Baldur's Gate Is Aerie from BG2 underage?

[Fedora Master]

Why are Dexers making fun of Reddit and Reeesetera again when we have threads like this?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Since there is no actual scientific definition of it,

Well, yes? You can arbitrarily draw the line everywhere after being able to produce children.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

lacrymas.jpg

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Sarevok was a bro.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Sarevok was a bro.

Hell. Valygar was good on account of- he kept his mouth shut most of the time.

 

[Lacrymas]

Since there is no actual scientific definition of it,

Well, yes? You can arbitrarily draw the line everywhere after being able to produce children.

Don't confuse "sexual maturity" with "adult body" in humans or humanoid-likes.

 

[Lacrymas]

Hóngwèibīng, you want to tell me that a 12 year old girl who has just begun puberty has an adult body? That's what I mean by it being arbitrary. You could say that, but most people or scientists won't (and that's also more or less arbitrary too).

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Hóngwèibīng, you want to tell me that a 12 year old girl who has just begun puberty has an adult body? That's what I mean by it being arbitrary.

All terminology is arbitrary (a.i. the lexical signifier being used to denote a conceptual signified is arbitrary, such as whether we call the sky sky, caelum or nebe), but the notion of adulthood or adult body is not arbitrary in itself (a.i. all conventional scientific definitions for it are self-consistent and empirically objective, whether we use the one of being biologically capable of procreating which follows puberty or perhaps one of having had reached full development of its various bodily components which usually occurs in one's early 20s).

 

[Lacrymas]

Hóngwèibīng, you want to tell me that a 12 year old girl who has just begun puberty has an adult body? That's what I mean by it being arbitrary.

All terminology is arbitrary (a.i. the lexical signifier being used to denote a conceptual signified is arbitrary, such as whether we call the sky sky, caelum or nebe), but the notion of adulthood or adult body is not arbitrary in itself (a.i. all conventional scientific definitions for it are self-consistent and empirically objective, whether we use the one of being biologically capable of procreating which follows puberty or perhaps one of having had reached full development of its various bodily components which usually occurs in one's early 20s).

But why would you use one over the other? What is "full development"? How do you measure the second someone stops having a non-adult body and starts having an adult one? If it were so objective and empirically evident, why is the age of consent (or even legal drinking age) so different around the world? Hell, why is it a certain age and not another aspect like the starting point of menstruation or pfff, I don't know, dick size?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

But why would you use one over the other? What is "full development"? How do you measure the second someone stops having a non-adult body and starts having an adult one? If it were so objective and empirically evident, why is the age of consent (or even legal drinking age) so different around the world? Hell, why is it a certain age and not another aspect like the starting point of menstruation or pfff, I don't know, dick size?

Ages of consent and drinking ages are social constructs (ergo subjective and dependent on the particular values and norms of a particular society at a given point in time), not an empirical fact rooted in biology.

As to why one would use one scientific definition for adulthood over another, it's arbitrary as I've already acknowledged. What is not arbitrary is how it is objectively ascertained once the tangible biological criteria that define the term have been set.

 

[Lacrymas]

Why are ages of consent and legal drinking social constructs? Don't I get those freedoms when I become an adult either way? So, the moment I become an adult, these things should be immediately granted. If adulthood was so easily measured and tangible based on irrefutable biological criteria, someone, somewhere out there would've made this argument when the age of consent laws were being thought up in the first place. Or even make them now in order to change the laws. Maybe this argument has been made already, but we aren't using it to justify the laws. Why? Either way, my point is that there is no universal scientific definition we can use to ascertain whether someone has an adult body or not. You can measure stuff, but so what? Choosing which measured stuff is relevant is the arbitrary part and that is what is important in this context.

 

[Lord of Riva]

Adulthood is biological reality, thats the full story no debate needed. The topic is actually quite complex when looked at in detail. Social standards for being seen as an "Adult" though are, while valid, unrelated.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

there is no universal scientific definition we can use to ascertain whether someone has an adult body or not. You can measure stuff, but so what? Choosing which measured stuff is relevant is the arbitrary part and that is what is important in this context.

There is a universal scientific definition for any thing within objective reality independent of it being given a term to acknowledge it as such. What you're arguing is whether the word adult should mean one objective thing or another.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Social standards for being seen as an "Adult" though are, while valid, unrelated.

Pretty much. It's the whole sex vs gender debate all over again.

 

[Lacrymas]

there is no universal scientific definition we can use to ascertain whether someone has an adult body or not. You can measure stuff, but so what? Choosing which measured stuff is relevant is the arbitrary part and that is what is important in this context.

