Trope Talk: Immortals
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- čas přidán 27. 08. 2020
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Believe it or not, I had this video fully scripted and recorded before The Old Guard was even a thing. That's why I conspicuously don't talk about it at all. Fortunately, it seems to share 100% of my thoughts on the subject, so we're all good!
Who's your favorite immortal? Argue in the comments!
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Immortals: What you call character arcs, I call mood swings.
That’s surprisingly powerful and that sounds like what some charismatic fourth wall breaking immortal villain souls say
If Deadpool lived to be a thousand.
@@TsulaAngenati2292 You really don't need to break the fourth wall to say this. I mean Red's example of immortals is just as cliché. Any immortal who's been around the block could have this opinion when trying to persuade them to side with you. Another uncomfortable saying would be similar: Knowledge is Power and Power Corrupts, this is why Ignorance is Bless and You can't handle the Truth.
@@JohnDoe-sx6iw that’s true, the reason I brought up fourth wall breaking is that I imagined them understanding they were in a story that’s been going on for a while and them pointing out the character arcs and using what they learned from reading their own story to mess with the charactersx
@@TsulaAngenati2292 That's basically if the universe is just an imaginary story made by the god(s) and an atheist is the character that realize that their in a story
Imagine being a new immortal. Like it's 2113 and you reveal your immortality and someone asks what it was like seeing the pyramids being build and you have to respond, "oh no, I was born in 1993. Phones were big back then, but they got small pretty quickly."
Or even worse, being an immortal who keeps missing things. "What was it like to watch the pyramids get built?" "Oh, I was in Japan at the time." "Well, what about the Renaissance? That was cool, right?" "Didn't see that either. I fell down a hole in Scotland and everyone assumed I was an enchanted well. It took 400 years to convince someone to help me get out."
@@brainderp808 ye
Was the renaissance a thing at the time? (chain)
@@ButWhyMe... ye
Was scotland a thing at the time?
@@ckdanny were wells a thing at the time?
One immortal trope Red forgot to mention is "The Immortal Guardian", an immortal whose purpose is to forever guard something forever or until a condition is met.
And the “you’ll be reincarnated with all of your memories after each death.” Functionally immortal, but you kinda still age. Robots do this a lot.
Goblin or the nine-tailed fox (k-drama) in a nutshell
I am not sure but thats sounds like green knight in warhammer fantasy
This sounds like the beginning of a bad programming joke.
Literally just Don't Starve's story
I saw someone on tumblr suggest the idea of immortal characters dedicating their time to really niche and/or time consuming activities, like overseeing the domestication of a species or making trees grow in a way that they're effectively architecture
That seems feasible, and productive for an immortal.
@@alkirk6that actually works quite well
That gives me the idea of an antagonist immortal who is at odds with the protag because they just want a valuable stone that just makes you rich or something that doesn't help anyone else all by itself.
They are pretty chill with the protag and congratulates the protag beats them and possibly gets stuck.
Saying "Meh I'll just sleep it off" and never really hates anyone.
@@desadograisedrobot515 that would be interesting
I have a trio of immortals who all work for Nasa and are trying to get humanity to space. They all get very frustarted since the government keeps taking their funding for other stuff.
"I mean, how many people have pointed out that Peter Pan is really kind of a nightmare?"
The author.
Yes this.
ignore me My favorite horror centric take on Peter Pan was “The Child Thief”; also really good art in the book
@@Dvergenlied oh memories. I bought that book a long time ago but never finished reading, bc it wasnt dark enough for me lol
@@iridescentdemon I didn't know about that one, but "Lost Boy" by Chrustina Henry, also a horror/dark take on Peter Pan, is a great book!
@@iridescentdemon also, pretty sure it would be dark enough for you since it's very bloody and brutal as well
When I try and conceive an immortal character, I think to a story my friend told me. He was watching lord of the rings for the first time, and at some point during fellowship a fly was bothering him. He swatted it, but it was ok. By Two Towers,he had swatted at it until it landed in a spider web, and yet the fly managed to fight off the spider and escape. At that point the fly had earned his respect, and he left it alone. And he said that he felt a sort of bond with the fly, as though it was on the journey of watching lord of the rings for the first time with him. He felt a sense of comradery, and respect, for the fly surviving such things. But at the end of the last movie, he found the fly dead. He felt a meaningful connection to something that had lived for such an inconceivably small fraction of his own life. Thats the sort of connection I'd consider an immortal having with the odd human.
That sounds exactly like an immortal story. The immortal remembers an event that happened, and "Oh, yeah. This one guy was there. He was cool."
This is underrated, and now I need to see a whole 4-season show of someone writing immortality like this, with a sprinkle of the 'tired immortal'.
At the risk of being a bummer, if it's the 1394th fly that you see escape a spider's web, would you still feel a connection to it?
@@thomasdjrasta Maybe, if you've seen millions of other flies fail, and seen a few hundred of the other flies that escaped do amazing things.
@@DarkeLourd Now that's probably me personally, but I would've stopped bothering to look if the fly was gonna escape the web or not waaaaaay before 1 million. :P
I have dinner with my 91 year old grandparents every weekend, and they are happy wonderful people. Their friends are dying left and right, and when asked how they deal with it they tell people "If we mourned each of our friends we would never stop."
I feel like an immortal could hit that point pretty easily, and it's not necessarily some great feat of compartmentalizing. IDK how unique that is to them tho.
How much of that comes with knowing you'll die though? If you only have to live without someone for 10 years, that's alot less depressing then loving without them for all of time
@@jamieadams2589 Maybe a bit, but probably not much? I feel like people are rather good at getting desensitized to whatever is upsetting to them through repeated exposure if they don't get PTSD or something.
It might be heartbreaking the first few times, but by death 50 it's probably like a dog dying, and by death 500 it might be even easier.
I know my dogs and cat will die and then I will need to live a long, long time afterwards, but I still cherish them greatly. I will also morn them less than I morned my Mom, partially because I always knew I would massively outlive them and wasn't prepared for my Mom to go early.
If you were an immortal and every time you befriended someone or fell in love you started with the knowledge that they will die and you will move on, you might come off as patronizing but probably would be able to handle the death much better.
@@SpellingBeeWiner oh definitely. I just mean I don't think you can have both genuine human connections and not become crushingly mournful after a long time. Like you said, people basically become pets or like bird watching, fun and enjoyable but not really intimate
@@jamieadams2589 I don't know about that. I love the shit out of my cat and dogs, and care far less for my chickens.
I think we're totally capable of having deep, meaningful relationships we know are temporary. In some ways I feel like it could almost be easier.
An immortal could truly give themselves to someone, knowing that this is a fleeting moment they need to savor with as much intensity as possible.
And even if they grieved heavily, they could take a year or two to grieve and it would be inconsequential.
@@SpellingBeeWiner of course you do. I think we love for the temporary and incapable more then anyone else, but the relationship isn't nearly as intimate. If everyone is basically a pet, then you'll love them sure but you'd never connect with them. Hell, in a century or two, you provably couldn't even speak to them since language would move on so much so they'd be even more like a pet
Oblivious Immortal: If your character is over a century old and acts like a high schooler your audience might be a bit thrown.
Well, that's an unusual way to call out every D&D player who's played an Elf around me ever, Red.
My first two characters were Elven Rangers, both with pet doggos, who were both basically the same person as me. I do not appreciate this call out.
To be fair, it's very difficult to make a convincing character who got no further than level 1 after centuries then hit level 20 after just a year or two of adventuring.
I've written an immortal character.
But she regressed due to her isolation, and her previous mental trauma. Well. She wasn't alone per say, but she wasn't around particularly nice, or good people, and she was more kept there. She doesn't act like a high schooler, but she does have that type of high school girl surprise after meeting new people in over a thousand years, and is extremely protective of those who saved her.
I do like dnds reasoning for it though.
"what they don't tell you about elfs" on CZcams is a great video (I think that is the name)
I’ll have you know that my elf dnd character acts like Ron Swanson so take that!
You get a sample of what it's like to be immortal by owning several pets throughout your life.
Especially if you own rats who are extremely intelligent, have unique personalities and live for about 2 years.
I've had fish, dogs, an iguana, a parakeet, and currently, a rabbit. It's sad when they die, but it's also learning about grief.
@@gojifan54gaming15 only a few pets in the family have died and I wasnt really a person then, too young or not even alive when it happened.
My cat Zippy and dog Sammy are getting older and I love both dearly to my heart. I don't think I'd last a week after they go.
you reminded me about the post where dogs think humans are elves
*Laughs in Omni-man*
I’m surprised the reincarnated immortal was never brought up, immortals who are immortal through reincarnating keeping memories and all that. I was always found that interesting.
namely, almost every isekai anime. technically they don't become truly immortal but they get reincarnated and are damn hard to kill due to their OP skills.
