Basically the opposite of "oh, Kissinger/Thatcher/Henry Miller/whoever is still alive, who knew? (As opposed to vanishing into the Aether, as expected of characters who have fulfilled their role in the story.
Certain men and women seemed to have lived and died their lives entirely within the confines of what might be called "their time", often due to dying young while others in the same circumstances might have lived to 60 or even 80. Jack London died at the age of 40, and never saw the Russian Revolution or the birth of the USSR. Wilde and Nietzsche died before seeing the XXth Century. What might they have said of it, or of the Great War? Lovecraft, Kafka, Spengler and TR didn't live to see the beginning of WWII, Lennon, Guevara and others could never experience the end of the Cold War or the 90s. Trotsky never saw the final triumph of Stalinism.
So, what if? What if tumors and accidents and tragic deaths could be butterfiled away and people like the aforementioned could see what was beyond their time?
Certain men and women seemed to have lived and died their lives entirely within the confines of what might be called "their time", often due to dying young while others in the same circumstances might have lived to 60 or even 80. Jack London died at the age of 40, and never saw the Russian Revolution or the birth of the USSR. Wilde and Nietzsche died before seeing the XXth Century. What might they have said of it, or of the Great War? Lovecraft, Kafka, Spengler and TR didn't live to see the beginning of WWII, Lennon, Guevara and others could never experience the end of the Cold War or the 90s. Trotsky never saw the final triumph of Stalinism.
So, what if? What if tumors and accidents and tragic deaths could be butterfiled away and people like the aforementioned could see what was beyond their time?