User blog comment:Martialmaniac/HxH timeline/@comment-26871067-20161216042007

I gotta agree that this should be pegged as a plothole. It only makes sense that Gon and Killua are at least 13 now based on the stated time frame, but dialogue says otherwise. Sorry this is sorta long and part of it is stuff other people brought up.

It's not uncommon for fictional characters to remain a certain age even when it's at odds with said narrative. Especially with animated kids, it's a documented phenomenon (hate to put it up to TV Tropes, but you can't deny this is a lot of examples ). It probably has something to do with keeping the kid protagonists' age in the "relatable" range for the target audience - you need kids to draw in an audience consisting of kids. Hence, Satoshi is never going to grow up, because we're still selling Pokemon.

What I genuinely believe, as a writer myself and someone who was a literary major: Togashi wasn't paying that much attention to how much time has been progressing in-series. The narrative's sparse hints say that, unless our world and HxHworld have different time progression, Gon and Killua must be at least 13 years old. However, Gon is still officially 12 according to Togashi's mouthpiece (the medic).

Re: the idea that the medic got it wrong:

This is a constructed medium - if someone makes a mistake or lies or for whatever reason has wrong information, it's crucial to a narrative that the audience knows that the information said character is offering is false. And Togashi utilizes this in the series the way it needs to be done. (Hisoka's lies about why he's in Greed Island are bookended by the truth and feature other characters saying "I think he's lying", Gon's immediately proven wrong re: Kite being alive with a full page of Pitou holding Kite's severed head).

We know when a character's wrong or lying, because the narrative tells us such. I don't think Togashi would deceive the audience in such a meaningless way. Particularly given that the target audience of HxH (boys around Gon and Killua's age) is probably not going to think "oh maybe the medic guy was wrong" and go through the entire series looking for clues as to the progression of time.

Without misinfo correction, I think it has to be assumed that the information the medic gives is intended to be viewed as correct - especially because there's no reason for a misdirect on how old Gon is. What plot significance would there be for a minor, unnamed character to get Gon's age wrong? Feels more like "Togashi didn't sit down and chart out the timeline to realize Gon should be 13 now". Math's hard, man. Get those numbers out of here.

That said, to me there's no question that Togashi's in-series word should be worth more than contextual info. Until we have a stated age (not one from piecing together the timeline, someone saying "Gon is [x] years old") saying otherwise, I think presumed knowledge should not be on the wiki. This is how we got "Goreinu is an emitter" and other misinfo on the pages.

Plot hole, yes, but probably an Official™  plot hole. It's maybe deserving of a trivia point, but I think 12 should stay as Gon's official age.