The Star Touched Queen is a book that I thought did that well
Reincarnating in the same world, or transported to a different one? The latter is every isekai anime, but the former isn't too common. My favorite example is from the Confinement series by Lord Bung. The main character is a guy in his 20s that can reincarnate by just manifesting next to his corpse. This property makes him the perfect test dummy for throwing at monsters, and there's plenty of slapstick that ensues.
Closest thing to that idea is one i made myself
the character in question has turned into a natural calamity within the entire fictional multiverse; always entering a new universe every time they expire, never re-entering them.
If you know any anime or material that uses this type of idea, let me know. I've gotten a bit insane playing out the scenarios in my head for a long while now.
@@opaque3998 hawkman and hawkgirl are also imortals via reincarnation.
Fun fact, if you combine the immature, the walking textbook, the cavelier immortal, and a healthy helping of daddy issues you get one Lucifer Morningstar.
that's sooooo.... true.
which one lol
@@lucyandecember2843 From the TV show Lucifer.
Huh
Luci is my daddy
"I just want a normal life."
"My friend, you will have as many of those as you wish"
*Bites da dust intensifiles*
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"Because I find giving lower life-forms things they don't comprehend humorous. Also, you won the raffle, lmao."
Immortals: Usually portrayed as threatening gods who will probably kill you
Skips: _works for a gumball machine in a park_
Oh my god my childhood just _slapped_ me in the face with nostalgia, holy gravy.
Lol, so true
Ye lol
Ah, the nostalgia
Did you forget that time he KILLED Rigby via arm-wrestle and arm-wrestled death to bring him back, he fits the description perfectly
14:54 Paradox is one of my favorite Immortals if only for how he describes how he became immortal. "I went mad for a time, but after a few millennia, I got bored of that and went sane. Very Sane." Just such a fun way to describe it.
That sounds a lot like a character from the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy
Ben ten is just a good show
@@Alto_frogIt’s a good shows
One gripe I have about people writing immortals is that they're always from the accursed perspective, as if one cannot find joy in life without the impending doom of death. Important milestones in life don't have to be unique in "I did it once", they can also be "I did it once when that war was going on" or based on a routine, or a schedule. Fact is, we can't comprehend how an immortal would feel like living through the ages, but I personally find amalgamating most of them under "oh dear, i desire death, immortality is a curse" quite disappointing, and is one reason I guess why I enjoy vampires, because they relish their immortality instead of cursing it.
I call that the Walter Jameson syndrome, after a character in an old Twilight Zone ep. He was immortal and hated it. Good show, watch it.
This is why one of my favourite immortal characters is the villain from a book series. Almost everyone else his age is depressed and carrying on out of some sense of duty, but he's just living his life, having fun and occasionally getting obssessed in some new thing. Causing chaos for everyone and continuing his search for understanding the natural world (and also spreading fear in hopes that people will learn how to appreciate life from it). He's not even concerned about dying. He just hopes that it's epic.
@@crypticcryptid4702 what book series is that?
@@crypticcryptid4702 , name?
I’m writing a character that’s exactly like that, except there’s a reason. He’s a kid, sixteen years old. and the only person being immortal. Which means any friend you make and any person you meet are inevitably going to pass away before you. While you, are going to watch them fade away without doing anything about it. Which is why this character, although at first he enjoyed being immortal and even found it fun, now despises it. This made him push other people away and even make a vow with himself that he’s never going to get attached again. Keep in mind he’s a kid, 16 years old, and he still hasn’t felt the long term effect his immortality would have mentally. Yet he still saw other people die, like his friend because of an illness, and even his parents who were part of a cult like Community disappeared. All this whole he’s being hunted down by a secret organization plus a girl from said cult is trying to find a way to kill him because a prophecy said if she doesn’t he may cause a war that destroys the earth. Depending on what story you are trying to tell, yes immortality can be a curse.
I mean even without all the horrible circumstances, I’m writing this story based on a feeling I’ve had. A feeling that seeing people that I love around me dying , somehow scares me more than me dying. But yeah idk, atleast for me if I was immortal I’d consider that pure torture if there’s no other immortal people, and even so I’m pretty sure you’ll eventually lose all motivation without the urgency of “Damm one day I’m gonna die so let me make the most of it” sorry for getting too deep ima go now 💀
Imagin an immortal slacker.....
"You havn't cut the grass for 500 years!"
"No.... I know....."
"But it's really high now!"
"Yea.... I know..."
"So cut it!!!"
"No..... Im tired...."
"Look, the grass will be dead during that next winter/hot summer anyway, so why bother?"
@@pianoguy222 yep, thanks, I'll use that.
wow is this cut dialogue from good omens? lol
The immortal who just smokes weed all day and ingests media like it's water.
"Nah man, I'm just chillin.'"
See also: Wizzards with reality changing powers but are too lazy to truly use them.
There is another type of immortality: the "death is still a thing but it is just a small annoyance" type, that is usually for video game protagonist
Regenerative imortality.
DARK SOULS in a nutshell
does "Oops, stuck in a time loop that activates everytime i die"
count as immortality?
@@loganroman5306 I'd call that more reincarnation (reincarnative?) immortality. Regenerative immortality implies never reaching a point you can call death in the first place.
@@green_pikmin Technically yes, because whenever you die, you don't actually die (which by definition makes it so you can't die). For a "fun" exploration I can only recommend the anime "Re:Zero", where that's basically the main character's super power.
I am convinced that the narrative of "death is a natural thing and being immortal would suck." is being pushed by vampires who don't want everyone to live forever.
I am very embarrassed to show off my own work this way but your comment made me think of the way one of my protagonists, a sincerely Catholic vampire (yes) thinks about his own immortality at the beginning of the story (translated from my native French) : "If death would one day decide to take him away, it would be by whim, on a bad roll of dice of fate, far away from the peaceful dignity of the cycle to which obeyed every other living thing in this world." Like, the guy can literally only die if he gets lost in the countryside at night and can't manage to get a roof over his head before the next clear dawn. Which is rather silly and sad.
Also, yeah, elitist, self-important vampires using propaganda, that definitely adds up.
I'm sorry to do this to ya, but the Dhampir hit squad is rapidly approaching your location. You know too much.
There is actually an anime called "Frieren: Beyond Journey's End" that deals with exactly this. An immortal elf saved the world with a group of heroes, then went on to travel the world. When she comes back, 50 years have passed, and her friends are old and die soon. She realises that she never got to know them properly and has an existential crisis. The anime is about her trying to preserve the memory of her friends.
Ooooooo~ might give it a shot thx
Cavalier immortals be like:
"Don't cry because it is over, smile because it happened"
Does anyone else think there's a contradiction between "if your life is infinite, you'll care less because you lose the urgency to engage with it moment to moment" and "if your relationships are temporary, you you'll care less because temporary things aren't worth worrying about,"? Like, I dont see how you reach both conclusions at the same time unless you go in looking for maximum angst and inhumanity. Kittens are extremely temporary compared to normal humans but we super care about them anyways. DMs pour hours into making one-shot games that will never be played again. I think i prefer the Doctor Who take on immortality, where they throw themselves deeply into relationships because they've been through the grieving process so often that they've come to terms with it and aren't afraid of it anymore. "Sure, Im going to be here thousands of years, but Dave is here _now_. In what other century will I ever get the chance to play Minecraft with Dave?"
Completely agree, and explained very well, thank you for this.
I haven't watched a lot of Doctor Who but based on what little I've seen and a lot more that I've heard, he seems like one of the best depictions of Immortality out there.
In a similar way, Gandalf has always been my favorite immortalish character, precisely because his long life lead him to find even more appreciation for life and people in general.
Thanks, Sydney, for pointing that out. Your comment should be pinned for its insight. Now, why didn't I think of that? Imagine immortality without such extremes of system down-regulation (SDR) as human beings more commonly experience. I'm not saying "have no SDR at all" but make it less of a potent force on an immortal person so that life doesn't lose its savor.
After all, part of insanity (and anhedonia) is the death of brain cells and the breaking of neuro-connections which would otherwise be there.
This. This exactly. We really do need more of this mindset when it comes to fictional immortality.
From Avengers: Age of Ultron
Ultron: They're [humanity] doomed
Vision: Yes. But a thing is not beautiful because it lasts.
While this is a good idea I feel like the doctor has an advantage due to his time travel
“So what now, Jack Sparrow? Are we to be two immortals locked in an epic battle until Judgement Day and the trumpets sound?”
“Or you could surrender.”
I was Thinking of that the whole time!! It's actually interesting how Jack treats the concept of immortality across the movies. Especially since you see him face it's ugliness in every single one of the movies.
Indeed!
@@grimmer-rd1mm that is why i love him so much
"Dormamu, I've come to bargain."
I have another idea.
A potentially interesting way to get around the "outliving your family" thing is to make said character the patriachal/matriarchal guardian of their family line. Works better if you can make the family more of a clan structure, maybe.
