<p>Just like in our world, Westerners might have problems telling Asians apart, the same can be said about humans and elves.</p>

<p>Humans live and grow up looking at other humans. So they learn to tell them apart and categorize them much more easily. Now, this assumes that you can tell elves age from their appearance, it is just that humans don't learn that skill, because they either haven't seen an elf or haven't seen enough to create big enough sample to learn differences due to age.</p>

<p>Rory is over 900 years old and travels a lot. So she must have met quite a few elves in her lifetime. Also, she could have met the same elf multiple times in their lives, noting their changes in appearance.</p>

<p>The second thing that comes to mind is precision of her guess. Us humans are able to tell age with precision of +-5 years. It is safe to assume that elves appearance changes much slowly with age compared to humans, so the precision might be as low as +-50 years. So if Rory estimates Yao's age at 300, she could very well be between 250 to 350 years old. That is huge timespan. It is like saying  an adult 40 year old man "<em>is around age of toddler</em>".</p>

CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-04T16:17:43.417Z
Rory is over 900 years old, she said her exact age in the interview in Japan
Ryan
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-04T16:30:49.740Z
@Ryan Sorry, I mixed her up with another loli bba.
Euphoric
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-04T17:36:52.650Z
Somewhere I saw mentioned that dark elves age at 10% the rate of humans. I wonder if that's true.
giraffesyo
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-06T11:17:46.343Z
The accuracy of a +/- 50 year guess at 300 is closer to guessing a 40yr old's age at +/- 16 years accuracy.
Quill
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-06T11:27:56.583Z
@Quill I just made up the numbers for illustration. Also, the comparison wasn't meant to be "normalized" to the lifespan. The idea is that if someone estimates elf's age to 300 and they turn out to be 275, it would be considered "close enough". But being off by 25 years for human would be "completely off".
Euphoric
CC BY-SA 3.0
2016-03-04T07:07:01.170Z
2016-03-06T11:12:47.617Z
2016-03-06T11:12:47.617Z
Euphoric
<p>In Episode 11, Rory determines Yao's age by merely looking at her. Is there a rule on how to determine a Dark Elf's age? Besides her hair color, Yao appears to be somewhere in her twenties.  </p>

<p>A translation of the light novel covers this part with:   </p>

<blockquote>
  <p>At a glance, she seemed to be a Dark Elf female.</p>
  
  <p>She looked to be roughly 300 years old, but on the surface she resembled a human in her late twenties.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/DW7iU.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/DW7iU.jpg" alt="Picture of Rory mercury: &quot;300 years old or so...&quot;"></a></p>

<gate>
How can a Dark Elf's age be determined by looking at them?
# How can a Dark Elf's age be determined by looking at them?
Posted by: username_0 on 2016-03-02
In Episode 11, Rory determines Yao's age by merely looking at her. Is there a rule on how to determine a Dark Elf's age? Besides her hair color, Yao appears to be somewhere in her twenties.

A translation of the light novel covers this part with:

> At a glance, she seemed to be a Dark Elf female.
>
> She looked to be roughly 300 years old, but on the surface she resembled a human in her late twenties.

[![Picture of Rory mercury: ](https://i.sstatic.net/DW7iU.jpg)](https://i.sstatic.net/DW7iU.jpg)
**Tags:** gate
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## 1 answers
### Answer by username_1 on 2016-03-04. Score: 2 | Accepted answer
Just like in our world, Westerners might have problems telling Asians apart, the same can be said about humans and elves.

Humans live and grow up looking at other humans. So they learn to tell them apart and categorize them much more easily. Now, this assumes that you can tell elves age from their appearance, it is just that humans don't learn that skill, because they either haven't seen an elf or haven't seen enough to create big enough sample to learn differences due to age.

Rory is over 900 years old and travels a lot. So she must have met quite a few elves in her lifetime. Also, she could have met the same elf multiple times in their lives, noting their changes in appearance.

The second thing that comes to mind is precision of her guess. Us humans are able to tell age with precision of +-5 years. It is safe to assume that elves appearance changes much slowly with age compared to humans, so the precision might be as low as +-50 years. So if Rory estimates Yao's age at 300, she could very well be between 250 to 350 years old. That is huge timespan. It is like saying an adult 40 year old man "*is around age of toddler*".
> **Comments:**
> **username_2** (2016-03-04): Rory is over 900 years old, she said her exact age in the interview in Japan  
> **username_1** (2016-03-04): @Ryan Sorry, I mixed her up with another loli bba.  
> **username_0** (2016-03-04): Somewhere I saw mentioned that dark elves age at 10% the rate of humans. I wonder if that's true.  
> **username_3** (2016-03-06): The accuracy of a +/- 50 year guess at 300 is closer to guessing a 40yr old's age at +/- 16 years accuracy.  
> **username_1** (2016-03-06): @Quill I just made up the numbers for illustration. Also, the comparison wasn't meant to be "normalized" to the lifespan. The idea is that if someone estimates elf's age to 300 and they turn out to be 275, it would be considered "close enough". But being off by 25 years for human would be "completely off".  
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