Just a Face and a Caption: Age Lift

The current image for Age Lift does not illustrate the trope at all. You might be thinking, "But everyone is aware of Hamlet!" However, coming from the perspective of someone who knows the premise of the play but has never watched it or read it, I see two problems with the image: 1. Not everyone knows how old the character is supposed to be. 2. When I first saw the image, I didn't even know is was from Hamlet. A good image illustrates the trope at a glance. Does anyone have a better suggestion?

Yeah, that's a textbook JAFAAC.

I don't even get it. Motion to pull.

Pulled.

Unpulled. Don't we usually get to seven or so before pulling it? You've got, like, 3-4.

Personally, I can kinda see the trope in it. Weak Keep Until Better Image Suggested.

It's pathetic.

Pull it. According to the page, he's not even an example.

Pull with extreme prejudice.

Okay, that's a ratio I'm more comfortable with. And since this is apparently Not An Example... guess I'll opt to be #6/7/I've lost count

I'm glad it was pulled. His face isn't telling me anything. Do we want a replacement? I don't know what we'd do for one.

I tend to think we'd need a parody or lampshade...not sure where we'd find a straight example that would make for a good pic.

EDIT: Are there any good depictions of Claudia at her canon age that we could compare to Kirsten Dunst's movie version?

edited 24th Apr '13 1:09:53 PM by Willbyr

Seeing how we have no idea what to do for this, I suggest locking the thread until someone comes up with a suggestion.

Previous thread.

What? No.

Let things run their course instead of being so hasty, for Pete's sake. This isn't TRS where we have no room for slightly stagnant topics.

edited 24th Apr '13 7:47:30 PM by ShadowHog

Here's a side-by-side comparison of an illustration of Professor Moriarty in "The Final Problem" and Andrew Scott as Jim Moriarty in Sherlock. The comparison (old, doddering college professor vs. young, snappy-dressing career criminal) might help illustrate the trope a bit better.

I like it. But could the image be lightened up just a tad?

But does Sherlock count as an "adapted work," since it's extremely clear that the Sherlock characters are not supposed to directly be the Conan Doyle characters?

To clarify, Sherlock and Elementary aren't, in my mind, so much adaptations as "new characters with the same names and a LOT of Mythology Gags." For that reason, I don't find Joan Watson of Elementary a Race Lift, because she, by definition, is not John Watson.

edited 29th Apr '13 1:36:05 PM by Leaper

Better?

And OK, I'd agree that Sherlock isn't a straight adaptation, but I still think it's fair to single Moriarty out as an example of this trope, since the rest of the cast are (in general) very close to their literary counterparts.

Though the characters may have been transplanted into a different setting, the premise of the series is still very much the same, and the fact that the producers felt the need to make Moriarty a younger man still shows this trope at work.

edited 29th Apr '13 5:45:33 PM by TheMightyHeptagon

I'd have to go back to the text, but did Holmes ever outright say how old Moriarty was? Or was that just the artist's interpretation of what little info he had? After all, one can be gaunt and such without being old.

I don't think Doyle ever explicitly wrote it, but Doyle and Paget (the original illustrator) actually worked together pretty closely, so it's likely that Doyle approved this in-text illustration of Moriarty.

I think the impression of Moriarty's age came more from the fact that he was written as a university professor in Victorian England—where (from what I understand, at least) most university professors were at least middle-aged, whereas Jim Moriarty in Sherlock is a twenty-something actor. And I know that when Alan Moore put Moriarty in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he explicitly had Kevin O'Neill draw him as at least in his late 50s (not canon, I know, but it shows what the general consensus of the fandom is).

edited 30th Apr '13 11:33:36 AM by TheMightyHeptagon

Edit:
Now that I've checked the text, Holmes actually says that Moriarty was a mathematical prodigy, and that he was offered a professorial position at the age of 21 after publishing a paper on the binomial theorem. He doesn't say how long ago this happened, though, and also mentions that he spent years at the university slowly turning to the dark side before he was eventually booted from the university and moved to London to begin building his criminal empire. If he's really the most powerful crimelord in Britain at the time "The Final Problem" starts, I'd hazard a guess that he's at least in his 50s when we're introduced to him.

Also, in the (very non-canon) film Young Sherlock Holmes, Moriarty is depicted as an adult when Holmes and Watson are still teenagers rooming together at boarding school. Again, I know it's a fan work (and the premise of it isn't exactly compatible with the books) but it still shows general fan consensus about Moriarty's relative age.

edited 30th Apr '13 11:48:12 AM by TheMightyHeptagon

Suggestion: Sophie Turner as Sansa Stark. In the book, she's 11 when the series begins. The character is aged in the TV adaptation for adult content and production reasons. (And plot; GRRM said in retrospect he would have had the characters start older). Just show a pic of her looking mature, then give it the caption: "In the book, she's 11."

(Missandei is an even better example: 9 years old when she first appears; played on HBO by 24 year old Nathalie Emmanuel. But she's less well known.)

Isn't it spoilerific? I've got yet to watch Sherlock, but I read somewhere (probably here on this wiki) that the identity Moriarty was a twist or something.

Now I have to go and bleach my brain. I must forget this image.

edited 7th May '13 8:44:16 AM by XFllo

That is textbook Just A Face And A Caption. It doesn't work for page images.

It's only a twist in the third episode. And not really a huge one—he only appears for about two minutes as Molly's boyfriend "Jim" before we find out that he's the Big Bad.