Immortality in fiction
Encyclopedia
Immortality
is a popular subject in fiction
, as it explores humanity's deep-seated fears and comprehension of its own mortality
. Immortal beings and species
abound in fiction, especially fantasy
fiction, and the meaning of "immortal" tends to vary.
Some fictional and mythological beings are completely immortal (or very nearly so) in that they are immune to death by injury, disease and age. Examples include various types of gods
. Sometimes such powerful immortals can only be killed by each other, as is the case with the Q
from the Star Trek
series. Even if something can't be killed, a common plot device involves putting an immortal being into a slumber or limbo, as is done with Sauron
in J. R. R. Tolkien
's The Lord of the Rings
and the Dreaming God of Pathways Into Darkness
. Storytellers often make it a point to give weaknesses to even the most indestructible of beings. For instance, the Greek hero Achilles
was supposed to be invincible, yet his enemies were able to exploit his now-infamous weakness, Achilles' heel
, to slay him.
Many fictitious species are said to be immortal if they cannot die of old age, even though they can be killed through other means, such as injury. Modern fantasy elves
often exhibit this form of immortality. Other creatures, such as vampire
s and the immortals in the film Highlander
, can only die from beheading. In Harry Potter
, witches or wizards are able to become immortal by creating horcruxes (as long as the Horcruxes are not destroyed) or by drinking the elixir of life
, made with the Philosopher's Stone, though the Elixir must be drunk often to maintain the immortality. The classic and stereotypical vampire is typically slain by one of several very specific means, including a silver bullet
(or piercing with other silver weapons), a stake through the heart (perhaps made of consecrated wood), or by exposing them to sunlight.
Immortality can be used as a prize, something to be earned by great achievement. Legendary hero
es, great magicians and wise elders sometimes rise to the ranks of immortality in fiction and mythology. It can be the reward at the end of a great quest
, such as the quest for the Holy Grail
or the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh
. When immortality is something that can be bought, works of fiction will often make judgements regarding the high price that must be paid. Immortality is often the desire of evil characters as well. Though immortality is something that can be earned, it doesn't necessarily mean it can also be taken away for much of the dismay of many an immortal villain
.
s of Greek mythology
are famous examples.
Tezuka Osamu's lifework Phoenix
(known in Japan
as Hi no Tori) had a phoenix
whose blood would provide immortality. In various ages, many "heroes" and "heroines" would strive for immortality only to realize that there is something beyond eternal life. In one story titled "Raise hen" (lit. "Next World Story") the last remaining human male who survived a holocaust, blessed (or cursed) with immortality through the phoenix blood, would create another beginning of life. In his immortal form, he would see a race of slugs, after gaining intelligence, destroy themselves in another holocaust. He would seed the earth with life that would become present day humans, and finally leave the earth to join his lover, who died billions of years ago, in heaven
.
In the Cthulhu Mythos
created by H. P. Lovecraft
, there is a race of "Fish-Men" known as Deep Ones. They stop aging after reaching adulthood and can breed with humans to birth offspring with this "eternal youth." This is a faustian bargain, as after reaching the age of 20, the Deep One Hybrids undergo a transformation from normal humans into hideous Deep Ones. They also lose all concept of humanity and morality
and go to live in the ocean with the Deep Ones and to worship the undersea deity Cthulhu
, the Lord of Madness.
that might be intended to teach a lesson. It is not uncommon to find immortal characters yearning for death. A similar, though somewhat different theme, concerned Elves and Men in Middle-earth
. While the immortality of Elves was not explicitly a curse, the mortality of Men was viewed as a gift, albeit one that was not understood by those possessing it. This was chiefly due to the Elves' clear faculty of memory
, which could accumulate millennia of sad experiences.
In some parts of popular culture, immortality is not all that it is made out to be, possibly causing insanity
and/or significant emotional pain. Much of the time, these things only happen to mortals who gain immortality. Beings born with immortality (such as deities
, demigod
s and races with "limited immortality") are usually quite adjusted to their long lives, though some may feel sorrow at the passing of mortal friends, but they still continue on. Some Immortals (such as certain deities, demigods, and intelligent undead
) may also watch over mortal relations (either related to or descended from them), occasionally offering help when needed.
In his short story 'The Immortal', Jorge Luis Borges
treats the theme of immortality from an interesting perspective: after centuries and centuries, everything is repetition for the immortal and a feeling of ennui prevails. The immortal, who had turned so after drinking from a certain river, is set to wander the world in search for that same river, so that he can become mortal again.
The Dungeon Master in Zork Grand Inquisitor
, a spirit in a lantern during the game, accidentally casts an immortality spell on himself while he still has his body. He soon grows terribly bored, and tries many ways of suicide, with little or comical effects, for example: "Dear Diary, today I tried to kill myself by shoving a sword through my heart. All I got was heartburn
."
Another rather comic incident involving an accidental cause of immortality can be found in Douglas Adams
' Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, where the alien Wowbagger accidentally turned himself immortal. Due to not being a natural immortal, people who he considers to be "a bunch of serene bastards", he doesn't know how to handle his immortality and winds up deciding that he will insult every living being in the universe - in alphabetical order just to kill some time, something he has an awful lot of. In the radio adaptation, his immortality is removed right before the End of the Universe after insulting a deity.
In the manga Blade of the Immortal
, Manji
is a samurai
who has been cursed with immortality. Only after slaying 1000 evil men will the curse be broken so he can finally die. His body cannot age nor can he die from physical wounds. Manji's sword skills are sloppy due to the fact that since he's immortal he doesn't need to know how to fight properly. There is another immortal character in the Naruto series named Hidan, who claims to be the slowest attacking member in his group and is considered stupid by his partner, because he attacks without thought for the consequences. It is possible he did not gain these skills because he did not believe he would need them, being an immortal. This could hardly be further from the truth: Hidan is now a disembodied head buried under a ton of rock, and yet cannot die.
In legend, most famously in Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman
, a ship's captain is cursed with immortality after attempting to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in a terrible storm. He is doomed to sail around the Cape forever.
In Jonathan Swift
's Gulliver's Travels
, some of the inhabitants
of the island of Immortals (near Japan) don't die, but they age and became ill, demented and a nuisance to themselves and those surrounding them. Swift presents immortality as a curse rather than a blessing. The film Zardoz
also depicts a dystopian view of immortality, where interest in life has been lost and suicide is impossible.
The Star Trek: Voyager
episode "Death Wish
" explored in depth the existence of the omnipotent, immortal and omniscient aliens Q
. It is learned in that episode that the aliens were originally human-like, and somehow evolved into their current state long ago. With their new-found powers, the Q set out to fully explore, experience and understand the universe. Afterwards, the Q had nothing left to do or say, and now they simply sit out eternity in their realm. As one Q explained, you can only experience the universe so many times before it gets boring.
In the children's novel, Tuck Everlasting
by Natalie Babbitt
, a family is made physically immortal by drinking water from a magical spring. They are trapped at the same age forever and are invulnerable. They are hated by the ordinary people who knew them and are forced to watch as everything they cherish grows old and dies.
In the film and television series Highlander, once one dies for the first time, if they are an Immortal, they will spend the rest of eternity at that physical age. This poses a problem when one dies as a small child, or as a very old man. The same is true of the Claudia character in Anne Rice
's Interview with the Vampire
, who became a vampire while still only a child, and the Blade
television series.
In the Legacy of Kain
series, vampirism was a curse placed upon an ancient race that won the war against the Hylden that granted bloodlust, sterility
and immortality, the latter causing their God to abandon them.
In the movie Death Becomes Her
, the characters of Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp both become immortal and young after drinking a potion, but this form of immortality has significant drawbacks; most significantly, unlike most forms of immortality, which include rapid healing from injuries, Madeline and Helen simply stop aging from the moment they drink the potion, and subsequently don't stop moving even after their bodies die. In other words, whoever drinks the potion becomes immortal, but can still be killed and the body rises up and essentially becomes a zombie
, their bodies continuing to decay despite the fact that they are still fully conscious and self-aware, regardless of the injuries they sustain in the process; in the course of the film Madeline's neck is broken and a large hole is blown in Helen's stomach, with both of them shattering into pieces in the final scene of the film, and yet both continue walking and talking as though nothing had happened. At the conclusion of the film, it is shown that the two are now forced to stay together for all eternity in order to ensure that their bodies remain in at least partially decent condition, despite their own long-term enmity for each other.
In the film Hocus Pocus, while three witches seek immortality, they also curse one of their enemies, a young man named Thackery Binx, to become an immortal black cat to punish him for trying to stop them draining his sister's life-force so that he will be condemned to live forever with the guilt of not saving her. As a result, Binx remains alive as a cat for over three hundred years, capable of surviving even such accidents as getting run over by a bus, until the witches who cursed him are brought back to life, their subsequent deaths when the sun rises ensuring that their curse is lifted.
In general, a theme seen with many variations, is the notion of an essential world weariness akin to extreme exhaustion for which death is the only relief. This is inescapable when immortality is defined as (half) infinite life. Immortality defined as finite but arbitrarily long per the desire to exist does not, as a definition, suffer this limitation.
When a person is tired of life, even death is shut off to them, creating an endless torture, as evidenced in the Bill Murray
movie Groundhog Day
, where a character is trapped in an endlessly repeating time loop that causes him to live the same day over and over again even when he tries to kill himself before the end of the cycle.
Several characters/species in the Touhou
series are immortal. The most notable are people who drink the Hourai elixir, which renders them completely immune to death and any possibility of death forever. According to some official works, it works not by regeneration, but by instant resurrection due to incapability of dying altogether due to being their own existence that knows no manipulation whatsoever. Other examples include people who become Celestials or Magicians, although they can still presumably be killed through serious injury.
In the Soul
series,the character Zasalamel has shown to be immortal due to being able to reincarnate
, thus making him immortal. But he is tired of life and he desires a peaceful death. His main goal in Soul Calibur III
is to find Soul Edge and Soul Calibur to break the cycle. What happens if 'Tale Of Souls' is completed when playing as him depends on whether the QTE
Scene is completed or not; if done correctly, the cycle is broken and he becomes mortal but if the command is not put in, he remains immortal. In his Soul Calibur IV ending, he is still immortal and lives in the modern era.
is one of the most famous examples of the undead.
The Crimson King of Stephen King's The Dark Tower
series has achieved a kind of immortality (as well as invincibility) by swallowing a sharpened spoon, thus dying yet remaining a conscious being.
The roleplaying game Vampire: The Requiem
, published by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
, has undeath be the form of immortality held by vampires wherein their bodies are absent of all life functions such as breathing and heartbeat. They have theoretically infinite lifespans (and can even survive unprotected in the vacuum of space and under the crushing depths of the ocean), but they can be killed by sunlight, burning, or decapitation. Though they are also forced to watch as everything they knew in life withers away and they are unable to adapt to the changing eras of history. Because they are fallible predators, their humanity
also begins to deteriorate, and a few become mindless/insane monsters called Draugr
(also known as Revenants) as a result of losing all concept of being human. Such ravening monsters are always hunted down by other vampires, to prevent humans from learning of the existence of vampires.
The character Raziel
from Legacy of Kain
is a wraith who is capable of passing between the spirit world and manifesting in the living/material realm. Due to his secondary remaking into a wraith, he is beyond the cycle of death and rebirth so therefore cannot be killed. Any significant damage done onto him in the living realm forces him to seep into the spirit world to heal and any fatal damage in the spirit world simply transports him back to the Elder God or an activated checkpoint.
In the films Re-Animator
, and subsequently Bride of Re-Animator
and Beyond Re-Animator
, Dr Herbert West
creates a serum that has the ability to re-animate dead tissue and stop its decay. In Re-Animator, re-animated corpses are shown to show some emotion and intelligence if they're fresh enough. However, the antagonist in the story lobotomizes re-animated decaying corpses to make them his slaves.
Freddy Krueger
of the Nightmare on Elm Street
movies is considered to be immortal, as well. Though he was killed as a human, he exists as a "dream demon", who needs only to be feared to be able to enter people's dreams and cause them harm. Even without this fear, he can exist, either in "limbo" or in Hell. Because of this immortality, he can never be permanently killed. He can only be contained by being forgotten about, and thus prevented from ever entering dreams again.
In the movies and television series Highlander along with its franchise, the main characters of Connor MacLeod
, Duncan MacLeod
, and Methos
, with other characters, are immortals since they are immune to disease and stopped aging after they had their first death, they can live forever and they only can really die when they are beheaded.
In the anime series One Piece
, Brook consumed a cursed fruit before his death. One year after dying in battle Brook was reanimated by the curse, although only his bones and hair remained. Despite his apparent lack of internal organs Brook can speak, eat, drink, feel pain and carry out bodily functions such as burping and passing gas. These incongruous bodily functions and Brook's love of skeleton puns are a significant source of humor for the series. It is not yet known if Brook can recover from being killed a second time.
In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
, Captain Barbosa and his crew have become undead after taking cursed gold coins out of an ancient chest cursed by Aztec gods. They look like humans during the day, but standing in the moonlight reveals their true nature: undead skeletons. While they still retain some of their human features like hair and in Captain Barbosa's case his nose, this form of being immortal is a curse rather than a blessing since they can't die but also cannot feel life's pleasures or even pain.
might be immortal or it might be able to give immortality to humans. Immortality is also achieved in many examples by replacing the mortal human body by machines.
In Doctor Who
mythology, the Cybermen are basically human brains placed into mechanical bodies, with every emotion drained out. This process was supposed to allow the Human race to reach its pinnacle. The unforeseen downturn is that with immortality reached, there is no motivator for the Human Race to actually strive for anything more. In another Doctor Who
storyline, The Caves of Androzani
, a fictitious substance named spectrox, found exclusively on the titular planet, is revealed to be able to prolong human life to more than double its natural length, and as such is the most valuable substance in the galaxy - ironically, the lives of all those involved with it in the story are grim and difficult, due to corporate monopolizing of its distribution, and the resultant infighting over its control, extortionate costs and the theft and smuggling of the substance from its mines.
Another example of immortality in Doctor Who
is found in the character Jack Harkness
, a companion to the Ninth
and Tenth Doctor
s, who was unintentionally transformed into a 'fact' of the timeline when fellow companion Rose Tyler
temporarily acquired omnipotent power and brought him back to life after he was killed by the Daleks; unused to the power, Rose didn't just bring him back to life, she 'brought [him] back forever'. Although he ages at a very slight rate - having grown only the occasional grey hair despite having been alive for over two millennia since he was resurrected - Harkness is capable of recovering from any potentially fatal injuries within moments, although some forms of death take him longer to recover from than others; a bullet to the head only put him down for a few seconds, but he required at least a few minutes to come back after being thrown from the roof of a tall building, while it took him the better part of a day to recuperate after he was killed via a bomb in his stomach (Although the fact that he was able to regenerate his entire body when reduced to only an arm, a shoulder and part of his head should not be overlooked).
In the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood
, Jack's colleague Owen Harper
acquired a similar kind of immortality when he was brought back to life after being shot. Owen becomes technically dead, and thus incapable of eating, drinking, sleeping, having sex, and healing injuries. However, for all practical purposes, he cannot be killed, apparently lacking the need to breathe and displaying a general immunity to pain, as demonstrated by his not noticing when he cuts his left hand. Owen compares his new state to Jack by saying that, while Jack will 'live forever', he is destined to 'die forever'.
Torchwood's fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day, explored what would happen if the whole world became immortal, when an attempted by a mysterious group of three families to gain power resulted in all human life on Earth losing the ability to die (Although the formerly-immortal Jack Harkness became mortal at the same time). However, while they cannot die, they can still get sick and injured and their ability to heal has not been affected, with the result that a suicide bomber's body is left totally pulverized even while he appears to retain some form of consciousness, team member Rex Matheson
has to deal with constant pain from the wound in his chest where he was impaled by a rebar in a driving accident, and a woman retains consciousness even after her car is crushed in a car compacter with her still inside it. This is eventually undone and Jack's immortality restored, with all patients classified as 'Category One' under the new medical rules- being fatally injured to the point where the Miracle was the only reason they hadn't died yet- being given a brief moment of clarity and peace before they passed away.
Megaman Zero's Doctor Weil had his memories transferred into program data and his body remodeled into that of a cyborg's as punishment for sparking the Elf Wars, using the Dark Elf to attack Reploids and humanity alike. He was then banished from nature and humanity, which eventually drove him insane.
In the TV series Stargate SG-1
, the primary antagonists for the first eight years, the Goa'uld
achieve a measure of immortality. The Goa'uld symbiote can naturally extend the life-span of its human hosts upward of 200 years. By coupling its own natural healing abilities with advanced technology, a Goa'uld can keep itself and its host alive almost indefinitely. However, during the later seasons of the show it is noted that the Goa'uld, even when using life-prolonging technology, change hosts after a number of millennia. Additionally, Lord Yu, one of the oldest Goa'uld, started experiencing similar symptoms to old age (such as memory loss) as his host had become too old to be regenerated by the technology, and the symbionte itself was now physically unable to take a new host due to old age. The Goa'uld do experience a different measure of immortality as they possess genetic memory, so any direct descendants will have all the memories of their predecessor. This is passed on down the generations of the Goa'uld, so one could say a part of the Goa'uld lives on forever.
In the spinoff to SG-1, Stargate Atlantis
, the main villains, the Wraith
, who drain the life force of human beings to survive, can't die of natural causes, and are difficult to kill by force (their toughness depends on the time of the last feasting). In the episode "The Defiant One", a Wraith remained alive for over 10,000 years by cannibalizing other Wraith when its original food source (captured humans) was depleted.
