Old Master / Literature

• There are several of these in Atharon. To even survive in that world, a person has to be a master of something, whether a fighting skill or carpentry (so you're hard to replace). Some of them work as a teachers for the new generation.
• The Belgariad: Belgarath, sure he looks like a scruffy old vagabond, but he's also 7000 years old and barring The Chosen One, he's the single most powerful sorcerer EVER. As in, once, he got annoyed with a hammer and threw it away. Up, up, and away. Into space. That was several thousand years before the story, and apparently it's still going. The Big Bad's followers consider him to be Satan and need a change of underwear at the mention of his name.
  • The other Disciples of Aldur are no slouches either. Or even the Disciples of Torak - Ctuchik managed to go toe to toe with the aforementioned Belgarath and gave him what the prequel reveals to have been the toughest fight in his entire life. No one with that much power and age (and thus knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom) should be underestimated.
• By some of the later books which are set during his retirement from front line duty, Ciaphas Cain (HERO OF THE IMPERIUM) becomes this to his cadets despite his body not being that physically old due to rejuvenat treatments. He combines unconventional thinking with the Badass martial skills that saw him survive tangling with some of the Imperium's worst enemies for decades.
• Patera Silk, the protagonist of Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun, learns swordsmanship from Master Xiphias, who is one of these. His name is derived from a species of swordfish.
• The Chronicles of Dorsa: Joslyn was taught the art of the sword-master by her Ku-sai (teacher), an older man who's portrayed like a stereotypical East Asian sage.
• Conan the Barbarian by Robert E. Howard: In "The Tower of the Elephant" Conan meets Taurus, whom he has heard of as "the prince of thieves." Taurus, liking his spirit, takes him along and immediately instructs him.
  "You made one mistake," said Conan.
  Taurus' eyes flashed angrily.
  "I? I, a mistake? Impossible!"
  "You should have dragged the body into the bushes."
  "Said the novice to the master of the art. They will not change the guard until past midnight. Should any come searching for him now, and find his body, they would flee at once to Yara, bellowing the news, and give us time to escape. Were they not to find it, they'd go beating up the bushes and catch us like rats in a trap."
• In The Destroyer series of novels, 80 year old (at the start of the book series - which has been ongoing for almost 50 years now) tiny Chiun is quite literally, the most dangerous man in the world. If he wants you dead, you might as well shoot yourself.
• Discworld:
  • Cohen the Barbarian, the greatest (and oldest) barbarian hero in the world. Those who underestimate him because of his age don't realize that living to be over seventy in a dangerous profession such as barbarian heroism means he's good at it. The book Interesting Times introduces the Silver Horde, a group consisting of Cohen and some of his fellow elderly barbarians, all of whom are still incredibly dangerous (despite one of them being in a wheelchair). The seven of them conquer a continent roughly analogous to China. This is shown to be a mix of being so experienced that they don't have to be fast to win and being masters of Combat Pragmatism (though this is later shown to have some limits - especially when forced into a battle of attrition. They can slaughter plenty of Mooks, but they get tired much faster than they used to).
    Six Beneficient Winds: But ... they're so old!
    Mr Saveloy: Indeed, and of course, this is true. They are very old barbarian heroes.
    Six Beneficient Winds: *as the penny starts to drop* Oh, my...
    Mr Saveloy: That's right. They've had a lifetime's experience of not dying. They've become very good at it...
    [Saveloy could see it dawning in the fat man's eyes]
  • Lu-Tze, first appeared in Small Gods, but really got to strut his stuff in Thief of Time. And Lu-Tze mastered the technique (mentioned with Cohen earlier) of letting his reputation precede him: particularly Rule #1. Because, although he rarely uses it, Lu-Tze has the capability to knock even the personification of Time for a loop.
    Rule #1: Do not act incautiously when confronting little bald wrinkly smiling men.
  • On another branch is Esmerelda 'Granny' Weatherwax. What she lacks in physical skills (which is less than you might think - she's deadly with a hatpin), she more than makes up for in her knowledge of Discworld psychology (or "headology", as she puts it). She is no less a master of reputation than Cohen or Lu-Tze, and reputation and psychology are her primary weapons. Like Lu-Tze, everyone questions whether she is a real witch, but she has shown the ability (if not the eagerness) to perform very powerful magic when she really needs it. In fact, the main cited reason she doesn't use it is because she knows how good she'd be at it. When she does use magic, it tends to be subtly and turning an enemy's strengths against them - such as when she casually turns a very powerful Voodoo practitioner's doll against her by sticking her hand in a torch, making the effect travel down the link to the doll, which burns up. As the the other witch says, dazed, Lily Weatherwax (Esme's apparently more powerful older sister) spent ten years trying to overpower her - Esme didn't even have to sweat. That being said, when raw power is required, she's more than capable. Such as when she moved the entire kingdom of Lancre forward in time 15 years (in Wyrd Sisters).
