Taking into consideration that a year is made up of 365 days (plus or minus 6 hours), and an Atlantean's body ages one day in a year's time, then a year's aging for an Atlantean would occur in 365 years.
Therefore, in order to determine an Atlantean's age in "normal" years, you would divide their real age by 365 in order to get the amount of years that their body has aged.
For example:
Kida being 24-25 makes sense, considering her physical appearance and her personality: a bit childlike, but clearly an adult.Kida is 8800 years old.
8800/365 = 24.7
Kida is almost 25 years old by normal aging standards
This also applies to other characters whose ages have been stated. For example, Talia, the little girl in "Kida and the Crystal," was turning 1500 the day Milo and the others arrived.
This theory works perfectly with the exception of the King. While the King looked quite old, if one uses the 365 years = 1 year theory, then he is younger than he appears:Talia is 1500
1500/365 = 4 (approximately; taking into consideration the extra 6 hours in a year, it probably would equal 4 exactly)
Talia is 4 years old by normal aging standards
While the king looks much older than this, if one takes Kida's age and the age/appearance of the King and Queen when the city sank into consideration, this would seem logical. By deducting Kida's current age (~8800) from the King's age at death (20000), you see that the King would have been 11,200 years old when Kida was born.King Kashekim is 20,000 years old
20000/365 = 55 (approximately)
This seems a logical age for the king to have been at the birth of his first child. So, most likely, the aging theory is correct, and exterior factors (the loss of his wife and the destruction of his empire) caused the King's body to deteriorate faster. It is common knowledge that if one has lived a hard life, one looks older than one actually is.Kashekim at Kida's birth is 11200
11200/365 = 30
Also, it seems likely that if Rourke had not wounded the King, and if the King had been given medical treatment, he would have lived to be much older. Therefore, while 55 may seem a bit on the young side, it is probably accurate--after all, he's Kida's father, not her grandfather.
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Questions this theory arouses / Topics for discussion
1) Gestation period: is an Atlantean woman pregnant for the standard nine months (~275 days), or is she pregnant for 275 years? (I'll just gloss over the effects of the aging process on her menstrual cycle)
2) Hair color: I'm sure we've all noticed that while Atlanteans have white hair, their eyebrows are dark. Is this simply a racial trend (i.e. genetic)? Or are young Atlanteans born with dark hair, which turns white after about 50 years (perhaps a side effect of the aging process)?
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Similar/Alternate Theories
My proposed theory is similar to the Avalon-aging process in Gargoyles. In that series, for every hour spent in Avalon, a day passes in the real world. Atlantis is slightly different--obviously, a day is a day in Atlantis; it's merely the body that ages at a slower rate; whereas, in Avalon, time itself passes differently. However, the theories are at least comparable.
Other theories about the aging in Atlantis include one proposed by Julie Horwitz, in which an Atlantean child ages at "standard" human rate until he/she reaches puberty; upon puberty, the crystal's powers begin to take effect. This theory, to an extent, would answer the gestation period question: obviously, pregnancies would be "normal" length.
A problem with this theory is, obviously, Talia: a very young girl who is 1500 years old. The argument in favor of Julie's theory is that Talia was not in the movie, but rather a book, and therefore isn't "canon." This is logical; however, according to the illustrated script, the majority of the events in "Kida and the Crystal" were intended to be in the movie but were cut for time. Therefore, Talia may indeed be "canon," which would negate Julie's theory.
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Okay, I'm done. Rather like a college thesis but, hey, that's what I do.