Both series feature "ascended beings," such as the Ancients, who have learned to shed their physical body and exist as energy, making them immortal. Another species in the series, the Asgard
, have mastered a form of immortality, by transferring their minds into cloned bodies when their original form sustains serious injury, but by the time they encounter Earth they have begun to die due to their genetic structure breaking down as a result of being cloned so often, the race committing mass suicide at the conclusion of SG-1 to spare themselves the pain of the death that now awaits them after recognising that they cannot save themselves.
Perry Rhodan
is the world's most prolific literary science fiction (SF) series, published since 1961 in Germany. In the storyline Perry Rhodan is the commander of the first mission to the moon, where they come upon a stranded vessel of an alien race in search of eternal youth. Perry Rhodan uses the superior technology to unite the earth and then continues the search for eternal youth. Ultimately he follows the hints laid out by a higher being called ES ("it" in German) that exists in an incorporeal state. This being chooses Perry Rhodan and a select few of his companions to attain Agelessness in order for them to pursue goals set by ES. ES says "I grant you everlasting life, not rejuvenation." Over the course of the series, there is a side-plot, which focuses on the downsides of immortality: It is hard to engage in relationships, when your partner ages and dies off. Similar problems occur with children.
In the Hyperion Cantos
Universe, the TechnoCore, a group of sentient artificial intelligences which parasitized humanity, created a parasite called the cruciform. It was first tested in the planet Hyperion, and it is able to regenerate a human body along with personality and memories after death. The cruciforms are a flawed success as there is a loss of intelligence and genetic decay after each resurrection, rendering asexuated humans with little intelligence. However, when the TechnoCore offers it to the Catholic Church in a secret alliance to be able to keep with the need of parasitism over humanity, any error in personality and memories in the resurrection creche fixed through a process that only some priests in the Catholic Church know. This effectively brings perfect immortality to any human who abides to follow the laws of the Catholic Church. Even in the case of a disastrous death, the smallest cruciform remnant is enough to recreate the whole human body again, given the right conditions. However, the main characters in the story debate about the ethics and benefits of immortality, reaching to the conclusion that it stalls the evolution of humankind and it's severely counterproductive to any long-term expectations. Before the arrival of the cruciform and the TechnoCore alliance with the Catholic Church, wealthy humans were able to also achieve significant increase of their life expectancy thanks to several treatments, although the best results came with the expensive Poulsen treatments. One of the very few characters to span all the story, Martin Silenus, artificially expands his life expectancy thanks to these, and also to cryogenic fuges where he only is conscious for a few days each century, making him reach an age over 1,000 years.
In the novel Ender's Shadow
a genetic modification known as Anton's Key is discovered, allowing the human mind to achieve supreme intelligence at the cost of an extremely short life, and it is said that the reverse can be done, making a person immortal at the cost of nearly all intelligence.
In Tad Williams
' Otherland
novels, the Grail Brotherhood, a group made up of the most affluent people in the world, attempt to achieve eternal life in virtual reality. They try to copy their neural pathways into virtual replicas with all of their memories, then kill their physical forms. The process fails due to complications involving the system's artificial intelligence
.
In the LucasArts
adventure game The Dig
, the remains of an alien civilisation advanced enough to gain first physical and then spiritual immortality are explored and analysed. It eventually turns out that the obsession with living forever ultimately brought about their downfall; they lived forever, but lost "everything that made life worth living".
In the game Warhammer 40,000
set thousands of years in the future and across the galaxy there are many examples of immortality and life extension. The emperor himself is immortal. The Necron
race are virtually immortal, their souls placed in machines that can be revived from any damage. And the C'tan, beings of pure energy living in artificial bodies, are immortal and can only be fully destroyed by another C'tan or by a Warp-based attack, such as a Talisman of Vaul. Some Chaos space marine characters can live a very very long time due to the time dilating abilities of the warp, coupled with advanced technology and magic from the chaos gods. The genetic modification to make a space marine by itself gives long life. Some sources say a space marine is practically immortal outside of death in battle. Many prominent or wealthy human characters have used technology like cyborgization and so called "juvenat" treatments to extend the normal lifespan. There are examples in warhammer 40k fiction of what looks like senility in extremely old characters such as high level adeptus mechanicus characters, space marine dreadnaughts and high level government officials.
In the Richard K. Morgan novel Altered Carbon
their consciousness rotated into a new clone when they die. Certain wealthy called "Meths" (short for Methuselah
) can afford to have their consciousness rotated through a series of perpetual rejuvenated clones, thus avoiding old age. It is wryly noted however, that most people don't have the stomach to experience old age and death more than twice, and opt to be "put on stack" (stored) except for special family occasions.
Most of the novels by Alastair Reynolds
feature immortal characters of some form or another, usually made possible by advanced medical technology and periodic regeneration of one's body. One of the issues discussed in these novels, particular Chasm City
, is the manner in which characters deal with their immortality and the boredom it inevitably generates. The Conjoiners, the most advanced faction, are able to modify their brains to the extent that they simply do not experience boredom at all. Unaugmented humans typically suffer intense boredom and attempt to reduce this by taking part in increasingly dangerous and exciting activities.
Relativistic interstellar travel
granting virtual immortality is used as a plot device in Orson Scott Card
's series of novels involving Andrew (Ender) Wiggin. Gravitic devices such as the stasis field are used in the Known Space
universe created by Larry Niven
. This kind of immortality is, however, illusionary. The "slowing" effects of time dilation also extend to all functions of the brain; thus, while to an outside observer the traveler's life would seem greatly extended, the slowed individual would not actually experience his life as any longer than before and would age at the regular speed, relative to his own time frame.
Unstuck in Time - The idea, postulated primarily in Kurt Vonnegut
's Slaughterhouse Five, that one can become unstuck in time, and spend (at least theoretically) eternity in various points of their life. While this person would still die and cease to be, their life would not, in essence, end, as they would eternally wander about their life. In the particular example of Slaughterhouse Five, the main character, Billy Pilgram, meanders about his existence, reliving war experiences, an alien abduction, and his eventual assassination. Whether this would qualify as immortality is debatable.
In Misfits
, a flash storm gives several teenagers currently doing community service superpowers. One character, Nathan, seems to have no power until the last episode, when he becomes immortal after falling onto a spiked metal fence. He wakes up in his coffin, pleased to have found his power, though disappointed to be buried alive with nothing but his iPod. As the series progresses, Nathan learns that his power also allows him to see the spirits of those who have passed on - although this apparently only applies when dealing with people he knows or has some connection with, as the only 'ghosts' he has seen are those of his half-brother, a new member of the community service group, and his friend Kelly - and his power allows him to even survive being shot in the head, although he cannot heal from less fatal injuries.
In Alias
, the character of Arvin Sloane
, fixated on the work of brilliant Renaissance inventor Milo Rambaldi
, discovers Rambaldi's last great secret in the series finale when he falls into a special fluid and becomes immortal, only to be subsequently trapped in a secret tomb under several hundred feet of rock.
In the Instrumentality of Mankind
universe by Cordwainer Smith
, there's a drug which allows to delay aging indefinitely in humans, called stroon or Santaclara drug. However, the Instrumentality is very aware of the dangers of immortality, so every human being can only take stroon up to a life of 400 years. Although there are exceptions, for example if a person is thought to be valuable for humankind, no one is allowed to live longer than 1,000 years. Thus, although humankind could achieve immortality, they avoid it consciously.
The British long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who
focuses on a character called the Doctor
, a member of the alien Time Lord
race, who can "regenerate
" instead of dying or aging; however, rather than simply healing wounds, this results in his entire physical appearance changing when he is fatally wounded or terminally sick, and he is only capable of doing so twelve times before finally dying for good. The Tenth Doctor
was able to 'cheat' the process by channeling the energy of his regeneration into his 'spare hand
'- the hand having been cut off shortly after regeneration but his body was able to grow a new one using the remaining regenerative energy- after it had healed the injury that would have killed him in "Journey's End
", thus preventing his body from changing his appearance while remaining healthy. The Doctor reveals in The End of Time
that it is possible for him to die, if he is killed before the regeneration process can take place. Presumably this is what happened with the Second Doctor
's temporary Time Lady companion Serena, who was killed when a musket ball passed through both her hearts. In general, regeneration has saved the Doctor many times. Even without regeneration it has been revealed that the Doctor is very long-lived, his first incarnation
apparently living for around four hundred and fifty years before dying of old age (The Tenth Planet
; age was mentioned in The Evil of the Daleks
) and the Sixth Doctor
apparently surviving for fifty-three years with no signs of physical aging during that time (Said to be 900 in Revelation of the Daleks
; the Seventh Doctor
stated his age as being 953 immediately after his regeneration in Time and the Rani
); the Eighth Doctor Adventures
published by the BBC featured the amnesiac Eighth Doctor
living on Earth for over a century (The Burning
to Escape Velocity
) while waiting for his TARDIS
time-space machine to repair itself, and never aging a day during that time period. When confronted with the question as to why he leaves behind his companions after a time, the Tenth Doctor explained sadly that if he kept all his old friends around, he would be forced to watch them age and eventually die, while he himself would live on due to his greater lifespan, regarding this as "the curse of the Time Lords".
In the Doctor Who story The Five Doctors
, Lord President Borusa of Gallifrey uses the first five regenerations of the Doctor and various companions in a plot to gain the immortality of Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society, for himself. But it turns out to be a trap conceived of by Rassilon to deal with individuals with such a desire, Borusa being trapped for eternity as a living statue in Rassilon's tomb. As the First Doctor
says in the end, "Immortality is a curse, not a blessing".
On the TV show South Park
, the character Kenny McCormick
was killed in nearly every earlier episode, but always came back to life in the next episode without any apparent explanation (Although characters were apparently aware of his regular deaths, such as Eric Cartman
once saying that Kenny 'died all the time' or Kenny himself once complaining that his friends never cared when he died). A common phrase on the show was, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards!" This was later implied- although not explicitly stated- to be the result of Kenny's parents joining a Cthulu-worshipping cult before his birth, and explains that Kenny wakes up in his bed each morning after his 'death' with his friends not actually retaining any specific memories about his demise.
X-Men's Wolverine
is a character with keen animal-like senses, and whose mutant healing abilities made it possible for a specialized fictional alloy called adamantium to be grafted to his entire skeleton without the subsequent metal poisoning killing him almost instantly, with the addition of two sets of three razor-sharp claws that extend from each hand (Although later stories revealed that the claws were a part of his natural mutation, the process simply making them metal rather than the bone they would have been normally). Each time he projects the claws, they cut through the skin of his knuckles, but the slick design prevents any bleeding from occurring. The cuts the blades create instantly heal once they're retracted. Wolverine's healing abilities also slow down his physical aging, allowing him to live beyond the average human lifespan, having been born in the late 19th century.
In the Gerry Anderson
1960s television series, Captain Scarlet
was supposedly indestructible. In that series a Martian race known as the Mysteron
s have the ability to duplicate things which have been destroyed as they were when they were whole, including producing a living version of a dead person. Captain Scarlet is an agent of that race that has defected to fight against them but retains the ability to create a living version of himself after dying. The series uses the term retro-metabolism for this alien regeneration technique.
Jason Voorhees
from the Friday the 13th movies is considered to be immortal. It is theorized that each time he is "killed" he is actually just put into a type of sleep while he regenerates enough of his lost and damaged tissue to function normally again. Jason has been killed - taking a large blade to the head - but means outside his physical influence- a lightning-bolt struck a metal pole that had been rammed into his chest- led to his resurrection. When he was first killed, he survived permanent death via his father's wish that he would not be cremated, before his own murderer incidentally brought him back while trying to destroy his corpse, leading to a more unstoppable Jason. Jason even survives being blown up, by possessing other people and eventually being reborn through a dead relative. He also survives being blown apart in Jason X
, despite having his right leg, left arm, and a significant portion of his head shot off, although in this instance he is reconstructed as a cyborg
through nanotechnology, suggesting that he will die if he sustains enough damage.
In the popular Japanese novel, Kōga Ninpōchō, the character Yakushiji Tenzen is considered immortal due to his ability to regenerate all damage done to him. How this regeneration is possible is differently explained in all of the different versions of the story.
In the TV series Heroes
, the character of Claire Bennett- along with her uncle, Peter Petrelli
, who has the ability to mimic the powers of others- has the power of spontaneous regeneration
, resulting in her body tissue simply regenerating when she's injured. The one exception is that injuries to the brain will not regenerate immediately, but will instead induce an apparent-dead state. This is reversed after foreign objects are removed from the brain or spine. Adam Monroe
, a character with similar powers, is also over 400 years old as a result of his ability, his cells dying and regenerating so rapidly his aging has been suspended. In the first episode of the third season, Sylar
, the main villain in the show, acquires Claire's ability, but leaves Claire alive, stating that he is unable to kill Claire even if he wanted to, implying that she is truly immortal, although the producers have stated that such methods of death as decapitation would kill her. It is unclear whether Adam was equally unkillable (although he tells Peter that there is "no coming back" from having one's "brains blown out"); although he died when Arthur Petrelli stole his powers, his death was the result of him rapidly aging after his powers were taken to 'compensate' for the years that he hadn't aged, rather than a more conventional means of death.
In the television series Battlestar Galactica
, humanoid and raider Cylon
models download into new bodies if their current incarnation is destroyed. Their memories and consciousness are fully transferred to the appropriate model, be it one of 12 humanoid versions or into a new raider. However, this method is later used against the Cylons when the humans manage to destroy a Cylon Resurrection Ship - a ship which carries the bodies for the Cylons to resurrect in - thus forcing the Cylons to withdraw their attacks on the human fleet due to their fear of permanent death. During Season Four, the Cylon resurrection Hub is destroyed, permanently ending the Cylon ability to resurrect, a group of renegade Cylons having concluded that life can only have meaning when it can end and thus determined to give their lives meaning by cutting them short and rendering them able to die once more.
In the game-series "Metal Gear Solid
", created by Hideo Kojima
, the villain Vamp reappears after being shot in the head and other normally life-threatening events. He is using so called nano-machines, developed by Naomi Hunter, to reconstruct his body. Normal soldiers use them too, but his use is way beyond the average, creating the myth to be immortal. In the 4th part of the series he finally dies due to a syringe that disabled the nanomachines invented and created by Naomi Hunter herself.
by Richard Matheson
and the Tim Burton
film Beetlejuice
have heroes who are forced to explore such worlds after their untimely deaths.
In the book Thursday's fictions by Richard James Allen
, the character Thursday tries to cheat the cycle of reincarnation
to achieve a form of serial immortality - by rediscovering who she is each time she comes back to life in a different body. Her actions create havoc for herself and all the characters in the story and when her son is offered eternal life at the end of the tale he turns it down in favor of living in the moment.
In the roleplaying game Wraith: The Oblivion
, published by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
, the afterlife is place known as the Underworld, where certain people who die enter as ghosts, emotionally bound to their former lives. Many are unhappy with their eternal existences and either become insane Spectres
or ossify
into statues. Originally, the Underworld was a place where the dead stayed until they reached transcendence, but the notion was later considered heretical
by the Hierarchy.
In the game Soul Calibur III
the final boss of the game Zasalamel (ultimate form “Abyss
”) was a member of an ancient Egyptian tribe that guarded the mythical Soul Calibur
. Being a genius among his tribe he mastered the forbidden art of reincarnation, so every time he would die he would be reincarnated. But every time he died began a fury of unimaginable and incomprehensible pain of his body and his soul until he was completely born again. After thousands upon thousands of years of being subjected to this pain he simply wanted to die. In a way he was actually forced to hate death through Pavlov
’s theory
of classical conditioning
. Knowing that there he had gained so much power that he becomes even more powerful than the sword known as Soul Calibur
and its evil counterpart Soul Edge
, he formed a master plan that would lead to his death. Thus he gave the evil sword, Soul Edge
, a body so that it could feast upon human souls until it was powerful enough to merge with Soul Calibur to break his curse.
One of the central concepts of the science fiction miniatures game Warhammer 40,000
is a place called the Warp. It is more officially called the Immaterium because it is a purely spiritual place that is dominated by thought and lacking the material nature of the real world. In the game it allows travel faster than light, but it is also a place where a mind can continue to exist after death. Alien races and gifted humans are even described as being able to return to life after death by manipulating the warp, especially the humans called Psykers and an alien the race called the Eldar
.
In Star Wars
, Jedi
are shown to have mastered a form of immortality by passing into the Force
upon their deaths, becoming Force 'ghosts' who can communicate with the living. It has been stated by Qui-Gon Jinn
that this ability can only be achieved through compassion and the release of one's self; although Sith
have achieved a similar state, this commonly features them being bound to a specific object, eventually driven insane from the loneliness and rage as they wait for a chance to return to life.
of Marvel comics fame are a race of ancient people created by the Celestials
, along with the Eternals
and Deviants
. The eternals were created by the Celestials to live forever in order to protect earth. Other Marvel characters that are virtually immortal include Apocalypse
, Galactus
, Uatu
and the rest of his Watcher
race, Mr. Immortal
, and the Elders of the Universe
.
DC Comics
also has its fare share of immortals, such as the more advanced New Gods
(e.g. Darkseid
, Highfather
), Vandal Savage
, Lobo, Superman
(in some incarnations), Wonder Woman
and the rest of the Amazonians
, and the Guardians of the Universe
. Also, long-time Batman
villain Ra's al Ghul
uses the Lazarus Pit
to keep himself immortal.
In the Indian comic book series Chacha Chaudhary
, the character Raaka drank a medicine made by Chakram Acharya, and became immortal.
