Basic Trope: A character never ages in a series.
- Straight: Bob is 12 when the show starts, and 10 years later he is still only 12.
- Exaggerated:
- The shows lasts for a ridiculously long time, but he still hasn't aged a day.
- Bob actually gets younger over the course of the series.
- Downplayed: Bob does age, but very slowly. After six years, he's only 15.
- Justified:
- Bob has access to the Fountain of Youth.
- The series is stuck in a time loop.
- He has some other sort of anti-aging device.
- He is part of a species that ages rather slowly.
- The series is a Weekly Yonkoma, and all chapters occur in only one month.
- The episodes run at strict real time, and all seasons take place in the same year.
- Inverted:
- Bob ages at a very ridiculous speed, so that a year later he is now 22.
- Bob ages normally in scenes set in the present, but in flashback scenes he's the same age he was at the start, even though he should be visibly younger.
- Subverted:
- As it turns out, Bob is just short.
- Bob is just acting like a kid, or lying about his age.
- Double Subverted:
- Bob is short, but years later he only aged one year.
- He's lying about his age, but he still hasn't aged much.
- Parodied: Hundreds or even thousands of years later, Bob hasn't aged a bit, or hardly aged at all.
- Zig Zagged: Bob ages at whatever rate the show's writers want him to for their stories. He stays the same age for a few seasons, then suddenly gets bumped up a few years.
- Averted: Bob ages normally, and one year later he is 13.
- Enforced: The company doesn't want the show to be canceled or for viewers to lose interest once Bob moves out of the house and gets a job, so they make sure he doesn't reach that age.
- Lampshaded: Bob remarks that he's been in 7th grade for much longer than he should be.
- Invoked: ???
- Exploited: ???
- Defied: ???
- Discussed:Bob: "I hope this isn't one of those shows where the kids don't age."
Bob's birthday happens one week later. - Conversed: ???
- Deconstructed: Bob complains about the pain and agony of being a pre-teen forever.
- Reconstructed: Bob decides that he is perfectly okay with it and that he can enjoy the benefits of being a kid.
Back to Not Allowed to Grow Up.