Dragonlance Reading Soulforge and uh, I have questions

[DarkCrisis]

I've probably read this book long ago but don't remember it.

Anyways, just started. Wizard rolling into Solace. Meets a "blonde haired blued eyed" boy named Sturm. Blonde haired? Hair can darken with age so sure. I guess.

My biggest "Huh?" is when the Wiz meet Kitiara. Who is apparently a full-figured woman...... of 13. 13. Part of me is very WTF but also I guess it's leaning into the Medieval style time period. Kit is raising her brothers (who are 6 years old) and she's already a well trained fighter who wants to go see the world. At 13. She's been training her 6 year old brothers how to fight with swords (Raist not doing to well here). They are 6. Yeah you had to "grow up" faster in this time periods and 13 may as well have been adult age but "full-figured" at 13? And it used as a descriptor? And I get one human develops different from each other. Some faster and some slower but to use it as a description and point out she's 13.

I can only assume at this point that this is the Wizards description (as it's his internal monologue) and may not reflect reality. But all of it comes off as "while young they are not". Kit is ready to leave home at 13 and already well trained. Her brothers are 6 and training for their jobs. "Caramon will be fine when I'm gone" He's 6. The ages seem really off going with the descriptions.

It's kind of weird.

But i know this is written by one of my fave authors so I have trust.

 

[Laurefindel]

Indeed that seems young...

IIRC, as a comparison, a real-life medieval boy could become a page (learning the basics of combat and knighthood) at the age of 7-8 and a squire around 14-15. But even then, a squire was still a few years short of being considered a fully-trained warrior.

DL is 1) fantasy and 2) concerning extraordinary characters but nevertheless, to be considered capable of being "fine on their own" at 6 seems like pushing it a little.

 

[Mannahnin]

My biggest "Huh?" is when the Wiz meet Kitiara. Who is apparently a full-figured woman...... of 13. 13. Part of me is very WTF but also I guess it's leaning into the Medieval style time period. Kit is raising her brothers (who are 6 years old) and she's already a well trained fighter who wants to go see the world. At 13. She's been training her 6 year old brothers how to fight with swords (Raist not doing to well here). They are 6. Yeah you had to "grow up" faster in this time periods and 13 may as well have been adult age but "full-figured" at 13? And it used as a descriptor? And I get one human develops different from each other. Some faster and some slower but to use it as a description and point out she's 13.

I can only assume at this point that this is the Wizards description (as it's his internal monologue) and may not reflect reality. But all of it comes off as "while young they are not". Kit is ready to leave home at 13 and already well trained. Her brothers are 6 and training for their jobs. "Caramon will be fine when I'm gone" He's 6. The ages seem really off going with the descriptions.

It's kind of weird.

But i know this is written by one of my fave authors so I have trust.

The idea that women in a medieval society could be "full grown" at 13 was a common pop history misconception based on the fact that nobles, especially royalty, would sometimes be married that young for political reasons. And in warm climates like the Middle East, especially for wealthy people who had plenty of food all year round, kids could physically mature relatively young.

But for poorer people, and in colder climates like Northern Europe, kids would mature more slowly. Because for half the year your body's caloric supply was mostly used just keeping your core body temperature up, not leaving much left over for growth and maturation. After the advent of central heating kids starting maturing physically much faster, for the same reason we grow flowers in hothouses.

During the American Colonial period, for example, the English were a bit scandalized that men in the colonies were sometimes marrying girls as young as sixteen, because of a shortage of women. Whereas in that period it was reasonably common for kids not to hit puberty until 16-17.

Of course it's a fantasy world, and I don't know whether Weis and Hickman ever described the climate in a lot of detail, but my general recollection, refreshed by a quick look at a map of Ansalon, is that the climate is supposed to be relatively similar to the midwest US. We can of course dismiss any concerns about the early maturation of the characters with it being a fantasy world, and/or by assuming it's actually a warm climate, but contextually I'd guess that Weis fell into the bad history trap.

