Wizard Cards and wizard ages

[Patricia Bullington-McGuire]

No: HPFGUIDX 57238

On Wed, 7 May 2003, gopotter2004 wrote:

> http://restrictedsection.com/otherHPstuff/chocfrogs.htm
> 
> Evidently, JK approved all of the frog cards...

First, does anyone actually consider these cards to be spoilers?  They
don't seem so to me, anymore than the school books are spoilers, as they
provide background about the world but don't reveal anything about the
plots of any of the books.

In any case, I'm about to discuss some of the information on the cards, so
if you don't want to know what they say, don't read any farther.

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In the past on this list there has been a lot of discussion about wizard
life spans.  Some people have stated that wizards live twice as long as
muggles.  Others have suggested that wizards and witches live to be about
200.  There is supposedly some interview evidence for this, though I 
haven't seen it myself.  (I would love to see it, btw, if anyone can 
supply a link.)

However, I noticed that only one of the deceased wizards on the chocolate
frog cards for whom birth and death dates were given lived to be over 100
(and not by much).  Furthermore none of the living wizards were born more
than a century ago, either.

Here is the list of those with known birth and death dates:

Dead Wizards:
Adalbert Waffling	b. 1899		d. 1981 (age 82)
Beaumont Marjoribanks	b. 1742		d. 1845 (age 103)
Bowman Wright		b. 1492		d. 1560 (age 68)
Cornelius Agrippa	b. 1486		d. 1535 (age 49)
Daisy Dodderidge	b. 1457		d. 1555 (age 98)
Gifford Ollerton	b. 1390		d. 1441 (age 51)
Gunhilda of Goorsemoor	b. 1556		d. 1639 (age 83)
Ignatia Wildsmith	b. 1227		d. 1320 (age 93)
Lord Stoddard Withers	b. 1672		d. 1769 (age 97)
Quong Po		b. 1443		d. 1539 (age 96)
Sacharissa Tugwood	b. 1874		d. 1966 (age 92)


Living wizards: ('age' means in 1995, presumed start of Book 5)
Bertie Bott		b. 1935		age: 60
Derwent Shimpling	b. 1912		age: 83
Devlin Whitehorn	b. 1945		age: 50
Donaghan Tremlett	b. 1972		age: 23
Gwenog Jones		b. 1968		age: 27
Newt Scamander		b. 1897		age: 98


I see a bunch of wizards and witches living into their nineties and one
nudging past 100, but none of these ages are out of the question for
muggles -- out of the norm, yes, but not unheard-of.  Even before the
development of antibiotics and other muggle medical advancements there
were always a few people who managed to live to very old ages like these.  
So this leads me to wonder just how much longer magical life spans really
are.  Do magical folks naturally live longer than muggles could even
theoretically live, or are their life spans more like ideal muggle life
spans, due possibly to the healthful effects of being surrounded by magic
or to the advantages made available by magical health care techniques?  

If magical people live 'ideal' muggle life spans rather than having a
separate upper limit on their life spans, that would seem to affect the
debate over how long witches' childbearing years last.  Presumably their
fertile years would not last much longer than muggles' would if their
lifelines have the same upper boundary as muggles' do.  Also, if magical
folk live to ideal muggle ages but not much beyond, that would explain why
we hear about people's grandparents but never about their great- or
great-great-grandparents.

Additionally, it would appear that Dumbledore at 150 (or thereabouts) is
exceptional even among wizards.  Reaching that advanced an age does not
appear to be normal even for magical folks, regarless of whether they live
out 'ideal' muggle life spans or not.  Interesting.  I wonder how he does
it.  Clean living, maybe? ;)

----
Patricia Bullington-McGuire	<patricia at obscure.org>

The brilliant Cerebron, attacking the problem analytically, discovered
three distinct kinds of dragon: the mythical, the chimerical, and the
purely hypothetical.  They were all, one might say, nonexistent, but each
nonexisted in an entirely different way ... 
                -- Stanislaw Lem, "Cyberiad"