History Main / ImprobableAge

For characters whose age seems inappropriate given their ''maturity'' (rather than competence), see WiseBeyondTheirYears. If the people running a society are improbably young, see TeenageWasteland, though if only one is, it's AChildShallLeadThem. If the ''character'' is of an appropriate age but the ''actor'' is too young, it's UnderageCasting. Can be easily [[HandWave handwaved]] by making a character OlderThanTheyLook, or even ReallySevenHundredYearsOld. May lead to ChildSoldiers. Contrast CompetenceZone.

** Jon Snow is elected Lord Commander of the Night's Watch at 17 years old.

* ''VideoGame/XenobladeChronicles3'': Due to the fact that [[BornAsAnAdult everyone is born at ten years old]] and [[YourDaysAreNumbered dies ten years later]], some of the character timelines end up looking a little improbable. Teach's tragic backstory sounds more like something you would expect from a forty year-old veteran, not a nineteen year-old man, even if he has been serving in active duty for nine years. Segiri is even worse, as she is physically ''twelve'', but talks about how she's been part of the SecretPolice and her sister disappeared a long time ago. Colony 0's timeline is so confusing that one common theory is that [[spoiler:they are aware of the cycle of reincarnation, so they know they've been doing their jobs for centuries]].

** "E Pluribus Wiggum" has Ralph Wiggum running for the US presidency even though the minimum age is 35 years and he never went to electoral college. Lazily explained with Bart explaining that under the Bush administration, the U.S. Constitution has been rendered meaningless.

** The little girl Sunny trumps all of them. Introduced in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' the daughter of Olga is a genius level intellect capable of tinkering with advanced computer technology and robotics on par with the level of Otacon, Snake's resident technology expert, at 7 years old. Things are hardly much better in ''Metal Gear Rising'', where at age 11 she is the employee manager of a space exploration corporation that designs highly advanced aircraft technology, and in addition she has made several aircraft designs of her own while working for the company. Raiden even gets to ride around in an experimental aircraft that she personally designed and helped build that can fly at Mach 30.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' deliberately goes the opposite direction with 100+-year-old sniper "The End." In one of the series famous NoFourthWall tricks, you can cause him to die of old age by adjusting your system clock.

** A particularly extreme example is Poppy in ''Videogame/PokemonScarletAndViolet'', who's a member of the EliteFour despite the fact that she looks and acts like a pre-schooler.

* ''Series/{{Castle}}'': Kate Beckett is established to be 27 or 28 at the start of the series. While it's possible to be commissioned straight to detective on your 21st birthday, Beckett mentioned she went to patrol first which requires 18 months before promotion to the lowest grade of detective. This means she got to leading a mid-town Manhattan precinct homicide squad in 4-5 years. There's simply no feasible career path for that to happen.

* Robert Jordan loved this and used it constantly in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the main character Rand al'Thor becomes the leader of several countries by his early 20s, Mat Cauthon is hailed as one of the greatest military leaders of all time, and Perrin Aybara leads his people in ridding his town of Trollocs and Whitecloaks, and has also become a great military leader, both being born weeks only weeks after Rand. Egwene al'Vere is about 20 and [[spoiler:is leading three hundred Aes Sedai in revolt of the White Tower, and has essentially conquered the White Tower, something not even legendary general Artur Hawkwing accomplished]], by the time you meet Tuon, the 20-year-old heir of the Seanchan Empire and MagnificentBastard, you're not the least bit shocked.

* In ''Literature/TheBartimaeusTrilogy'', Nathaniel is barely 14 when he is put in charge of the Internal Affairs division of the British government, and is held single-handedly responsible for matters of national security. He also buys himself a luxurious townhouse at the same age, and lives on his own.

* Robert Jordan loved this and used it constantly in ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'', the main character Rand al'Thor becomes the leader of several countries by his early 20s, Mat Cauthon is hailed as one of the greatest military leaders of all time, and Perrin Aybara leads his people in ridding his town of Trollocs and Whitecloaks, and has also become a great military leader, both being born weeks only weeks after Rand. Egwene al'Vere is about 20 and [[spoiler:is leading three hundred Aes Sedai in revolt of the White Tower, and has essentially conquered the White Tower, something not even legendary general Artur Hawkwing accomplished]], by the time you meet Tuon, the 20-year-old heir of the Seanchan Empire and MagnificentBastard you're not the least bit shocked.

