481-Year Age-Gap Romance with Teen: That's Hot?

Kaitlin Brito

Valeriya Safronova posted in the New York Times Style section: “A 481-Year Age Difference? For Some Readers, That’s Hot.” (Aug. 13, 2024) In the piece, Safronova wrote that for “fans of romantasy novels: “[...] an age gap [romance] of hundreds of years between a main character and a love interest is the norm.”

Girl meets boy, girl falls in love, girl finds out boy is 500 years old.

Sound inappropriate? Icky? Creepy? Weird? Not for fans of romantasy novels, a subgenre that combines fantasy and romance, for whom an age gap of hundreds of years between a main character and a love interest is the norm.

Safronova referenced Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses, a “megahit” series where Feyre Archeron, whom is “about 19”, has a “500-year-old “mate,” a mysterious faerie”. Safronova wrote that “many readers” rate sex scenes between Feyre and her Shadow Daddy on a “spiciness” scale.

With the arrival of megahits like “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” a series by Sarah J. Maas, romantasy has garnered a huge fan base. Many readers dissect characters like Feyre Archeron, the protagonist in “A Court of Thorns and Roses,” who is about 19 when she meets her 500-year-old “mate,” a mysterious faerie; they swap theories; and they rate sex scenes on a “spiciness” scale. 

Fans of the genre refer to such ancient love interests as “shadow daddies.”

Safronova related that Maas is: “[...] the current rock star of the genre with more than 38 million copies of her books sold, makes liberal use of the shadow daddy trope.”

(Note: The faeries don’t look 500-years-old, but: “[...] they’re always young-presenting and, well, hot.”)

Typically, the male creatures — vampires, faeries, gods, angels — possess dark and mysterious powers. They can be centuries old internally, but externally, they’re always young-presenting and, well, hot.

And these shadow daddies are desperate to be saved from their tortured pasts by the love of a  spunky and yes, younger, female main character.

Elisabeth Wheatley, 29, a romance author and romantasy fan, shared with Safronova that Shadow Daddies are attractive, because they’re: “[...] mature and experienced enough to share the mental load” with a (much) younger woman, and they “wouldn’t have to be taught how to apply for health insurance or fill out a car registration”.

Safronova referenced several series’ that contained “enormous age gaps between younger women and older men”:

From Blood and Ash series by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Lightlark series by Alex Aster,  

Hush, Hush series by Becca Fitzpatrick 

The Familiar by Leigh Bardugo.

Lastly, Safronova wrote: “For many readers the acceptability of an age gap [romance] hinges on how deftly the author handles the power imbalance between the young female main character and her ancient love interest.” 

For example, she wrote that some fans of Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight series have been “reassessing the ethics of those books and movies”. Why? It’s “partially” because Bella was a 17-year-old virgin while Edward Cullen was a 104-year-old telepathic vampire. Thereby, implying that if Bella were not a virgin, or even an MTV teen mom, their age-gap romance would have been (more) acceptable. 

(Note: Per Wikipedia: “As of November 2011, the [Twilight] series had sold over 120 million copies worldwide with translations into at least 38 different languages around the globe.” And The Twilight Saga, the films that were based on the Twilight series, grossed over $3.36 billion worldwide.)