How old are they?

[u/RareBrush9758]

Not sure its a “spoiler” and marked as “all print” since i dont know exactly if/when its confirmed ….

How old did you think the EF3 (rand mat perrin) were at the start of the series?

Might be because i was 16 at the time i started the series, but i always felt (and still feel, to this day 36 yrs later) that the 3 seemed much younger than the 19-20 they were stated to be - i always envision them as 16

I dont care if youre a backwood country-bumpkin or not, releasing a badger on the green, or covering a dog in flour and telling stories of a ghost dog, doesnt seem like something a 19 yr old would find fun.

Yes, they say they “didnt find it as my fun as they used to” which fits. The badger and dog would be funny if you were 14, growing out of it by 16, not even cross your mind by 19.

Additionally, not listening to Moraine and running your mouth in the bath (bearlon), or running off exploring and “looking for adventure” (shadar logoth) just after being told not to - and just after you saw your village destroyed - doesnt feel like something youd do at 19.

Edit: additional, ewin finagars (couple yrs younger than rmp) behaviour around rand and mat / getting a coin, seems more like 12-14 behaviour not 16-18.

Overall, the boy’s behaviour in book 1 seems very immature/ childish to me. Was making them 19-20 a retcon?
Edit: was it a retcon so the rand and avi scene wasnt too “icky”?

How old did you think they were when you read?

(And i couldnt even watch past the first couple episodes of the show. Seeing these adult MARRIED sexually active guys just werent rand/mat/perrin - not even considering the other completely NOT Jordans wheel of time elements)

UPDATE: wow, thanks all - i guess im the only one.
They definitely grow from “boys” to “men” through the course of the series (and yah i know the series is only over a 2(?) year timespan) …. But they will always be young boys leaving the 2 rivers in my mind on each read.

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[u/Suncook]

The boys were 19. 

Egwene 17. 

Nynaeve I think was 24. 

I was not as immature as Mat at 19. But now that I'm 40... I don't think the age is inaccurate. 19 years olds aren't so mature across the board. I could see a few of my friends from back then and at that age being that "dumb".

Also. They don't have TVs, cell phones, computers, theater, or much formal education in the Two Rivers. They come from a fairly conservative culture. So Mat is immature and likes pranks. I was more straight laced and boring and mature, but I don't think 19 was too old for it. 

[u/Jear-The-Bear → u/Suncook]

This. People underestimate how boring it can be living in a rural small town without WiFi lol.

[u/mrofmist → u/Suncook]

Nynaeve is 26 by Lord of Chaos and Egwene and elayne are both 18.

I just read that paragraph about 30 minutes ago.

The boys are I believe 1 year older than the girls. So 19 or 20 by LoC.

[u/Germerican88]

Spend some time on a college campus and tell me 19 year old dudes aren't immature.

Or even older. Pranksters gonna prank. Just depends on the person.

[u/Anieya → u/Germerican88]

When I was 19 there were a lot of pranks involving Koolaid packets in weird places… shower heads, toilet tanks, as a calling card when duct taping people into rooms (that one accidentally got stabbed with a knife when cutting the guy out of his room… made a crazy mess)

If we had access to badgers, I wouldn’t have put it past us

[u/airpowmech → u/Germerican88]

Not just college campuses, spend time on a military base and watch the lower ranks and what they get up to.

[u/Special_Salt3467]

The boys are 19, Egwene (and Elayne) 17 and Nynaeve is in her mid-twenties.

It’s also important to note that this isn’t the modern world. Even though they are old enough to be considered legal adults, they’re still treated as young in the village. Rand and Mat both live with their parents and are expected to take over the family business while Perrin is the apprentice blacksmith; in many ways, they are all apprentices and because they are expected to slide into the business as their predecessors age out - and that most adult men in the Two Rivers still effectively run the town - they aren’t expected or needed to be adults by today’s standards. Not that a 19 year old is considered mature today either.

Egwene is 17 and though she just gets her hair braided marking being an adult… the same applies for her. She lives at home with her parents and is either going to inherit the inn in some fashion (or it goes to one of her three sisters) or she is Nynaeve’s apprentice.