In the anime/manga Naruto
, five characters have shown the ability to find some way to increase longevity or become immortal, Sasori, Hidan, Kakuzu, Madara Uchiha and Orochimaru
. Kakuzu is partially immortal because of his unique ability to add new organs (specifically hearts) to his body in order to increase his already long life though he doesn't view this ability as immortality. Orochimaru invented a jutsu through forbidden research which allows him to switch bodies with another person, allowing him to become partially immortal. Sasori turned his own body into a puppet and sealed his humanity in a small flesh and blood core, free from the human essentials forever. In contrast to Sasori, Orochimaru and Kakuzu, who had to find a special technique in order to increase their longevity, Hidan has the ability to never get injured by anything. Even the most grievous wounds could not kill him, and even decapitating him is more a nuisance than anything else. Hidan must periodically kill to retain immorality but since being buried alive, he is presumed to be died. Sasori, Kakuzu, Hidan, and Orochimaru are now all dead. Madara is considered immortal due to his seemingly endless chakra (physical/spiritual energy) supply.
Immortal Rain
is a manga by Kaori Ozaki. The main character, Rain Jewlitt ( nicknamed Methuselah,) was cursed by his friend Yuca with immortality. He is a kind, gentle man who loves people, and 600 years of painful memories can be too much. He can't stand watching the people around him die and attempts to separate himself from human connections. But when a young bounty hunter follows him, she saves him from his loneliness, and he saves her from hers. Though it's not really mentioned, the tragedy is that the young girl, Machika, will become an old woman and die in the blink of an eye (or she'll be killed young); he will be alone again, with the memory of her death haunting him forever. That is, unless he can become a human mortal again. Though the world is jealous of Methuselah's immortality, he suffers from it and wants nothing more than to die.
In the anime Bleach
, several of the series' races are very long-lived in some fashion, though not explicitly immortal. A race of humans called bounts are effectively immortal so long as they can find human souls to devour. They are born like any ordinary human, but when they are around 20–30 years old, they stop aging. Hollows are likewise very long-lived, and subsist of the same methods as the bount. Deceased human spirits, be they shinigami or simply ordinary souls, age at an extremely slowed rate, such that those well over 2000 years old will appear at most to be in their eighties. During the Arrancar Arc, the antagonist Szayel Aporro Granz attains immortality using his abilities of "impregnating" a victim with his DNA, then using their body as sustenance to recreate himself. The process could theoretically be repeated forever. Later in the series the main antagonist Sosuke Aizen
obtains true immortality, but in the process he loses most of his power and is imprisoned for his crimes.
Naraku, the main antagonist of Inuyasha
, became partially immortal when he rejected his human heart. He could not be killed unless his heart, which took the form of an infant called Akago, was destroyed. A good example of this is when Sesshomaru shreds Naraku to pieces (and yet he still survives) when they are fighting in the Netherworld, after Inuyasha destroys Naraku's barrier with Kongosoha (Diamond Shard Blast).
In Fullmetal Alchemist
, immortality is partially achieved through the use of a Philosopher's Stone. By using energy stored in the stone (harvested from the lives of thousands of slain innocents), human souls can essentially leap from body to body (or, in some cases, inanimate objects), thus living on. However, doing so slowly destroys the soul until it can no longer support a new flesh-and-blood body, which quickly begins to rot as soon as it is taken over. Also, the main antagonists of the series, a set of homonculi, attain partial immortality. They are able to regenerate from otherwise deadly wounds multitudinous times before finally succumbing.
In Hellsing
the Vampire Alucard
(Dracula) has lived for 500 years. he hasn't died, but has been beaten twice. the first time was when he was killed as a human after a battle against the Ottoman Empire(he became a vampire by drinking the blood of his soldiers) the second time was when he was beaten by Abraham Van Hellsing.
In Code Geass, characters with the 'Code' have eternal longevity and immortality, and can grant the power of Geass to others. Once the Geass is fully developed, the Geass user can be granted the 'Code', the person who gave them the Geass has the choice to die after granting a person his or her 'Code.' Two characters with the 'Code', C.C.
and V.V, are shown to have eternal youth and immortality. C.C. is immortal, neither suffering from age nor capable of being killed by conventional means. She has retained her prime physical form from the time she received the power of the 'Code', presumbly sometime during the Middle Ages. She has also been shot fatally a number of times, been crushed by water pressure, burned at the stake, subjected to the guillotine, and placed in an iron maiden, all of which she recovered from. V.V. has also displayed the same longevity and immortality C.C. has, being able to remain 10 while his twin brother, Charles zi Britannia is 63. Charles has also forcefully taken away the 'Code' from his brother at one point in the series, gaining his immortality while V.V. died from fatal injuries. At the end of the series, C.C. became the last Immortal still having the Code after Lelouch erased his father, Charles from existence after turning the collective consciousness of humans on him. It is also speculated by fans that Lelouch forcefully took the 'Code' from his father at that point, having fulfilled all the requirements to possess it, and was activated after Lelouch died at the end of series, possibly making him an immortal, although the producers have confimed his death.
In the Slayers
series, there have been a number of characters who appear to be immortal. In Slayers Next, it is revealed that a human who makes the Pledge with the Mazaku (Monster) race can gain immortality. A villain named Halcyform was able to achieve this by pledging with another villain named Seigram, who was indeed, a Mazaku.
series, including horcruxes, unicorn
blood, the deathly hallows, and the Philosopher's Stone
. Albus Dumbledore
, the mentor of Harry Potter, considers natural death to be a "great adventure," and immortality is associated with evil.
The Immortals
of Highlander: The Series
possess immortality granted by an unknown energy (called the Quickening), which is triggered by the trauma of a violent death. Once immortal, they can still be injured, but heal very quickly. Although there are discrepancies between the film
and the series
, the generally accepted canon
is that they can die but will be healed and resurrected unless they are beheaded. If beheaded, usually by another Immortal during combat, the victor receives the loser's 'Quickening' or knowledge and power. Immortals can sense other Immortals by the 'buzz' they receive when near another Quickening. No Immortal will desecrate holy ground by battling on it. All Immortals are sterile. Their origins are mysterious, although it is indicated many of them are foundlings
. The legend they follow says that when only a few remain standing, they will fight at "The Gathering" for something known only as "The Prize", which is the knowledge and power of every Immortal. It is unknown what power this will have on the very last Immortal, but the ending of the first movie suggests that The Prize is both an empathic link with all humanity and a restoration of the Immortal's mortality and fertility - the Immortal will be able to grow old, die of natural causes, and bear or conceive a child.
In Tom Robbins
' book Jitterbug Perfume
, the characters of Alobar and Kudra explore the realms of immortality through their will to attain eternal life.
In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II
, Darth Sion has a unique force power called Pain, which keeps him alive forever but never allows any of his wounds to heal. The Exile convinced him to turn away from the Force which finally allowed him to die.
In Mother 3
, the leader of the mysterious Pig Mask Army is revealed as Porky Minch, an antagonist from Earthbound
. Porky has abused a machine that lets him travel through time, causing his body to age but his mind to remain in a pre-teen state. Porky, now immortal, is thousands of years old, and has lost all concept of his own age. After the main characters defeat him, Porky retreats into his "Absolutely Safe Capsule", designed to keep all exterior things out. Unfortunately, it also imprisons him, motionless, forever, as he can never escape.
In Douglas Adams
' novel Life, the Universe and Everything
the character Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged had the misfortune of being immortal due to "a strange accident involving an irrational particle accelerator
, a liquid lunch
and a pair of rubber bands". After becoming immortal, he did everything one can do in life, several times, becoming terribly bored
of everything due to him lacking the instinctive knowledge of other immortal beings that allowed them to cope with their immortality. He then made a plan that, despite being rather foolish, would at least keep him busy: he was going to insult
, personally, all the living beings in the universe
, in alphabetical order.
Naraku, the main antaganist of Inuyasha
, became partially immortal when he rejected his human heart. He could not be killed unless his heart, which took the form of an infant called Akago, was destroyed. A good example of this is when Sesshomaru shreds Naraku to pieces (and yet he still survives) when they are fighting in the Netherworld, after Inuyasha destroys Naraku's barrier with Kongosoha (Diamond Shard Blast).
The Phantom
is a comic character who appears to be immortal, fighting pirates and evil across centuries. However it is just a dynasty of heroes who pass the mask and suit of the Phantom along generations. Their secret is known just to their aides and wives.
In Andromeda
, the character Trance Gemini is the avatar
of the original Vedran sun, and as such, has special powers. She and her "sisters" can live as long as stars do: for billions of years. It's unknown whether Trance has physical immortality, or if she was even ever alive; it is alluded to on some occasions that she is dead and alive at the same time.
The character Oro
in the Street Fighter metaverse
is explicitly said to be immortal. M. Bison
constantly claims to be immortal, but that is contradicted by Capcom
's statement that he is dead and in Hell
. There are also strong hints that Akuma
and Twelve are immortal.
Vampires are immortal and practically impossible to kill, save for sunlight, fire, or decapitation.
The nameless protagonist of the video game Planescape: Torment
has a kind of limited immortality: he will die if injured enough, but he will always wake up again shortly afterward, albeit with some or all of his memories missing. This has led to a situation where, over thousands of years, different versions of the protagonist have existed, some good, some evil, and some absolutely insane. The goal of the game is to regain one's mortality and finally die permanently—a rather unconventional ending for a video game.
Several characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series
are immortal including Shadow the Hedgehog
, Chaos and Black Doom. The most frequently recurring character, Shadow, is an artificial life form created aboard the Space Colony ARK that is explicitly declared 'immortal'. He was forced to witness the murder of Maria Robotnik, his best (and possibly only) friend, which creates a chasm between the other characters and himself and so has played antagonistic roles at times. However, neither Black Doom or Shadow are invincible. It is implied that Shadow destroyed Black Doom in Shadow the Hedgehog
(which would make Black Doom Biologically Immortal
), and Shadow himself was almost killed in Sonic Adventure 2
; it is implied that he would have died if he wasn't rescued by Dr Eggman. It is possible that Shadow, being Black Dooms biological son, had inherited his Biological Immortallity. It is also possible that due to the purpose behind his creation, he is immune to illness.
Poul Anderson
's The Boat of a Million Years
concerns several otherwise ordinary people who stop aging at maturity. The book follows their struggles through the millennia, through the late 20th century and beyond.
In the series of novels written by David Eddings, "The Belgariad" and "The Mallorean", the eight gods and their disciples, notably Belgarath and Polgara, are immortal.
In the role-playing game Exalted
, there exist objects known as Hearthstones of Immortality. While exceedingly rare, the bearer of one will not only become immortal, but if they were already old when they obtained the stone, they will no longer suffer the ill-effects of old age (senility, failing senses, etc.). In addition, there also exists an Age-Staving Cordial. While expensive, weekly doses of the cordial can increase the imbiber's lifespan by 25%.
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
is a popular subject in fiction
Fiction
Fiction is the form of any narrative or informative work that deals, in part or in whole, with information or events that are not factual, but rather, imaginary—that is, invented by the author. Although fiction describes a major branch of literary work, it may also refer to theatrical,...
, as it explores humanity's deep-seated fears and comprehension of its own mortality
Death
Death is the permanent termination of the biological functions that sustain a living organism. Phenomena which commonly bring about death include old age, predation, malnutrition, disease, and accidents or trauma resulting in terminal injury....
. Immortal beings and species
Species
In biology, a species is one of the basic units of biological classification and a taxonomic rank. A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are...
abound in fiction, especially fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
fiction, and the meaning of "immortal" tends to vary.
Some fictional and mythological beings are completely immortal (or very nearly so) in that they are immune to death by injury, disease and age. Examples include various types of gods
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
. Sometimes such powerful immortals can only be killed by each other, as is the case with the Q
Q (Star Trek)
Q is a fictional character who appears in the television series Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager, as well as in related products. In all of these programs, he is played by John de Lancie....
from the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
series. Even if something can't be killed, a common plot device involves putting an immortal being into a slumber or limbo, as is done with Sauron
Sauron
Sauron is the primary antagonist and titular character of the epic fantasy novel The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien.In the same work, he is revealed to be the same character as "the Necromancer" from Tolkien's earlier novel The Hobbit...
in J. R. R. Tolkien
J. R. R. Tolkien
John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, CBE was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor, best known as the author of the classic high fantasy works The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion.Tolkien was Rawlinson and Bosworth Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Pembroke College,...
's The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings
The Lord of the Rings is a high fantasy epic written by English philologist and University of Oxford professor J. R. R. Tolkien. The story began as a sequel to Tolkien's earlier, less complex children's fantasy novel The Hobbit , but eventually developed into a much larger work. It was written in...
and the Dreaming God of Pathways Into Darkness
Pathways Into Darkness
Pathways into Darkness is a first-person adventure video game developed and published by Bungie Software Products Corporation in 1993, exclusively for Apple Macintosh personal computers. Players assume the role of a Special Forces soldier who must stop a powerful, godlike being from awakening and...
. Storytellers often make it a point to give weaknesses to even the most indestructible of beings. For instance, the Greek hero Achilles
Achilles
In Greek mythology, Achilles was a Greek hero of the Trojan War, the central character and the greatest warrior of Homer's Iliad.Plato named Achilles the handsomest of the heroes assembled against Troy....
was supposed to be invincible, yet his enemies were able to exploit his now-infamous weakness, Achilles' heel
Achilles' heel
An Achilles’ heel is a deadly weakness in spite of overall strength, that can actually or potentially lead to downfall. While the mythological origin refers to a physical vulnerability, metaphorical references to other attributes or qualities that can lead to downfall are common.- Origin :In Greek...
, to slay him.
Many fictitious species are said to be immortal if they cannot die of old age, even though they can be killed through other means, such as injury. Modern fantasy elves
Elf
An elf is a being of Germanic mythology. The elves were originally thought of as a race of divine beings endowed with magical powers, which they use both for the benefit and the injury of mankind...
often exhibit this form of immortality. Other creatures, such as vampire
Vampire
Vampires are mythological or folkloric beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person...
s and the immortals in the film Highlander
Highlander (film)
Highlander is a 1986 fantasy action film directed by Russell Mulcahy and based on a story by Gregory Widen. It stars Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, and Roxanne Hart. The film depicts the climax of an ages-old battle between immortal warriors, depicted through interwoven past and...
, can only die from beheading. In Harry Potter
Harry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
, witches or wizards are able to become immortal by creating horcruxes (as long as the Horcruxes are not destroyed) or by drinking the elixir of life
Elixir of life
The elixir of life, also known as the elixir of immortality and sometimes equated with the philosopher's stone, is a legendary potion, or drink, that grants the drinker eternal life and or eternal youth. Many practitioners of alchemy pursued it. The elixir of life was also said to be able to create...
, made with the Philosopher's Stone, though the Elixir must be drunk often to maintain the immortality. The classic and stereotypical vampire is typically slain by one of several very specific means, including a silver bullet
Silver bullet
In folklore, the silver bullet is supposed to be the only kind of bullet for firearms that is effective against a werewolf, witch, or other monsters...
(or piercing with other silver weapons), a stake through the heart (perhaps made of consecrated wood), or by exposing them to sunlight.
Immortality can be used as a prize, something to be earned by great achievement. Legendary hero
Hero
A hero , in Greek mythology and folklore, was originally a demigod, their cult being one of the most distinctive features of ancient Greek religion...
es, great magicians and wise elders sometimes rise to the ranks of immortality in fiction and mythology. It can be the reward at the end of a great quest
Quest
In mythology and literature, a quest, a journey towards a goal, serves as a plot device and as a symbol. Quests appear in the folklore of every nation and also figure prominently in non-national cultures. In literature, the objects of quests require great exertion on the part of the hero, and...
, such as the quest for the Holy Grail
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
or the ancient Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh
Epic of Gilgamesh is an epic poem from Mesopotamia and is among the earliest known works of literature. Scholars believe that it originated as a series of Sumerian legends and poems about the protagonist of the story, Gilgamesh king of Uruk, which were fashioned into a longer Akkadian epic much...
. When immortality is something that can be bought, works of fiction will often make judgements regarding the high price that must be paid. Immortality is often the desire of evil characters as well. Though immortality is something that can be earned, it doesn't necessarily mean it can also be taken away for much of the dismay of many an immortal villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
.
Mythical creatures
Myths often involve creatures that are either immortal or associated with immortality. The GorgonGorgon
In Greek mythology, the Gorgon was a terrifying female creature. The name derives from the Greek word gorgós, which means "dreadful." While descriptions of Gorgons vary across Greek literature, the term commonly refers to any of three sisters who had hair of living, venomous snakes, and a...
s of Greek mythology
Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths and legends belonging to the ancient Greeks, concerning their gods and heroes, the nature of the world, and the origins and significance of their own cult and ritual practices. They were a part of religion in ancient Greece...
are famous examples.
Tezuka Osamu's lifework Phoenix
Phoenix (manga)
is a manga series by Osamu Tezuka. Tezuka considered Phoenix his "life's work"; it consists of 12 books, each of which tells a separate, self-contained story and takes place in a different era. The plots go back and forth from the remote future to prehistoric times. The cycle remains unfinished...
(known in Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
as Hi no Tori) had a phoenix
Phoenix (mythology)
The phoenix or phenix is a mythical sacred firebird that can be found in the mythologies of the Arabian, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Egyptians, Chinese, Indian and Phoenicians....
whose blood would provide immortality. In various ages, many "heroes" and "heroines" would strive for immortality only to realize that there is something beyond eternal life. In one story titled "Raise hen" (lit. "Next World Story") the last remaining human male who survived a holocaust, blessed (or cursed) with immortality through the phoenix blood, would create another beginning of life. In his immortal form, he would see a race of slugs, after gaining intelligence, destroy themselves in another holocaust. He would seed the earth with life that would become present day humans, and finally leave the earth to join his lover, who died billions of years ago, in heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
.