  • Granny's grandmother, Alison Weatherwax, is implied to have been as powerful, if not more so - when she was even older than Granny at the time, she went out to Uberwald and encountered the previous Count Magpyr. He was a very old master vampire, the stronger and subtly smarter uncle of the very powerful and dangerously intelligent Count Magpyr of Carpe Jugulum. She beat him in a fair fight and rammed a stake through his heart. She was 75. Even Granny is impressed by that, and filled with a certain family pride, implying that he'd have been a far harder opponent than the younger Count. For context, he nearly destroyed her, both physically and mentally, and she had to resort to putting her mind into her own blood, let the entire clan of vampires drink it, tricking them into inviting her in. As she says with some satisfaction - "I ain't been vampired. You've been Weatherwaxed." While brilliant, she admitted she was forced to do it because she couldn't beat him in a straight fight, and she was also backed up by a vengeful phoenix and a priest who'd just become a Badass Preacher. With that in mind, Alison's feat is all the more impressive.
  • Pretty much any of the wizards (except maybe the Bursar), because while they appear to be old, fat, and a maybe slightly demented, they've all gotten old and fat while surviving the unbridled ambitions of both their companions of age, and much younger, fitter wizards. Ridcully is a particular example, having proved to be essentially unkillable (thus ending the habit of Klingon Promotion), as well as being a Boisterous Bruiser who does things like go three rounds bare-knuckle boxing with trolls (who are made of rock).
• The Dresden Files has a plethora of these, both human and non-human.
  • The seven Senior Council of Wizards are generally the strongest and eldest members of the group, usual ascension minimum age being near their 200s. Here is a quick rundown of some of their strengths.
    • The leader, Arthur Langtry, is called the Merlin and is the strongest of the lot. A master of defensive magics, he once created a barrier ward on the fly to hold back an entire court of evil vampires and monsters from beyond the universe. The most impressive aspect is the wards need to be grounded by some threshold, like the one guarding a home. Lacking one means the ward's strength is reduced greatly. So, even without that essential quality to make a good ward, he maintains one against a threat that includes multiple beings that successfully faked godhood for thousands of years through raw power leading an army of monsters and Eldritch Abominations.
    • Ebenezer McCoy is one of the youngest members. He once nearly killed a vampire by just clutching his fist and Force-choking her with no effort on his part. He destroys enemy bases by dropping old satellites orbiting in space on them. Professional smartass Harry Dresden addresses him as, "sir". When the two end up in a duel, a much more battle-hardened Dresden, now the nigh superhumanly strong and resilient Winter Knight, a One-Man Army who's killed two minor-league Physical Gods in close combat and undergone Training from Hell from Mab herself, is under no illusions that even under what are - for him - ideal conditions and with Ebenezar not really wanting the fight, he's going to get his ass beaten. And does. Since he was just stalling for time, it worked out anyway.
    • Ancient Mai, a miniature senior citizen type, has an incredibly sharp intellect and is frighteningly good at deucing things. Regarding her magical abilities, what we know is limited, but when the hero Harry Dresden sees her escort of battle-hardened Wardens, magical soldiers trained to kill other mages and dark things, one is holding her umbrella. She has also made guardian statues able to detect dark magic.
    • Joseph "Injun Joe" Listens-to-Winds is a Native American shaman, best healer in the Council, regularly goes back to med school every ten years to see what new things have come about, and is a master of shapeshifting, having once sent a walking Physical God running in fear of its destruction after a shapeshifting battle. This is not even the most impressive feat he pulls off in the series.
  • Odin, the Norse God, is still alive and well in the Dresden-verse. While not as powerful as he once was, his previous students include Myrrdin Emrys, aka the Original Merlin from 1,000 years back. A powerful and dangerous man, not above priming Harry and setting him on a course of action without ever seeming to be anything but friendly and respectful.
  • Skaldi Skjeldson is one of Odin's Einherjar. He has been around for roughly 2,000 years. While he may look like a middle aged man, he is a skilled combat fighter. When one of Harry's friends, Murphy, a genuine martial arts master, trains against him, Skaldi never loses. At the last moment before Skaldi would lose, he pulls out some new move or trick to secure a victory.
