greg rucka is wrong about how old andy is and hereās why
Greg Rucka, author of both The Old Guard comics and the screenplay, claims Andy is 6,000 years old. Charlize Theron and other members of the movieās creative team have repeated the number, although itās not stated in the movie itselfāwhen questioned, Andy just says sheās ātoo oldā and Booker tells Nile that Andyās forgotten.
Now, besides the fact that 6,000 is a patently ridiculous age, even for someone who canāt die, me and my twelve Wikipedia articles would beg to differ on the historical accuracy of Andy being quite that old. (Keep in mind, though, that I havenāt read the comics. Iām going off of this official timeline videoāwhich does include some comic panelsāand the brief flashbacks we get in the movie.)
First of all, if Andyās 6,000 years old, that puts her date of birth around 4000 BCE
the Scythian cultures did not exist in 4000 BCE
the cultures that would becomeĀ the Scythian cultures did not exist in 4000 BCE
in 4000 BCE, Mesopotamian civilization was just getting started, the Indus River Valley civilization had yet to invent writing, and the hot new invention was the pottery wheel, although nobody had figured out how to turn that sideways to make a vehicle yet
more importantly, horses had not been domesticated (okay, technically 4000 BCE is the oldest proposed date for the domestication of horses, but thereās much stronger evidence supporting domestication closer to 2000 BCE)
HOW ARE YOU GOING TO BE A HORSELORD RAIDER SWEEPING ACROSS THE STEPPE IF HORSES HADNāT BEEN DOMESTICATED YET
Andyās also shown in comic panels using stirrups at this time, which wouldnāt come into widespread use until the 3rd century CE in China, but whatever
if Andyās old enough to be a Proto-Indo-European
why is her name Andromache the Scythian
Classical Scythian culture reached its height between 700-300 BCE
by that point, Andy would have been 3,300 years old already
she found Quynh in 1000 BCE
yet in flashbacks Quynh calls her Andromache, a name she had to have acquired after they met
heck, Andy calls herselfĀ Andromache the Scythian, and continues to do so for the next 3,000-ish years
what would have been so great about those few centuries in ScythiaĀ that thatās the name and title Andy chooses to go with over her birth-name or any other approximation of it or where sheās from
thereās absolutely no reason for her to
except that Greg Rucka did approximately zero research when deciding this
well, thatās not true. he did enough to know that the Scythians were the inspiration for the Amazons in Ancient Greek writing. Andy is clearly THE Amazon archetype
yet he somehow decided that making Andy contemporary with ANCIENT SUMERIA was just totally fine???
Anyway, I have taken my hammer (and my sixteen Wikipedia articles) and fixed the canon. Youāre welcome, Mr. Rucka.
I said above that the height of Classical Scythian culture was from 700-300 BCE. this is true for the tribes that came to dominate the Pontic steppe, between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea
but there were other groups of similar cultures that stretched across the whole Eurasian steppe
contemporary Greek and Persian writers lumped them all together under one name
modern scholars still refer to them collectively as Scythian cultures (despite some confusion in the literature as a result)
these various cultures flourished from 900 BCE to 200 CE
so Andy becomes immortal around 900 BCE
sheās almost 3,000 years old. thatās still way older than anyone else in the Old Guard
Quynh becomes immortal around 500 BCE. Sheās likely a member of the Yue kingdom in what is now southern China/northern Vietnam (purely my headcanon, thoughāother people feel free to imagine differently). Andy has been completely alone for 400 years.
it takes a century for Andy to find Quynh, so about 400 BCE. This is during the Warring States Period in China, a time of such prolonged conflict that it would make sense for Quynh to have given in to despair (again this bit is pure headcanon).
that gives them plenty of time to meet up with Lykon when he becomes immortal in 331 BCE, and the rest of the canon timeline can proceed from there without making me implode
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