Moiraine's age: a minor plot hole?

[king of nowhere]

channelers age slower than normal people. kinswomen and damane live up to 600 years. they still look 30 when they are centenarian.

aes sedai always look ageless because of the oath rod. they still live to 300.

that's in the books.

 

in the show, there is no ageless look. aes sedai look like their aging normally. so one would assume that they'd age slower, like kinswomen.

but moiraine looks 40. she looks her actual age. how can it be?

she's a channeler, and a strong one. she's slowed. she would not look 40 until she was at least 200.

nor can they just change her to be older; they can do it with other aes sedai, but the story of the hunt for the dragon required her to be a novice 20 years ago.

or, they could give up on aes sedai living longer than others, but i'm sure it would cause a lot of problems along the way.

it's not something big, and most people won't even notice, but it's an inconsistency and it bugs me.5

 

perhaps it can be justified saying she started channeling later in life, and slowed down when she was already aged. maybe stress made her look older, just look at pictures of presidents before and after theuir mandate, most of them look aged by much more than four years. most likely they won't even address the issue. it's now a question one could make to rafe

[CaddySedai]

They probably will just sideline the ageless part of being Aes Sedai. 
 

Because you will either need to overuse smart smoothing cgi to reduce everyones age (doable but unlikely in a tv show even with a large budget, thats currently the realm of big budget Hollywood films at this juncture)

 

Or you need to constantly cast younger actresses for all the roles. Thats easier and the route many of the characters will take but would of course highlight that a show lead is strangely older looking than one would think. 

 

So my thoughts is they may pay lip service to the ageless look. Or just… not even bring it up. If you don’t mention it newcomers to the series would have no idea and longtime readers would be mildly put off but not as much as sacrificing quality just to make sure our actors look the correct age. 

 

Also aging up the main cast has the effect of making her look younger in and of itself. 

 

Its a hard world so who is to say that she does not in fact look ageless and just well traveled lol. 

Edited September 15, 2021 by CaddySedai

[DojoToad]

Agreed.  They will skip the ageless aspect.  It will be their rings, shawls, and demeanor.

[Elder_Haman]

1 hour ago, king of nowhere said:

it's now a question one could make to rafe

 

He's actually already addressed this. Back in May, Rafe did a Q&A. Here is one of the questions and his response:

 

Quote

 

Q: WIll Lan’s cool cloak be featured in the show?

A: I love Lan’s cloak in the show. But much like Aes Sedai agelessness, if it’s an effect that’s going to cost a fortune every time a character is on screen, it’s a bad use of our money. Unless you want to see all of S1 in the Winespring Inn. Then you can have color changing cloaks 

 

 

Now, the question of whether Aes Sedai will still age more slowly is a different question. You can get rid of the "ageless look" without disposing of the idea that Aes Sedai live a really long time. I see no reason to think they will change that aspect of the lore.

 

You can find the transcript of the entire Q&A here.

Edited September 15, 2021 by Elder_Haman

[TheMountain]

I think an "ageless look" could easily be achieved by casting older actresses and then cleverly applying makeup. Exhibit A: Most major Hollywood actresses over 40 lol

[CaddySedai]

Beyond the cgi budget there is another issue.

 

ageless is not just youth. 

 

There is actually a huge difference between being eternally youthful and ageless. 

 

Its also very difficult to properly portray. Lord of the Rings just portrayed it as “aging really slow when you had the ring” 

 

Elves were supposed to be eternally youthful and even that came off as overly makeup’d. 

 

I loved every second of it. But still lol

[laccy]

We can just pretend they look ageless?

 

I mean, taking into account the money it would cost them to do it, I rather see them spend it in other more important CGI moments not to say anything about the hours it would take to get every Aes Sedai in one shot the ageless look.

 

They can just tell us Channelers live for hundreds of years and leave it at that. It´ s not like we will be spending all those years with them any way though I would mind if the show turned out really good and just went on and on and on.

[king of nowhere]

i never spoke about agelessness. i know that they dropped agelessness, i've read that interview. and i was expecting it even from before, because how the hellis "ageless" supposed to look? how do your eyes convey wisdom and age?

 

i'm speaking about apparent age and channeler age. if they are not ageless, aes sedai will just age more slowly, like every other channeler. and then moiraine would not look 40 until she's well past her first century.

 

now, they may drop the whole "channelers live longer" thread, but i feel it will be missing something. channelers living very long is a part of worldbuilding, and i'm not sure how much of an impact it could have

[Elder_Haman]

6 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

then moiraine would not look 40 until she's well past her first century.

They can make her older without breaking anything.

[CaddySedai]

I dont think they will drop the live longer bit. Noone has to mention the appearance vs the age ruler equation. 

 

Just say they can live a ton of time and leave it at that. 

