Coming-of-age stories can occur at any stage of a character’s life: The unifying quality is the protagonist making a leap of understanding into the adult world. However, coming-of-age stories often place the protagonist on the cusp of their teens. This is the case with The Dark Is Rising. At the age of 11, Will learns his true nature as an Old One—a symbolic adulthood, carrying with it responsibilities beyond the experience of a child his age. Over the course of the story, Will tests boundaries, meets challenges, and learns the ramifications and expectations of his new role, gradually finding that he is able to bear those responsibilities. Will initially resists his new role partly because he does not want to take on the great and terrible burdens of adulthood. Yet like his nature as an Old One, adulthood is inescapable.

Will also faces a problem that more typically appears in young adult fiction than in stories for middle grade readers: the question of who he is, what his role is, where he fits, and what his destiny is (or whether he must make his own). However, where young adult fiction tends to linger on such issues, Will very rapidly accepts his role, spending very little of the story questioning his identity and sense of self.