Fantasy Immortals

[kerravonsen]

I've been thinking about the different types of immortals in fantasy and SF. There's a few different kinds:

Absolute Immortals

Can't be killed in any way, can't die of old age.

Examples: I can't actually think of any. Most immortals seem to fall into the next category.
- Wowbagger The Infinitely Preserved
- members of the Q continuum?
- the main characters in "Tuck Everlasting"

Killable Immortals

Don't age, but can be killed. It's often quite difficult to kill them, and some immortals can only be killed one way, which usually seems to be beheading.

Examples:
- Elves
- Highlander immortals (who seem to be tougher to kill than Elves)
- "Mermaid Forest" immortals (I did get the impression that they can be beheaded)
- members of the Q continuum (takes special Q-invented weapons to kill them)

Near-Immortals

Age very very slowly. Difficult to kill.

Examples:
- Dragons (didn't the dragon in Voyage of the Dawntreader die of old age?)
- Ents
- Time Lords(*)

(*)Yes, there is evidence that Time Lords do age, even if it's very very slowly. First, the 1st Doctor regenerated for no apparent reason other than old age. Secondly, in "The Leisure Hive", the 4th Doctor was artificially aged during the course of the story. One could argue that this doesn't count, since it was artificial aging, but it was done through messing about with time, so I think it does count as aging, rather than damage-by-other-means. Combine that with the finite number of regenerations that a Time Lord gets (albeit I wouldn't be surprised if that gets retconned away) then Time Lords come up as near-immortal rather than actually imortal.

Comments

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

Absolute Immortals

Can't be killed in any way, can't die of old age.

Examples: I can't actually think of any. Most immortals seem to fall into the next category.

Vandal Savage, maybe. Members of the Q Continuum.

[lonemagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, and definitely Wowbagger The Infinitely Preserved.

[kerravonsen]

Is he unkillable? I admit he did cross my mind, but I didn't feel like going back and checking up on whether it said he was unkillable or whether he was just a non-aging sort of immortal. I guess it does seem more likely that he's unkillable, otherwise he'd probably have suicided when those long, wet Sunday afternoons got too much for him.

[kerravonsen]

Who is Vandal Savage?

[hawkeye7.livejournal.com]

An old DC comics bad guy. He first appeared back in 1943. The story goes that he was a caveman who never died. However, he had a long history of backing the wrong horse. He was part of the Injustice Gang in All Star #37.

Technically, he counts as a TV character too, since he appeared in the Justice League cartoon show.

[izhilzha.livejournal.com]

Mmmm....where do immortals like The Old Ones (Dark Is Rising) fit in? They seem to be killable, but only temporarily?

[kerravonsen]

Well, if they're only temporarily killable, that is similar to Highlander immortals who can both be temporarily killed and permanently killed.
It's been too long since I read those books. How long does a temporarily killed Old One stay dead?

[ladyslvr.livejournal.com]

Absolute Immortals

The main characters in the book Tuck Everlasting.

[kerravonsen]

I'd forgotten about that.

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

I think you're right about Timelords, even though there seems to be a tendency for each regeneration of the Doctor to appear younger than the one before.

[kerravonsen]

even though there seems to be a tendency for each regeneration of the Doctor to appear younger than the one before

Well, not always -- wasn't Sylvester McCoy older than Peter Davison?

[jhall1.livejournal.com]

Probably. But I did say "tendency" rather than anything stronger. If we consider all the regenerations in order, strting with 1 to 2, it's something like: Younger, Equal, Younger, Younger, Older, Equal, Younger, Equal, Younger.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

Also- the members of the Q Continuum *ARE* killable - but it takes specially designed weapons by the Q to do it, and it plays royal havok with the space-time continuum. One could argue that that's because it's "ouside the natural order of things" - but Q can and have been killed.

[kerravonsen]

Ah. Yes, I did vaguely remember hearing about a war between the Q (this was after I gave up on Trek), so I put a question mark there. I'll move them.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

*nods* Voyager canon.