From 18 to 30 in one season..

[seasonsix]

I'm not sure if this bothers anyone else but it seems as soon as we got away from the high school and college setting Joss completely ignored the characters' ages. Granted, they've always been age unrealistic and have a lot more on their shoulders than most their age but come on. They just simply stop coming off like young people.

Sure, plenty of 21 year olds get married but not one person commenting on the fact that Xander and Anya were too young? Don't even get me started on Buffy's 21st birthday party. Not everyone drinks but they hardly mention it.

 

[EvilBuffy]

Well, I don't think Anya was too young. At least not all together. 😉 Could you elaborate a bit more on what was wrong with her birthday party?

 

[xaphania]

It never really bothered me in BtVS, but Cordelia's sudden aging from an 18-year-old to someone in her late twenties/early thirties over on AtS did.

Were we really meant to think that she was aged 18-22?

 

[Willow My Love]

Anya was over 1100 years old. Totally not too young... And we don't know that no one ever said that. They were happy about it.

 

[seasonsix]

I know what you're saying but their real lives, the non slaying activites, just matured far too quickly for me.

 

[EvilBuffy]

Well they had to grow up fast. Buffy especially. Being the slayer was about responsibility and when her mom died, she was forced to take even more.

If anything, as mentioned, Cordy out of the blue growing up threw me. Xander's character growth kind of irked me as well, it seemed like he was growing up, then not, then again, then not. He was just written however he needed to be for whatever episode. *sigh*

 

[Tome]

Only thing that bothered me was how Fred in Angel was supposed to be older than Cordy and Gunn. 😱

 

[brinkster130]

Only thing that bothered me was how Fred in Angel was supposed to be older than Cordy and Gunn. 😱

I always forget about that...How much older was she suppose to be? She was in grad school when she was sent to Pylea right and she had been there for five years so shouldn't she be almost 30?

 

[EvilBuffy]

I always forget about that...How much older was she suppose to be? She was in grad school when she was sent to Pylea right and she had been there for five years so shouldn't she be almost 30?

I always forget that too, but I think that's because they never told us how old she was when she went to grad school. The girl was a genius, maybe she went when she was younger. There was never anything solid so I always just put her in the 'somewhere near 25-30' group.

 

[Hale Caesar]

Buffy and the Scoobies grew up in season 1-4, in seasons 5-7 everyone is so much mature because Joss realizes if they were still growing up it would just be repeating the stories of they already told

 

[zobothehobo]

The aging here in season 6 didn't bother me all that much. I thought it felt pretty natural. But like other, Cordy's going from a late teen to late 20 year old, early 30 year old was like WOAH to me.

But one part that did bother me with ages on Buffy was the drinking... they totally ignored the drinking age. I believe in season 5, the gang is out at The Bronze and Dawn says something about the stamp on her hand and Xander says it's to prevent her from "boozing it up" and she says "only losers drink alcohol" and everyone looks around at each other and at their drinks awkwardly... and I'm like "oh please. Except for Giles, you should be 19 and 20."

 

[Willow My Love]

But Xander does make that comment that they couldn't get the booze for Giles because none of them were old enough.

 

[NY State of Mind]

Well i don't know...sure some things might be exaggerated but how is anybody supposed to act according to age? Many people act mature when their young and others that act immature when thier old......so I'm not sure that them acting responsible at 20 or so is so unrealistic especially when you live in certain conditions. And in my experience 21 or so is actually normal for people getting married especially in my family that is usually even younger than that half the time. Just saying from another perspective 🙂

 

[BuffyElevated]

It never really bothered me in BtVS, but Cordelia's sudden aging from an 18-year-old to someone in her late twenties/early thirties over on AtS did.

Were we really meant to think that she was aged 18-22?

YES... This is my opinion exactly. LOL I never really thought about it on BtVS, but the fact that Cordelia changed so drastically between Seasons 1 and 3 of "Angel" had me going "WTF?!"

 

[LadyLavinia]

I'm not sure if this bothers anyone else but it seems as soon as we got away from the high school and college setting Joss completely ignored the characters' ages. Granted, they've always been age unrealistic and have a lot more on their shoulders than most their age but come on. They just simply stop coming off like young people.