I liked the way Arcane handled this with Heimerdinger (who fits in the “not mortal” category as a Yordle and never really had to comprehend the idea of his own mortality, but still otherwise plays with immortal tropes quite a bit.)
He’s still worried about his friends’ deaths, but his literal inability to comprehend that 10 years is far too long for most humans to test something (let alone the terminally ill Viktor) ends up frustrating Jayce into kicking him off the Council-and Heimer’s Act 3 arc pretty much consists of learning just how much Zaun has changed for the worse since he last saw it while blissfully letting time pass by, but also just what good people can do with the threat of mortality over their heads.
“So, for the first century I’ll go easy on them. Lol them into a false sense of security and then when they think I’m not so bad. Bam! I’ll go full tyrant on them in the second century. After that I’ll disappear for a millennia and make them wonder if I ever existed to begin with. Just to come back and kill them all.” Quote from a Space Dictator seeking Immortality, Lord Freezer
You know that does sounds fun ngl
You know what. I thought about this line halfway into the video and laughed. Frieza is such an asshole and that's why he's such a good villian
Freezer had his priorities down
Immortality would suck if you were stuck on one spot forever
@@bleugreann1678 thats how dragonballs best villains work imo cell is also a great exsample
_Gilgamesh gets the plant of immortality he almost drowned for stolen by a snake_
*Gilgamesh:* "... _sigh_ Whelp. You can't win them all. It makes for a good learning experience, though."
*Back in Uruk:* "Welcome back, my king. How was the sear-"
*Gilgamesh:* _"Have every snake in the kingdom killed."_
Gil: Hmm, some dipshit goddess got my only friend dead huh... Make all the priest do stuff, make sure its bad
Oh fate
Now his snakeskin pants in his casual look in fate zero makes sense
2 балла
Morality:
"Oh Maceline, why you so mean?"
"I'm not mean, I'm just thousand years old and just lost track of my moral code"
To be fair, a thousand years was enough for people to go from killing others as revenge for stupidly petty things to not being able to do anything
From religion dictating everything about life to it becoming almost meaningless
You might still have a very old moral code you never left behind instead of being mean
The flaw in your thesis is that an immortal would still live their lives at the exact same pace as a mortal would -- one day at a time. Great experiences are still great, loved ones are still with you until one of you dies or changes too much, you lose touch with old friends and meet new ones.Just like everyone else, an immortal loses loved ones and meets new ones. They start a career, get good at it, mentor younger collleagues, and retire from that job -- they just move on to another career after that.
People seem to want to believe that immortality has to suck, but there's no reason it should be that different from just living life like everyone else!
Also many experiences can be great in repeat. Eating good food can always lift ones mood, even if you have eaten thousands of times up to this point. Or things like Sunsets and fresh winds don't diminish because you felt them before.
I come down here to see more things that agree with my conclusion because I get angry seeing all this "Death gives us meaning and being alive is scary" bullshit. It's not that complex a thought. I frankly find the idea of not dying to give my life *more* meaning, not less. If I knew I wasn't decaying from here on out in a slow crawl to the fucking dirt, I'd be more inclined to make some fun long term plans. Or yeah, live my life one day at a time. I mean I already spend my days trying to ignore death. If it's as bad as these people are saying, which I strongly believe it isn't, I would just be trading having to ignore continued life. Woohoo. I"ll trade one panic attack for another if it means I can eventually still succeed.
Right up until the sun explodes, of course.
@@jubertalleremierez3783 Eh, I suppose I would rather live indefinitely than live forever. Some sort of escape clause would be nice. But a few thousand years would be nice!
I know that I don't think about the finite time I have left while enjoying myself at things. Or much at all really, apart from general future planning of resources for later in my life. So I can't imagine being confirmed immortal would change my day to day existence significantly at this point.
my problem with the whole "being immortal kinda sucks" trope is that it kind of always goes to that point without actually exploring why people would want to be immortal.
It's like i'm saying "i want chocolate" and the writer is my mom telling me "if you eat too much chocolate you'll get fat" and i'm like "yes i know but i still want some chocolate right now"
Yeah, honestly, I know it's realistic, but I'm 100% done with the angsty immortal trope, it's over done, it's boring, whoop de doo. I like the immortal creatures of DnD, their plots stretching the lifetimes of whole empires. I'm also sick of "All Gods are Assholes", like, sure they have flaws, but can we hop off their collective dicks, they've done a lot for us yah know?
@@atriumgamesmore4336 I'm not even certain the angsty and depressed immortal trope is actually realistic tbh.
It's probably more an offshot of fear of death that led us to create stories with plausible reasons why immortality would suck and death isn't so bad after all.
@@atriumgamesmore4336 to be fair, the "all gods are assholes" trope kinda started with actual gods.
@@poncho3326 Interesting idea, I've never thought of that
@@yonatanbeer3475 Less so in the original myths, imo, and more with us placing our modern sensibilities against their behavior. Even then, "all" is a massive exaggeration. Most Norse Gods are pretty alright, and most Olympians (excluding the obvious sexual assaulter and mass murderers) only have 1 or two bad stories about them, which is insane when you consider an immortal lifespan.
We are immortals for our cats, dogs and specially hamsters, yet we love them anyway. That's why I never really buy the "I'm so different from humans I can't feel anything for them". Come on man, pet the human.
But after awhile wouldn't it get old?
@@user-mh9dx7nz2r I think that love is one of those things that never gets old. I used to rescue animals and because of that experienced loads of loss... Yet I never wanted to stop doing it or thought the pain wasn't worth it. I would assume it would be the same with humans.
@@user-mh9dx7nz2r Of course not, he's immortal, he can't get old.
@@user-mh9dx7nz2r Eating food you like doesn't get old, neither do being with your loved ones or having pets.
You can grow tired of certain things or even certain people you used to love, but loving and enjoying things in general is not something any healthy human will "grow out of with enough time", if only because we're biologicaly wired to find enjoyment in certain experiences. There is no reason to assume it would be different with Immortals. Most likely they would simply forget about their past at some point, rather than loose meaning and hapiness.
I think with truly long lifespans we might get into that stage of no longer caring about the ephemerals, but I always feel that people set that number too low a 200 year old immortal has only lived a tad over two human lifetimes. And whilst there probably are immortals who fall into ennui that quickly (some humans do in less time) declaring that all immortals should be grappling with it rings untrue. The older they get the more I would expect them to grapple with this disconnection sure but at 400 they have barely had enough time to spend two years in each country on earth. On a different note, (and it's probably been done before ) I would like to see more examples of immortals in the super-immortal category trying to keep civilization alive or worriedly searching for a way they *can* die even if they don't want to use it yet as they realize that eventually the sun will die and they'd like to not be alone on a frozen meaningless rock stuck there for eternity
Episode five of the Sandman show totally changed my perspective on all this. Hobs is such a fresh take on immortality to me, it’s surprising that I haven’t seen many stories like his. It’s a lovely attitude he has to his long life and I like thinking about it
Hob Gadling is my favorite immortal character. His character progression throughout the series.
Absolutely, so refreshing to think we might continually grow, continually change no matter how long we go on.
I find it funny how Red is usually so optimistic but then in this suggests immortality is almost always a bad thing. Immortals may be fixed, but their memories, experiences and moods can still be fleeting.
If, imortality aside, they are still functionally human, I don't see how living "too long" by itself could make them eternally sad. They wouldn't get bored due to repetition any more than a normal human - as an extremely basic example if you eat your favourite meal every day you will get bored of it within a week, but if you mix it up just a couple dozen others you can enjoy eating that same meal throughout your entire life. Humans hate constant repetitiion, but it doesn't take much to break that. Not every experience has to be unique.
As for connections, we're social by nature and I don't think different lifespans have much to do with it. That matters more on an intellectual level, but connections are usually emotional, and can be quite insidious. You don't usually choose to like or dislike people. It's just the natural outcome of interacting with people who make you feel one way or another. Put another way, if this was such a big issue, why do people love their pets, or make friends with the old and terminally ill? They know it's going to hurt. They've probably already been hurt the same way before. But they do it anyway. Meanwhile people seem to agree that deliberatly isolating yourself from connections is one of the worst things you can do for your mental health.
Then consider that even within a human lifespan memory is constantly getting blurred and erased. Even if the immortal loses their loved ones, do you really think it's going to sting quite as much after a few decades? Centuries? Millenia? What about "unique" experiences. It won't matter that they've already done something if they don't even remember doing it the first time.
@@sm901ftw The main thing is scale, say instead of a puppy living a tenth your life span, it lives for less then a second. That friend you made is gone in the equivalent of a blink. To you, an entire human lifespan would have as much weight as a single social media post. Sure you can enjoy it, but it won't have the same weight. And the thing is, this will only get worse, as you live longer and longer they take up smaller and smaller fractions of your time. Until eventually the entire span of human history is just a blip.
