Wealth & Money Quote by Elizabeth Moon

Moon is taking a dry, almost side-eyeing inventory of the kinds of “old” characters fiction is willing to celebrate. Notice the rhythm: old and rich, old and brilliant, old sages, old wizards. Age gets to stay on the page as long as it arrives pre-sweetened with power, money, or mystical authority. The repetition works like a receipt: here are the approved archetypes, stamped and paid for, familiar enough to pass without question.

The self-inclusion - “including me” - is the tell. She’s not posturing as an outsider scolding the genre; she’s indicting a habit she’s participated in. That’s both ethical and tactical. It softens defensiveness in the reader while sharpening the critique: if even writers who care fall into these templates, the template is structural, not just laziness.

Underneath is a sly comment about who we allow to age with dignity. “Old” in pop storytelling often needs a justification, an added credential that cancels the audience’s discomfort with decline and dependency. The old person can’t simply be a protagonist living inside ordinary limits; they must be a wizard, a bank account, a walking library. Moon’s list hints at science fiction and fantasy’s long tradition of venerating elders as plot devices - mentors, gatekeepers, lore dispensers - rather than full-bodied leads with desire, messiness, and change left in them.

Contextually, coming from a genre novelist known for military SF and fantasy, it reads like craft-level self-critique: a writer noticing the default settings and pushing against the idea that age needs a costume to be narratively “worth it.”