In the Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
created by H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
, there is a race of "Fish-Men" known as Deep Ones. They stop aging after reaching adulthood and can breed with humans to birth offspring with this "eternal youth." This is a faustian bargain, as after reaching the age of 20, the Deep One Hybrids undergo a transformation from normal humans into hideous Deep Ones. They also lose all concept of humanity and morality
Morality
Morality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
and go to live in the ocean with the Deep Ones and to worship the undersea deity Cthulhu
Cthulhu
Cthulhu is a fictional character that first appeared in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu", published in the pulp magazine Weird Tales in 1928. The character was created by writer H. P...
, the Lord of Madness.
Negative effects
Since immortality is seen as a desire of humanity, themes involving immortality often explore the disadvantages as well as the advantages of such a trait. Sometimes immortality is used as a punishment, or a curseCurse
A curse is any expressed wish that some form of adversity or misfortune will befall or attach to some other entity—one or more persons, a place, or an object...
that might be intended to teach a lesson. It is not uncommon to find immortal characters yearning for death. A similar, though somewhat different theme, concerned Elves and Men in Middle-earth
Middle-earth
Middle-earth is the fictional setting of the majority of author J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy writings. The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings take place entirely in Middle-earth, as does much of The Silmarillion and Unfinished Tales....
. While the immortality of Elves was not explicitly a curse, the mortality of Men was viewed as a gift, albeit one that was not understood by those possessing it. This was chiefly due to the Elves' clear faculty of memory
Memory
In psychology, memory is an organism's ability to store, retain, and recall information and experiences. Traditional studies of memory began in the fields of philosophy, including techniques of artificially enhancing memory....
, which could accumulate millennia of sad experiences.
In some parts of popular culture, immortality is not all that it is made out to be, possibly causing insanity
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
and/or significant emotional pain. Much of the time, these things only happen to mortals who gain immortality. Beings born with immortality (such as deities
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
, demigod
Demigod
The term "demigod" , meaning "half-god", is commonly used to describe mythological figures whose one parent was a god and whose other parent was human; as such, demigods are human-god hybrids...
s and races with "limited immortality") are usually quite adjusted to their long lives, though some may feel sorrow at the passing of mortal friends, but they still continue on. Some Immortals (such as certain deities, demigods, and intelligent undead
Undead
Undead is a collective name for fictional, mythological, or legendary beings that are deceased and yet behave as if alive. Undead may be incorporeal, such as ghosts, or corporeal, such as vampires and zombies...
) may also watch over mortal relations (either related to or descended from them), occasionally offering help when needed.
In his short story 'The Immortal', Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
treats the theme of immortality from an interesting perspective: after centuries and centuries, everything is repetition for the immortal and a feeling of ennui prevails. The immortal, who had turned so after drinking from a certain river, is set to wander the world in search for that same river, so that he can become mortal again.
The Dungeon Master in Zork Grand Inquisitor
Zork Grand Inquisitor
Zork: Grand Inquisitor is a graphical adventure game, developed by Activision and released in 1997 for the IBM compatible PC and Macintosh . It builds upon the Zork and Enchanter series of interactive fiction computer games originally released by Infocom. The cast includes Erick Avari, Dirk...
, a spirit in a lantern during the game, accidentally casts an immortality spell on himself while he still has his body. He soon grows terribly bored, and tries many ways of suicide, with little or comical effects, for example: "Dear Diary, today I tried to kill myself by shoving a sword through my heart. All I got was heartburn
Heartburn
Heartburn, also known as pyrosis or acid indigestion is a burning sensation in the chest, just behind the breastbone or in the epigastrium...
."
Another rather comic incident involving an accidental cause of immortality can be found in Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
' Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, where the alien Wowbagger accidentally turned himself immortal. Due to not being a natural immortal, people who he considers to be "a bunch of serene bastards", he doesn't know how to handle his immortality and winds up deciding that he will insult every living being in the universe - in alphabetical order just to kill some time, something he has an awful lot of. In the radio adaptation, his immortality is removed right before the End of the Universe after insulting a deity.
In the manga Blade of the Immortal
Blade of the Immortal
is a Japanese manga series by Hiroaki Samura. The series won an Excellence Prize at the 1997 Japan Media Arts Festival and the Will Eisner Comic Industry Award in 2000 for Best U.S. Edition of Foreign Material...
, Manji
Manji (Blade of the Immortal)
Manji is the protagonist of the Japanese manga series Blade of the Immortal. In the story, he's known infamously both as the "Hundred Man Killer," for the number of men he's killed by the beginning of the series, and "Mister Twelve Blades" for the number of weapons he carries...
is a samurai
Samurai
is the term for the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan. According to translator William Scott Wilson: "In Chinese, the character 侍 was originally a verb meaning to wait upon or accompany a person in the upper ranks of society, and this is also true of the original term in Japanese, saburau...
who has been cursed with immortality. Only after slaying 1000 evil men will the curse be broken so he can finally die. His body cannot age nor can he die from physical wounds. Manji's sword skills are sloppy due to the fact that since he's immortal he doesn't need to know how to fight properly. There is another immortal character in the Naruto series named Hidan, who claims to be the slowest attacking member in his group and is considered stupid by his partner, because he attacks without thought for the consequences. It is possible he did not gain these skills because he did not believe he would need them, being an immortal. This could hardly be further from the truth: Hidan is now a disembodied head buried under a ton of rock, and yet cannot die.
In legend, most famously in Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman
The Flying Dutchman (opera)
Der fliegende Holländer is an opera, with music and libretto by Richard Wagner.Wagner claimed in his 1870 autobiography Mein Leben that he had been inspired to write "The Flying Dutchman" following a stormy sea crossing he made from Riga to London in July and August 1839, but in his 1843...
, a ship's captain is cursed with immortality after attempting to sail around the Cape of Good Hope in a terrible storm. He is doomed to sail around the Cape forever.
In Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift
Jonathan Swift was an Irish satirist, essayist, political pamphleteer , poet and cleric who became Dean of St...
's Gulliver's Travels
Gulliver's Travels
Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships, better known simply as Gulliver's Travels , is a novel by Anglo-Irish writer and clergyman Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of...
, some of the inhabitants
Struldbrug
In Jonathan Swift's novel Gulliver's Travels, the name struldbrug is given to those humans in the nation of Luggnagg who are born seemingly normal, but are in fact immortal. However, although struldbrugs do not die, they do nonetheless continue aging...
of the island of Immortals (near Japan) don't die, but they age and became ill, demented and a nuisance to themselves and those surrounding them. Swift presents immortality as a curse rather than a blessing. The film Zardoz
Zardoz
Zardoz is a 1974 science fiction/fantasy film written, produced, and directed by John Boorman. It stars Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling, and Sara Kestelman. Zardoz was Connery's second post-James Bond role...
also depicts a dystopian view of immortality, where interest in life has been lost and suicide is impossible.
The Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager
Star Trek: Voyager is a science fiction television series set in the Star Trek universe. Set in the 24th century from the year 2371 through 2378, the series follows the adventures of the Starfleet vessel USS Voyager, which becomes stranded in the Delta Quadrant 70,000 light-years from Earth while...
episode "Death Wish
Death Wish (Voyager episode)
"Death Wish" is episode 14 of season 2 of Star Trek: Voyager. It has an average fan rating of 4.5/5 on the official Star Trek website as of September 2009.-Plot:...
" explored in depth the existence of the omnipotent, immortal and omniscient aliens Q
Q Continuum
In the fictional televised Star Trek universe, the Q Continuum is an extradimensional plane of existence inhabited by a race of extremely powerful, hyper-intelligent beings known as the Q...
. It is learned in that episode that the aliens were originally human-like, and somehow evolved into their current state long ago. With their new-found powers, the Q set out to fully explore, experience and understand the universe. Afterwards, the Q had nothing left to do or say, and now they simply sit out eternity in their realm. As one Q explained, you can only experience the universe so many times before it gets boring.
In the children's novel, Tuck Everlasting
Tuck Everlasting
Tuck Everlasting is a fantasy children's novel by Natalie Babbitt. It was published in 1975. The book explores the concept of immortality and the reasons why it might not be as desirable as it appears to be. It has sold over two million copies and has been called a classic of modern children's...
by Natalie Babbitt
Natalie Babbitt
Natalie Babbitt is an American author and illustrator of children's books. Her novels Tuck Everlasting and The Eyes of the Amaryllis have been made into films . Her novel Knee-Knock Rise is a Newbery Honor book.- Life :Natalie Babbitt was born in Dayton, Ohio. Now lives in Providence, Rhode Island...
, a family is made physically immortal by drinking water from a magical spring. They are trapped at the same age forever and are invulnerable. They are hated by the ordinary people who knew them and are forced to watch as everything they cherish grows old and dies.
In the film and television series Highlander, once one dies for the first time, if they are an Immortal, they will spend the rest of eternity at that physical age. This poses a problem when one dies as a small child, or as a very old man. The same is true of the Claudia character in Anne Rice
Anne Rice
Anne Rice is a best-selling Southern American author of metaphysical gothic fiction, Christian literature and erotica from New Orleans, Louisiana. Her books have sold nearly 100 million copies, making her one of the most widely read authors in modern history...
's Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire
Interview with the Vampire is a vampire novel by Anne Rice written in 1973 and published in 1976. It was the first novel to feature the enigmatic vampire Lestat, and was followed by several sequels, collectively known as The Vampire Chronicles...
, who became a vampire while still only a child, and the Blade
Blade: The Series
Blade: The Series is a 2006 American live-action television program based on the Marvel Comics character and film series. It premiered on Spike on June 28, 2006...
television series.
In the Legacy of Kain
Legacy of Kain
Legacy of Kain is a series of action-adventure video games developed initially by Silicon Knights in association with Crystal Dynamics. After a legal battle, Crystal Dynamics continued the series without Silicon Knights and Eidos Interactive became the publisher...
series, vampirism was a curse placed upon an ancient race that won the war against the Hylden that granted bloodlust, sterility
Infertility
Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
and immortality, the latter causing their God to abandon them.
In the movie Death Becomes Her
Death Becomes Her
Death Becomes Her is a 1992 American dark slapstick screwball comedy fantasy film directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Goldie Hawn, Meryl Streep, and Bruce Willis...
, the characters of Madeline Ashton and Helen Sharp both become immortal and young after drinking a potion, but this form of immortality has significant drawbacks; most significantly, unlike most forms of immortality, which include rapid healing from injuries, Madeline and Helen simply stop aging from the moment they drink the potion, and subsequently don't stop moving even after their bodies die. In other words, whoever drinks the potion becomes immortal, but can still be killed and the body rises up and essentially becomes a zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
, their bodies continuing to decay despite the fact that they are still fully conscious and self-aware, regardless of the injuries they sustain in the process; in the course of the film Madeline's neck is broken and a large hole is blown in Helen's stomach, with both of them shattering into pieces in the final scene of the film, and yet both continue walking and talking as though nothing had happened. At the conclusion of the film, it is shown that the two are now forced to stay together for all eternity in order to ensure that their bodies remain in at least partially decent condition, despite their own long-term enmity for each other.
In the film Hocus Pocus, while three witches seek immortality, they also curse one of their enemies, a young man named Thackery Binx, to become an immortal black cat to punish him for trying to stop them draining his sister's life-force so that he will be condemned to live forever with the guilt of not saving her. As a result, Binx remains alive as a cat for over three hundred years, capable of surviving even such accidents as getting run over by a bus, until the witches who cursed him are brought back to life, their subsequent deaths when the sun rises ensuring that their curse is lifted.
In general, a theme seen with many variations, is the notion of an essential world weariness akin to extreme exhaustion for which death is the only relief. This is inescapable when immortality is defined as (half) infinite life. Immortality defined as finite but arbitrarily long per the desire to exist does not, as a definition, suffer this limitation.
When a person is tired of life, even death is shut off to them, creating an endless torture, as evidenced in the Bill Murray
Bill Murray
William James "Bill" Murray is an American actor and comedian. He first gained national exposure on Saturday Night Live in which he earned an Emmy Award and later went on to star in a number of critically and commercially successful comedic films, including Caddyshack , Ghostbusters , and...
movie Groundhog Day
Groundhog Day (film)
Groundhog Day is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Harold Ramis, starring Bill Murray and Andie MacDowell. It was written by Ramis and Danny Rubin, based on a story by Rubin....
, where a character is trapped in an endlessly repeating time loop that causes him to live the same day over and over again even when he tries to kill himself before the end of the cycle.
Several characters/species in the Touhou
Touhou Project
The , also known as Toho Project or Project Shrine Maiden, is a Japanese dōjin game series focused on bullet hell shooters made by the one-man developer Team Shanghai Alice, whose sole member, known as ZUN, is responsible for all the graphics, music, and programming for the most part...
series are immortal. The most notable are people who drink the Hourai elixir, which renders them completely immune to death and any possibility of death forever. According to some official works, it works not by regeneration, but by instant resurrection due to incapability of dying altogether due to being their own existence that knows no manipulation whatsoever. Other examples include people who become Celestials or Magicians, although they can still presumably be killed through serious injury.
In the Soul
Soul (series)
The is a weapon-based historical fantasy fighting game series by Namco Bandai Games. The series revolves around a sword that, after years of bloodshed and hatred, gained a soul of its own, the Soul Edge, and the sword forged to counter it, Soul Calibur. The series is special in that each character...
series,the character Zasalamel has shown to be immortal due to being able to reincarnate
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
, thus making him immortal. But he is tired of life and he desires a peaceful death. His main goal in Soul Calibur III
Soul Calibur III
is a fighting game produced by Namco and is the sequel to Soulcalibur II and is the fourth overall installment in the Soul series of fighting games...
is to find Soul Edge and Soul Calibur to break the cycle. What happens if 'Tale Of Souls' is completed when playing as him depends on whether the QTE
Quick Time Event
In video games, a Quick Time Event is a method of context-sensitive gameplay in which the player performs actions on the control device shortly after the appearance of an on-screen prompt. It allows for limited control of the game character during cut scenes or cinematic sequences in the game...
Scene is completed or not; if done correctly, the cycle is broken and he becomes mortal but if the command is not put in, he remains immortal. In his Soul Calibur IV ending, he is still immortal and lives in the modern era.
Undeath
The undead are the fictional people who have died and still maintain some aspects of life. In many examples, the undead are immune to aging or even heal at an accelerated rate. DraculaDracula
Dracula is an 1897 novel by Irish author Bram Stoker.Famous for introducing the character of the vampire Count Dracula, the novel tells the story of Dracula's attempt to relocate from Transylvania to England, and the battle between Dracula and a small group of men and women led by Professor...
is one of the most famous examples of the undead.
The Crimson King of Stephen King's The Dark Tower
The Dark Tower
Dark Tower may refer to:* The Dark Tower , an unfinished novel by C. S. Lewis* Barad-dûr the fortress of Sauron in the fantasy world of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings* The Dark Tower , a 1933 comedy by George S...
series has achieved a kind of immortality (as well as invincibility) by swallowing a sharpened spoon, thus dying yet remaining a conscious being.
The roleplaying game Vampire: The Requiem
Vampire: The Requiem
Vampire: The Requiem is a role-playing game published by White Wolf, set in the World of Darkness, and the successor to the Vampire: The Masquerade line. It was first released in August 2004, together with a new core rule book for the World of Darkness...
, published by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
White Wolf, Inc.
White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...
, has undeath be the form of immortality held by vampires wherein their bodies are absent of all life functions such as breathing and heartbeat. They have theoretically infinite lifespans (and can even survive unprotected in the vacuum of space and under the crushing depths of the ocean), but they can be killed by sunlight, burning, or decapitation. Though they are also forced to watch as everything they knew in life withers away and they are unable to adapt to the changing eras of history. Because they are fallible predators, their humanity
Human nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
also begins to deteriorate, and a few become mindless/insane monsters called Draugr
Draugr
A draugr, draug or draugur , or draugen , also known as aptrgangr is an undead creature from Norse mythology...
(also known as Revenants) as a result of losing all concept of being human. Such ravening monsters are always hunted down by other vampires, to prevent humans from learning of the existence of vampires.
The character Raziel
Raziel
Raziel |God]]") is an archangel within the teachings of Jewish mysticism who is the "Keeper of Secrets" and the "Angel of Mysteries"...
from Legacy of Kain
Legacy of Kain
Legacy of Kain is a series of action-adventure video games developed initially by Silicon Knights in association with Crystal Dynamics. After a legal battle, Crystal Dynamics continued the series without Silicon Knights and Eidos Interactive became the publisher...
is a wraith who is capable of passing between the spirit world and manifesting in the living/material realm. Due to his secondary remaking into a wraith, he is beyond the cycle of death and rebirth so therefore cannot be killed. Any significant damage done onto him in the living realm forces him to seep into the spirit world to heal and any fatal damage in the spirit world simply transports him back to the Elder God or an activated checkpoint.
In the films Re-Animator
Re-Animator
Re-Animator is a 1985 American science fiction horror film based on the H. P. Lovecraft story "Herbert West–Reanimator." Directed by Stuart Gordon, it was the first film in the Re-Animator series. The film has since become a cult film, driven by fans of Jeffrey Combs and H. P...
