We don't know for a fact Harry was exactly 25 in Storm Front. I can't imagine him being younger than 24, but yeah. Not necessarily 25.
Fair point - I'd thought that we'd gotten some confirmation from Jim on that one, but you'd know
much better than I would. The rest of this isn't an argument against your logic (or anyone else's) per se - rather it's an attempt to finally get to the bottom of all this.
In all seriousness - please feel free to show I'm wrong on anything here. I'd rather have the right answer than think I do and be wrong.
That being said, DM's election year mention always had me placing that in 2003, and working backward from there would put SF and FM in 2000 (regardless of Harry's age).
I'd set up my mini-timeline site to help myself (and others, if they'd like to reference it) for placing the stories - I've found it especially useful for placing adventures in the DFRPG, for example. In digging through all of that, and using the comprehensive timeline from this thread coupled with my own notes, I've been using the following as a set of guide-posts (all month counts in ages rounded down):
- Harry is 19 when he leaves Ebeneezer (minimum age - 19y0mo)
- Harry wanders around for 9-20 months (minimum age - 19y9mo)
- Harry takes several jobs before joining Ragged Angel (minimum age - 20y0mo)
- Harry works for Ragged Angel for 3 years (minimum age - 23y0mo)
- Harry is in business for himself ~ 5 years by the time Death Masks happens (minimum age - 28y0mo)
Since Death Masks is in February (Harry would be ~28y3mo by the above math), and Storm Front is just shy of 3 years earlier (Harry is ~25y4mo), Harry is pretty much always 25 in my head during Storm Front.
Even if we compress the "Harry wanders" and "odd jobs" periods, the youngest Harry could start his own agency would be ~22 1/2 years old (19 when he left Ebeneezer, 3 years with Nick, plus time to move around). That could make him 24 during Storm Front, but I think that's pushing it. I completely agree that 23 is right out.
On the Knight Rider question, apparently there were episodes being aired in syndication all the way into the 90s:
http://knightrideronline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=17719 Couple that with the fact that a twelve-almost-thirteen Harry born in 1974 would be preferring to watch an episode aired in 1987, and I don't know how much the Knight Rider piece of the debate holds up anymore (as much as I wanted it to...
).
Now for some more headache-inducing analysis of all of this.
If we assume that the
youngest Harry could be is 24 in Storm Front, and the
oldest he could be is 29 (just to have an upper bound on things - I don't think anyone thinks that Harry is 30 when Storm Front rolls around). We'll narrow these ages in a second, but I think these boundaries are very reasonable.
The earliest logical date for Harry to be born is 10/31/1974 (due to the Copperfield dilemma), placing Storm Front between 1999 (age 24) and 2004 (age 29).
The latest logical time for Death Masks would be ~2004 (as the Shroud of Turin incident - a "few years" before - has a hard dated year of 1997). That being said, Death Masks makes, by far, the most sense being placed in 2003 due to the mayoral election year. Here, Harry would be between ages 27 and 32. However, if we assume that Death Masks has a hard date of Feburary 2003 (1999 is too early, 2007 too late), and Harry born no earlier than October of 1974, the oldest he could be during DM is 28 (having turned 28 in October of 2002). This doesn't leave a lot of wiggle room - if he's 27 or 28 in DM, that makes him 24 or 25 during Storm Front.
That having been said, we've been given that slew of time units I rattled off earlier in this post, which adds up to 28 years and change. So for me, the logical conclusion is that Harry is 28 in DM (taking place in 2003), 25 in SF (taking place in 2000), and as a result, born in 1974.
I've convinced myself on this too many times - I guess the question is, have I convinced anyone else, and is anyone of a mind to dissuade me from some logical fallacy I might have overlooked here?