You can enjoy the moments sure, but they too will pass, and in the end you will be completely completely and utterly alone
@@bestaround3323 You don't seem to be considering the fact that an immortal would be living life one day at a time, at exactly the same speed as everyone else. Days may blur in hindsight, but when you're living them, they're just normal days. Maybe when you look back on a love that happened a few centuries ago, you'd see it as short, but when you're in love and living your life with someone, you cherish every minute just as much when you're twelve as when you're ninety, maybe even *more* when you're ninety. Life doesn't go by faster *while* you're living it!
@@CritterKeeper01 i disagree on this, time percepiton allready vary wildly within humans today, depending on how long you've lived and what you've experienced your preception of time might be completly different from someone elses.
Time may start to move very quickly for an immortal compared to normal humans. A year may start to feel like a month or a week at some point depending on how long they've lived. Or perhaps it starts moving slower, perhaps everything seem to be going so tedious as if unmoving, who knows, time perception is wild.
I say this as someone who's had similar experiences with time, months feel like weeks to me and it feels like i just move at a compeltly different pace than others therefore my experience of the world tend to differ to those around me.
@@lucyandecember2843 But would time perception change for an immortal who stays physically the same?
I just imagine an immortal who got stuck in prison of some ancient civilization for some dumb reason and some archeologists discover the prison cell.
Immortal prisoner: finally! Feels like it's been twenty years since you guys have checked on me.
Archeologists: try 2000
Try 2000. There is a considerable time between what we call ancient and the rise of serious archealogists. (At least 1000 years, depending who you ask)
My brother made a graphic novel that had a character like that, only he was quite mad after all that time
totally using this in a dnd campaign thank you
In the last book of the W.A.R.P trilogy the big bad is some immortal dude who spend a good while buried in a crypt, and was only let out when some grave robbers tried to get some goodies (but instead got a fun surprise)
Immortal Prisoner:............f*%*%
Queen Elizabeth: *sips tea furiously*
Qi Shi Huangdi: *Laser eyes*
Subjects: All hail queen Elizabeth _the Second_
Queen Elizabeth: *sips tea with even more zeal*
bruh her husband is a zombie
@@LePoetKing Same as her daughter-in-law.
Bruh that woman has outlived God
One aspect that I don't think has ever been covered is the issue of memory. I'm in my 50's and I can't remember much of my childhood and nobody seems to have that many memorable events in their old age as it tends to be more of the same. It seems to me that there is a race between boredom and forgetfullness. Do we forget fast enough that we would never get bored enough to want to kill ourselves if we were immortal? I'm thinking yes.
Oh my god thank you, this is the one thing that never, ever gets pointed out in any story I’ve read with immortals. Like dude, how the hell can you remember the blacksmith’s name on a street four blocks from a house you lived in 650 years ago? When i can’t remember my own neighber’s name from two years ago. Also, another thing that bugs me is the, master of 100 different skills, like, sure, you might know a lot of stuff, but there is no way you can speak 23 languages, play 6 instruments, and is the greatest artist in history. One more thing is the whole famous place/person thing. I like to put it like this.
“I mean, i did see some guy drawing a cute mouse a few rows ahead of me, all i thought was th character would be cute with a high pitched voice. How the hell would i know that was going to create the happiest place on earth.”
One of the best quotes from Doctor Who I can say relates to this quite well. “Immortality isn’t living forever. It’s everyone you love dying around you.”
There was an immortal character from Douglas Adams who made his goal to insult every being on the universe. Hilarious.
But each one only once, and in Alphabetical order.
@@PhilipTosh no, eventually he did it one planet at a time--He also lost his immortality after getting hit by Thor's hammer.
@@grzegorzbrzeczyszczykiewic563 the loss of immortality bit is in And Another Thing which is sort of non-canon.
If you're wondering who he is his name is Bowerick Wowbagger the infinently prolonged and he appears in Life The Universe and Everything the third book in the Hitchhickers trilogy of five.
Hope that clears everything up
Did you mean: high schoolers
Ah Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged. Hilarious indeed!
I know the immortal artist thing is depressing, but I just got the idea of an immortal author who smugly revels in the fact that because they technically will never die, their work will never become public domain no matter how old it is
Talk about Disney's worst nightmare.
Is that how public domain works?
@@ichimatsu13 AFAIK an author's work becomes public domain 70 years after their death
yeah, but they’d have to fake their death eventually to avoid raising suspicion (unless they live in a world where immortality is known and accepted)
@@esobelisk3110 good point (though I was kinda implying the latter)
A take on Immortality I found interesting was with the character of Me in _Doctor Who._
Me had lived so long that the capacity of her own memory had been reached, so had taken to writing down her memories in books and building a library filled with them for future reference.
As _Doctor Who_ was a time travel show, the main characters would encounter her at a couple of different points in history, Me having got there the long way round. Upon being reintroduced to The Doctor's companion, Clara, Me says something along the lines of "I have such fond memories of you, I look forward to reading them" Indicating that although for the time-traveling Clara their initial meeting happened a few weeks ago and was kind of a big deal for her, for Me it was so long ago and had been swamped by all the experiences she had since then, it wasn't even a memory, thus crystallising the disconnect between mortals and immortals.
There's a solo journaling game based on this kind of "immortality-with-limited-memory", called Thousand Year Old Vampire, exploring characters who loses pieces of their identity as the years wear on.
The thing is... even if you have infinite time to do whatever you want, your goals will just keep changing over time. Especially because this 'I need to stick to this because I only have so many tries at something new if I ever want to be good at it'- alarm clock thing put on us (the 'biological clock', the 'you need a stable job by 25', the 'you need to start doing __ so you can do it long enough to reap its benefits', the 'this person started ___ at a younger age so you'll never get close to their proficiency no matter what you do') fading away would make my life so much better. I would argue that being immortal makes 'living in the moment' easier, not harder, because you don't have to think about the future unless you really want to. No matter how much time you have to cross things from your bucket list, the rate at which new things will appear on it will always be quicker than you can follow. You can take breaks whenever you want. Just study something extremely niche and find out everything there is about it. Who cares if I'm sick of it a thousand years down the line? I'll just start over with something else entirely. And oh, the great milestones of (pop) culture alone.
My favorite kind of immortal is the “betcha can’t” immortal. I.e., someone who goes to see what the absolute limit of their immortality.
For science!
3x3 Eyes Anime.
That fool goes through hell
You can say the monkey king its ok
Just another day for most Citizens of Amber.
"How are you today miss?"
"i'm alright, tried blowing up my head, but it grew back so that's out. Gonna try walking into the frozen hellscape naked later. if it doesn't work it'll at least pass the time."
Western immortals: "Woe is me! Oh, the curse of immortality! I lack genuine human connections, I lack family, all my friends and loved ones are dead!"
Chinese immortals: "Have you considered just being happy"
Edit: Guys I can only say "Daoist immortals are free from attachment and suffering" so many times. You're adding nothing if you go on about how losing your loved ones is painful and would ruin immortality. It doesn't affect the immortal bc they are immortal in the first place because they are free from attachment. I'm not able to give you a full education on Laozi, Zhuangzi, Liezi etc in a CZcams comment section.
Western immortals:
"What part of all my friends are dead you not understand?"
@@augustuzmoon3814 Chinese immortals: "You have forever, make new friends"
@@S50Sinner
Western immortals:
"Making new friends it's like making a new dynasty it's hard and complicated okay?!"
@@augustuzmoon3814 Chinese immortals: "I've seen 13 dynasties, strong and beautiful, but transient nonetheless. I would not give up witnessing any one of them in order to die with another"
This back-and-forth was pretty great. I enjoyed it.
I really love the whole "immortal befriending a group/family" It's like a super yakuza clan.
I'm trying to slice that into a story I'm working on; the MC isn't exactly immortal, he died and is a spirit but he's got like 1,000 yrs to play with so he decides to travel and look after his family.
The Doctor: People like us, we go on too long. We forget what matters. The last thing we need is each other. We need the mayflies. See, the mayflies, they know more than we do. They know how beautiful and precious life is because it's fleeting. Look how Sam Swift made every last moment count, right to the gallows. Look how glad he is to be alive. I looked into your eyes and I saw my worst fears. Weariness. Emptiness.
Plot idea: a theatre troupe of immortals who have extremely gorey plays as they don't have to worry about death and just go ham at each other in fight scenes
I just imagined the "That's my horse" scene in Ed, Edd and Eddy but exponentially more violent
These are some really impressive special effects!
Then go off stage, muttering about the laundry
Imagine the they get so into it sometimes that the villain 'dies' to a random soldier or the hero gets 'killed' in a fight scene really early on, and they end up having to ad-lib the entire play.
I recommend you look up the Clive Barker short story "Sex, Death and Starshine."
Nobody:
Queen Elizabeth: *sips immortalitea*
this comment is underrated
Thi S
The likes are at 666... do I want to?