There is a universal scientific definition for any thing within objective reality independent of it being given a term to acknowledge it as such. What you're arguing is whether the word adult should mean one objective thing or another.

This is completely missing the point. Let's pretend it's true that there are universal scientific definitions or irrefutable objective realities in the first place (you can very easily argue there aren't). How does that help us in this case? You have the fact that a girl is menstruating and can therefore have children. So? Facts in of themselves don't do anything.

Adulthood is biological reality, thats the full story no debate needed. The topic is actually quite complex when looked at in detail. Social standards for being seen as an "Adult" though are, while valid, unrelated.

Which biological reality is adulthood? Let's distance ourselves from social definitions and only use scientific terminology.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

You have the fact that a girl is menstruating and can therefore have children. So? Facts in of themselves don't do anything.

Facts aren't supposed to do anything. They just are.

 

[Lacrymas]

Great. What now? How does this fit into the discussion?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Great. What now? How does this fit into the discussion?

Which discussion would that be? Aerie has an adult body, so she's an adult. Simple as.

Spoiler

A cringy adult that one shouldn't go near, much less engage in sexual intercourse or romantic overtures with, but an adult nevertheless.

 

[Lacrymas]

Great. What now? How does this fit into the discussion?

Aerie has an adult body

Which fact did you use to figure that one out? And why did you use this fact and not another fact? It's also a fact that Avariel consider adulthood beginning at 100.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Avariel consider adulthood beginning at 100.

As a social construct. But as a matter of biology, Aerie is a biological adult of the Elven species (going by Occam's Razor since there are no underdeveloped physical characteristics of Aerie that we know of.)

 

[Lacrymas]

Avariel consider adulthood beginning at 100.

As a social construct. But as a matter of biology, Aerie is a biological adult of the Elven species (going by Occam's Razor since there are no underdeveloped physical characteristics of Aerie that we know of.)

Something being a social construct doesn't mean it isn't a fact or not important. Money is a social construct, but I'd say it's too factual in all our lives. So you are going by how "developed" her parts are. Interesting. Either way, my point was exactly that it doesn't matter whether she's technically legal because you can use any fact to justify that. Other issues are more pressing in her romance.

 

[Lord of Riva]

Which biological reality is adulthood? Let's distance ourselves from social definitions and only use scientific terminology.

Being able to reproduce via gametes.

 

[Lacrymas]

Which biological reality is adulthood? Let's distance ourselves from social definitions and only use scientific terminology.

Being able to reproduce via gametes.

And for the sake of argument, I'd say adulthood is when you finish puberty. How do we reconcile this?

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Why are ages of consent and legal drinking social constructs? Don't I get those freedoms when I become an adult either way?

Because with advance of society and medicine the mental development of child to adulthood is divorced from its physical development. The decision to implement ages of consent, minimum age to do anything is related to how society function now. It was normal for man and women to get married to procreate when they were in late teenage year or early 20 because at that point for most people, especially common folk, it's literally half of their life. Thus the society at that time will definitely put more social development when people are of young age. We dont even get to normally life more than 50 - 60 years before the mid 1900s.

As life expectancy increase, society changes too, and thus the role of people relative to their age. There really isn't a way to directly compare outside historical notion but the mental development, societal role, and social responsibility of a 16 years old is wildly different today than those of in the 1800s, and 1800s would be different than those of 1500s, etc.

Thus age of consent and other age related social limitation is done to protect minors. So yes, it is a social construct.

It is entirely possible to have teenagers today that is more adult than their age and have understanding of consequences etc of their action (sometimes even better than manchild in their 20s) even before such arbitrary societal age of consent/limitation on any activity, the problem is that society has no practical way to check on it.

Thus the choice to set up an arbitrary age where society consider that "people of this age should already aware of consequences and be able to choose for themselves"

 

[whydoibother]

Females have a certain number of eggs, and drop one every month. For humans, that's between 15 and 50, lets say. After that, no eggs left, no pregnancies possible.
But elves live many thousands of years. Obviously they don't carry hundreds of times more eggs, because these are actual physical things, with mass and volume, and they won't fit inside an elf. So elven women must produce their eggs on the fly, rather than having a set amount. But this means that elves must suffer from egg cancer. Things that the body can generate/regenerate over time all are prone to cancers.
How things actually should be, is that elves have a fertility window comparable to humans, and then live for thousands of years infertile. And therefore a 25 year old elf is prime breeding material, even if she is within the first 1% of her life. Its science.

PS: "Its magic" is very unautistic and doesn't fit the setting, fuck off.