How old do you think Tsillah is?

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lake_wrangler
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How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by lake_wrangler »

I've been wondering, for a while, just how old Tsillah is.

We've seen her say she learned about Shelly in school, and she had the trappings of a student (backpack, notepad, water bottle). Yet, we've also seen that she is somewhat high up in MIB (the two vampires will be reporting to her), and has much knowledge of their operations and of various events. She acts like a teenager, and her normal appearance seems to bear that fact. Being the daughter of a long-lived being does not necessarily mean she herself is old... Charon could have had her somewhat recently... In fact, the case could be made that Nudge's mother might have died some time back, and Charon remarried later, and would later on have had Tsillah, which could account for some of the similarities between the two, yet the different nature of the two sisters (the older one being somewhat animal-like, the younger one being a being of shadow.) That is, of course, assuming that they both have Charon as a common parent, rather than their (unnamed) mother...

What do you people think?
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Sidhekin »

First, I think you're assuming far too much monogamy and too little immortality on account of the critters of Greek mythology. (The other day I was looking into the children of Neptune. Disappointingly few. But then, he's Roman, not Greek. So I checked Poseidon. He had children with dozens of mortals and nymphs, but also with Amphitrite, Aphrodite, Demeter, and Gaia, none of which have died, best as I'm aware.)

Second, Bia's appearance lately suggests (mental as well as physical) age and years of existence are not necessarily related concepts for these critters ...

In sum: I have no clue. 8-)
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by jwhouk »

Tsillah is actually the name of the wife of Lamech from the book of Genesis. But I doubt she's the same person, as that woman had a son and a daughter with Lamech.
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by lake_wrangler »

Sidhekin wrote:First, I think you're assuming far too much monogamy and too little immortality on account of the critters of Greek mythology. [...]
You're right, of course... I know quite well that the Greek deities were all over the place, with all sorts of partners... Yet for some reason, it didn't even occur to me that Charon might have been anything but faithful to his partner. But there have been some monogamous entities, in the Parthenon, no?

And yet, just knowing how Bia got around (being entangled in at least two different family trees) should have reminded me not to assume monogamy, even within the Wapsiverse...

Sidhekin wrote:Second, Bia's appearance lately suggests (mental as well as physical) age and years of existence are not necessarily related concepts for these critters ...
Perhaps, but then, as far as we know, Bia did not have to go back to school... Her speech does imply longevity, though, belying her youthful appearance, as she does remember all that she did in the past - all the manipulations and such - but now sees them afresh through a child's eyes (which are, ironically, her own eyes...)

Bia does seem to spend quite some time in the Library, on the other hand, as does Tsillah. But she does not give off the vibe of being there on account of school work, which was definitely the impression Tsillah gave off, when she first met Shelly. So Tsillah's stint in MIB could be either just now post-graduation, or extra-curricular activity... Either way, it is still no real indication of her age...
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by lake_wrangler »

Then again, when Tsillah speaks of the first sub-titan in over a million years, does she speak from personal knowledge, or from book knowledge?
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Catawampus »

Mentally/emotionally, I'd say she's the equivalent of a somewhat ditzy college kid.

Chronologically. . .since her physical form is whatever she chooses for it to be, and since nobody's said anything about when she was born or any event she was alive for, it's impossible to do more than guess. The schoolgirl look could match her actual age, or she could just go with that appearance because it's what people would expect from her given the way that she acts.

She does seem to be given some authority by the MiB, but that could be more due to her rather considerable power rather than to any great wisdom or experience or anything. We've seen her working mainly as a messenger and liaison, which isn't something too out of place for a college kid just starting out in a big bureaucracy, but it seems rather limited for somebody who can do all that she does. That leads me to think that she's only still in the equivalent of an entry-level position with them, and that she'll have to work longer to show proper responsibility and maturity before she can become an actual agent. Of course, for all we know, she could be employed by them simply to keep a powerful paranormal such as her busy and out of unsupervised mischief.

Heck, though we know that she and Nudge are sisters, nobody has even said anything about which of them is the younger one (or if one of them is even younger than the other); if Tsillah is the elder, then that would make her at least 2,800 years old.
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by lake_wrangler »

Catawampus wrote:Heck, though we know that she and Nudge are sisters, nobody has even said anything about which of them is the younger one (or if one of them is even younger than the other); if Tsillah is the elder, then that would make her at least 2,800 years old.
Interesting thought. Out of curiosity, are you quoting 2800 years because of something that was said about Nudge's own age, or about the approximate chronology of Oedipus in history, and that if Tsillah is older than Nudge, then she has to be older than 2800 years, since we know that Nudge was alive, contemporaneously to Oedipus?
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Catawampus »

lake_wrangler wrote:Out of curiosity, are you quoting 2800 years because of something that was said about Nudge's own age, or about the approximate chronology of Oedipus in history, and that if Tsillah is older than Nudge, then she has to be older than 2800 years, since we know that Nudge was alive, contemporaneously to Oedipus?
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Sidhekin »

2800 years? That's not counting the time loops ...
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by lake_wrangler »

Sidhekin wrote:2800 years? That's not counting the time loops ...
True. Either she is less than 1450 (i.e. born during the last loop), or more than 82,500 or so (81,200 (i.e. 1450 * 56) + (2800-1450)), since that 2,800 years would extend beyond the 1450 year loop...
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Catawampus »

Sidhekin wrote:2800 years? That's not counting the time loops ...
We don't know whether she was outside of the looping or not. If not, then she would have been reset along with everything else.
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Sidhekin »

Then we're back to the question of how many of the past Tsillahs escaped through the Bibliotheki. 8-)

The world grid is in general a good out for the that kind of question; at the time the calendar machine was damaged, very few titans and similar critters were around on earth.

And since Shelly-1 knew the calendar machine needed fixing, I assume any critter with access to the Bibliotheki would stay off-earth on 2012-12-21. Each time. 8-)
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by Catawampus »

Really, the whole time-reset thing leaves us with a rather interesting philosophical and metaphysical, as well as physical, situation. What counts as a "life span" or an "existence"? How does the direction and continuity of time's flow affect an individual's state of being? And so on. We'd need to clear up all of that and set some guidelines before we could answer anything about how old anybody is who was born before the reset took place.
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Re: How old do you think Tsillah is?

Post by lake_wrangler »

Kind of like people who say: "I'm not 50, I'm 18, with 32 years of experience..."
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