666 LESSS GOOO
God tier comment.
The consequences of immortality makes me think of a series called "Ms. Vampire Who Lives in My Neighborhood". The vampire mentions having a friend who turned her family so they wouldn't die and leave her. They didn't mind being immortal. However, her father wished she'd turned him before he'd developed chronic back pains which, with him neither growing older nor younger, will be with him for the rest of eternity. Her mother similarly wishes she'd been turned when she had a few less wrinkles. And her little sister conversely wishes she'd gotten a few more years so she'd at least not spend all eternity flatter than an ironing board. If "immortality" means "forever at the stage and state you're in now", you better be careful just when you make that change.
My personal favorite immortality is the ageless. When you're immune to the passages of time, not aging a day later and immune to sickness and diseases. That way, while I can't die to old age or sickness, I can still potentially die either through murder, drowning or some other external components. This means that while you now have all the time in the world, the presence of death still lingers so you're not as reckless with your life or as disconnected from humanity as a true immortal would be. So you can still live each day to the fullest.
Besides, if you decided you're done with your life you can call a doctor to get a lethal injection.
My favorite immortal trope is an ancient being who has somehow missed just about every textbook historical event ever and is consistently and unintentionally behind every single trend by decades or centuries. Their main goal in the story mostly is just trying to be a part of something cool
*Hero is losing the final battle against the strong bad guy*
Immortal: GO! I'll distract him, but you need to run! Live another day!
Immortal: *Just stands in front of the door for half an hour, blocking the path*
Bad guy: WHY ARENT YOU DEAD YET
@@kntyr237 do you want to explain yourself or….
Tank man 1986 should be a good one.
Just in a permanent state of living under a rock
@Henning that would be an awesome story! Definitely making a mental note of this ;)
Because of their long lifespans, they’re likely to be invested in certain ideas for a lot longer as well; their hyperfixations or deep passions are likely long lasting. I imagine if I were an immortal being, I’d be fascinated by the progression of mankind, genealogy, evolution... just sticking around to see what they’re going to do next would be endlessly fascinating. Yeah, maybe writing a bestselling book or becoming President wouldn’t feel as meaningful if soon everyone will forget you or bastardize your words or whatever else, but just being an impartial observer would be so cool.
Also acting as a kind of guardian angel, seeking coomon wellfare instead of individual ones, like helping during protests, going with green peace to save whales, being a source for a newspaper, helping poor people in need, rescuing dogs and cats. Think about the dogs and cats! Simply apreciating life is also fine, seeking ilumination, bathing yourself in sunshine and feeling the droplets of a light rain on your skin in a warm day of summer, and loving the world, that kinda thing.
Yeah, it opens up opportunities for projects that are simply unachievable on a human timesecale.
I personally found the Outsider from Dishonored to be a fascinating example of this - he used to be mortal, and he mostly just watched and, as he put it, “walked through the minds of generations“ - that must honestly be a fascinating position to be in.
Specially in the field of science, you can just keep achieving. If you keep your ear on the ground and keep learning and adapting, you can write a new culturally relevant book once society has changed sufficiently and you've gotten a new idea. Going through the Renaissance and the Industrial Revolution, the birth of the Internet, these are all very different lives, things only get boring if you don't account for what's new. If I was immortal I'd have had a blast witnessing the birth of the automobile, for example. And as for friendships, maybe you're not able to enjoy growing old with someone, but you can make friends of all ages, you can relate to every generation, and you can attain enough wealth over your lifetime that you never have to worry about not getting to meet someone, you can just invite Einstein to dinner.
Yeah. I'd love to just sit back and watch the world change. I'm always awed just thinking about how different things are now from when I was a kid. Like, I'm watching a video on a screen that fits in my pocket, on a device that is more powerful than the first huge ass desktop PC we owned. When I was a kid this was some fucking sci-fi shit.
Getting to watch the development of humanity and technology, getting to go out and explore space an see the universe... Immortality would be awesome. If I were and immortal in a story I'd be one of the characters she'd think was badly written and not well thought out by the author, because I'd be living my best life, lol.
Personally feel that Anne Rice got the immortal person getting through it story best with her Vampires. Once they get past the “i kill people to live” thing they usually settle out and get through a hundred years or so no problems. Then the crazy starts to set in, and usually it’s the loneliness pr the Boredom that gets um.
I personally like that her vampires tend to be highly skilled, painters, musicians, stock traders, model makers. They have nothing but time to perfect any number of skills, why? Cause they are bored and talented. In my own writing my immortals basically have the basic workings of most skill sets and are experts in a large number of them. (My stories center around a fallen angel forced to live on earth)
Great video, thanks for the explination
Something red forgot to overlook is that as time goes on, people's lives tend to get longer, possibly providing for them a motivation to work to increase technological development and therefore the lives of their mortal peers, potentially turning them immortal as well
"Here's a list of the different types of immortality."
Sun Wukong: "Ooh, I have that one, and that one, and that one..."
I recall a story (which I believe Dungeons&Dragons directly referenced at one point) about a man who freed a genie from a bottle, and the genie granted him a wish as thanks. The man wished for immortality, so the genie turned him into a fish and he promptly suffocated, and thus he lives on forever as a cautionary tale.
Genies are jerks.
@@cybersketcher1130 DMs are jerks too
69 likes.
*NOICE*
I made an semi immortal guy named William who literally played Death, and they now can die an infinite number of times. He isn't really sad because my world has a metric butt ton of other god like people. Also gave a like to get you to 420.
Quite ironic that you have to tell us the tale because no one knows it. Guess the genie fked up... What happens if a genie doesn't fulfill the wish? 🤔
If you can’t age, give yourself a seemingly impossible task.
“Aw man, I’ve just climbed everest.”
Alright, cure cancer.
“Aw dude, I’ve just wrote a super good book that’s being hailed as a classic!”
Alright, curate world peace.
Those things take time, and effort, and once you’ve completed them, there’ll be more things to do. Either because there’s another problem that needs fixing or because the new games console you’ve been waiting for literally since you were born has showed up.
If you can create a society that will forever move forward, you give yourself infinite opportunities.
Doesnt necessarily have to be a (near) impossible task.
The task itself can also contain some sort of deadline.
To use one of your examples, curing cancer doesnt necessarily have a deadline, but curing cancer before someone not immortal who you care about dies from it does have a pretty clear time limit.
The converse of this, though, would be the mastermind who grows to enjoy the game of manipulation. He's the Immortal Emperor/Warlord, the one that seems to keep popping up in every evil empire throughout history.
Patrick Lewis just reading through your history books and this one asshole keeps popping up in positions of power. Dammit Jeff
Humans are pretty stupid. Id place a bet theyd die off totally before you can cure cancer
@@EtamirTheDemiDeer as interesting as the concept is, i can see one major flaw: is no-one supposed to notice how every world advancement can be traced back to a single person? When humanity does notice, what happens on a societal level, and how does it affect the immortal? Each of the questions could be their own story, but validating them requires that the base topic itself becomes a trope.
12:35 this is why The Doctor is probably the only "textbook immortal" that doesn't annoy me, because their TARDIS let's them visit all the "interesting moments" without worrying about the logistics.
A really fascinating case of an immortal character is in the Arknights side story "Who Is Real." A major part of the story is an immortal dragon-goddess artist named Dusk who fell in love with a mortal woman. When the mortal woman passed of old age but Dusk remained young, she was hit so hard by the grief that she painted an entire world where a copy of her lover lived among an entire village of false people. Dusk locked herself in the painting so she could be with her lover forever. The plot of the story involves Dusk's sister Nian contracting the protagonists to find Dusk and break her out of her self-imposed isolation, since Nian lived among mortals and saw so much more to enjoy with life and knew she needed to help Dusk return to the world of the living.
Immortal: I am immortal and cannot be harme.
Guy: Then how did you get that scar?
Immortal: Its fake. *peels off scar
(Scar oddly shifts)
Thanks for bringing it up! You gotta focus REAL SPECIAL TO...
(Scar vanishes) Never mind!
Or they got the scar before becoming immortal, like Vandal Savage
@@crono276 yeah, I came here to say that, too
Immortal =/= invulnerable.
@@EidolonSpecus Except when it does.
Gilgamesh :Can't stay awake for a week:
Masters and Grad Students: *_Is this a JOKE to you?_*
I doubt they had Monster drinks back then.
@@kimifw58 they definitely didn't have coffee
@@readalotknowalot If they did, it couldn't have been as potent as it is now. Natural drugs increase in potency after centuries of cultivation.
@@readalotknowalot They why did you bring it up?
@@kimifw58 I brought it up because coffee and tea is more natural than Monster energy drinks and therefore more likely to have been the drug of choice in maintaining alertness. You're the one who brought up Monster which were created in response to coffee having lost its effect in the short term.