 

[bloodtide]

So I'm sure the Real World answer is this:

Back in the Time Before Time (aka the 80's) all of this Character lore and history was first crafted...and was kept vague. To show that on Kyrnn folks don't care about facts so closely, as they are fine with "oh they were born a couple years ago". And also the sort of vague confusion of creating all the lore and not exactly keeping track of every detail.

Oh and you had like more then one person telling stories about Kyrnn.....and lets just say not all of the stories match up. But, also, long ago, The Dragonlance novel line did state "the books should be seen as more legends, not absolute hard facts". A lot of the novels even promote this as they say something like "this is the rumored tale" or "this is one account" or something like that to keep it vague.

I'm sure one of the 'accounts' has the boys at 13 and Kit at 16.

But by '98 or so there was a LOT of Companions history....and having it make sense time wise was never going to work.

It is possible MW was just trying to smooth out the timeline. Or maybe she just "liked'' them at younger ages.

Or maybe TSR forced her to make the ages Young as they wanted to sell and promote a 'kids book'.

All that being said....well, even in the 80's .....some parents would leave kids of ages like six home alone. For REAL.

And, it's not impossible for a female of 13 to be a 'full looking woman'....some do develop at 10 or 11, it's not exact or anything.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

All that being said....well, even in the 80's .....some parents would leave kids of ages like six home alone. For REAL.

Particularly Hickman/Weis who were into a very "free range parenting" kind of approach, where kids were actively encouraged in their friend group/religious community to "run wild", and basically do what made sense to them rather than being told what to do. We know about this because they've discussed it in reference to the Kender, who were apparently inspired by this.

I think the most likely explanation though is that the story got planned out with characters at more reasonable ages, then someone went over the timeline and decided they had to be these ages for the timeline to make sense (and they may been wrong to think that!), even though now the story seemed kind of insane.

The idea that women in a medieval society could be "full grown" at 13 was a common pop history misconception based on the fact that nobles, especially royalty, would sometimes be married that young for political reasons. And in warm climates like the Middle East, especially for wealthy people who had plenty of food all year round, kids could physically mature relatively young.

But for poorer people, and in colder climates like Northern Europe, kids would mature more slowly. Because for half the year your body's caloric supply was mostly used just keeping your core body temperature up, not leaving much left over for growth and maturation. After the advent of central heating kids starting maturing physically much faster, for the same reason we grow flowers in hothouses.

Have you got some sources to back up the bolded bits? Because they don't really match well with modern science on puberty ages, nor with the archaeology I'm aware of. And the central heating claim? It seems like that would be easy to support, but I can't really find any evidence for that, and it has, I'm afraid to say, a bit of a "Just So story" vibe. I Google'd and wiki'd quite a bit but couldn't find anything to really support a position either as strong or single-factor as you're describing. Maybe I'm missing something more academic though?

There's no question nutrition plays a significant role in the age puberty starts, but it's just one of many factors (including genetic ones).

 

[Vaalingrade]

We didn't invent not writing offputting descriptions of teenaged girls until 20010.

Then people started trying to uninvent it starting in 2018.

 

[Mannahnin]

Have you got some sources to back up the bolded bits? Because they don't really match well with modern science on puberty ages, nor with the archaeology I'm aware of. And the central heating claim? It seems like that would be easy to support, but I can't really find any evidence for that, and it has, I'm afraid to say, a bit of a "Just So story" vibe. I Google'd and wiki'd quite a bit but couldn't find anything to really support a position either as strong or single-factor as you're describing. Maybe I'm missing something more academic though?

There's no question nutrition plays a significant role in the age puberty starts, but it's just one of many factors (including genetic ones).

Fair question. Most of what I wrote there is paraphrased from old sociology lectures I attended in the '90s and books like Stephanie Coontz' The Way We Never Were, The Way We Really Are, and Marriage, a History: How Love Conquered Marriage.

