so what's up with the trope where children have access to magic and then lose it as a prerequisite to growing up? where does it come from, what is it for?
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it comes up in narnia where each kid gradually loses access to narnia, which is why it's on my mind, but it's also part of his dark materials which was really formative for me. the bit where lyra loses the ability to read the alethiometer "by grace" at the end
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looks like the TVTropes page i'm looking for is "children are special"
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.
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yo arthur what the fuck
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whoa
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Replying to @QiaochuYuan
In the studies of kids with past life memories, the memories are usually gone by age 7.
Some cultures believed little children needed 3-7 years to fully incarnate into this world—before that they’re still kinda “on their way over” but not fully here from the spirit world yet
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It's an observation that children can play without feeling self-conscious. After puberty it all tends to become a performance instead.
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Also mentioned in Tolkien, which suggests to me that it's a much older theme they both would have encountered elsewhere—maybe in George MacDonald, if not much, much earlier in fairy stories?