"Killing Me / Killing You" is one of my favourite manga involving immortals. It's about a pair of dissimilar immortals living in a broken world (can't really describe it as post-apoc because it doesn't really revolve around the apocalypse, but both the immortals were disfigured/made immortal by it) and journeying together in attempts to find a way to die (not in a "we've lived too long" way, more a "the world sucks now and so does out immortality" way). On their journeys they end up fixing parts of the world partially accidentally, making friends and discoveries.
It's hard to imagine being immortal and not eventually developing a god complex.
Darkstalker.mp4
Clearly you've never owned a cat. XD They have shorter lifespans - but you are clearly not the Superior Being in that relationship
Why? Immortality doesn't necessarily mean that the character in question holds POWER, although they often come side by side.
@@Human-san tell that to Vandal Savage.
I believe there's one more: the Tasked Immortal. This one's a bit strange. They circumvent all of the angst of immortality and lack of motivation by being bound by or taking on an obligation. Usually they're either mentor figures or some sort of leader, either autocratic or shadowy. They can be prone to being brutally pragmatic if the before mentioned morality starts to break down even if their mission is genuinely benevolent.
Imagine someone fighting the same threat through all time through every multiverse endlessly. I would imagine they would stop *feeling* heroic and end up just going through the motions (a little thought experiment inspired by Into the Breach). Or when they stop caring for individual humans but still want to better the station of humanity and end up working towards the goal of helping humanity from the perspective of an immortal (these usually show up in brighter, more cheerful stories but a counter example would be The God Emperor of Mankind)
Fate/Stay Night has a nice example on this, albeit it's not an immortal but rather an eternal afterlife.
One of the characters is a human of the modern days who lived his life as a real superhero, saving people, destroying supernatural threats without the action of the scary "Powers That Be" of the magical world and even stopping wars. He lived the life he wanted, being an hero and an example. Then he died because humans were still assholes, but he was fine with It, as long as It helped keeping the peace.
During his life he made a pact with a supernatural entity, so that rather than having his soul reincarnated he would become part of the Throne of Heroes, where the great figures of History were collected, being able to keep fighting for peace and saving people even after death. There is obviously a catch, and the catch is that he gets deployed in the most hellish landscape of war and destruction, but he isn't there to save, he is there to kill.
The entity can't meddle directly with the course of human history, but can influence it ever so slightly that it helps civilizations to stand and humanity to survive, and sends things like this guy to slaughter the remaining threats after shit already hit the fan. And so this guy is endlessly forced to kill over and over, for all eternity. TECHNICALLY he is fine with It, since he is indeed helping survivors, but he obviously develops a huge amount of angst from the absurd amount of people he has to kill and the deaths of innocents he keeps seeing without even being in the same plane of existence as them until they were butchered.
Yeah, it sucks. Sucks so much that it's main role in story is trying to undo that immortality to begin with. Obviously, there is also a catch here.
Regular show also had this with Skips; the sole reason he’s immortal is because he needs to beat Clorgbane every 159 years. He also needs to do a very specific ritual on his birthday in order to maintain his immortality, or the time babies take it away. Seems very foolish, as without Skips they can’t beat clorgbane, but what can you do?
I remember feeling really sad for Skips in the episode where he explains why he’s immortal, but I cannot help but admire his dedication to his friends in spite of it.
The knight guarding the Holy Grail in The Last Crusade comes to mind.
Jesus, he is probably the unluckiest of immortals! Stuck in a cave, no other interactions, and no food. Honestly that would break a lesser man to the point of insanity!
Sounds very Doctor Who-ish. Maybe not exactly as the Doctor is technically mortal but come on, for humans with a lifespan of 100 years top he's immortal.
This is a little bit of Manji from blade of the immortal. I haven't watched the video yet because I don't have time right now, but he's kinda cool with fighting other people who can kill him because his only real motivation is helping Rin and killing bad guys to make up for his past. It's a really manga I'm reading, but also there's a really cool live action movie of it too. Check it out, I don't think it's that big, at least where I am.
Character gains immortality.
The 3x immortal monkey king: that's some rookie numbers.
4x, actually.
What a chad
He would be so broken if he became a Servant in Fate. Like you thought Heracles was OP with his God Hand? Imagine how bullshit Wu Kong could be with his x4 immortality + Buddha mode.
@@justas423 considering how much media he IS usually protrayed it, as I've never played/watched any of the fate series, it's rather impress if sad that Wukong isn't any of them.
Way of Immortality as taught by Subhuti
Name wiped out of the Book of Death
Eating Laozi's pills of immortality
Eating the Peaches of Immortality
Drinking the Wine of Immortality
Bathed in the samadhi fires (which makes him impervious to damage rather than immortal, but same old, same old)
So that's 6x immortal
For me the "Life would lose meaning" thing has never made sense. I think it's because I enjoy the journey more than the destination. If the journey is going to last forever, more's the better. Humans are endlessly creative, you would always be able to think of something else to do and the changes in life around you would only inspire more as things like art, music and science develop over you're infinite life.
I never really understood the whole depressed angsty immortal thing. I feel like life is inherently meaningful and rich, and I would want as much of it as I can get (barring some sort of horrific immeasurable suffering that could come with immortality i guess)
"If you can't conquer sleep, why do you think you can conquer death?"
LMAO that is a good one.
Thousands of years old, and yet the burn is still hot.
Your millions of years old, and you still cannot sleep.
"Someone you know in fourth grade who's still ten while you are wrapping up a P.h. D."
*Ahem* "Hi, I'm Ash Ketchum. And I am from Pallet Town".
"Don't anger Pikachu, here. I think he's like level 96 and can flash zap a small lake dry if he wanted to. He just holds back in battles so as to not kill other Pokémon."
@@Archgeek0 Also Pikachu: loses to a level 5 starter pokemon
@@vukkulvar9769 Ash is the third place in a tournament one season, uses pikachu against a chicorita in the next season. If he had all the accumulated experience he'd be a traveling mith one-shoting all gyms
@@pedroivantaveraferreira3037 I think the writers soft reset every season (except Johto)
Dragon loli I saw 200 years old and will have the mind and appearance of a elementary schooler for the next 100 years
My favourite example of trope-avoidant immortality is Hob Gadling from the sandman comics. He becomes immortal because he makes a bet in a pub that people only die out of habit; because everyone else has. He becomes rich, finds true love, has a son, loses it all, lives as a homeless beggar, builds life after life. And every time he is asked if he is ready to die, he insists that there is so much to live for. He is endlessly (ha!) curious about life and wants to keep learning.
I like to think Textbook Immortals have a spidey sense for when big historical events are about to happen, and that's why they keep going to them
"Speaking of shit going down, another country is about to collapse. I must be there to witness the whole debacle."
@@MeatbagSlayer I mean like yeah, I’d love to read that
Immortals: *exist*
Doctor Strange: I've come to bargain!
Come?
All gods are immortal, but not all immortals are gods. Except when dealing with Kratos.
DURMAMU I'VE COME TO BARGAIN
@Sohan Biswas dr strange, the respawning door to door salesman
Immortal character about to die: "Finally... After all this time... My eternity... Is no more..."
Afterlives: "Well yes, but actually no!"
well at least then they are put into the same boat as everyone else
Depends on the kind of afterlife. In Heaven, eternal life is ideal because you no longer have to suffer human drama. In Purgatory and Hell, not so much.
Kimi FW the show The Good Place has a very interesting take on immortality in “heaven”. You live so ideally for so long that eventually it turns into an unbearable routine that resembles “hell” more.
@@aacm9062 Okay. I'll explain more. Heaven by its nature is exactly what you want it to be. Whatever you desire is given to you, and if your preference changes, Heaven will change with it. The amount of pleasure available in Heaven is beyond human understanding, so you can't simplify it with human concepts like excess and monotony.
Immortals can be an excellent mirror to nihilism.
Nothing has intrinsic value, only what you prescribe to it. The ideal is to realize that we are all responsible for our own moral compass, and though we recognize that the ephemeral life of our mortal friends hold no inherent value in and of themselves, we can find value in the experiences and memories we make with them. Rather than mourn the loss, adjust our view to celebrate their life and the memories we made together.
My favorite thing about immortal characters is when they’re revealed to be immortal because they got a would that no mortal could possibly survive (like getting stabbed in the gut by a telephone pole) and are like
“Eh I’ll be FIIIIIIIIINE”
Humans: immortality is just a trope its fictional.
Immortal jellyfish: wHaTZ a TrOPe???
also lobsters
@@choobooloo1 Red straight up defined in the video th eternal youth level of immortality.
@@choobooloo1 for the purposes of discussion relevant to this video it is being treated as such.
@@choobooloo1 2:34
"immortality by eternal youth"
A concept of immortality where one will not die of old age but will die by unnatural means.
(immortality by being immune to death is also a concept of immortality.)
