History Main / RefugeeFromTime

** In the 2004 film, it was the GulfWar.

*** That's yet another case of {{Flanderization}} on the part of the TropeNamer. In the 1990 episode "Simpson and Delilah", Burns tells Homer that he's 81 years old, which would place his birth date in 1908 at the earliest. He then shows Homer some old photos of him in college, and the 1920s look to the pictures would have been plausible for an 81-year-old man who probably would have graduated from college in 1930 or so. Burns's age was then exaggerated in later seasons, so that by the mid-'90s Burns was telling people that he went to a college reunion in 1939, met his old sweetheart, discovered she had a young adult daughter, took her to see ''GoneWithTheWind'', and then had sex with her and fathered a bastard child (his then-fiftysomething son, Larry). In order for all of that to have been possible (and to avoid being {{Squick}}-inducing), Burns would have had to have been born in the 1890s or possibly earlier.

* In ''Something Fresh'', PGWodehouse stated that Lord Emsworth had been at Eton in the 'Sixties (that is, the Eighteen-Sixties). Assuming he was as young as possible (13) in the very last year of the decade (1869), this would still mean that he would have been 122 years old at the time of the publication of the last book, ''Sunset at Blandings'' in 1978.

[[folder: Comic Books]]

* DickTracy, astonishingly, still occasionally makes reference to fighting Nazi spies like Prune Face and the Brow during the second World War.

* Inverted in {{Doonesbury}}, which does not use a sliding timescale: every character ages in real time, EXCEPT for Uncle Duke, who has been around 45 years old since the 1970's. None of the other characters seem to have noticed this, and it's never been explained.
* {{Curtis}}'s father still hates all the "rap stuff" the title character likes, despite by current standards he should have grown up on hip hop.
* Similarly, Jeremy's parents in {{Zits}} are firmly children of the sixties; this gets harder and harder to reconcile as time goes by (his mother would have had to have given birth to him in her mid to late 40s by now).

* Again, 1969: "Summer of '69" by BryanAdams was written by two people. Jim Vallence wrote a nostalgic piece that was going to be just called "The Best Days Of My Life" until someone looked at a line and said ThrowItIn. The piece was always going to have that nostalgic tone (with some GettingCrapPastTheRadar with the line "me and my baby in a [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean 69]]) but the audience ages and attitudes would change slowly. Bryan Adams on the other hand, has now started stating that the '69 was always meant to be about the sexual position with it meant to be bleedingly obvious. This feels a bit more like a shoehorn to keep the lyrics relevant and make it a justified RefugeeFromTime.

* Kind of related, though song lyrics can't normally be updated: the song ''Hotel California'' becomes even creepier as the time period implied by "We haven't had that spirit here since 1969" increases.
* Again, 1969: ''Summer of '69'' by Bryan Adams was written by two people. Jim Vallence wrote a nostalgic piece that was going to be just called "The Best Days Of My Life" until someone looked at a line and said ThrowItIn. The piece was always going to have that nostalgic tone (with some GettingCrapPastTheRadar with the line "me and my baby in a [[IfYouKnowWhatIMean 69]]) but the audience ages and attitudes would change slowly. Bryan Adams on the other hand, has now started stating that the '69 was always meant to be about the sexual position with it meant to be bleedingly obvious. This feels a bit more like a shoehorn to keep the lyrics relevant and make it a justified RefugeeFromTime.

* Over in the DCUniverse, the JusticeSociety always fought in WWII (although some of it's more popular members, such as Superman or WonderWoman, have been retconned out in various ways), so usually there is a plot device to have had them not age in the decades between the end of the war and the beginning of the "modern" age. This sometimes causes problems in regards to their non-super supporting cast.
** Only a problem PostCrisis (when they were placed into the same sliding-timeline-only universe as their JLA cohorts). PreCrisis, the JSA members all aged in real time on Earth-Two (while Earth-One, like the current DCU, has a sliding timescale). Thus, Earth-Two's Batman and Catwoman had a daughter in the late 50s, who grew to adulthood by the 70s stories she debuted in.

