History Main / YoungerThanTheyLook

* Due to the fact that he's one of Creator/RoosterTeeth's first employees, close friendship with Geoff that created Creator/AchievementHunter, and his thick beard, it's a RunningGag in videos that Jack Pattillo is quite old. In fact, Fiona Nova legitimately thought he was 45 like Geoff when she was first hired, much to his dismay. She's even commented that Jack acts more like her middle-aged father than her actual father and it's frequently joked about that their dynamic is more like a father-daughter relationship. In reality, Jack is 40 and the oldest member of the group after Geoff, having worked at RT since his mid-20's.[[labelnote:Note]]He was the third-oldest member, being a year and half younger than former member Ryan Haywood, who was pushing 40 at the time of his departure.[[/labelnote]]

* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', Belladonna Tyrian is 16, but due to [[StatuesqueStunner her height]], [[BoobsOfSteel curves]] and deep voice, people tend to assume she's older.

* ''Film/TheIsland'' has clones that appear to be various ages, from thirties up to their sixties. It turns out that oldest ones are no more than 4-years-old.

* Sigma, the PlayerCharacter of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', is only 22, but other characters occasionally comment on him being "old". Which is strange, since he certainly looks 22 in the opening cutscene and in flashbacks, which are the only times we get to fully see him since the rest of the game is in first person. [[spoiler:This is because he has unknowingly [[MentalTimeTravel mentally time-travelled]] to the future and is now physically 67 years old. This fact is deliberately kept concealed from him (and by extension us) by a [[TomatoInTheMirror conspicuous lack of mirrors and other reflective surfaces around the facility]]. Said facility was also built on the Moon to keep Sigma from noticing his older body is physically weaker than the one he left, as the lower gravity balances it out, and to keep him (and the other characters) from noticing the lower gravity, they were all infected with a disease that alters their perception of reality, making it feel like Earth's normal gravity. However, no explanation is given for how [[FailedASpotCheck Sigma fails to notice]] that he suddenly sounds like Creator/JamiesonPrice (it's hidden from us by not having any of Sigma's lines voiced, but that obviously isn't the case in-universe), or that he suddenly has a large cybernetic eyepiece protruding from his face. The person who orchestrated all of this was the actual 67-year-old Sigma, who is also [[BigBad Zero]]]].
-->'''Phi:''' You must have done a lot of drugs to look like that at 22.

* The children of [[ExplosiveBreeder Mother of Champions]], of the Creator/DCComics Chinese superhero team The Great Ten, age 10 years every day. Between this, the fact they all have SuperStrength, and the fact Mother can produce a new batch every three days, they are considered cannon fodder of the finest kind.

* Both [[ComicBook/{{Shazam}} Captain Marvel]] and ComicBook/MaryMarvel, thanks to OlderAlterEgo. Lampshaded in ''Formerly Known as the Justice League''. At one point Captain Marvel had to break up with the teenaged superhero Stargirl because even though they were the same age, it just looked really creepy. It used to be even more extreme; Billy and Mary had the exact same superhero forms when they were pre-teens. Though ComicBookTime makes this a ''very'' slow process, they're narrowing the age gap with their alter-egos. Given ComicBook/BlackAdam's example, eventually they'll be OlderThanTheyLook, as their Captain Marvel and Mary Marvel forms don't age at all.

* ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'': DependingOnTheArtist, Clark was this as a teenager. His Kryptonian genetics caused him to be naturally taller and more muscular than the other kids at his school.

** ComicBook/{{Magneto}} is old enough to have lived through the Holocaust, but has been de-aged and re-aged back into his 20s/30s. You'd never expect he and Xavier are the same age.
** The Stepford Cuckoos are clones of ComicBook/EmmaFrost who had been aged up from birth to their teens in order to infiltrate the X-Men. They're only a few years old chronologically.
** ComicBook/{{Magik}} of ''ComicBook/NewMutants'' fame spent half her life in a realm of Limbo [[YearInsideHourOutside outside the normal timestream]]. As a result, she was a teenager despite technically being born 6 years prior to her abduction, much to the X-Men's shock, since seconds passed on Earth for them.