Immortality means :being ABLE to live an eternal life
(immortality has lots of derivations but as long as one is ABLE to live an eternal life then its basically relevant to the topic of immortality)
Speaking Moistly provided they can find enough food and no outside factors kill them, a lobster’s body will not naturally degenerate with age
Red: *talks about death as a deadline that motivates people*
Me: And then there's such a thing as time blindness. Forget about the eventual "time to die:" it's harder to process any sort of time beyond "now" and "not now," resulting in such serious problems as perpetual procrastination anyway. Maybe I should write more immortal characters. It seems I have some personal experience, even as a mortal myself....
Yes, you should definitely get around to that one day.
You know, once you have some time to spare and wrapped up whatever keeps you busy right now and wasn't it supposed to still be 2020?
Well most people with such mindset usually never get to writing it, so we get a lot of immortal having a mental breakdown kind of story (which is funny since they had forever to get over it).
So, basically life during quarantine?
Ooh same! Imagine the absolute frustration that is being an immortal with untreated ADHD/ADD. Lifetimes of unfinished projects; half learned instruments, skills and languages, knowing that they genuinely do have all the time in the world and yet for all that power, cannot commit to anything because they can always come back to it later.
Immortals sinking lifetimes into mindless skinner-box games or spending eternity doom scrolling because they can afford to waste time.
Yes, you may do it tomorrow... but now there are other matters that take precedence! Like have you watched Lord of the Rings, if you have, then watch again and again and again till your life is filled with regret and longing for what could have been. Nice day to you sir or night- I don’t know where you come from so I will just wish you goodness in all of the days spectrums.
Books that dig a bit into the philosophy of the immortality concept:
1. "The Folk of The Air" series by Holly Black
2. The "Throne of Glass" series by Sarah J Maas
3. "The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue" by V. E. Schwab
The Lord Ruler of Scadrial was the immortal head-of-state. How would being in a leadership position affect a persons emotions with immortality?
There is one human motivation that makes sense for immortals: Curiosity! This is common for immortal child characters, and my personal favorite way to go about writing an immortal character. Especially the transition from understandable ways to sate that curiosity to increasingly eldritch means to go about it.
I got some good cosmic horror out of that for a fanfic once. And a nice mentor character for another. Anything else doesn't really make sense as a motivation, as you pointed out.
When you mentioned the immortals relating to a family, I had the image of a crazy cat lady - except the crazy cat Lady is immortal, and the cats are humans. Other immortals keep encouraging her to make real friends and connections, but she just keeps trying to optimize the happiness of her pets (showering them with toys, petting, human nip, and new friends.) I would actually be somewhat surprised if someone didn't already make a story of same kind with this same idea.
The Doctor with his companions.
that's the baseline relationship for the longer lived races in D&D interacting with shorter lived ones, a dwarf isn't so much your friend as a friend of your family, an elf may or may not be able to process the concept that you are a person (this leads to a lot of internal issues for them since it's kiiiinda a big schism point), and fey and the like can get to the point where they have gotten used to not being able to find the right-shaped kind of mortal when they go looking for someone to run an errand for them and just sorta consider learning the relevant language/culture/etc as part of the process of introducing yourself.
so an incredibly loyal dwarf is literally the standard when it comes to the ones that actually put up with humans and the like and an elf raising humans/etc as a sort of animal husbandry is by no means out of the question so a "crazy cat lady" situation isn't much of a stretch from there, especially with how often elves just plain don't like other elves.
fey/etc picking favorites among mortal species is the standard for the ones you can actually interact with, but you have no idea what percentage and/or demographic of their population that is.
@@evernewb2073 My D&D warlock's patron was an archfey that was basically playing a long game of Sims with his family.
A very interesting concept.
*human nip*
But what about memory?
It seems that Immortality nearly always comes with the ability to remember everything from your life. What if you just had a normal human memory: you forget your time in Rome apart from a few key bits, you eventually heal from the loss of your loved one, you might not be technically goting to new places but I would happily go to the same amusement park every couple of years even if they don't add anything new.
I probably only remember about 10% of my trip to Switzerland, and that was last year. The time I went to Portugal as a child I only remember bits of the ferry to get there. And even that is mostly only kept in my mind by family members talking about it every now and then, if you didn't have people who live as long as you it would be all the more easy to forget.
Yeah I think its weird a lot of immortals are assumed to have the attention span to get jaded.
I think ppl would get jaded if they lost a lot of loved ones very rapidly; there just wouldn’t be the time to mourn and figure out feelings.
But if it’s spaced out over lifetimes there’s time to heal and recover from the loss; and with each iteration one learns how to mourn and make the best of the time we have with them.
I guess it CAN be frustrating if the immortal has been paying attention to the cycles of mistakes humanity makes; but also there would be no one who understands more how human it is to simply forget the lessons you learn.
One of the few that did something like this well was Gilgamesh in the Secrets of the Immortal Nicolas Flammel series. He is one of the first humans, and his immortality has very few limitations. The only real one is the weight of around 11,000 years and no ability to do magic has left him as basically an empty shell of a man. He can't even remember his own name half the time, let alone his sister or anything from his past outside of the occasional moments of surprising clarity. He does keep a journal, written in cuneiform, but as the writting fades, is lost, or worn away he continues to forget.
Yes, biological immortality (enternal youth, avoid swords and bullets) is essentially an upgrade to your immune system and dna repair. Your DNA has caps of junk data at the ends that deteriorate with every cell division and this is the real death by old age, what we call old age death is the immune system / body giving out. I see no reson why this would rewire or upgrade the brain to have perfect or near perfect memory for billions of years.
I'm only 21 and have forgotten many things but still have these wierd crystal clear moments (even without context) sprinkled from around 2 or 3 up to the present (super young memories are very fuzzy and low context, like bragging about being 4 to a person my mom was talking to in a driveway and nothing else about that day).
@@jasonreed7522 Imagine if you reached your early thousands, been through wars, famines, plagues and forgot them all....but still remembered bragging about being four years old. XD
This is exactly what happens to a human character in Doctor Who, when she gains biological immortality. She starts to live so long that she begins to forget who she is and her past, so she starts writing her memories down in journals, and eventually fills up a library or her own biographies. It even gets to the point where she doesn't remember her original name, and so she starts to go by the name Me. Really interesting concept
Frieren handles an immortal next to life next to short lived people in a really good way
A weakness in the way people consider immortality is that it's usually tied with the assumption that the immortal remembers EVERYTHING. But what if they did not? A human who has been turned immortal, but maintains their human body would likely just...forget. Their memories would consist of a window of maybe the last 40 years of their life and just...a general vague broad strokes memory of older events. Like imagine trying to remember everyday high school life when you're 60.
“Immortality is bad” has always seemed like the world’s most persistent sour grapes argument. We can’t have it so it must not be worth having.
I think it might be cos storytelling gravitates towards drama. If you have a bunch of happy immortals with the downside minimal or not explored. Then it doesn't add as much Drama to the story, so why add it in?
I mean, it's the analysis of the consequences that push it to that point. Nobody says teleportation is not worth having, despite defying the fundamental laws of physics. Sure, we can't teleport, but ignoring misuse, there really aren't any downsides given that it's a hypothetical idea that fiction often portrays as near perfect anyway. There are inherent, unavoidable consequences to immortality that have nothing to do with having immortality.
Immortality is biologically doable, but most things have evolved out of it. Bacteria and jellyfish being exceptions. Evolution has little need for things that quite literally can't evolve... except those damned jellyfish
If one day someone can make a person imortal by a full metal body or just a robot i would be the first to do it as i dont see the positive of dying and i want to see how far humanity will go
Some of is also that having something like immortality would change so much that we would need to be wary of it. There is a sci-fi series I started where an anti-aging procedure which you can use unlimited times was invented. Some of the issues from that series are laid out below:
Issue (1): Like today, there are limits on how many times it can be done so the people who aren't filthy rich can't afford it. At least not yet. Now imagine the salt that cones from it.
Issue (2): A lot of the politicians, CEOs, top officials etc no longer have a limit on how long they can serve. There is no longer upward mobility for those trying to fill those positions due to the holders never have to leave due to infirmness or natural death. Children who were groomed to take over the family business now find their training and goals are now indefinitely postponed.
"It always bums me out when people write [immortals] like regular humans when they should be, like, 30% existential crisis by volume"
Clearly I need to write more immortal characters because existential crises are my jam
Given how much they’d forget over time (limited memory), I think it’s fair.
@@BlackCover95 That's an interesting idea! I never thought about how they might forget little things, especially things that happened long ago, and only remember either really important or defining experiences. Maybe they might even mix up details about certain time periods sometimes.
I think this would work better for non-deities, but even lesser gods could have that "feature" or something.
Very cool addition! Thank you!
Elsa Frost
People already do that now! My family has had the same conversations many, many times over the years. And that’s only a few decades.
(BTW, I just thought of an example of an immortal misremembering. I’d elaborate, but I don’t wanna reveal something semi-spoilery without your OK.)