, and subsequently Bride of Re-Animator
Bride of Re-Animator
Bride of Re-Animator is an American horror film released in 1990. It was directed by Brian Yuzna and was written by Yuzna, Rick Fry and Woody Keith. H. P. Lovecraft wrote the original series of stories, titled Herbert West–Reanimator, from which the characters were derived. The plot roughly...
and Beyond Re-Animator
Beyond Re-Animator
Beyond Re-Animator is a horror film, directed by Brian Yuzna. It is the second sequel to Re-Animator. The film premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel . This showing was cut to a TV-PG rating...
, Dr Herbert West
Herbert West
Herbert West is a fictional character created by H. P. Lovecraft for his short story "Herbert West—Reanimator", first published in 1922. There have been several adaptations of the story including Herbert West as played by Jeffrey Combs in the 1985 Re-Animator movie and its two sequels, Bride...
creates a serum that has the ability to re-animate dead tissue and stop its decay. In Re-Animator, re-animated corpses are shown to show some emotion and intelligence if they're fresh enough. However, the antagonist in the story lobotomizes re-animated decaying corpses to make them his slaves.
Freddy Krueger
Freddy Krueger
Frederick Charles "Freddy" Krueger is a fictional, horrifying character from the Nightmare on Elm Street series of horror films. He first appears in Wes Craven's A Nightmare on Elm Street as a disfigured dream stalker who uses a glove armed with razors to kill his victims in their dreams,...
of the Nightmare on Elm Street
A Nightmare on Elm Street (franchise)
A Nightmare on Elm Street is an American horror franchise that consists of nine slasher films, a television show, novels, and comic books. The franchise began with the film series created by Wes Craven. The franchise is based on the fictional character Freddy Krueger, introduced in A Nightmare on...
movies is considered to be immortal, as well. Though he was killed as a human, he exists as a "dream demon", who needs only to be feared to be able to enter people's dreams and cause them harm. Even without this fear, he can exist, either in "limbo" or in Hell. Because of this immortality, he can never be permanently killed. He can only be contained by being forgotten about, and thus prevented from ever entering dreams again.
In the movies and television series Highlander along with its franchise, the main characters of Connor MacLeod
Connor MacLeod
Connor MacLeod, also known as The Highlander, is a fictional character in the Highlander film series, as well as the television programs Highlander: The Series, and Highlander: The Animated Series...
, Duncan MacLeod
Duncan MacLeod
Duncan MacLeod is a fictional character from the Highlander multiverse. Duncan MacLeod serves as the protagonist for the TV continuation of the Highlander franchise, which comprises Highlander: The Series and its spin-off movies, Highlander: Endgame and Highlander: The Source...
, and Methos
Methos
Methos is a fictional character from the Highlander universe - the film series, the television show Highlander: The Series, and several fiction books. He is an Immortal. He is portrayed by actor Peter Wingfield in both series and the movies. Methos, as one of the The Four Horsemen, represents...
, with other characters, are immortals since they are immune to disease and stopped aging after they had their first death, they can live forever and they only can really die when they are beheaded.
In the anime series One Piece
One Piece
is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump since August 4, 1997; the individual chapters are being published in tankōbon volumes by Shueisha, with the first released on December 24, 1997, and the 64th volume released as...
, Brook consumed a cursed fruit before his death. One year after dying in battle Brook was reanimated by the curse, although only his bones and hair remained. Despite his apparent lack of internal organs Brook can speak, eat, drink, feel pain and carry out bodily functions such as burping and passing gas. These incongruous bodily functions and Brook's love of skeleton puns are a significant source of humor for the series. It is not yet known if Brook can recover from being killed a second time.
In the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a 2003 adventure fantasy film based on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney theme parks. It was directed by Gore Verbinski and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer...
, Captain Barbosa and his crew have become undead after taking cursed gold coins out of an ancient chest cursed by Aztec gods. They look like humans during the day, but standing in the moonlight reveals their true nature: undead skeletons. While they still retain some of their human features like hair and in Captain Barbosa's case his nose, this form of being immortal is a curse rather than a blessing since they can't die but also cannot feel life's pleasures or even pain.
Science fiction
Immortality can be achieved in fiction through scientifically plausible means. Extraterrestrial lifeExtraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
might be immortal or it might be able to give immortality to humans. Immortality is also achieved in many examples by replacing the mortal human body by machines.
In Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
mythology, the Cybermen are basically human brains placed into mechanical bodies, with every emotion drained out. This process was supposed to allow the Human race to reach its pinnacle. The unforeseen downturn is that with immortality reached, there is no motivator for the Human Race to actually strive for anything more. In another Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
storyline, The Caves of Androzani
The Caves of Androzani
The Caves of Androzani is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from 8–16 March 1984. It was Peter Davison's last regular appearance as the Doctor, and marks the first appearance of Colin Baker in the role...
, a fictitious substance named spectrox, found exclusively on the titular planet, is revealed to be able to prolong human life to more than double its natural length, and as such is the most valuable substance in the galaxy - ironically, the lives of all those involved with it in the story are grim and difficult, due to corporate monopolizing of its distribution, and the resultant infighting over its control, extortionate costs and the theft and smuggling of the substance from its mines.
Another example of immortality in Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
is found in the character Jack Harkness
Jack Harkness
Captain Jack Harkness is a fictional character played by John Barrowman in Doctor Who and its spin-off series, Torchwood. He first appeared in the 2005 Doctor Who episode "The Empty Child" and reappeared in the remaining episodes of the 2005 series as a companion of the ninth incarnation of the...
, a companion to the Ninth
Ninth Doctor
The Ninth Doctor is the ninth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He is played by Christopher Eccleston....
and Tenth Doctor
Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor is the tenth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He is played by David Tennant, who appears in three series, as well as eight specials...
s, who was unintentionally transformed into a 'fact' of the timeline when fellow companion Rose Tyler
Rose Tyler
Rose Marion Tyler is a fictional character portrayed by Billie Piper in the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, and was created by series producer Russell T Davies...
temporarily acquired omnipotent power and brought him back to life after he was killed by the Daleks; unused to the power, Rose didn't just bring him back to life, she 'brought [him] back forever'. Although he ages at a very slight rate - having grown only the occasional grey hair despite having been alive for over two millennia since he was resurrected - Harkness is capable of recovering from any potentially fatal injuries within moments, although some forms of death take him longer to recover from than others; a bullet to the head only put him down for a few seconds, but he required at least a few minutes to come back after being thrown from the roof of a tall building, while it took him the better part of a day to recuperate after he was killed via a bomb in his stomach (Although the fact that he was able to regenerate his entire body when reduced to only an arm, a shoulder and part of his head should not be overlooked).
In the Doctor Who spin-off series Torchwood
Torchwood
Torchwood is a British science fiction television programme created by Russell T Davies. The series is a spin-off from Davies's 2005 revival of the long-running science fiction programme Doctor Who. The show has shifted its broadcast channel each series to reflect its growing audience, moving from...
, Jack's colleague Owen Harper
Owen Harper
Owen Harper is a fictional character played by Burn Gorman, and a regular in the BBC television series Torchwood, a spin-off from the long-running series Doctor Who. The character last appeared onscreen in the Series 2 finale, "Exit Wounds"....
acquired a similar kind of immortality when he was brought back to life after being shot. Owen becomes technically dead, and thus incapable of eating, drinking, sleeping, having sex, and healing injuries. However, for all practical purposes, he cannot be killed, apparently lacking the need to breathe and displaying a general immunity to pain, as demonstrated by his not noticing when he cuts his left hand. Owen compares his new state to Jack by saying that, while Jack will 'live forever', he is destined to 'die forever'.
Torchwood's fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day, explored what would happen if the whole world became immortal, when an attempted by a mysterious group of three families to gain power resulted in all human life on Earth losing the ability to die (Although the formerly-immortal Jack Harkness became mortal at the same time). However, while they cannot die, they can still get sick and injured and their ability to heal has not been affected, with the result that a suicide bomber's body is left totally pulverized even while he appears to retain some form of consciousness, team member Rex Matheson
Rex Matheson
Rex Matheson is a fictional character in the science fiction series Torchwood, portrayed by American actor Mekhi Phifer. Phifer is one of three American actors to join Torchwood in its fourth series, Torchwood: Miracle Day , as part of a new co-production between Torchwoods British network, BBC...
has to deal with constant pain from the wound in his chest where he was impaled by a rebar in a driving accident, and a woman retains consciousness even after her car is crushed in a car compacter with her still inside it. This is eventually undone and Jack's immortality restored, with all patients classified as 'Category One' under the new medical rules- being fatally injured to the point where the Miracle was the only reason they hadn't died yet- being given a brief moment of clarity and peace before they passed away.
Megaman Zero's Doctor Weil had his memories transferred into program data and his body remodeled into that of a cyborg's as punishment for sparking the Elf Wars, using the Dark Elf to attack Reploids and humanity alike. He was then banished from nature and humanity, which eventually drove him insane.
In the TV series Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1
Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...
, the primary antagonists for the first eight years, the Goa'uld
Goa'uld
The Goa'uld are a fictional symbiotic race of ancient astronauts from the American-Canadian military science fiction television franchise Stargate. The Goa'uld are parasites from the planet P3X-888, integrated within a host, most of the time human. The resulting creatures are a powerful race bent...
achieve a measure of immortality. The Goa'uld symbiote can naturally extend the life-span of its human hosts upward of 200 years. By coupling its own natural healing abilities with advanced technology, a Goa'uld can keep itself and its host alive almost indefinitely. However, during the later seasons of the show it is noted that the Goa'uld, even when using life-prolonging technology, change hosts after a number of millennia. Additionally, Lord Yu, one of the oldest Goa'uld, started experiencing similar symptoms to old age (such as memory loss) as his host had become too old to be regenerated by the technology, and the symbionte itself was now physically unable to take a new host due to old age. The Goa'uld do experience a different measure of immortality as they possess genetic memory, so any direct descendants will have all the memories of their predecessor. This is passed on down the generations of the Goa'uld, so one could say a part of the Goa'uld lives on forever.
In the spinoff to SG-1, Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis
Stargate Atlantis is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of MGM's Stargate franchise. The show was created by Brad Wright and Robert C. Cooper as a spin-off series of Stargate SG-1, which was created by Wright and Jonathan Glassner and was itself...
, the main villains, the Wraith
Wraith (Stargate)
In the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis, the Wraith are the original enemy alien species, first introduced in the pilot episode . In the series, they are a vampire-like telepathic race who feed on the "life-force" of humans, and are the dominant power in the Pegasus galaxy...
, who drain the life force of human beings to survive, can't die of natural causes, and are difficult to kill by force (their toughness depends on the time of the last feasting). In the episode "The Defiant One", a Wraith remained alive for over 10,000 years by cannibalizing other Wraith when its original food source (captured humans) was depleted.
Both series feature "ascended beings," such as the Ancients, who have learned to shed their physical body and exist as energy, making them immortal. Another species in the series, the Asgard
Asgard (Stargate)
The Asgard are a fictional highly advanced race in the science fiction series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis. They are first mentioned in the episode , and first seen in . In the series, the Asgard gave rise to Norse mythology on Earth, as well as accounts of the Roswell "Greys"...
, have mastered a form of immortality, by transferring their minds into cloned bodies when their original form sustains serious injury, but by the time they encounter Earth they have begun to die due to their genetic structure breaking down as a result of being cloned so often, the race committing mass suicide at the conclusion of SG-1 to spare themselves the pain of the death that now awaits them after recognising that they cannot save themselves.
Perry Rhodan
Perry Rhodan
Perry Rhodan is the name of a science fiction series published since 1961 in Germany, as well as the name of the main character. It is a space opera, dealing with several themes of science fiction. Having sold over one billion copies worldwide, it is the most successful science fiction book series...
is the world's most prolific literary science fiction (SF) series, published since 1961 in Germany. In the storyline Perry Rhodan is the commander of the first mission to the moon, where they come upon a stranded vessel of an alien race in search of eternal youth. Perry Rhodan uses the superior technology to unite the earth and then continues the search for eternal youth. Ultimately he follows the hints laid out by a higher being called ES ("it" in German) that exists in an incorporeal state. This being chooses Perry Rhodan and a select few of his companions to attain Agelessness in order for them to pursue goals set by ES. ES says "I grant you everlasting life, not rejuvenation." Over the course of the series, there is a side-plot, which focuses on the downsides of immortality: It is hard to engage in relationships, when your partner ages and dies off. Similar problems occur with children.
In the Hyperion Cantos
Hyperion Cantos
The Hyperion Cantos is a series of science fiction novels by Dan Simmons. Set in the far future, and focusing more on plot and story development than technical detail, it falls into the soft science fiction category...
Universe, the TechnoCore, a group of sentient artificial intelligences which parasitized humanity, created a parasite called the cruciform. It was first tested in the planet Hyperion, and it is able to regenerate a human body along with personality and memories after death. The cruciforms are a flawed success as there is a loss of intelligence and genetic decay after each resurrection, rendering asexuated humans with little intelligence. However, when the TechnoCore offers it to the Catholic Church in a secret alliance to be able to keep with the need of parasitism over humanity, any error in personality and memories in the resurrection creche fixed through a process that only some priests in the Catholic Church know. This effectively brings perfect immortality to any human who abides to follow the laws of the Catholic Church. Even in the case of a disastrous death, the smallest cruciform remnant is enough to recreate the whole human body again, given the right conditions. However, the main characters in the story debate about the ethics and benefits of immortality, reaching to the conclusion that it stalls the evolution of humankind and it's severely counterproductive to any long-term expectations. Before the arrival of the cruciform and the TechnoCore alliance with the Catholic Church, wealthy humans were able to also achieve significant increase of their life expectancy thanks to several treatments, although the best results came with the expensive Poulsen treatments. One of the very few characters to span all the story, Martin Silenus, artificially expands his life expectancy thanks to these, and also to cryogenic fuges where he only is conscious for a few days each century, making him reach an age over 1,000 years.
In the novel Ender's Shadow
Ender's Shadow
Ender's Shadow is a parallel science fiction novel by the American author Orson Scott Card, taking place at the same time as the novel Ender's Game and depicting the same events from the point of view of Bean, a supporting character in the original novel. It was originally to be titled Urchin, but...
a genetic modification known as Anton's Key is discovered, allowing the human mind to achieve supreme intelligence at the cost of an extremely short life, and it is said that the reverse can be done, making a person immortal at the cost of nearly all intelligence.
In Tad Williams
Tad Williams
Robert Paul "Tad" Williams, born in San Jose, California, is the author of several fantasy and science fiction novels, including Tailchaser's Song, the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series, the Otherland series, and The War of the Flowers....
' Otherland
Otherland
Otherland is a science fiction tetralogy written by Tad Williams and published between 1996 and 2001. The story is set on Earth near the end of the 21st century, probably between 2082 and 2089 , in a world in which...
novels, the Grail Brotherhood, a group made up of the most affluent people in the world, attempt to achieve eternal life in virtual reality. They try to copy their neural pathways into virtual replicas with all of their memories, then kill their physical forms. The process fails due to complications involving the system's artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
.
In the LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
adventure game The Dig
The Dig
The Dig is a graphical adventure game developed by LucasArts and released in 1995, and a game based on an idea for an Amazing Stories episode by Steven Spielberg...
, the remains of an alien civilisation advanced enough to gain first physical and then spiritual immortality are explored and analysed. It eventually turns out that the obsession with living forever ultimately brought about their downfall; they lived forever, but lost "everything that made life worth living".
In the game Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
set thousands of years in the future and across the galaxy there are many examples of immortality and life extension. The emperor himself is immortal. The Necron
Necron
In the table-top wargame Warhammer 40,000, the Necrons are a mysterious skeletal robot-like race that have lain dormant and largely unknown by the other races of the universe for sixty four million years, and are reemerging in the distant future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe...
race are virtually immortal, their souls placed in machines that can be revived from any damage. And the C'tan, beings of pure energy living in artificial bodies, are immortal and can only be fully destroyed by another C'tan or by a Warp-based attack, such as a Talisman of Vaul. Some Chaos space marine characters can live a very very long time due to the time dilating abilities of the warp, coupled with advanced technology and magic from the chaos gods. The genetic modification to make a space marine by itself gives long life. Some sources say a space marine is practically immortal outside of death in battle. Many prominent or wealthy human characters have used technology like cyborgization and so called "juvenat" treatments to extend the normal lifespan. There are examples in warhammer 40k fiction of what looks like senility in extremely old characters such as high level adeptus mechanicus characters, space marine dreadnaughts and high level government officials.
In the Richard K. Morgan novel Altered Carbon
Altered Carbon
Altered Carbon is a hardboiled science fiction novel by Richard K. Morgan. Set some five hundred years in the future in a universe in which the United Nations Protectorate oversees a number of extrasolar planets settled by human beings, it features protagonist Takeshi Kovacs...
their consciousness rotated into a new clone when they die. Certain wealthy called "Meths" (short for Methuselah
Methuselah
Methuselah is the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. Extra-biblical tradition maintains that he died on the 11th of Cheshvan of the year 1656 , at the age of 969, seven days before the beginning of the Great Flood...
) can afford to have their consciousness rotated through a series of perpetual rejuvenated clones, thus avoiding old age. It is wryly noted however, that most people don't have the stomach to experience old age and death more than twice, and opt to be "put on stack" (stored) except for special family occasions.
Most of the novels by Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Reynolds
Alastair Preston Reynolds is a British science fiction author. He specialises in dark hard science fiction and space opera. He spent his early years in Cornwall, moved back to Wales before going to Newcastle, where he read physics and astronomy. Afterwards, he earned a PhD from St Andrews, Scotland...
feature immortal characters of some form or another, usually made possible by advanced medical technology and periodic regeneration of one's body. One of the issues discussed in these novels, particular Chasm City
Chasm City
Chasm City is a 2001 science fiction novel by author Alastair Reynolds, set in the Revelation Space universe. It deals with themes of identity, memory, and immortality, and many of its scenes are concerned primarily with describing the unusual societal and physical structure of the titular city, a...