** Legend has it that Shapur II of Persia (309-379) was crowned while still in his mother's womb.
** King Tutankhamen, better known as King Tut, became pharaoh at the age of nine. He ruled for around nine more years before dying.

In some cases, an age that is improbable at first glance may actually be TruthInTelevision. In ages past, life expectancy was shorter and people ''needed'' to be capable at a younger age; in fact, studies seem to indicate that adolescence is a ''[[ValuesDissonance modern creation]]''. This has produced a very curious effect where the longer humans live, the longer the age gap of competence tends to widen. It also must be noted that many of the examples below occur in violent settings; people growing up in a warlike environment have no choice but to adapt and learn to survive, and the faster the better. It's a common problem in societies with inherited positions of authority, although usually some [[EvilVizier adult regent]] would be appointed until the heir comes of age.

* The crew of ''Literature/{{Galactiquest}}'''s ''Celestion-5'' are making the first trip to Neptune despite at least half of the crew being under 20. Their [[spoiler:[[SixthRanger eighth member]]]] takes this further, being [[spoiler:[[ReallySeventeenYearsOld 15 years old]] when he first joins]].

** Mr. Burns' age? "It has four digits..."

** The trope is is occasionally deconstructed; Athena is skilled legally but her lack of emotional maturity means it's fairly easy to bully her into a breakdown in court, and Sebastian Debeste is something of a doofus who's in ''way'' over his head. [[spoiler:And the only reason Sebastian passed his classes and the bar so young is because his father bribed his teachers to give him good grades.]]

* [[https://youtu.be/QDo6pWoskjA?t=30 This Internet ad]] for the anti-socialist book series ''The Tuttle Twins'' has a preteen boy (who goes by the name of "Vlad") reading the works of Creator/KarlMarx, which implies a very high reading level for someone so young.

** 8-year-old Tails is a ChildProdigy scientist and inventor. He [[InvisibleParents has no know parents]], [[MinorLivingAlone lives alone]], and has been living along prior to meeting Sonic.

** Indeed, barring Eggman (an old man) and Shadow (who as mentioned above was in stasis for a few decades), most of the characters in the games are almost all in their mid-to-late teens, and a few are even younger. In fact, assume they're around 15 if you don't see them here: Charmy and Cream (6), Marine (7), Tails (8), Amy (12), Sonic (15), Knuckles (16), Rouge and Big (18), Vector (20), and Vanilla (unknown, mother of Cream). And almost every last one of these guys has contributed to saving the world at least twice, with the exception of Marine, who only showed up in ''[[VideoGame/SonicRushSeries Sonic Rush Adventure]]'', and Vanilla, who doesn't really do much. Especially Tails, who has been absent from a grand total of two games since his first appearance. Most of these ages at least make some sense in the context of their first appearances, but the idea that they haven't aged at all over the course of the series is, er... [[ComicBookTime questionable.]]

** In ''Literature/PrinceCaspian'''s titular prince also ascends the throne at an extremely young age. He's just said to be the same age as Peter, who is still a teenager at this point. The BBC adaptation made him even younger (the actor, Jean Marc Perret, was 14), but the film version aged him up to be vaguely late teens or twenty-something (Creator/BenBarnes was 26).

** Rachel Dawes (played by then-late twentysomethings Creator/KatieHolmes and Creator/MaggieGyllenhaal) looks way too young for her prominent position as assistant district attorney of Gotham.

* ''Film/Annihilation2018'' Has the main character Lena (played by Creator/NataliePortman) as a [=PhD=] teaching Microbiology in a university in her early to mid 30s. While this is not unreasonable (the average age of a [=PhD=] grad is 33 years old), she also spent about 6 years as a grunt in the Army before ''starting'' to go to school.

* In ''Film/SupermanReturns'', 23-year-old Creator/KateBosworth plays Lois Lane, who already has a Pulitzer and over five years of tenure at the Daily Planet (Superman/Clark was away from Earth for five years, and when he first started working there, Lois was a veteran, so the number is certainly closer to ten years), in addition to a kid. In contrast, Creator/MargotKidder was 30 when [[Film/{{Superman}} she first played Lois Lane]].

* {{Defied}} in ''Fanfic/AllAmericanGirl''. When a number of human soldiers are conducting an interrogation of armed terrorists, Princess Celestia transforms herself into a human female soldier to secretly participate in the interrogation. The other soldiers point out that her human form is a little too young for her chosen rank (Lieutenant Commander) and advise her to transmogrify her uniform into that of an Ensign.