* Cassie Lang/Stature/[[IHaveManyNames Stinger]] from the ComicBook/YoungAvengers. She was 14 when she joined the team, but most artists draw her as looking much older. This led to a minor controversy when she joined the cast of ''ComicBook/AstonishingAntMan''. The artist began drawing her closer to how an actual 14-year-old would look, which caused some fans to claim [[RealityIsUnrealistic that Cassie was being "infantilized."]]

** Played with in the case of the various AI characters. May looks and acts as though she were mid- to late-twenties, but Momo (who sometimes remarks on her chronological age of about two-and-a-half years) actually looks like a Pre-teen and can be quite naive, although this isn’t consistent and at times she is quite mature. Bubbles is clearly older, although quite how old she actually is, and how much is due to her PTSD-like symptoms from her trauma in service, isn’t clear. Winslow is quite child-like and maintains this in his new chassis. Pintsize is a smart-Alec of indeterminate age, but has clearly been around for quite some time.

* ''Fanfic/FamilyGuyFanon'' has Kimi, Quagmire's wife for seven seasons, who looks like an adult despite being sixteen years old! She looks so adult she can easily pass as one to strangers. In fact, Quagmire thought for a long time she ''was'' an adult until "[[https://familyguyfanon.fandom.com/wiki/Quagmire%27s_Mom Quagmire's Mom]]". This becomes important later when they divorce in the "[[https://familyguyfanon.fandom.com/wiki/The_Quagmire_Show_(Episode) The Quagmire Show]]", with Kimi's reason is to return to her normal life as a teenager and finish high school.

** Ilya's mother Irisviel in ''LightNovel/FateZero'' is a grown woman who's only nine; indeed, it's a pattern that von Einzbern homunculi are created with the bodies of twenty-somethings and stay that way. Only Ilya herself was born normally, and is [[OlderThanTheyLook very much the opposite]] of the rest.

* In ''Fanfic/PokemonResetBloodlines'', Belladonna Tyrian is 16, but due to [[StatuesqueStunner her height]], [[BoobsOfSteel curves]] and [[ContraltoOfDanger deep voice]], people tend to assume she's older.

* Sigma, the PlayerCharacter of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', is only 22, but other characters occasionally comment on him being "old". Which is strange, since he certainly looks 22 in the opening cutscene, which is the only time we get to see him before the game forces us into first person. [[spoiler:This is because he has unknowingly [[MentalTimeTravel mentally time-travelled]] to the future and is now physically 67 years old. This fact is deliberately kept concealed from him (and by extension us) by a [[TomatoInTheMirror conspicuous lack of mirrors and other reflective surfaces around the facility]]. Said facility was also built on the Moon to keep Sigma from noticing his older body is physically weaker than the one he left, as the lower gravity balances it out, and to keep him (and the other characters) from noticing the lower gravity, they were all infected with a disease that alters their perception of reality, making it feel like Earth's normal gravity. However, no explanation is given for how [[FailedASpotCheck Sigma fails to notice]] that he suddenly sounds like Creator/JamiesonPrice (it's hidden from us by not having any of Sigma's lines voiced, but that obviously isn't the case in-universe), or that he suddenly has a large cybernetic eyepiece protruding from his face. The person who orchestrated all of this was the actual 67-year-old Sigma, who is also [[BigBad Zero]]]].

* Sigma, the player character of ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward'', is described by other characters as looking old for a college student; his in-game appearance doesn't quite reflect this, showing him to be in his mid-twenties at the oldest. [[spoiler:Thanks to MentalTimeTravel, his mind is that of a student but his body is that of Zero, the 67-year-old BigBad. Sigma himself is unaware of any of this until TheReveal at the end of the game, as there are no [[TomatoInTheMirror convenient mirrors]] for him to look at.]]

* YoungerThanTheyLook/RealLife

* ''Fanfic/TheWeddingCrashers'' (''Series/{{Supernatural}}'' & ''Literature/{{Twilight}}''): Sam and Dean are disturbed when they find out that the bride-to-be at the titular wedding looks 17, but is actually around 10. [[OnlySaneMan Few others find a problem with this.]]

* One character in Creator/ChuckPalahniuk's ''Literature/{{Haunted|2005}}'' has progeria (which makes him look like an old withered man), and lives in a nursing home. He tells his nurses that he's 18 and wants to experience sex just once before he dies. After they fall for his con, he tells them the truth: [[spoiler: he's 13, [[MagnificentBastard and he'll report them to the authorities if they don't give him all of their money]]]].