  • Regarding the villains, there's Nicodemus Archleone, leader of the Denarians. 2000 plus years old, we rarely see much of his Fallen, Anduriel, much less of his abilities - all the other Denarians transform in some way. The only visibly odd thing about Nicodemus is that his shadow sometimes takes on a life of its own, and Dresden admits that while all the other Denarians whip their Fallen and powers out all over the place, having fought Nicodemus twice he still barely knows anything about what Anduriel can do, other than occasionally turning into wings and chauffeuring Nicodemus around. He also explicitly notes that this is because Nicodemus is so dangerous that he's never actually had to resort to using Anduriel. While the fact he's got Judas' noose as a tie (and thus has a Healing Factor that would make Wolverine blush except when someone a.k.a. Harry decides to strangle him with it) helps, he's also a Master Swordsman who only feels threatened by Shiro, who's explicitly to swordsmanship what Mozart was to music. When he finally does have to resort to Anduriel in combat, he's able to take on both Michael, Knight of the Cross, a Master Swordsman wielding Amoracchius a.k.a. freaking Excalibur, and Harry simultaneously for a fair while, despite being at his psychologically most vulnerable, ever. While he's eventually forced to cut and run, it's impressive as hell.
  • The Archive, though not the current possessor - Ivy is a small child when first introduced, and into her late teens by the most recent book. The Archive, meanwhile, is the entire collected written knowledge of humanity over the last five thousand years. When in an environment explicitly designed to make her vulnerable, including cutting off the supply of magic to the area and trapping her there, she casually vaporises a Denarian with a single spell, and takes on about a dozen at once, with Harry awestruck at the sheer precision and magical skill at work. The only one who provides a remote challenge is Tessa, also an example, only being a little younger than Nicodemus (her husband) and a powerful practitioner of magic in her own right - and by 'challenge' we mean, 'has to actually pay attention to her'. This is even more impressive given that magical stamina and strength are heavily tied to age - and for all her ancient knowledge, physically Ivy is twelve. Harry later explicitly states that if it hadn't been for the magic trap, she'd have eaten the Denarians alive, and that the Council's assessment of her as being on par with the Winter and Summer Ladies, minor-league Physical Gods, is a significant underestimate.
• Drugstore in Another World deconstructs this. Even if you retain all your mental faculties and experience, old age can seriously hamper your body's attempts to do anything with it. The carpenters who build the titular store are very skilled but struggle due to lift boards and use tools because of their advanced age.
• In Emergence, by David R. Palmer, the character referred to by the narrator as "Teacher" or "Master" (depending on context. Name is given as Soo Kim McDivott) plays this role for the narrator and several other characters.
• Mazer Rackham in Ender's Game, hero of the second Bug War and Ender's trainer in the third one. According to the prequel novels, he was also key in stopping the First Invasion, while still a member of the New Zealand SAS. Interestingly, the novels slightly deconstruct his greatness, showing that he failed his admittance test into the Mobile Operations Police (a multinational task force).
• Gangsta Granny: The Granny can swim up pipes and abseil down skyscrapers.
• Harry Potter:
  • Dumbledore is clearly a prime example. He's incredibly old, but most people speak of him in complete awe. In the fifth book we probably get the best view of his power when he takes down three ministry officials (with a little help) and then battles Voldemort to a draw after restraining some half a dozen Death Eaters. This is likely due to the fact that in the wizarding world knowledge actually equals power and Dumbledore has had plenty of training time.
  • Some of the other teachers at Hogwarts qualify. Flitwick, it's mentioned in the second book, is an old duelling champion. McGonagall is powerful enough to enchant the school itself to come to life and use it as a weapon. She, Slughorn and Shacklebolt duel Voldemort in the final book. Naturally, they are also masters in their respective fields - or they wouldn't be teachers.
    McGonagall: We teachers are rather good at magic, you know.
  • Another example is (probably) Augusta Longbottom. We never actually hear what she's a master of, but she's incredibly powerful.
• From the Honor Harrington novella From The Highlands, Master Robert Tye has a well-earned reputation as a dangerous martial artist, which in one case allows him to casually avoid a genetically engineered Super-Soldier trying to kill him.
• Bodger from The Incredible Journey is a goofy, half-blind old bull terrier whose goal in life seems to be to mooch as much love and food from humans as possible. He is also a dog fighting veteran and can still beat up other dogs when he needs to.
• The titular character of The Iron Teeth. Don't let his age fool you. Blacknail has learned not to mess with his master Saeter. The old scout is still a force to be reckoned with.
• Kaa in The Jungle Book. The oldest creature in the jungle, Kaa offers sage advice to those who seek it, and painful, suffocating death to those who cross him. Or happen to be near him when he is hungry. He doesn't discriminate that much.
• The Last of the Renshai:
  • Colbey Calistinsson trilogy. Never mind that he is 67, in an era where people seldom lived to 40. He was perfectly calm about taking out a group of 15, training a 16-year-old girl in the art of the sword, fighting a group of 100 with only Santagithi to help him, and an army of 10000 quaracks, by himself.
  • The Renshai race, which Colbey was a part of, almost never lived to the age of 25.