, is the manner in which characters deal with their immortality and the boredom it inevitably generates. The Conjoiners, the most advanced faction, are able to modify their brains to the extent that they simply do not experience boredom at all. Unaugmented humans typically suffer intense boredom and attempt to reduce this by taking part in increasingly dangerous and exciting activities.
Relativistic interstellar travel
Interstellar travel
Interstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
granting virtual immortality is used as a plot device in Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card
Orson Scott Card is an American author, critic, public speaker, essayist, columnist, and political activist. He writes in several genres, but is primarily known for his science fiction. His novel Ender's Game and its sequel Speaker for the Dead both won Hugo and Nebula Awards, making Card the...
's series of novels involving Andrew (Ender) Wiggin. Gravitic devices such as the stasis field are used in the Known Space
Known Space
Known Space is the fictional setting of some dozen science fiction novels and several collections of short stories written by author Larry Niven. It has also in part been used as a shared universe in the Man-Kzin Wars spin-off anthologies sub-series....
universe created by Larry Niven
Larry Niven
Laurence van Cott Niven / ˈlæri ˈnɪvən/ is an American science fiction author. His best-known work is Ringworld , which received Hugo, Locus, Ditmar, and Nebula awards. His work is primarily hard science fiction, using big science concepts and theoretical physics...
. This kind of immortality is, however, illusionary. The "slowing" effects of time dilation also extend to all functions of the brain; thus, while to an outside observer the traveler's life would seem greatly extended, the slowed individual would not actually experience his life as any longer than before and would age at the regular speed, relative to his own time frame.
Unstuck in Time - The idea, postulated primarily in Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. was a 20th century American writer. His works such as Cat's Cradle , Slaughterhouse-Five and Breakfast of Champions blend satire, gallows humor and science fiction. He was known for his humanist beliefs and was honorary president of the American Humanist Association.-Early...
's Slaughterhouse Five, that one can become unstuck in time, and spend (at least theoretically) eternity in various points of their life. While this person would still die and cease to be, their life would not, in essence, end, as they would eternally wander about their life. In the particular example of Slaughterhouse Five, the main character, Billy Pilgram, meanders about his existence, reliving war experiences, an alien abduction, and his eventual assassination. Whether this would qualify as immortality is debatable.
In Misfits
Misfits (TV series)
Misfits is a British science fiction comedy-drama television series about a group of young offenders forced to work in a community service programme, where they obtain supernatural powers after a strange electrical storm. The first series started broadcasting on 12 November 2009 on E4, and was...
, a flash storm gives several teenagers currently doing community service superpowers. One character, Nathan, seems to have no power until the last episode, when he becomes immortal after falling onto a spiked metal fence. He wakes up in his coffin, pleased to have found his power, though disappointed to be buried alive with nothing but his iPod. As the series progresses, Nathan learns that his power also allows him to see the spirits of those who have passed on - although this apparently only applies when dealing with people he knows or has some connection with, as the only 'ghosts' he has seen are those of his half-brother, a new member of the community service group, and his friend Kelly - and his power allows him to even survive being shot in the head, although he cannot heal from less fatal injuries.
In Alias
Alias (TV series)
Alias is an American action television series created by J. J. Abrams which was broadcast on ABC for five seasons, from September 30, 2001 to May 22, 2006...
, the character of Arvin Sloane
Arvin Sloane
Arvin Sloane is a fictional character played by Ron Rifkin. He was the former director of SD-6 on the television series, Alias.-Background:...
, fixated on the work of brilliant Renaissance inventor Milo Rambaldi
Milo Rambaldi
Milo Giacomo Rambaldi is a fictional person from the American television series Alias. The work of Rambaldi, often centuries ahead of its time and tied to prophecy, plays a central role in the show.According to Alias creator J.J...
, discovers Rambaldi's last great secret in the series finale when he falls into a special fluid and becomes immortal, only to be subsequently trapped in a secret tomb under several hundred feet of rock.
In the Instrumentality of Mankind
Instrumentality of Mankind
In the science fiction of Cordwainer Smith, the Instrumentality of Mankind refers both to Smith's personal future history and universe and to the central government of humanity...
universe by Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith
Cordwainer Smith – pronounced CORDwainer – was the pseudonym used by American author Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger for his science fiction works. Linebarger was a noted East Asia scholar and expert in psychological warfare...
, there's a drug which allows to delay aging indefinitely in humans, called stroon or Santaclara drug. However, the Instrumentality is very aware of the dangers of immortality, so every human being can only take stroon up to a life of 400 years. Although there are exceptions, for example if a person is thought to be valuable for humankind, no one is allowed to live longer than 1,000 years. Thus, although humankind could achieve immortality, they avoid it consciously.
Regeneration
There are many examples of immortality in fiction where a character is vulnerable to death and injury in the normal way but possesses an extraordinary capacity for recovery.The British long-running sci-fi series Doctor Who
Doctor Who
Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...
focuses on a character called the Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
, a member of the alien Time Lord
Time Lord
The Time Lords are an ancient extraterrestrial race and civilization of humanoids in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, of which the series' eponymous protagonist, the Doctor, is a member...
race, who can "regenerate
Regeneration (Doctor Who)
Regeneration, in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, is a biological ability exhibited by Time Lords, a race of fictional humanoids originating on the planet Gallifrey. This process allows a Time Lord who is old or mortally wounded to undergo a transformation into a new...
" instead of dying or aging; however, rather than simply healing wounds, this results in his entire physical appearance changing when he is fatally wounded or terminally sick, and he is only capable of doing so twelve times before finally dying for good. The Tenth Doctor
Tenth Doctor
The Tenth Doctor is the tenth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He is played by David Tennant, who appears in three series, as well as eight specials...
was able to 'cheat' the process by channeling the energy of his regeneration into his 'spare hand
The Christmas Invasion
"The Christmas Invasion" is a 60-minute special episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It is Christmas, but there is little cause for celebration as planet Earth is invaded by aliens known as the Sycorax...
'- the hand having been cut off shortly after regeneration but his body was able to grow a new one using the remaining regenerative energy- after it had healed the injury that would have killed him in "Journey's End
Journey's End (Doctor Who)
"Journey's End" is the thirteenth episode of the fourth series of British science fiction television series Doctor Who first broadcast on BBC One on 5 July 2008. It is the second episode of a two-part crossover story featuring the characters of spin-off shows Torchwood and The Sarah Jane...
", thus preventing his body from changing his appearance while remaining healthy. The Doctor reveals in The End of Time
The End of Time
The End of Time: The Next Revolution in Our Understanding of the Universe, also sold with the alternate subtitle The Next Revolution in Physics, is a 1999 science book in which the author Julian Barbour argues that time exists merely as an illusion.-Auto-biography:The book begins by describing how...
that it is possible for him to die, if he is killed before the regeneration process can take place. Presumably this is what happened with the Second Doctor
Second Doctor
The Second Doctor is the second incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by character actor Patrick Troughton....
's temporary Time Lady companion Serena, who was killed when a musket ball passed through both her hearts. In general, regeneration has saved the Doctor many times. Even without regeneration it has been revealed that the Doctor is very long-lived, his first incarnation
First Doctor
The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a...
apparently living for around four hundred and fifty years before dying of old age (The Tenth Planet
The Tenth Planet
The Tenth Planet is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 8 October to 29 October 1966. It was William Hartnell's last regular appearance as the First Doctor, and the first story to feature the Cybermen...
; age was mentioned in The Evil of the Daleks
The Evil of the Daleks
The Evil of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which originally aired in seven weekly parts from 20 May to 1 July 1967. This serial marked the debut of Deborah Watling as the Doctor's new companion, Victoria Waterfield.Evil was initially intended to...
) and the Sixth Doctor
Sixth Doctor
The Sixth Doctor is the sixth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Colin Baker...
apparently surviving for fifty-three years with no signs of physical aging during that time (Said to be 900 in Revelation of the Daleks
Revelation of the Daleks
Revelation of the Daleks is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in two weekly parts on 23 March and 30 March 1985...
; the Seventh Doctor
Seventh Doctor
The Seventh Doctor is the seventh incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor Sylvester McCoy....
stated his age as being 953 immediately after his regeneration in Time and the Rani
Time and the Rani
Time and the Rani is a serial in the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, which was first broadcast in four weekly parts from 7 September to 28 September 1987. This story was the first to feature Sylvester McCoy as the Doctor. It also features the last appearance of the Sixth...
); the Eighth Doctor Adventures
Eighth Doctor Adventures
The Eighth Doctor Adventures are a series of spin off novels based on the long running BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who and published under the BBC Books imprint. 73 books were published overall...
published by the BBC featured the amnesiac Eighth Doctor
Eighth Doctor
The Eighth Doctor is the eighth incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by Paul McGann...
living on Earth for over a century (The Burning
The Burning (Doctor Who)
The Burning is a BBC Books original novel written by Justin Richards and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor...
to Escape Velocity
Escape Velocity (Doctor Who)
Escape Velocity is a BBC Books original novel written by Colin Brake and based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. It features the Eighth Doctor and Fitz and introduces the new companion of Anji Kapoor...
) while waiting for his TARDIS
TARDIS
The TARDISGenerally, TARDIS is written in all upper case letters—this convention was popularised by the Target novelisations of the 1970s...
time-space machine to repair itself, and never aging a day during that time period. When confronted with the question as to why he leaves behind his companions after a time, the Tenth Doctor explained sadly that if he kept all his old friends around, he would be forced to watch them age and eventually die, while he himself would live on due to his greater lifespan, regarding this as "the curse of the Time Lords".
In the Doctor Who story The Five Doctors
The Five Doctors
The Five Doctors is a special feature-length episode of the British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced in celebration of the programme's twentieth anniversary. It had its world premiere in the United States, on the Chicago PBS station WTTW and various other PBS member stations...
, Lord President Borusa of Gallifrey uses the first five regenerations of the Doctor and various companions in a plot to gain the immortality of Rassilon, the founder of Time Lord society, for himself. But it turns out to be a trap conceived of by Rassilon to deal with individuals with such a desire, Borusa being trapped for eternity as a living statue in Rassilon's tomb. As the First Doctor
First Doctor
The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the protagonist of the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a...
says in the end, "Immortality is a curse, not a blessing".
On the TV show South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, the character Kenny McCormick
Kenny McCormick
Kenneth "Kenny" McCormick is a fictional character in the animated television series South Park. He is one of the four central characters along with his friends Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Eric Cartman. His oft-muffled and indiscernible speech—the result of his parka hood covering his...
was killed in nearly every earlier episode, but always came back to life in the next episode without any apparent explanation (Although characters were apparently aware of his regular deaths, such as Eric Cartman
Eric Cartman
Eric Theodore Cartman is a fictional character in the American animated television series South Park. One of four main characters, along with Stan Marsh, Kyle Broflovski, and Kenny McCormick, he is generally referred to within the series by his last name...
once saying that Kenny 'died all the time' or Kenny himself once complaining that his friends never cared when he died). A common phrase on the show was, "Oh my God! They killed Kenny! You bastards!" This was later implied- although not explicitly stated- to be the result of Kenny's parents joining a Cthulu-worshipping cult before his birth, and explains that Kenny wakes up in his bed each morning after his 'death' with his friends not actually retaining any specific memories about his demise.
X-Men's Wolverine
Wolverine (comics)
Wolverine is a fictional character, a superhero that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Born as James Howlett and commonly known as Logan, Wolverine is a mutant, possessing animal-keen senses, enhanced physical capabilities, three retracting bone claws on each hand and a healing...
is a character with keen animal-like senses, and whose mutant healing abilities made it possible for a specialized fictional alloy called adamantium to be grafted to his entire skeleton without the subsequent metal poisoning killing him almost instantly, with the addition of two sets of three razor-sharp claws that extend from each hand (Although later stories revealed that the claws were a part of his natural mutation, the process simply making them metal rather than the bone they would have been normally). Each time he projects the claws, they cut through the skin of his knuckles, but the slick design prevents any bleeding from occurring. The cuts the blades create instantly heal once they're retracted. Wolverine's healing abilities also slow down his physical aging, allowing him to live beyond the average human lifespan, having been born in the late 19th century.
In the Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson
Gerry Anderson MBE is a British publisher, producer, director and writer, famous for his futuristic television programmes, particularly those involving specially modified marionettes, a process called "Supermarionation"....
1960s television series, Captain Scarlet
Captain Scarlet (character)
Captain Scarlet is the fictional main character in Gerry Anderson's British Supermarionation science fiction television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and its CGI remake Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet....
was supposedly indestructible. In that series a Martian race known as the Mysteron
Mysteron
The Mysterons are a fictional race of extraterrestrials, native to the planet Mars, which appear in the British science fiction Supermarionation television series Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and Gerry Anderson's New Captain Scarlet, symbolised by ubiquitous projected green rings and the deep...
s have the ability to duplicate things which have been destroyed as they were when they were whole, including producing a living version of a dead person. Captain Scarlet is an agent of that race that has defected to fight against them but retains the ability to create a living version of himself after dying. The series uses the term retro-metabolism for this alien regeneration technique.
Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees
Jason Voorhees is a fictional character from the Friday the 13th series of slasher films. He first appeared in Friday the 13th , as the son of camp cook-turned-murderer, Mrs. Voorhees, in which he was portrayed by Ari Lehman. Created by Victor Miller, with contributions by Ron Kurz, Sean S...
from the Friday the 13th movies is considered to be immortal. It is theorized that each time he is "killed" he is actually just put into a type of sleep while he regenerates enough of his lost and damaged tissue to function normally again. Jason has been killed - taking a large blade to the head - but means outside his physical influence- a lightning-bolt struck a metal pole that had been rammed into his chest- led to his resurrection. When he was first killed, he survived permanent death via his father's wish that he would not be cremated, before his own murderer incidentally brought him back while trying to destroy his corpse, leading to a more unstoppable Jason. Jason even survives being blown up, by possessing other people and eventually being reborn through a dead relative. He also survives being blown apart in Jason X
Jason X
Jason X is a 2002 science fiction horror slasher film directed by James Isaac. It is the tenth in the Friday the 13th film series and stars Kane Hodder as the undead mass murderer Jason Voorhees, the film made $16,951,798 worldwide with a budget of $14 million...
, despite having his right leg, left arm, and a significant portion of his head shot off, although in this instance he is reconstructed as a cyborg
Cyborg
A cyborg is a being with both biological and artificial parts. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan S. Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space. D. S...
through nanotechnology, suggesting that he will die if he sustains enough damage.
In the popular Japanese novel, Kōga Ninpōchō, the character Yakushiji Tenzen is considered immortal due to his ability to regenerate all damage done to him. How this regeneration is possible is differently explained in all of the different versions of the story.
In the TV series Heroes
Heroes (TV series)
Heroes is an American science fiction television drama series created by Tim Kring that appeared on NBC for four seasons from September 25, 2006 through February 8, 2010. The series tells the stories of ordinary people who discover superhuman abilities, and how these abilities take effect in the...
, the character of Claire Bennett- along with her uncle, Peter Petrelli
Peter Petrelli
Peter Petrelli, portrayed by Milo Ventimiglia, is a fictional character on the NBC science fiction drama series Heroes. He is a hospice nurse-turned-paramedic in his mid-20s with the power to absorb and mimic the powers of other people with special abilities, or powers...
, who has the ability to mimic the powers of others- has the power of spontaneous regeneration
Healing factor
A healing factor is a term used to describe the ability of some characters in fiction to recover from bodily injuries or disease at a superhuman rate...
, resulting in her body tissue simply regenerating when she's injured. The one exception is that injuries to the brain will not regenerate immediately, but will instead induce an apparent-dead state. This is reversed after foreign objects are removed from the brain or spine. Adam Monroe
Adam Monroe
Adam Monroe, also known as in non-canon feudal Japan, is a fictional character portrayed by David Anders in the NBC science fiction drama Heroes. The character first appears in the second season episode "Four Months Later...", although the legend of Kensei is referenced several times during the...
, a character with similar powers, is also over 400 years old as a result of his ability, his cells dying and regenerating so rapidly his aging has been suspended. In the first episode of the third season, Sylar
Sylar
Gabriel Gray, more commonly known by his assumed name of Sylar , is one of the primary antagonists and antiheroes in the NBC drama Heroes. Portrayed by Zachary Quinto, he is a superpowered serial killer who targets other superhumans in order to steal their powers...
, the main villain in the show, acquires Claire's ability, but leaves Claire alive, stating that he is unable to kill Claire even if he wanted to, implying that she is truly immortal, although the producers have stated that such methods of death as decapitation would kill her. It is unclear whether Adam was equally unkillable (although he tells Peter that there is "no coming back" from having one's "brains blown out"); although he died when Arthur Petrelli stole his powers, his death was the result of him rapidly aging after his powers were taken to 'compensate' for the years that he hadn't aged, rather than a more conventional means of death.
In the television series Battlestar Galactica
Battlestar Galactica (2004 TV series)
Battlestar Galactica is an American military science fiction television series, and part of the Battlestar Galactica franchise. The show was developed by Ronald D. Moore as a re-imagining of the 1978 Battlestar Galactica television series created by Glen A. Larson...