* In ''Literature/{{Twilight}}'' [[spoiler: Edward and Bella's daughter Renesmee]] will look like she's 17 at the age of ''seven'' due to [[spoiler: her being a hybrid]].

* ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'': Miles Vorkosigan tends to straddle this trope and its [[OlderThanTheyLook inverse]]. His short height, slight build, and high pitched voice cause people to subconsciously register him as a child; however the facial lines caused by constant pain for most of his life means that only a slight adjustment of tone, expression, and body language is needed to convince people he is at least a decade older than he actually is.
** The same goes for Mark as well as all the clones created for illegal brain transfer surgery. They were all artificially aged as part of the cloning process since no one wants to wait around for their clones to age naturally. It's a plot point in Marks case, if Mark had looked his actual age it would have been a dead give away to his actual identity.
* ''TabletopGame/Warhammer40000'': In the Literature/GauntsGhosts novel ''Salvation's Reach'', Meritous Felyx Chass is actually 11, but juvenat and other bio-treatments were used to age him up to 17 effective.

* ''Wiki/{{Killerbunnies}}'': This is unclear in the case of Test Subject 001892300012 or "Lucy", as she claims to be three, although, that could have something more or less to do with the fact that, being an escaped test subject, three might highest number she might be able to count to or, alternatively, if she is an artificial lifeform, then she might actually be three, as in having existed for about three years.

* Due to the fact that he's one of Creator/RoosterTeeth's first employees, close friendship with Geoff that created Creator/AchievementHunter, and his thick beard, it's a RunningGag in videos that Jack Pattillo is quite old. In fact, Fiona Nova legitimately thought he was 45 like Geoff when she was first hired, much to his dismay. She's even commented that Jack acts more like her middle-aged father than her actual father and it's frequently joked about that their dynamic is more like a father-daughter relationship. In reality, Jack is 40 and the oldest member of the group after Geoff.[[labelnote:Note]]He was the third-oldest member, being a year and half younger than former member Ryan Haywood, who was pushing 40 at the time of his departure.[[/labelnote]]
** After Fiona's departure, new member Ky Cooke's dynamic with Jack is also joked about like a father-daughter relationship, especially after he was very dismayed after she didn't understand a joke he made and because she and Fiona are the same age.

* Sigma from ''VisualNovel/VirtuesLastReward''. [[LampshadeHanging The other characters comment on it quite a few times.]]

** [[spoiler:Actually a subversion -- Sigma's ''mind'' is 22, but thanks to MentalTimeTravel he is in his 67-year-old body, and spends about 99% of the game completely unaware of this. The game also keeps the player in the dark by never showing full-body shots of Sigma after the beginning cutscene where he gets kidnapped (when he's actually in his 22-year-old body), up until TheReveal near the end. This also obscures the fact that the actual 67-year-old Sigma is [[BigBad Zero]]]].

** The clones are altered to grow twice as fast in order to be battle-ready sooner. The Franchise/StarWarsExpandedUniverse features a Jedi being confused because she senses a child in the Force, but sees a grown man. Even taking their biological ages into account, the oldest clones are 26 by [[Film/RevengeOfTheSith the end of the Clone Wars]], but look like they are in their early 30s (whereas Creator/TemueraMorrison was in his early 40s at the time of filming).

SuperTrope to BornAsAnAdult, ReallyWasBornYesterday. Compare CompulsorySchoolAge, MistakenAge, AgeInappropriateDress. Contrast AnimationAnatomyAging. Compare and contrast ReallySeventeenYearsOld (where someone is younger than they ''claim'' to be).

* ''WebAnimation/EtraChanSawIt'': [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b5-dEqK3QVc Akane]] ends up looking way older than Kuroki after her divorce with him, despite both of them being the same age.

* In ''Fanfic/WhatAboutWitchQueen'', {{OC}} baron Hakan Madsen is said to look like elderly statesman, while being active army general, largely because he grayed early. In contrast, his son Kai is a case of OlderThanTheyLook.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' plays this for some realistic drama with Carol. She's about 14 or 15, but looks like she's in her twenties. This gets her lots of unwanted male attention, and makes it hard to fit in with people her own age.