My recollection is still that the average age of menarche in the nineteenth century was a few years older than it is today. Are your sources showing something different?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My recollection is still that the average age of menarche in the nineteenth century was a few years older than it is today. Are your sources showing something different?

Yes. The 1800s figures seem like they may either be bollocks or have some sort of specific causes. They just don't line up at all with the archaeology and history from earlier times (even rough times), and there doesn't seem to any particular actual theory for why age of menarche would suddenly jump up from 14-15 as it was in Medieval Europe, to 16-17, then slam down to 12-13 and stay there (whereas going down from 14-15 to 12-13 makes sense, as people get better fed and healthier and possibly industrial chemicals also play a role).

It's not that your recollection is wrong, to be clear - it's that the claim that the 1800s figures were in any way reflective of periods before the 1800s (and perhaps 1700s) seems... hard to sustain. Possibly they weren't even reflective of the actual 1800s.

If we're to assume that they're not some kind of Victorian nonsense (which, frankly, they could be, but probably not) then lack of calories/nutrition and massively increased use of serious child labour (particularly doing physically demanding work) would be the most likely causes in pushing the age up, combined with higher level of stress, probably. All of those things definitely can have an impact. And we do know that people in the 1800s often ate far worse than people in say, the 1300s (in terms of both calories and nutrition) - yes absolutely including peasants/serfs. But I can't even find anyone with even that obvious-seeming theory. There just doesn't seem to be a theory at all as to why that would happen. There does seem to be a baseless assumption that before the 1800s the figures must have been the same or higher, because they came down in the 1800s, but archaeological fact flatly repudiates that notion.

Indeed archaeology shows that the age of menarche among normal people in virtually all of history was closer to the ages we see now that it is to the reported ages from the 1800s.

I just couldn't find anything to support the temperature stuff being significant. I strongly suspect that was overwrought pop-science conjecture that has since been discarded. Certainly the central heating thing is a myth - even the figures I could find don't remotely support that or match at all timing-wise.

 

[Scribe]

All that being said....well, even in the 80's .....some parents would leave kids of ages like six home alone. For REAL.

I was taking care of and babysitting my siblings, when I was 9. There were 5 of us.

Particularly Hickman/Weis who were into a very "free range parenting" kind of approach, where kids were actively encouraged in their friend group/religious community to "run wild", and basically do what made sense to them rather than being told what to do.

Because of this.

 

[Stormonu]

I hadn't ever really paid attention, but even back in DL5 they mentioned her being young when she set off.

At about the time Tanis arrived in Solace, a thirteen year old girl was leaving Solace to find adventure on her own. This remarkable teenager was named Kitiara.
...
The warrior trained his daughter in the military arts. At the age of seven, she saw her first battle. Her father cut her black hair and introduced her as his son. Kitiaras skill, even at this early age, won praise from the the older warriors. She loved camp life. The sight of battle filled her with excitement. Her father impressed three things upon the young child: give no quarter in battle, win by any means possible, and power is the only truth in this world.
...
When Kitiara was eight, her mother bore twin sons. One was a strong and healthy baby, but the other very nearly died at birth. The mother was quite ill for months after her sons were born. The father was forced to work day and night to support his family. The neighbors had always avoided them. Consequently, it fell to Kitiara to care for the babiesparticularly the weak one. The girl accepted this challenge.

Later on, it mentions she came back two months later from war

Kitiara returned from her first journey in about two months. She was taller and stronger, her skin tanned. She said nothing about where she had been, but gave her stepfather money that would pay for her food and board for as long as she chose to remain in his house. She now wore a short sword - a real one - and carried a small shield. Caramon, inspecting her sword one day, was awed to find clotted blood near the handle. He asked her about it, but she simply shrugged and smiled. She had brought him a real sword as well, and taught him how to use it.

I mean it's not impossible, but it sure is unlikely. That age is from around my 7th grade days, and while I remember being a latchkey kid on my own back in the '80s at that age, I can't imagine toddling off to war - and surviving it.