, humanoid and raider Cylon
Cylon (reimagining)
Cylons are a race which appear in the reimagined Battlestar Galactica television series and its prequel Caprica. They have several forms, some of which resemble and even mimic the behavior of humans, while others are mechanical in appearance and function.In the first DVD, one of the show's creators...
models download into new bodies if their current incarnation is destroyed. Their memories and consciousness are fully transferred to the appropriate model, be it one of 12 humanoid versions or into a new raider. However, this method is later used against the Cylons when the humans manage to destroy a Cylon Resurrection Ship - a ship which carries the bodies for the Cylons to resurrect in - thus forcing the Cylons to withdraw their attacks on the human fleet due to their fear of permanent death. During Season Four, the Cylon resurrection Hub is destroyed, permanently ending the Cylon ability to resurrect, a group of renegade Cylons having concluded that life can only have meaning when it can end and thus determined to give their lives meaning by cutting them short and rendering them able to die once more.
In the game-series "Metal Gear Solid
Metal Gear Solid
is a videogame by Hideo Kojima. The game was developed by Konami Computer Entertainment Japan and first published by Konami in 1998 for the PlayStation video game console. It is the sequel to Kojimas early MSX2 computer games Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake...
", created by Hideo Kojima
Hideo Kojima
is a Japanese game director originally employed at Konami. He is currently the director of Kojima Productions and was promoted to Vice President of Konami Digital Entertainment in early 2011...
, the villain Vamp reappears after being shot in the head and other normally life-threatening events. He is using so called nano-machines, developed by Naomi Hunter, to reconstruct his body. Normal soldiers use them too, but his use is way beyond the average, creating the myth to be immortal. In the 4th part of the series he finally dies due to a syringe that disabled the nanomachines invented and created by Naomi Hunter herself.
Spiritual
There are numerous works of fantasy fiction dealing with spiritual immortality in the form of reincarnation or a world of the dead. The novel What Dreams May ComeWhat Dreams May Come
What Dreams May Come is a 1978 novel by Richard Matheson. The plot centers on Chris, a man who dies and goes to Heaven, but eventually descends into Hell to rescue his wife...
by Richard Matheson
Richard Matheson
Richard Burton Matheson is an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is perhaps best known as the author of What Dreams May Come, Bid Time Return, A Stir of Echoes, The Incredible Shrinking Man, and I Am Legend, all of which have been...
and the Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
film Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice
Beetlejuice is a 1988 American comedy horror film directed by Tim Burton, produced by The Geffen Film Company and distributed by Warner Bros...
have heroes who are forced to explore such worlds after their untimely deaths.
In the book Thursday's fictions by Richard James Allen
Richard James Allen
Richard James Allen is a contemporary Australian poet, dancer and filmmaker. The former Artistic Director of the , and founding director of the , Richard was Co-Artistic Director with Karen Pearlman of That Was Fast and Tasdance , and now at The Physical TV Company .Richard James Allen recently...
, the character Thursday tries to cheat the cycle of reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
to achieve a form of serial immortality - by rediscovering who she is each time she comes back to life in a different body. Her actions create havoc for herself and all the characters in the story and when her son is offered eternal life at the end of the tale he turns it down in favor of living in the moment.
In the roleplaying game Wraith: The Oblivion
Wraith: The Oblivion
Wraith: The Oblivion is a role-playing game set in the afterlife of White Wolf Game Studio's World of Darkness. In the game, players take on characters who are recently dead and are now ghosts...
, published by White Wolf Publishing, Inc.
White Wolf, Inc.
White Wolf Publishing is an American gaming and book publisher. The company was founded in 1991 as a merger between Lion Rampant and White Wolf Magazine, and was initially led by Mark Rein·Hagen of the former and Steve and Stewart Wieck of the latter. Since White Wolf Publishing, Inc. merged with...
, the afterlife is place known as the Underworld, where certain people who die enter as ghosts, emotionally bound to their former lives. Many are unhappy with their eternal existences and either become insane Spectres
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
or ossify
Ossification
Ossification is the process of laying down new bone material by cells called osteoblasts. It is synonymous with bone tissue formation...
into statues. Originally, the Underworld was a place where the dead stayed until they reached transcendence, but the notion was later considered heretical
Heresy
Heresy is a controversial or novel change to a system of beliefs, especially a religion, that conflicts with established dogma. It is distinct from apostasy, which is the formal denunciation of one's religion, principles or cause, and blasphemy, which is irreverence toward religion...
by the Hierarchy.
In the game Soul Calibur III
Soul Calibur III
is a fighting game produced by Namco and is the sequel to Soulcalibur II and is the fourth overall installment in the Soul series of fighting games...
the final boss of the game Zasalamel (ultimate form “Abyss
Abyss (religion)
Abyss refers to a bottomless pit, to the underworld, to the deepest ocean floor, or to hell.The English word "abyss" derives from the late Latin abyssimus through French abisme , hence the poetic form "abysm", with examples dating to 1616 and earlier to rhyme with "time"...
”) was a member of an ancient Egyptian tribe that guarded the mythical Soul Calibur
Soul Calibur
is a 3D, weapons-based fighting game developed by Project Soul and produced by Namco. It is the second game in the Soul series, preceeded by Soul Edge. It was released in arcades in 1998, and it ran on the Namco System 12 hardware. In 1999 it was ported to the Dreamcast with improved graphics and...
. Being a genius among his tribe he mastered the forbidden art of reincarnation, so every time he would die he would be reincarnated. But every time he died began a fury of unimaginable and incomprehensible pain of his body and his soul until he was completely born again. After thousands upon thousands of years of being subjected to this pain he simply wanted to die. In a way he was actually forced to hate death through Pavlov
Ivan Pavlov
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov was a famous Russian physiologist. Although he made significant contributions to psychology, he was not in fact a psychologist himself but was a mathematician and actually had strong distaste for the field....
’s theory
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
of classical conditioning
Classical conditioning
Classical conditioning is a form of conditioning that was first demonstrated by Ivan Pavlov...
. Knowing that there he had gained so much power that he becomes even more powerful than the sword known as Soul Calibur
Soul Calibur
is a 3D, weapons-based fighting game developed by Project Soul and produced by Namco. It is the second game in the Soul series, preceeded by Soul Edge. It was released in arcades in 1998, and it ran on the Namco System 12 hardware. In 1999 it was ported to the Dreamcast with improved graphics and...
and its evil counterpart Soul Edge
Soul Edge
is a 3D arcade fighting game developed by Project Soul and published by Namco. It is the first installment in the Soul series of fighting games...
, he formed a master plan that would lead to his death. Thus he gave the evil sword, Soul Edge
Soul Edge
is a 3D arcade fighting game developed by Project Soul and published by Namco. It is the first installment in the Soul series of fighting games...
, a body so that it could feast upon human souls until it was powerful enough to merge with Soul Calibur to break his curse.
One of the central concepts of the science fiction miniatures game Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
is a place called the Warp. It is more officially called the Immaterium because it is a purely spiritual place that is dominated by thought and lacking the material nature of the real world. In the game it allows travel faster than light, but it is also a place where a mind can continue to exist after death. Alien races and gifted humans are even described as being able to return to life after death by manipulating the warp, especially the humans called Psykers and an alien the race called the Eldar
Eldar (Warhammer 40,000)
In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Eldar are a race of elf-like humanoids who look into the future via psychic powers. They are one of the most ancient and advanced races in the universe's history, though younger than the Necrons, the C'tan, and the Old Ones...
.
In Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
, Jedi
Jedi
The Jedi are characters in the Star Wars universe and the series's main protagonists. The Jedi use a power called the Force and weapons called lightsabers, which emit a controlled energy flow in the shape of a sword, in order to serve and protect the Republic and the galaxy at large from conflict...
are shown to have mastered a form of immortality by passing into the Force
Force (Star Wars)
The Force is a binding, metaphysical and ubiquitous power in the fictional universe of the Star Wars galaxy created by George Lucas. Mentioned in the first film in the series, it is integral to all subsequent incarnations of Star Wars, including the expanded universe of comic books, novels, and...
upon their deaths, becoming Force 'ghosts' who can communicate with the living. It has been stated by Qui-Gon Jinn
Qui-Gon Jinn
Qui-Gon Jinn is a fictional character in the Star Wars universe, and a main protagonist of the 1999 film Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, portrayed by Liam Neeson. He also appears in the Star Wars Expanded Universe of comic books, video games, and novels...
that this ability can only be achieved through compassion and the release of one's self; although Sith
Sith
-Sith:The Sith is a name applied to certain characters in the Star Wars universe. In the films they are the central antagonists. They are capable of using the dark side of the Force.-The Invention of the Sith:...
have achieved a similar state, this commonly features them being bound to a specific object, eventually driven insane from the loneliness and rage as they wait for a chance to return to life.
Comic books
The EternalsEternals (comics)
The Eternals are a fictional race of superhumans in the Marvel Comics universe. They are described as an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth. The original instigators of this process, the alien Celestials, intended the Eternals to be the defenders of Earth which...
of Marvel comics fame are a race of ancient people created by the Celestials
Celestial (comics)
The Celestials are a group of fictional characters that appear in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The characters first appear in Eternals #1 and were created by writer-artist Jack Kirby....
, along with the Eternals
Eternals (comics)
The Eternals are a fictional race of superhumans in the Marvel Comics universe. They are described as an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth. The original instigators of this process, the alien Celestials, intended the Eternals to be the defenders of Earth which...
and Deviants
Deviant (comics)
The Deviants are a fictional race of superhumans in the Marvel Comics' universe. They are an offshoot of the evolutionary process that created sentient life on Earth instigated by the alien Celestials, and wage war against their counterparts, the Eternals...
. The eternals were created by the Celestials to live forever in order to protect earth. Other Marvel characters that are virtually immortal include Apocalypse
Apocalypse (comics)
Apocalypse is a fictional character who is an ancient mutant that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The character first appeared in X-Factor #5 , created by writer Louise Simonson and designed by artist Walter Simonson...
, Galactus
Galactus
Galactus is a fictional character appearing in comic books and other publications published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist and co-plotter Jack Kirby, the character debuted in Fantastic Four #48 , the first of a three-issue story later known as "The Galactus...
, Uatu
Uatu
Uatu, often simply known as The Watcher, is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Stan Lee and designed by artist Jack Kirby, he first appeared in The Fantastic Four #13 ....
and the rest of his Watcher
Watcher (comics)
The Watchers are a fictional race of extraterrestrials that appear in comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the first Watcher - named Uatu - appears in Fantastic Four #13 .-Fictional history:...
race, Mr. Immortal
Mr. Immortal
Mr. Immortal is a comic book character, a mutant superhero in Marvel Comics' main shared universe. He is the leader of the Great Lakes Avengers and first appeared in the pages of the Avengers West Coast in 1989.-Profile:Mr...
, and the Elders of the Universe
Elders of the Universe
The Elders of the Universe are a group of fictional characters that appear in comic books published by Marvel Comics. The Collector was the first Elder to appear, and featured in Avengers #28...
.
DC Comics
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...
also has its fare share of immortals, such as the more advanced New Gods
New Gods
The New Gods are a fictional race appearing in publications by DC Comics, as well as the title for four series of comic books about those characters. They first appeared in New Gods #1 , and were created and designed by Jack Kirby....
(e.g. Darkseid
Darkseid
Darkseid is a fictional character that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in Superman's Pal Jimmy Olsen #134 and was created by writer-artist Jack Kirby....
, Highfather
Highfather
Highfather is a fictional comic book character in the . He is chief of the New Gods of New Genesis in the Fourth World and ruled the fictional planet. Highfather first appeared in The New Gods #1 ....
), Vandal Savage
Vandal Savage
Vandal Savage is a fictional character, a supervillain published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Green Lantern vol. 1 #10 , and was created by Alfred Bester and Martin Nodell....
, Lobo, Superman
Superman
Superman is a fictional comic book superhero appearing in publications by DC Comics, widely considered to be an American cultural icon. Created by American writer Jerry Siegel and Canadian-born American artist Joe Shuster in 1932 while both were living in Cleveland, Ohio, and sold to Detective...
(in some incarnations), Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a DC Comics superheroine created by William Moulton Marston. She first appeared in All Star Comics #8 . The Wonder Woman title has been published by DC Comics almost continuously except for a brief hiatus in 1986....
and the rest of the Amazonians
Amazons (comics)
The Amazons of DC Comics are a fictional all-female society of superhumans, based on the Amazons of Greek mythology. There have been three major incarnations of these Amazons, one before the Crisis, and two after. What two of these groups have in common is that they are the race which produced...
, and the Guardians of the Universe
Guardians of the Universe
The Guardians of the Universe, alternatively known as the Guardians or Oans are a fictional extraterrestrial race in the DC Comics universe. They first appeared in Green Lantern Vol. 2 #1 , and were created by John Broome and Gil Kane. Here they do not reveal their existence to Hal, bringing his...
. Also, long-time Batman
Batman
Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...
villain Ra's al Ghul
Ra's al Ghul
Ra's al Ghul is a DC Comics supervillain and is one of Batman's greatest enemies. His name in Arabic has been translated in the comics as "The Demon's Head" and references the name of the star Algol. Created by writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams, he was introduced in Batman #232's...
uses the Lazarus Pit
Lazarus Pit
A Lazarus Pit is a fictional natural phenomenon in the . They are primarily found in the Batman titles and are commonly used by Ra's al Ghul for their restorative powers.-Fictional history:...
to keep himself immortal.
In the Indian comic book series Chacha Chaudhary
Chacha Chaudhary
Chacha Chaudhary is a popular Indian comic book character, created by cartoonist Pran. The comic comes in ten Indian languages including Hindi and English and has sold almost ten million copies. Chacha Chaudhary has also been made into a television series with Raghuvir Yadav playing...
, the character Raaka drank a medicine made by Chakram Acharya, and became immortal.
Anime and manga
In the Dragon Ball series, many antagonists seek the dragon balls to gain immortality including Vegeta, Nappa, and Freeza in the Dragon Ball Z series. Garlic Jr. achieves this feat.In the anime/manga Naruto
Naruto
is an ongoing Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Masashi Kishimoto. The plot tells the story of Naruto Uzumaki, an adolescent ninja who constantly searches for recognition and aspires to become the Hokage, the ninja in his village who is acknowledged as the leader and the strongest of...
, five characters have shown the ability to find some way to increase longevity or become immortal, Sasori, Hidan, Kakuzu, Madara Uchiha and Orochimaru
Orochimaru (Naruto)
is a fictional character from the Naruto universe created by Masashi Kishimoto and developed into a media franchise, which consists of a series of manga, anime, soundtracks, OVAs, movies, video games, and other collectibles...
. Kakuzu is partially immortal because of his unique ability to add new organs (specifically hearts) to his body in order to increase his already long life though he doesn't view this ability as immortality. Orochimaru invented a jutsu through forbidden research which allows him to switch bodies with another person, allowing him to become partially immortal. Sasori turned his own body into a puppet and sealed his humanity in a small flesh and blood core, free from the human essentials forever. In contrast to Sasori, Orochimaru and Kakuzu, who had to find a special technique in order to increase their longevity, Hidan has the ability to never get injured by anything. Even the most grievous wounds could not kill him, and even decapitating him is more a nuisance than anything else. Hidan must periodically kill to retain immorality but since being buried alive, he is presumed to be died. Sasori, Kakuzu, Hidan, and Orochimaru are now all dead. Madara is considered immortal due to his seemingly endless chakra (physical/spiritual energy) supply.
Immortal Rain
Immortal Rain
is a manga created by Kaori Ozaki. It was first published in the Japanese monthly anthology Wings as Meteor Methuselah. As of September 2007, the current eight volumes have been published in English by Tokyopop, with the rest of the series, when published in Japan, expected to follow...
is a manga by Kaori Ozaki. The main character, Rain Jewlitt ( nicknamed Methuselah,) was cursed by his friend Yuca with immortality. He is a kind, gentle man who loves people, and 600 years of painful memories can be too much. He can't stand watching the people around him die and attempts to separate himself from human connections. But when a young bounty hunter follows him, she saves him from his loneliness, and he saves her from hers. Though it's not really mentioned, the tragedy is that the young girl, Machika, will become an old woman and die in the blink of an eye (or she'll be killed young); he will be alone again, with the memory of her death haunting him forever. That is, unless he can become a human mortal again. Though the world is jealous of Methuselah's immortality, he suffers from it and wants nothing more than to die.
In the anime Bleach
Bleach (manga)
is a Japanese shōnen manga series written and illustrated by Noriaki "Tite" Kubo. Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki after he obtains the powers of a —a death personification similar to the Grim Reaper—from another Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchiki...
, several of the series' races are very long-lived in some fashion, though not explicitly immortal. A race of humans called bounts are effectively immortal so long as they can find human souls to devour. They are born like any ordinary human, but when they are around 20–30 years old, they stop aging. Hollows are likewise very long-lived, and subsist of the same methods as the bount. Deceased human spirits, be they shinigami or simply ordinary souls, age at an extremely slowed rate, such that those well over 2000 years old will appear at most to be in their eighties. During the Arrancar Arc, the antagonist Szayel Aporro Granz attains immortality using his abilities of "impregnating" a victim with his DNA, then using their body as sustenance to recreate himself. The process could theoretically be repeated forever. Later in the series the main antagonist Sosuke Aizen
Sosuke Aizen
is a fictional character and formerly the main antagonist in the anime and manga series Bleach created by Tite Kubo. He is the captain of the 5th Division when he is first introduced, but later betrays the Soul Society and becomes the series' main antagonist...
obtains true immortality, but in the process he loses most of his power and is imprisoned for his crimes.
Naraku, the main antagonist of Inuyasha
InuYasha
, also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008...
