The Two-Hundred Year-Old Dilemma

I feel like approximately fifty percent of the average blogger's posts are about how they haven't posted in, like forever, so I'm going to spare you all the tedium inherent in this (the other 50% are about their cats, by the way) and just press on.

I'm going to challenge you with a problem that's been dogging me for the last month, one so deep that its profundity is only outweighed by its relevance. I speak, of course, of the dilemma of the Childlike Empress.

Anyone who grew up in the 1980s won't require an explanation but for thsoe that did not, the Childlike Empress ruled over the mythical world of Fantasia in the novel and later film version of The Neverending Story. Described as "much older than the oldest inhabitants of Fantasia. [...] or rather she's ageless," the Childlike Empress embodied the form of an "indescribably beautiful" ten year-old girl whilst ruling over the citizens of Fantasia as the physical manifestation of it's life force.

I recall watching this movie for the first time in Miss Finley's grade one class at Trafalgar Elementary school and thinking to myself, probably for the first time, "now that girl is pretty cute." Up until that point, girls had merely served as a vector of boogers, cooties and general, unspecified evil. The Childlike Empress really opened my eyes to their potential, not only as companions, but as unelected, omnipotent governesses of worlds that were far cooler than my own. I was smitten and while most of the movie made me cower with fear, the visage of the Empress still serves as a reminder of the commencement of the slow degradation of youthful innocence into salacious adulthood.

Now let me make it abundantly clear that, despite her being partially responsible for certain 'awakenings' at a young age, I do not in any way, continue to harbour feelings of any kind for either the character of the Childlike Empress or the actress that portrayed her. This should in no way be interpreted as the desperate cries for help from a closeted pedophile. I just happen to find the debate engaging in a very superficial way.

Suspension of disbelief for this discussion is paramount.

Let's suppose that the Childlike Empress is actually, for the sake of argument and the impossibility of defining the term 'ageless,' two hundred years old. For whatever reason she is here on Earth and, via circumstances too potentially inane to properly define, she happens to meet someone (likely but not necessarily a male) in their early thirties. They strike up a conversation wherein she is revealed to be the only two hundred year old person in existence.

Despite appearing to be an adolescent this is, without question, the most interesting person who has ever walked the Earth. She's lived through the industrial revolution, the American Civil War, the invention of flight, discovery of penecilin, Hitler's rise and fall etc, ad nauseum. Her knowledge and experience are simply unrivaled and her stories put the "Oh my God, did you hear what happened to Kim Kardashian" mentality of today's humans to shame. This person is, not surprisingly, drawn to the Empress in ways that are as confusing as they are compelling.

So the question then arises; if the two parties in question mutually agree to commence a romantic (but not necessarily sexual relationship), who is the pedophile? The thirty-something Earth dweller can be argued to be a sexual deviant for romantically pursuing one who appears to be a pre-pubescent human female. Conversely, the 200-year old woman could easily be argued to be exploiting the inexperience and relative naivité of the emotionally immature member of an inferior species who is one sixth of her age.

Trouble abounds! Is this a couple doomed to heartbreak, or worse - prison? Is this union any more morally bankrupt than 84 year-old Hugh Hefner getting engaged to a 24 year-old woman? The famous case of man on Jerry Springer wedding a horse? Charlie Sheen getting married to anyone? I submit the solution is not as simple as it would appear upon first consideration.

I'm not purporting to have an answer but I can state with full honesty that I hope I never encounter an ageless, ethereal super-being of limitless knowledge at an amusement park or something. The social and ethical ramifications and subsequent fallout would be far beyond what I would be reasonably expected to comprehend. I can't even decide whether it's right or wrong to take more than one free sample from the old ladies at Costco, much less handle something of this magnitude. Perhaps I'll email Steven Hawking for advice on this one. I'd wager he likes that movie too.