Sure, plenty of 21 year olds get married but not one person commenting on the fact that Xander and Anya were too young? Don't even get me started on Buffy's 21st birthday party. Not everyone drinks but they hardly mention it.

If Whedon had an episode about Buffy's 21st birthday, why would anyone accuse him of ignoring the characters' ages? The only ones who had solid jobs were Xander (as a construction worker) and Anya (at the Magic Box). Both Willow and Tara were still attending college and Buffy had left college, forcing her to accept a low paying job at the Doublemeat Palace.

So, what are you trying to say here?😕

It never really bothered me in BtVS, but Cordelia's sudden aging from an 18-year-old to someone in her late twenties/early thirties over on AtS did.

When was it stated on "ANGEL" that Cordelia was somewhere in her late twenties/early thirties? In which episode? And may I remind you that a good number of actors and actresses on both sides of the Atlantic had left school before graduating, in order to start a career in acting.

Xander's character growth kind of irked me as well, it seemed like he was growing up, then not, then again, then not. He was just written however he needed to be for whatever episode. *sigh*

I hate to tell you this, but the average adult - regardless of his/her real age - tend to project a disturbing mixture of mature and immature behavior. Perhaps humans don't like to admit this, but this mixture is quite normal.

 

[Professor Walsh]

But one part that did bother me with ages on Buffy was the drinking... they totally ignored the drinking age. I believe in season 5, the gang is out at The Bronze and Dawn says something about the stamp on her hand and Xander says it's to prevent her from "boozing it up" and she says "only losers drink alcohol" and everyone looks around at each other and at their drinks awkwardly... and I'm like "oh please. Except for Giles, you should be 19 and 20."

I never thought about that. Here, the legal drinking age is 18, so by 20 this scene would be entirely plausible. I know I felt so mature when I was nearly twenty and my fifteen years old sister came up north to spend Easter with me. I took her to the cinema ("Romeo&Juliet"), sneaked her into my favourite pub (serving her Coke, mind you) and generally felt as if the world lay at my feet.

 

[Washburne]

I hate to tell you this, but the average adult - regardless of his/her real age - tend to project a disturbing mixture of mature and immature behavior.

I usually say I move between ages 3 and 97 in my behavior. A lot easier to act silly now than when you cared about how people saw you.


About Cordelia in Angel

Spoiler

aren't the maturity she go through to do with her getting the visions?

Or am I remembering Birthday wrong? Or are they really mentioning her age and it's late 20´s? But yes, she did became a woman. The reason I love her so much in Angel.


As for the drinking scene and Dawn calling drinkers losers I didn't think about the age of the scoobies either. Probably for the same reason as miromurr. The looks the gang gave each other gave me the vibe of embarrassment and not that they thought Dawn was too young to understand. Might be totally wrong but how it felt to me.

 

[sosa lola]

But one part that did bother me with ages on Buffy was the drinking... they totally ignored the drinking age. I believe in season 5, the gang is out at The Bronze and Dawn says something about the stamp on her hand and Xander says it's to prevent her from "boozing it up" and she says "only losers drink alcohol" and everyone looks around at each other and at their drinks awkwardly... and I'm like "oh please. Except for Giles, you should be 19 and 20."

I'd say Giles and Riley, because Riley is supposed to be older than Buffy. I agree completely because the very next season Xander wanted to buy Giles alcohol but couldn't because he wasn't 21. Also, wasn't the Bronze that Anya, who was supposed to be 18, couldn't buy a beer without an ID? She was an 18 high school student, so 18 wasn't the legal age.

 

[Taake]

The speeded aging processes irritated me both on Buffy and especially for Cordelia on Angel. It's not very organic in the way of story telling the way things moved along though it appears mostly when you think about it, it's kind of seemless on the show in a way (mainly because the actors are by then so clearly not 19-21 in their real life ages)

 

[sisterofmercy]

I think the moment everyone aged massively was when Joyce died. Buffy had to adopt a new parental role, and then with her death everyone else had to step in and be responsible for each other and for protecting Dawn. Whilst I do think it seemed a bit extreme, I think it's not entirely unreasonable for them to act in a more mature fashion.