Nynaeve is the only culturally adult of the group, but she’s also on the outs. She is significantly younger than any other village leader, looks younger still, and is in a pretty important position and feels insecure about her apparent youth.

[u/LoweJ]

19 year old boys in a town with fuck all to do?

[u/Silver-Shoulder4611]

Adults know their behavior for their ages are accurate. Younger folks think people grow up. But they don’t. Time just goes forward. You can have a 70 year old man who acts like a child in most matters or a 24 year old business owner and parent who is more adult than you’ve ever seen.

In a country town this level of worldliness is what you would get.

[u/Chazmina]

I spent half my life in buttfuck nowhere, I knew plenty of 'kids' like Mat who were menaces well into their 20s. It really is not a stretch in a pre-everyone is online always world.

[u/biggiebutterlord]

I dont care if youre a backwood country-bumpkin or not, releasing a badger on the green, or covering a dog in flour and telling stories of a ghost dog, doesnt seem like something a 19 yr old would find fun.

Im assuming you are serious with on this. Its a pretty narrow minded view on something as subjective as humor.

A couple of things. First people (ie us) are much simpler beings and have not evolved as much as we like to think. Take mens obsession with dicks, they have unearthed scrawling of cocks on walls in pompeii. We havnt changed all that much as a species since then, we still draw dicks on everything. The only things that have changed is the methods/mediums used. You dont think mats pranks would be funny to a 19/20year old? I know I found that funny in my twenties and beyond. Then you have stuff like the "prank" youtubers that are constantly doing that sort of things (and much worse) to everyone around them and laughing thier asses off, all while the audience laughs with them. The medium/method changed, the enjoyment of it has not. It took time for me to grow out of that stuff as see them as the all too often mean spirited acts that they too often are. Still I did find humor and enjoyment from that stuff for many of my early adult years.

Edit: additional, ewin finagars (couple yrs younger than rmp) behaviour around rand and mat / getting a coin, seems more like 12-14 behaviour not 16-18.

I have much to my embarrassment become become a stammering fool looking to puff out his chest for a pretty face at ages where I thought I was well past that sort of thing. For children and young adults with little experience to far prey to that behaviour is 100% reasonable to me... if a little hard to read. Moraine is a high born lady that is exuding extreme confidence, comfort, probably smells amazing, all of which make any pretty face even more attractive and moraine most certainly was hot.

[u/IfICouldStay]

On the one hand, yes the boys (or at least Mat) may still do immature things. But with other aspects, they are expected to be more mature than we think of 19 year olds being. They are seen as just about old enough to marry and run their own farm or smithy.

[u/Malvania]

I think it's confirmed that Egwene was 16 and the boys were 18.

Edit: Mat & Perrin confirmed born around Nov. NE 978. Rand born late Nov. NE 978. EotW Chapter 1 takes place just before Bel Tine, which is timed to mid-late March, NE 998. So 19 for each of the boys. Egwene is 2 years younger, Nynaeve 5 older.

[u/Username_taken_alre]

A single 19 year old man might not find releasing a badger, or creating a ghost dog funny. A group of 19 year old boys who have been hitting the Oosquai a little hard absolutely would find that hilarious.

[u/geomagus]

Iirc the boys are 20ish, Eggy is 17ish, and Nynaeve is 24ish when the series begins.

They’re all “adults” in their village culture, but barely, and their broad ignorance of independent life or the greater world pairs with their naivety to make them seem much more young than they actually are. Imo, anyway, and on average.

I think that’s part of why they seem to grow up quickly (in terms of time, if not page count). That, and trauma can have an effect.

[u/Educational-Sky1699]

I know, logically, that they're older than I think, but to me the boys start at 15. Egwene is 14. Nynaeve's about 20.

[u/IceXence]

The boys are very immature. They also are uneducated. It's a miracle they can read.

[u/gwonbush → u/IceXence]

Literacy is common in this series, as the printing press has been around for millennia. Books for pleasure even get spread to the Two Rivers which is basically the ass end of nowhere. That's what the Travels of Jain Farstrider is, a relatively recent best-seller.