  • Santagithi is also a very competent swordsman, at the age of 58, waiting until the end of the battle to die, because he tripped on a rock.
• Druss from David Gemmell's first published novel, Legend, is an unusually blunt variant of this trope. Sixty-years-old, built like a bull, and quite capable of single-handedly slaughtering a dozen men half his age. His presence, and wisdom, inspire the younger characters to heroism; after all, he is a living legend. Meanwhile, he's trying to pretend he's not half-dead from exhaustion, agonised by arthritis, and determined to avoid senility through battle.
• Gandalf from The Lord of the Rings. Théoden also kicks some serious ass.
• In the The Lost Fleet series of books by John Hemry, Captain John Geary has spent a century in suspended animation while his reputation became Shrouded in Myth... and everyone else forgot effective naval tactics in favor of simply charging at the enemy. Which means once he takes command, forces that follow his orders tend to win amazingly one-sided victories unless ridiculously outnumbered — then they just win. The "forgot" part comes from the fact that such knowledge comes partly from experience and partly from being passed on by experienced fleet commanders. Unfortunately, after a century of constant warfare, all those officers were killed before passing on their experience. Thus, being able to accurately plan a fleet action, accounting for the speed-of-light time lag (basically, fight in 4 dimensions), is a lost art. He still faces a lot of opposition to his tactics from the more hardcore ship commanders, especially when the legendary "Fighting" Falco comes aboard, who claims that "fighting spirit" is enough to win battles. To their credit, the Syndics start to pick up on Geary's tactics, although they are still amateurs at it. The "old" part is averted here thanks to Geary spending the century on ice. He definitely feels out of place, but he's hardly an old man. On the other hands, due to heavy attrition, most fleet officers even in command positions are way younger than him.
• Drona of The Mahabharata. He was the mentor to the Pandavas, and taught Arjuna, the world's greatest archer, nearly everything he knew. He has access to a number of mantras and esoteric combat techniques no one else knows. When the civil war happens, Drona is 85 and still nearly invincible.
• In Please Don't Tell My Parents I'm a Supervillain, Master Scorpion is the old master. Ray might be one of the first people to impress him in a very long time, and he still gets curb-stomped.
  Master Scorpion: I want you, boy. One year. Train under me for one year, and, when we are finished, you will humiliate Joe the Fist. You will fight him, and he will look like the child.
  Reviled: It was an honor to match myself against the Master, but I am not looking for a teacher right now.
  Master Scorpion: [grinning] I can wait. There are limits to what you can teach yourself. Sooner rather than later, you will come to me.
• Eda Bell, one of the two teachers of hand-to-hand combat in Tamora Pierce's Protector of the Small books says something to the effect of "I may look like someone's grandmother, but some grandchildren require more raising than others."
• The Reynard Cycle: Isengrim has become one of these by Defender of the Crown. He wipes the floor with three skilled duelists who initially scoff at the idea of three against one.
• A Song of Ice and Fire:
  • Ser Barristan Selmy is the last living member of King Aerys' old Kingsguard, if you leave Jaime Lannister out of the count, and can easily defeat younger adversaries.
  • Syrio Forel, the First Sword of Braavos, who takes on several Mooks to protect Arya while she escapes, and bludgeons them to death with a wooden sword. He dies a few minutes later to a knight, though. In his defense, the knight was wearing armor and he was aware that the fight was hopeless.
  • In the prequel series Fire & Blood, Samgood of Sour Hill, also known as Sour Sam, was a sixty-three year old hedge knight before he ascended to become a Kingsguard to Jaehaerys Targeryen. He was gaunt, bald, nearly toothless, and moved faster than men half his age, his skills honed by a lifetime of battle.
• Star Wars Legends:
  • Wedge Antilles qualifies by the end of his career, having served in and survived three galactic wars, fighting in his final pitched battle before semi-retirement aged sixty one, shooting down one of his successors as Rogue Leader in the process.
  • Both Luke and his wife Mara Jade qualify for this later on, as do many of Luke's initial Jedi students who survived years of galactic conflict.
• The Lance Lord from Gemmell's Stones of Power series.
• There are several of these in Unique, but Helga takes first place. She decides to step up her grandson's training partway through the book. Now Jan gets woken up in the morning by a loud scream and a knife thrown at him. Followed by a nice big breakfast.
• Subverted in The Wise Man's Fear where Shehyn, the elderly teacher of an order of legendary fighters, battles one of her much younger students, the student much more energetic vs Shehyn's measured movements - and Shehyn loses. Kvothe wonders if this means the one who beat her is the leader now, which the member he's talking to finds amusing. Not only would it be ridiculous to base their leadership off of who wins a single fight, but Shehyn is very old. It's not realistic to expect her to always beat someone with much more energy. Of course, Shehyn is still extremely good.