, became partially immortal when he rejected his human heart. He could not be killed unless his heart, which took the form of an infant called Akago, was destroyed. A good example of this is when Sesshomaru shreds Naraku to pieces (and yet he still survives) when they are fighting in the Netherworld, after Inuyasha destroys Naraku's barrier with Kongosoha (Diamond Shard Blast).
In Fullmetal Alchemist
Fullmetal Alchemist
, is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa. The world of Fullmetal Alchemist is styled after the European Industrial Revolution...
, immortality is partially achieved through the use of a Philosopher's Stone. By using energy stored in the stone (harvested from the lives of thousands of slain innocents), human souls can essentially leap from body to body (or, in some cases, inanimate objects), thus living on. However, doing so slowly destroys the soul until it can no longer support a new flesh-and-blood body, which quickly begins to rot as soon as it is taken over. Also, the main antagonists of the series, a set of homonculi, attain partial immortality. They are able to regenerate from otherwise deadly wounds multitudinous times before finally succumbing.
In Hellsing
Hellsing
is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kouta Hirano. It first premiered in Young King Ours in 1997 and ended in September 2008. The individual chapters are collected and published in tankōbon volumes by Shōnen Gahosha. As of March 2009 all chapters have been released in 10 volumes in...
the Vampire Alucard
Alucard (Hellsing)
is a fictional characterin the Hellsing manga and anime series created by Kouta Hirano. A powerful vampire, Alucard works with the Hellsing Organization against other vampires and evil forces. He fights with ferocity and often extreme cruelty, rarely killing until his target has been disabled and...
(Dracula) has lived for 500 years. he hasn't died, but has been beaten twice. the first time was when he was killed as a human after a battle against the Ottoman Empire(he became a vampire by drinking the blood of his soldiers) the second time was when he was beaten by Abraham Van Hellsing.
In Code Geass, characters with the 'Code' have eternal longevity and immortality, and can grant the power of Geass to others. Once the Geass is fully developed, the Geass user can be granted the 'Code', the person who gave them the Geass has the choice to die after granting a person his or her 'Code.' Two characters with the 'Code', C.C.
C.C. (Code Geass)
is a fictional character and the tritagonist in the Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion anime series by Sunrise. C.C. is not her real name; she involuntarily reveals her real name to Lelouch in her sleep, but it is muted so the viewer cannot hear it. Her seiyū is Yukana while she is voiced by...
and V.V, are shown to have eternal youth and immortality. C.C. is immortal, neither suffering from age nor capable of being killed by conventional means. She has retained her prime physical form from the time she received the power of the 'Code', presumbly sometime during the Middle Ages. She has also been shot fatally a number of times, been crushed by water pressure, burned at the stake, subjected to the guillotine, and placed in an iron maiden, all of which she recovered from. V.V. has also displayed the same longevity and immortality C.C. has, being able to remain 10 while his twin brother, Charles zi Britannia is 63. Charles has also forcefully taken away the 'Code' from his brother at one point in the series, gaining his immortality while V.V. died from fatal injuries. At the end of the series, C.C. became the last Immortal still having the Code after Lelouch erased his father, Charles from existence after turning the collective consciousness of humans on him. It is also speculated by fans that Lelouch forcefully took the 'Code' from his father at that point, having fulfilled all the requirements to possess it, and was activated after Lelouch died at the end of series, possibly making him an immortal, although the producers have confimed his death.
In the Slayers
Slayers
is a series of over 52 light novels written by Hajime Kanzaka and illustrated by Rui Araizumi. It was later developed into several manga titles, five televised anime series, two three-episode original video animations , and five movies. It also spawned several console role-playing games for the...
series, there have been a number of characters who appear to be immortal. In Slayers Next, it is revealed that a human who makes the Pledge with the Mazaku (Monster) race can gain immortality. A villain named Halcyform was able to achieve this by pledging with another villain named Seigram, who was indeed, a Mazaku.
Other versions
Many methods of immortality are sought by Voldemort in the Harry PotterHarry Potter
Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by the British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the adolescent wizard Harry Potter and his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, all of whom are students at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
series, including horcruxes, unicorn
Unicorn
The unicorn is a legendary animal from European folklore that resembles a white horse with a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead, and sometimes a goat's beard...
blood, the deathly hallows, and the Philosopher's Stone
Philosopher's stone
The philosopher's stone is a legendary alchemical substance said to be capable of turning base metals into gold or silver. It was also sometimes believed to be an elixir of life, useful for rejuvenation and possibly for achieving immortality. For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal...
. Albus Dumbledore
Albus Dumbledore
Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore is a major character in J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series. For most of the series, he is the headmaster of the wizarding school Hogwarts...
, the mentor of Harry Potter, considers natural death to be a "great adventure," and immortality is associated with evil.
The Immortals
Immortal (Highlander)
Immortals are a group of fictional characters seen in the movies and series of the Highlander franchise. Since they are immune to disease and stop aging after becoming Immortal, they can live forever and they only die when they are beheaded....
of Highlander: The Series
Highlander: The Series
Highlander: The Series is a fantasy-adventure television series featuring Duncan MacLeod of the Scottish Clan MacLeod, as the Highlander. It was an offshoot and another alternate sequel of the 1986 feature film with a twist: Connor MacLeod did not win the prize and Immortals still exist post-1985...
possess immortality granted by an unknown energy (called the Quickening), which is triggered by the trauma of a violent death. Once immortal, they can still be injured, but heal very quickly. Although there are discrepancies between the film
Highlander (film)
Highlander is a 1986 fantasy action film directed by Russell Mulcahy and based on a story by Gregory Widen. It stars Christopher Lambert, Sean Connery, Clancy Brown, and Roxanne Hart. The film depicts the climax of an ages-old battle between immortal warriors, depicted through interwoven past and...
and the series
Highlander: The Series
Highlander: The Series is a fantasy-adventure television series featuring Duncan MacLeod of the Scottish Clan MacLeod, as the Highlander. It was an offshoot and another alternate sequel of the 1986 feature film with a twist: Connor MacLeod did not win the prize and Immortals still exist post-1985...
, the generally accepted canon
Canon (fiction)
In the context of a work of fiction, the term canon denotes the material accepted as "official" in a fictional universe's fan base. It is often contrasted with, or used as the basis for, works of fan fiction, which are not considered canonical...
is that they can die but will be healed and resurrected unless they are beheaded. If beheaded, usually by another Immortal during combat, the victor receives the loser's 'Quickening' or knowledge and power. Immortals can sense other Immortals by the 'buzz' they receive when near another Quickening. No Immortal will desecrate holy ground by battling on it. All Immortals are sterile. Their origins are mysterious, although it is indicated many of them are foundlings
Child abandonment
Child abandonment is the practice of relinquishing interests and claims over one's offspring with the intent of never again resuming or reasserting them. Causes include many social and cultural factors as well as mental illness. An abandoned child is called a foundling .-Causes:Poverty is often a...
. The legend they follow says that when only a few remain standing, they will fight at "The Gathering" for something known only as "The Prize", which is the knowledge and power of every Immortal. It is unknown what power this will have on the very last Immortal, but the ending of the first movie suggests that The Prize is both an empathic link with all humanity and a restoration of the Immortal's mortality and fertility - the Immortal will be able to grow old, die of natural causes, and bear or conceive a child.
In Tom Robbins
Tom Robbins
Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins Thomas Eugene "Tom" Robbins (born July 22, 1936 is an American author. His best-selling novels are serio-comic, often wildly poetic stories with a strong social and philosophical undercurrent, an irreverent bent, and scenes extrapolated from...
' book Jitterbug Perfume
Jitterbug Perfume
Jitterbug Perfume is Tom Robbins' fourth novel, published in 1984. The major themes of the book include the striving for immortality, the meaning behind the sense of smell, individual expression, self-reliance, sex, love, and religion. Beets and the god Pan figure prominently...
, the characters of Alobar and Kudra explore the realms of immortality through their will to attain eternal life.
In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords is a role playing video game released for the Xbox and Microsoft Windows. The Xbox version of this sequel to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic was released on December 6, 2004, while the Windows version was released on February 8, 2005...
, Darth Sion has a unique force power called Pain, which keeps him alive forever but never allows any of his wounds to heal. The Exile convinced him to turn away from the Force which finally allowed him to die.
In Mother 3
Mother 3
Mother 3 is a role-playing video game developed by Nintendo, Brownie Brown and HAL Laboratory, and published for the Game Boy Advance handheld game console. It has only been released in Japan, alongside a limited supply bundle. It is the third video game in the Mother series, following EarthBound...
, the leader of the mysterious Pig Mask Army is revealed as Porky Minch, an antagonist from Earthbound
EarthBound (series)
EarthBound, known in Japan as Mother, is a role-playing game series created by Shigesato Itoi for Nintendo. The series started in 1989 with the Japan-only release of Mother for the Famicom, and was then followed up by a sequel, released in North America as EarthBound for the Super NES in 1995, and...
. Porky has abused a machine that lets him travel through time, causing his body to age but his mind to remain in a pre-teen state. Porky, now immortal, is thousands of years old, and has lost all concept of his own age. After the main characters defeat him, Porky retreats into his "Absolutely Safe Capsule", designed to keep all exterior things out. Unfortunately, it also imprisons him, motionless, forever, as he can never escape.
In Douglas Adams
Douglas Adams
Douglas Noel Adams was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television...
' novel Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything
Life, the Universe and Everything is the third book in the five-volume Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy science fiction series by British writer Douglas Adams...
the character Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged had the misfortune of being immortal due to "a strange accident involving an irrational particle accelerator
Particle accelerator
A particle accelerator is a device that uses electromagnetic fields to propel charged particles to high speeds and to contain them in well-defined beams. An ordinary CRT television set is a simple form of accelerator. There are two basic types: electrostatic and oscillating field accelerators.In...
, a liquid lunch
Alcoholic beverage
An alcoholic beverage is a drink containing ethanol, commonly known as alcohol. Alcoholic beverages are divided into three general classes: beers, wines, and spirits. They are legally consumed in most countries, and over 100 countries have laws regulating their production, sale, and consumption...
and a pair of rubber bands". After becoming immortal, he did everything one can do in life, several times, becoming terribly bored
Boredom
Boredom is an emotional state experienced when an individual is without any activity or is not interested in their surroundings. The first recorded use of the word boredom is in the novel Bleak House by Charles Dickens, written in 1852, in which it appears six times, although the expression to be a...
of everything due to him lacking the instinctive knowledge of other immortal beings that allowed them to cope with their immortality. He then made a plan that, despite being rather foolish, would at least keep him busy: he was going to insult
Insult
An insult is an expression, statement which is considered degrading and offensive. Insults may be intentional or accidental...
, personally, all the living beings in the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
, in alphabetical order.
Naraku, the main antaganist of Inuyasha
InuYasha
, also known as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Rumiko Takahashi. It premiered in Weekly Shōnen Sunday on November 13, 1996 and concluded on June 18, 2008...
, became partially immortal when he rejected his human heart. He could not be killed unless his heart, which took the form of an infant called Akago, was destroyed. A good example of this is when Sesshomaru shreds Naraku to pieces (and yet he still survives) when they are fighting in the Netherworld, after Inuyasha destroys Naraku's barrier with Kongosoha (Diamond Shard Blast).
The Phantom
The Phantom
The Phantom is an American adventure comic strip created by Lee Falk, also creator of Mandrake the Magician. A popular feature adapted into many media, including television, film and video games, it stars a costumed crimefighter operating from the fictional African country Bengalla.The Phantom is...
is a comic character who appears to be immortal, fighting pirates and evil across centuries. However it is just a dynasty of heroes who pass the mask and suit of the Phantom along generations. Their secret is known just to their aides and wives.
In Andromeda
Andromeda (TV series)
Andromeda is a Canadian-American science fiction television series, based on unused material by the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, developed by Robert Hewitt Wolfe, and produced by Roddenberry's widow, Majel Barrett Roddenberry. It starred Kevin Sorbo as High Guard Captain Dylan Hunt...
, the character Trance Gemini is the avatar
Incarnation
Incarnation literally means embodied in flesh or taking on flesh. It refers to the conception and birth of a sentient creature who is the material manifestation of an entity, god or force whose original nature is immaterial....
of the original Vedran sun, and as such, has special powers. She and her "sisters" can live as long as stars do: for billions of years. It's unknown whether Trance has physical immortality, or if she was even ever alive; it is alluded to on some occasions that she is dead and alive at the same time.
The character Oro
Oro (Street Fighter)
is a video game character created by Capcom. He appears in the Street Fighter III series of fighting games. Despite appearing only in the SFIII games, Oro gained significant notability due to his unusual and controversial character design....
in the Street Fighter metaverse
Metaverse
The Metaverse is our collective online shared space, created by the convergence of virtually enhanced physical reality and physically persistent virtual space, including the sum of all virtual worlds, augmented reality, and the internet...
is explicitly said to be immortal. M. Bison
M. Bison
M. Bison, known in Japan as Vega, is a video game character created by Capcom. First introduced in Street Fighter II: The World Warrior, he is a recurring character in the Street Fighter series of fighting games, acting as the final boss and primary antagonist of the Street Fighter II and Street...
constantly claims to be immortal, but that is contradicted by Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
's statement that he is dead and in Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
. There are also strong hints that Akuma
Akuma (Street Fighter)
Akuma known in Japan as , is a video game character from the Street Fighter series of fighting games. Akuma made his debut in Super Street Fighter II Turbo as a secret character and hidden boss. In the storyline of the Street Fighter video games, he is the younger brother of Gouken, Ryu and Ken's...
and Twelve are immortal.
Vampires are immortal and practically impossible to kill, save for sunlight, fire, or decapitation.
The nameless protagonist of the video game Planescape: Torment
Planescape: Torment
Planescape: Torment is a computer role-playing game developed for Windows by Black Isle Studios and released on December 12, 1999 by Interplay Entertainment. It takes place in Planescape, an Advanced Dungeons & Dragons fantasy campaign setting...
has a kind of limited immortality: he will die if injured enough, but he will always wake up again shortly afterward, albeit with some or all of his memories missing. This has led to a situation where, over thousands of years, different versions of the protagonist have existed, some good, some evil, and some absolutely insane. The goal of the game is to regain one's mortality and finally die permanently—a rather unconventional ending for a video game.
Several characters from the Sonic the Hedgehog series
Sonic the Hedgehog series
Sonic the Hedgehog is the best selling video game series released by Sega starring and named after its mascot character, Sonic the Hedgehog...
are immortal including Shadow the Hedgehog
Shadow the Hedgehog
is a character from the Sonic the Hedgehog series. Shadow is an artificially-created life form. His trademark hover shoes propel him at extreme speeds that rival those of Sonic, and with a Chaos Emerald he has the ability to distort time and space using "Chaos Control." Often referred to as being...
, Chaos and Black Doom. The most frequently recurring character, Shadow, is an artificial life form created aboard the Space Colony ARK that is explicitly declared 'immortal'. He was forced to witness the murder of Maria Robotnik, his best (and possibly only) friend, which creates a chasm between the other characters and himself and so has played antagonistic roles at times. However, neither Black Doom or Shadow are invincible. It is implied that Shadow destroyed Black Doom in Shadow the Hedgehog
Shadow the Hedgehog (video game)
Shadow the Hedgehog is a 2005 video game developed by Sega Studio USA, the former United States division of Sega's Sonic Team. Featuring the titular fictional character Shadow the Hedgehog from Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog series, the game was revealed at the March 2005 Walk of Game inauguration of...
(which would make Black Doom Biologically Immortal
Biological immortality
Biological immortality refers to a stable rate of mortality as a function of chronological age. Some individual cells and entire organisms in some species achieve this state either throughout their existence or after living long enough. This requires that death occur from injury or disease rather...
), and Shadow himself was almost killed in Sonic Adventure 2
Sonic Adventure 2
Sonic Adventure 2 is a platform game developed by Sonic Team and published by Sega for the Dreamcast video game console. It was released in North America on June 19, 2001 and in Japan on June 23, 2001 to mark the 10th anniversary of the release of the first Sonic the Hedgehog game. It is the sequel...
; it is implied that he would have died if he wasn't rescued by Dr Eggman. It is possible that Shadow, being Black Dooms biological son, had inherited his Biological Immortallity. It is also possible that due to the purpose behind his creation, he is immune to illness.
Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson
Poul William Anderson was an American science fiction author who began his career during one of the Golden Ages of the genre and continued to write and remain popular into the 21st century. Anderson also authored several works of fantasy, historical novels, and a prodigious number of short stories...
's The Boat of a Million Years
The Boat of a Million Years
The Boat of a Million Years is a science fiction novel by Poul Anderson first published in 1989 and nominated for the Nebula Award for Best Novel that same year. It was also nominated for the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Prometheus Award in 1990....
concerns several otherwise ordinary people who stop aging at maturity. The book follows their struggles through the millennia, through the late 20th century and beyond.
In the series of novels written by David Eddings, "The Belgariad" and "The Mallorean", the eight gods and their disciples, notably Belgarath and Polgara, are immortal.
In the role-playing game Exalted
Exalted
Exalted is a role-playing game published by White Wolf Publishing. The game is classified as high fantasy, but may be more accurately described as "mythic fantasy", as the developer specifically avoided drawing on J. R. R. Tolkien, but rather turned to a mixture of world mythologies for inspiration...
, there exist objects known as Hearthstones of Immortality. While exceedingly rare, the bearer of one will not only become immortal, but if they were already old when they obtained the stone, they will no longer suffer the ill-effects of old age (senility, failing senses, etc.). In addition, there also exists an Age-Staving Cordial. While expensive, weekly doses of the cordial can increase the imbiber's lifespan by 25%.