The Problem of Time: Continuity and Age

or

How To Get A Headache Reading DEMON



As I wrote the joint history of Jason Blood and Etrigan for this site, I came across a problem. A vicious triangle asserted itself in the origins of my favorite character(s?) and certain others tied closely to him.

The problem is with Merlin, Jason and King Arthur himself. By all DC accounts, Merlin was already an aged man when he bound Etrigan and Jason together, after the fall of Camelot (which occurs after Arthur’s death). Jason, at the time of the bonding, cannot have been the same age as Merlin, who is usually depicted as being (physically, mind you) between 60-80 years old. Jason’s only 30 or thereabouts (again, physically).

Here’s the problem: In Books of Magic, Tim Hunter and that good old boy, the Phantom Stranger, go back in time and pop in on a young Merlin, only 12 or so. Jason appears too, equally young... or at least only a few years younger, not thirty or so. Their ages are comparable. Merlin even introduces "Iason" as one he "loves as a brother."

What’s going on here? Assuming Jason and Merlin are both about twelve, and Jason is, let’s say, thirty, when he is bound to the demon, Merlin somehow gains about thirty to fifty years somewhere along the intervening twenty years. Hmmm. Problem.

(Actually, the problem here is with Books of Magic. This instant, written by Gaiman, is the only scene I’ve ever heard or read of where Jason and Merlin are comparable ages or knew each other as children. It is very tempting right now to simply dismiss this as out of continuity, say that Neil Gaiman didn’t do his homework, and move on to bigger and better things.

But a) I love Neil Gaiman and his writing, b) I love the scene and the idea of Iason and Merlin as children together (the whole ‘brother’ irony thing), and c) I don’t give up that easily. So here I am, trying to explain this whole thing away.)

Okay, here goes my rationale. I don’t think DC has ever addressed Merlin’s peculiar form of aging, other than placing him firmly in the immortal category. But many non-comic related legends of Merlin the Magician mention him as ‘living backwards in time’ (growing younger as time goes on) or otherwise aging in a non-normal manner. Did you ever see Disney’s The Sword and The Stone? The part with Merlin as a time-traveler is not wholly whimsical... many of the myths regarding the enchanter suggest he journeyed to other times as well as places to garner his knowledge.

Henceforth. Merlin could have, sometime in the progress of his and Jason’s growing up, done some time travel on the side, or something. I mean, he is the greatest magician ever, right? Henceforth. Henceforth, there is no problem with his being twelve alongside Jason, then sixty when he cages Etrigan inside the thirty-year old Jason.

But we’re not out of the boiling water yet. Enter Artur Pendraegon (or Arthur), greatest king of England. Where does he fit into all this?

Merlin is also, by most accounts (not the comics but movies, myths, etc.) supposed to be old (again, sixty-ish) when he places the boy Arthur (legends vary here; some say he was younger, others say he was around seventeen) on the throne. Arthur grows to full manhood and enjoys a long reign over England, falling in battle around the age of sixty and passing to the Vale of Avalon. Thereafter, without Arthur’s hand to rule Camelot, the kingdom falls to the plots of Morgaine Le Fey. This is the battle that ends with Etrigan imprisoned inside Jason for the first time.

Soooo. Again, problem. Even assuming my above assumptions about Merlin’s unique style of aging, the situation is still wrong. Say Merlin is, again, sixty-ish, when he places Arthur on England’s throne. Jason would then have to be around thirty, maybe a few years younger. But then Arthur reigns for four or five decades, at the end of which Jason is same age, then bound to Etrigan?! Nope, doesn’t work.

Here’s what I think happened. Jason is born twenty to thirty years after Arthur assumes the throne,  making him the proper age for when Arthur dies and Camelot falls. Merlin is born about the same time, give or take, and grows up quietly... probably nowhere near the Court. (After all, nowhere does it say in Books of Magic that the scene takes place at Arthur’s keep.) When Merlin does eventually do his time-travel aging shtick, he gets to be sixty, then pops back to Arthur’s birth and subsequent youth to play his parts there as the aged magician, then sticks around for the rest of Arthur’s reign as the unaging Merlin, there to pull swords out of lakes and rabbits out of hats for the rest of the forty-year reign, until Arthur and Camelot’s death. During most of this time, while he’s advising Arthur, his younger self is growing up somewhere else in England along with Jason. Magic lets you get away with time paradoxes like that.

So, this makes him the right age to slap Etrigan into Jason’s body at the end of Camelot. This raises some interesting questions: At what point does Merlin leave off his youth and best bud Jason to head into the wild blue yonder of time-travel? Does Jason ever wonder what happened to his friend? Does Jason ever even make the connection between the famed wizard of Arthur’s court and his friend? (Remember, in BoM¸ Jason calls him ‘Myrddin’--the Welsh variant of the name--not Merlin.) And what happens to Merlin after leaving childhood to change him? As a youth, he is somewhat condescending, true, but obviously does care for Iason as a friend--probably one of the few he has, with his childhood. But the Merlin we meet later seems to hardly care, or even notice, that he is dooming his once childhood friend to a literal eternity of torture and pain. He barely seems to register Jason as anything other than a cage to stick the Demon in. Hmmm.

Well, I congratulate you on making it this far through a long-winded and no doubt boring as hell ramble on the screwed up ages of comic-book characters, even in a universe where people already don’t age normally. Send comments or other rambles my way!




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Copyright Lady Dien 2000.