubo.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!portc.blue.aol.com.MISMATCH!portc03.blue.aol.com!audrey05.news.cs.com!not-for-mail Xref: chonsp.franklin.ch rec.arts.books.tolkien:39822 David Salo wrote: > Hobbits don't age as fast as humans. They regularly live to c. 100 >(rather than c. 70); and their "coming of age" is thirty-three, which >should be more-or-less equivalent to a 19th-century English man's "coming >of age" at twenty-one. This was Frodo's age when he took up the Ring. Regarding Hobbit aging, it seems to follow a set pattern relative to Humans, in that Hobbits, for the most part, mature about one-and-a half times as slow as humans do. However, this pattern does not seem to follow consistently across the board, and hobbits seem to have an unusually long childhood relative to their life expectancy. Walk and Talk: Human 3ys; Hobbits 5yrs; Adjust = x1.66 Puberty: Human 13; Hobbits about 20; Adjust = x1.54 "Come of Age": Human 21; Hobbits 33; Adjust = x 1.57 Menopause: Human 45; Hobbits 58-plus; Adjust = x1.29-plus "Normal" Lifespan: Human 70; Hobbits 100; Adjust = x1.42 "Record" Lifespan: Human 100+; Hobbits 130+; Adjust x1.3 It seems that the difference between hobbits and humans is somewhat less for death-by-old-age than it is for other milestones of maturity.The "Old Took's" record of 130, if divided by 1.5, comes out to 87, hardly an impressive record by human standards, even for a moderate sized pre-modern community I suspect that this may be related to Tolkiens horror of senescence. Thus, he had Hobbits age at about one-and-a-half times the rate of humans, but tended to have them die off before they got too decrepit. The Numenorians, of course, had a similar mechanism for early death. Of course, aging rate need not coincide with maturation rate. Cats, for instance, can live over 20 times as long as it takes to reach maturity, compared to about 6-times (at most) for humans. Numenorians mature at the same rate as normal humans, but age much more slowly, resulting in an extended prime of life, and a lifespan of about 12-times their childhood It is also possible that the difference between humans and hobbits is actually an additional 30% accross the board, and the apparent plus-50% difference in maturation is actually due to social customs of late-marriage etc., rather than actual biological differences. But I suspect that the comparison of the "teens" to the "tweens" is meant to suggest exactly what it implies. -- John Whelan