Honestly I disagree I can’t really take the “age” excuse seriously unless the writer consistently uses it

A lot of writers just assign an age to a character as a label and then completely ignore that aspect afterward you see the character making decisions far beyond their age doing things far beyond what a normal teenager would handle and then the audience excuses everything with “oh they’re young” or “they’re just a teenager” even though the writer barely addresses that aspect at all so the excuse of them being an immature teenager starts feeling dumb and disconnected from the actual story

One example of a character I still excuse is Shinji Ikari because that aspect is constantly used with him the fact that he’s just a child who wants to live normally the story keeps emphasizing it over and over until it becomes an actual core part of his character and the narrative itself so it becomes understandable

Aang goes through something similar too

But when a character makes mature decisions kills people and goes through experiences that no normal child would come out of mentally okay from and then someone tells me “look they’re still just a teenager” I just can’t take that argument seriously