@@BlackCover95 Aww that's thoughtful of you. But if you feel like typing it out I don't care about the spoiler and I'm actually very interested in what you will say.
(Just put a spoiler warning for everyone else ;D)
Elsa Frost
Alright. In _The Secret Series_ by Pseudonymous Bosch, there is *(spoiler)*
a character who is a homunculus. According to legend, he was forced to sleep with a king’s hogs, something the homunculus himself confirms. However, when another character time travels to that time period, they discover the homunculus not sleeping with the king’s _hogs_ , but with the king’s _dogs_ . The author notes the discrepancy, and speculates that the homunculus himself forgot what it really was, due to it being so long ago, and history recording it wrongly.
I don’t remember if the homunculus was immortal or just long-lived, but the concept it the same.
I have a story I'm working on where a guy gets isekaied into a magic kingdom that's slowly being taken over by an immortal sorceress. She had also been isekaied and quickly became an advisor to the throne generations ago, and over time had gone from 'I can use my outsider point-of-view and new magic powers to help my friends!' to 'I am surrounded by literal children, they don't know what's good for them, why won't they listen to me?' to 'screw it, I'm taking over, Mother Knows Best'.
It's not until the rebellion wins that she reveals the truth - she isn't immortal. She has magic and is good at healing and that's why she hasn't been killed in battle, but she is still fully mortal and aging at a normal human rate. The elves that inhabit the kingdom may look and act basically human other than the pointy ears, but they actually have an average lifespan of about eight years. Where the guy and his new friends all thought they were around the same age, he is sixteen years, they are sixteen months, and only the language difference and the fact he'd only been there a few weeks kept them from noticing.
The Doctor fits so many of these tropes, his father in law Rory was for a few centuries before the Doctor rebooted the universe and immortal guardian.
And in the Jungle cruise, the main guy was definitely the tired immortal.
Another type: Ascended immortals - Immortals who realize they have an eternity to figure out how to enjoy immortality and eventually, after figuring things out, settle into a state where they'll be permanently satisfied.
In real life, maybe in the future, posthuman immortality might become a thing.
I think as human we are really close to immortality and i belive we will achive it in the next 200 or so years...
Now we only need to freeze ourselfs...
this is basically the mortal-turned-immortal-turned god. Time no longer matters, as it goes by so fast, while at the same time, they enjoy every moment. They may bring some things from the mortal world and turn them immortal. They could help their spouse and loved ones find the same immortality they have, and experience eternal bliss.
i feel like you'd love 17776
The Commonwealth books from Peter F. Hamilton have a bit of that going on.
@@valletas well technically there is already a method of immortality however you will need to sacrifice a lot of people, and I mean A LOT OF PEOPLE. And also you're not immune to unnatural death and considering all the people that would die to keep you alive, which means at it's only a matter of time until someone kills you. However that means if you do the safety precaution correctly you'll be immortal forever......
........ that is until the heat death of the universe of course.
Red: We’re all gonna die someday every moment counts you don’t want to waste any time because it means you’ll have that much less time to do other things.
Me, in the midst of my second and third viewings of many OSP videos: I feel personally attacked
But you enjoyed doing it, investing the time. If you accomplish all sorts of things, but you don't enjoy the process or results, weren't you better off just frittering your time away on something that brings you true happiness, or is at least fun?
MOMENTO MORI
Haha big mood
Yeah, I was like:
"LOL, that isn't working for me."
Is it just me or is the Idea of Immortals being pathologically terrified of boredom just the best? ( Kind of like a mix of Professor Paradox and the 12th Doctor )
I would love to have a walking textbook immortal that has that one thing they go "You'll have to ask Janet about that one, I was trapped under a mountain at the time."
Me as an immortal: I’ll do my homework tomorrow
*Spongebob voice: five billion years later*
Me as an immortal: aw crap.
Lol get ready for the sun to consume the earth
Honestly, this video made me realize that most of us would be far less accomplished than immortals in fiction.
The inability to die would make us lazier than we’d like to think.
“Have you ever had the realization that you’re living at a high point?” No. No I have not
I had one while eating dorritos
That just means it is yet to come...
Unless you, like, die before then. Still though.
@@MASTERM016 Or life is unpredictable and you can surprise yourself on what "your best moment" even is.
Jusy enjoy it, we aren't immortals after all ;)
My life has been at a very slow decline for years now, I can't tell if I've hit rock bottom yet or even if I've gone passed it and didn't blink
I actually laughed out loud when she asked that, like bro I’m stuck at rock bottom.
Tanya Huff wrote a short story in her vampire series with a spin on immortals that I really would love to see expanded on. Basically our main dude Henry spent the last 5 books hanging out with humans, solving supernatural crimes and establishing bonds again after a long time alone but when the human that relied on him the most gains independence he's lonely for the first time in a long time and now it hurts, so he tries to reconnect with people via the newspaper personal columns. The first person he has a connection with turns out to be another immortal and they're both disappointed but have a fun adventure together before she's like 'well this was fun but never darken my doorstep again.' So he tries again....and the next person also turns out to be another immortal who is equally bummed out that their attempt at human connection fell through. And the implications of why this keeps happening is kind of sad and hilarious and I'd love a short series about just that.
i could be interesting to see an immortal that's still motivated by mortality--just not theirs. they interact and immerse themselves with people and the world almost aggressively, because while they have plenty of time, the people and things theyre interested in dont.
this'd probably lead to a very exhausted, sort of "clutching sand" type character
Professor Paradox had a great quote on immortality:
Professor Paradox: "Los Soledad was built entirely on MY ingenious theory - a time tunnel utilizing the properties I discovered in quartz crystals which would allow us access to past and future events."
Kevin Levin: "Yeah, well, for a genius, it looks like you blew it."
Professor Paradox: "You don't know the half of it. Some tiny miscalculation on my part destabilized the experiment and ripped a hole in the fabric of reality. I was hurled into the event horizon. I must have spent one hundred-thousand years there. I didn't age or need to sleep or eat - just exist."
Kevin Levin: "Heh, sounds pretty boring."
Professor Paradox: "At first I went mad of course, but after a few millennia I got bored with that, too, and went sane - very sane. I began to learn. I now have total understanding of the space-time continuum, allowing me to travel anywhere and anywhen I want... within reason."
my man just got bored of madness
@@green_pikmin Professor Paradox is goated
@@green_pikmin I'm part of a plural system of over 20 people, due to shared memories time is retroactively 20 times longer and we got bored of madness.
ben "he doesn't have a time machine. he has a map."
"Existence with nothing to strive for is no existence at all. A life free of debt? You naive fool! DEBT IS YOUR LIFE!"
-Yatzhee while talking about Animal crossing
Change "Debt" with "death" it's perfect
which video?
@@finderfinder4290 Animal Crossing New Leaf
Francesco respect that bondrewd profile pic
a suprise to be sure, but a welcome one
The only certainties in life is Death and Taxes.
Every time I think of immortals, all I can think of are xianxia cultivators, especially at the late stages.
Almost everybody has an infinite lifespan, but everyone's killed so many people to get there that all the enmities run so deep no one is willing to just let things go and live forever, neatly sidestepping all the angst of immortality because you are too busy scheming against the Zhang family.
i LOVE hob as an immortal in the sandman bc hes just genuinely entirely in love with life no matter how much time passes and thats SO good
"Censored by Victorians" had me HOWLING
Huh, I don't get this joke. Guess I'll have to start reading Victorian books again. Hey honey, where's mah Victorian age wig? *In the Wash?!?!*
@@whoknows7968 the Victorians were famously prudish and Homophobic. they changed a lot of 'lovers' to 'close friends'
The inmortal who was in everything important. Uuugh.
"Did you met Davinci? Nope"
"Did you met Cleopatra? Nope"
"Did you met Jesus? Nope"
"Then, where were you?"
"Busy, traveling on horseback or horrible carriages for months ir not years. And don't get me started on boats, half of them sunk more than the ones who arrived"
Poul Anderson's "the boat of a million years."
Can you imagine the excitement of every new descovery/invention? "Commercial flights?! Finally!!" "The microwave was the best thing they invented since the aquaduct, for real. I was there both times and I tell you it's makes life so much better"
@@pedroivantaveraferreira3037 Imagine the reclusive inmortal all confused now a days after being absent from society for 50 years and going "you all did what?" where is the soviet union? Who came up with the internet? Wait computers are like this now? Whats whit all this music? Where are the books now?
Imagine being a peasant or something for hundreds of years, finally making it to the present, having an interest in history, then when you bring up something you read people act as if you were personally there but really at the time you were just a simple potato farmer tending your potatoes.
Would be a good subversion of the trope if the immortal in question just missed every event that made it to modern history.
12:18 As soon as this came up, my brain immediately went "So basically Zhongli"
The fact that there are people who can outlive their many, MANY pets and love every one of them kinda disproves all of this point of "immortals being unable to love humans"