* CaptainAmerica will always be a result of the WWII SuperSoldier program. The time he was trapped in the ice in the Atlantic will just become longer.
* ThePunisher is always a Vietnam Vet no matter how many years have passed. NickFury is likewise always a WWII vet, but he got some SuperSoldier Serum-Lite (an annual injection of the Infinity Formula) that keeps him biologically the same age. (Referring to the main MarvelComics universe.)

** Don Rosa fixed this problem, at least in his own comics, by establishing that all his McDuck comics take place during the late 1940's and early 50's. Thus Scrooge could very well have taken part in the gold rushes as a young man. Some other McDuck authors follow this, but others ignore it and set their stories in the present.

Occasionally a significant cultural event will become such an important marker that its appearance in fiction seems to completely detach it from the normal timeline and have it follow around any character it can find. Woodstock would have to have been held within a [[DoctorWho Tardis]] to cover all the fictional characters that have claimed to be there. Wars are another matter. Rather unfortunately the regular appearance of wars give writers the chance to continuously update their veteran characters.

** The problem of Magneto's ''children''--who were born relatively early in his life, and yet continue to be young adults--is never ever brought up. It's for the best, really.
*** Well, Magneto's ''first'' children died when they were still children; that's part of his StartOfDarkness. The age of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch might eventually become a problem, but can be conveniently avoided so far. Quicksilver's hair is prematurely white as a consequence of his {{Super Speed}}, and the Scarlet Witch has {{Reality Warper}} powers, so maybe she'll continue to look youngish for a long time. Also, Xavier and Magneto's history before they created their rival teams is intrinsic to their characters, but being the same age is not. They could have met when Xavier was 20 and Magneto was 40. The problem with this is that eventually it will require Magneto to have had an anti-aging treatment before even becoming Magneto.
** In the UltimateMarvel universe, Magneto ''isn't'' a Holocaust survivor, and it changes his character quite a bit: he's much less of a WellIntentionedExtremist and much closer to a CompleteMonster. In the movies, he is played by IanMcKellen, who, born in 1939, is just barely old enough to be plausible as a Holocaust survivor.

* In TheSimpsons you have Grandpa Simpson who will always be a World War 2 vet. In another 10 seasons this might start to raise more questions.

** In the UltimateMarvel universe, Magneto ''isn't'' a Holocaust survivor, and it changes his character quite a bit: he's much less of a WellIntentionedExtremist and much closer to a CompleteMonster. In the movies, he is played by Ian McKellen, who, born in 1939, is just barely old enough to be plausible as a Holocaust survivor.

*** Well, Magneto's ''first'' children died when they were still children; that's part of his StartOfDarkness. The age of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch might eventually become a problem, but can be conveniently avoided so far. Quicksilver's hair is prematurely white as a consequence of his {{Super Speed}}, and the Scarlet Witch has {{Reality Warper}} powers, so maybe she'll continue to look youngish for a long time. Also, Xavier and Magneto's history before they created their rival teams is intrinsic to their characters, but being contemporaries is not. They could have met when Xavier was 20 and Magneto was 40. The problem with this is that eventually it will require Magneto to have had an anti-aging treatment before even becoming Magneto.

* ThePunisher is always a Vietnam Vet no matter how many years have passed. NickFury is likewise always a WWII vet, but he got some SuperSoldier Serum-Lite that keeps him biologically the same age. (Referring to the main MarvelComics universe.)

*** Well, Magneto's ''first'' children died when they were still children; that's part of his StartOfDarkness. The age of Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch might eventually become a problem, but can be conveniently avoided so far. Quicksilver's hair is prematurely white as a consequence of his {{Super Speed}}, and the Scarlet Witch has {{Reality Warper}} powers, so maybe she'll continue to look youngish for a long time.