 

Most people understand that real human actors do get older. We kinda let that slide. lol

[Pembie]

I imagine her much older than she will be in the show with white or greyish hair 

[Pembie]

I would say that Nygeve is much bigger character than Morriarine I would say up to book five anyway 

[laccy]

(Spoilers maybe for episode one or two?)

 

And also let´ s consider (having just seen the trailer a minute ago again to make sure) Moiraine doesn’t look old she looks expressionless, even during what we can safely assume is Winternight when she is Channeling the huge lightning storm, Edmon’s Field is on fire around her, literally and figuratively and she is Channeling a lot and her face is mostly blank.

 

And looking at the rest of the Aes Sedai on the scenes (though they could have carefully handpicked scenes for the trailer to show just that) they all mostly have blank faces, or angry looking faces but they are Reds so what else can we expect?

Edited September 15, 2021 by laccy
Spoiler warning

[king of nowhere]

4 hours ago, Elder_Haman said:

They can make her older without breaking anything.

do they?

20 years before, she heard gitara moroso's foretelling because she was an accepted serving the amyrlin. And she escaped the hunt from the black ajah specifically because she was an accepted, and the blacks torturing tamra ospenya only thought to ask "to which aes sedai you told the secret" or something like that.

 

ok, all this can be rectified by some moderate alteration. maybe moiraine was a full aes sedai and she was in the amyrlin's office by chance, and maybe tamra didn't break under torture and the black got no names from her, they got names from other channels that conveniently didn't include moiraine and siuan. It can be made to work.

 

also, perhaps i am seeing moiraine as older because i know the actress is older (i think? i did not check).

[MasterAblar]

She does look older but realistically it would be a serious pain for them to have to cast literally only 25ish year old actresses to play most aes sedai. Honestly I think this is just one of the limitations of adapting from book to tv which is inevitable without an insane budget.

[JJLXL]

Out of all the things they could potentially fail on, this one really doesn't bother me.  They can simply say Aes Sedai live for hundreds of years and I'd be totally fine with that. 

[SinisterDeath]

10 years from now, barring long-term medical complications, Rosamund Pike will still look like she does now.

 

10 years from now, none of the EF5 cast will look like they do now.

[DojoToad]

47 minutes ago, SinisterDeath said:

10 years from now, barring long-term medical complications, Rosamund Pike will still look like she does now.

 

10 years from now, none of the EF5 cast will look like they do now.

Good to know we have 10 seasons to look forward to!  ?

[CaddySedai]

46 minutes ago, DojoToad said:

Good to know we have 10 seasons to look forward to!  ?

That is the hope. 

[Daenelia]

I can't be the only one who has ever guessed somenone's age wrong. I never understood the 'ageless' look description, it makes no sense to me What does that mean?

 

The thing is that you can't live for 40+ years even and now learn to 'act your age' when necessary (good news everyone!). So living for 200 years, the amount of time one would become fed up with people who have less experience will be astounding. You'd need a resilience that would translate to an ageless manner. A way of not sighing with exasperation at the slightes ridiculous thing a 20 year old does.

 

Because (good news everyone!) you do a lot of ridiculous things in your 20s and you should!

[nsmallw]

Agelessness is hard to make work over several years. 

 

And as much as I love the idea that wielders of the power have a weave that protects them from hot/cold temperatures, I do see why they had to cut that out of the tv show also. 

 

[MasterAblar]

I never quite understood what agelessness was supposed to look like either. I recall some character, maybe Egwene, saying that it felt like saying oaths felt like something was tightening across her skin in some way? I forget the exact quote. I though maybe it was supposed to look almost robotic in an uncanny valley kinda way? I don't know its hard to picture really.

Edited September 18, 2021 by MasterAblar

[CaddySedai]

1 hour ago, MasterAblar said:

I never quite understood what agelessness was supposed to look like either. I recall some character, maybe Egwene, saying that it felt like saying oaths felt like something was tightening across her skin in some way? I forget the exact quote. I though maybe it was supposed to look almost robotic in an uncanny valley kinda way? I don't its hard to picture really.

 

And the oaths were also reducing their lifespans... so you look ageless but live less long than those who dont take them and just...age slower? 

 

It was always a "Hmm..." situation trying to imagine it lol

[Elgee]

I've always thought that the ageless look is described exactly like an overdose of botox and facelifts.

 

[Chaotik_lord]

I have a friend whom I think of when I hear “ageless.”   It is some combination of very smooth skin and deep, old eyes-IF I had to try to describe what made her that way.   I look far younger than my age, and that’s totally different.  We have both looked similar for 20+ years, but in different ways.   She hasn’t aged, and I have aged very slowly.   (Ironically, she was “formally” trained in witchcraft as her mother was a practicing witchy woman-the “local witch,” in her town of 65 people, in Bvmfvck, IA).  I don’t know that you can make it come through on the screen, or by makeup.  You could be told that person is 20 or 45 and you would say “Ok, seems right.”