Writing an Immortal Character

The universe contains endless wonder. Mortals spend their lives having to choose among interests, because there isn't time to explore everything. Only an immortal has time enough to explore everything that fascinates her, to whatever depth she chooses.

Ever notice it's the very young who complain the most often of being bored? It usually means either "I don't feel like doing any of the choices I am aware of," or, "It's too hard to choose what NOT to do, so I'll do nothing."

 

My concept of immortality comes largely from Aidan Paul's Highlander. The youthful immortal lives wildly. They have forever to become boring and stale--for now, the party must live on as they do!
The second phase of immortality seems to be the next few hundred years, where they've outlived true riotous behavior and have begun to settle down. Not even an immortal has the energy to party continuously for thousands of years. They haven't reached the stage they once thought of as 'boring', but they're starting to gain an appreciation for the passing years.
Thirdly, after the first five hundred years or so, you begin to look for long-view things to entertain yourself. Strings to pull. Important people to influence. Marks to make. Sure, you'll be around forever, but wouldn't it be nice to see something grow with you? By this point, you've started to introduce yourself to kings and enamor yourself unto emperors.
After the first thousand years, you've seen a few empires rise and fall. You've learned how to entertain yourself, and sometimes, you wish you didn't have to follow these mortal laws. Now is when most immortals go through a secondary period of rebellion, it seems--to the ant, how oppressive is the shoe, but to the shoe, what matter is the ant?

My favorite character on that show was Methos, (spoiler alert?) one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from waaaaay back when. Calling in at a cool five thousand years old, he was the oldest and most bored of the immortals, but at that point, you either think yourself a god or start to really enjoy the company of mortals. Near as I can tell, there's not much inbetween.

Now, my immortals are as old as life itself, so every one of them is older than some planets, but the same sort of theory rings true. Some think themselves far better than these mere mortals, and some find them fascinating. The rift between these two schools of thought is one of the primary drivers of the Big Plot in my book.

 

I haven't read all the previous comments so my apologies if this has already been said.

I imagine being immortal as being old, only more so. I don't mean frail and weak but increasingly out of touch with modern life. All that is new would be unfamiliar and seem alien. The whole world would seen chaotic and crazy. Habits would be deeply ingrained and vigorously defended. Everything modern would seen wrong compared to a nostalgic rose-tinted view of the past. Even in a young body, an old person is still old and I would write them as such.

 

I'm playing around with an idea to make my historical novel readable to ones who have grown up with fantasy stories.
My idea is to have my special group of warriors of my new work to be granted life at the hands of an Oracle. She is sorely needed for this group as the book is called, No Retreat. If wounded they must reach the Oracle while they still have some life in them. Because they are vulnerable at that point I was hoping that it would add tension to my story. Maybe you could do the same with the Feathered Goddess, so he has to rely on a good relationship with her, and, if he wants to end-it-all, that pathway is open to him. Just a thought.

 

Instead of an immortal character who suffers from their immortality, or an immortal character who is overly content with their immortality, have a character who sees immortality as a commodity. They have a very specific end-goal, and immortality is seen as a tool -- a convenience -- only with which are they capable of reaching it. It can also be used as a point of character development, the importance of their objective; so important, in fact, that the wonder of godlike immortality is undercut by their determination to reach their goal, especially if reaching their goal revokes their immortality or otherwise has a negative consequence in addition to the desired result of the character's actions. For an antagonist, it'd be a good place to start with establishing strong motivations I believe.

Edit: Just realized that, in so many words, Nariac already said this. But its worth reiterating that its a good in-between of the overzealous immortal and the long-suffering immortal.

 

I skimmed this thread, and didn't see my idea, so I thought I'd throw it in there.

I have an immortal villain who shows up in several of my stories. She's not suffering because she's gone a little bit insane.

Not in the "lol so random!" sense, but in the sense of she only lives in the moment. She's entirely impulsive, has only one long-term goal (to meet and beat up a god, just to prove she's better than the gods) and just does whatever she thinks will amuse her. If that means spending a decade building a massive Rube Goldberg-style machine just to pull the perfect prank on someone, then that's exactly what she'll do. If that means stealing a bunch of valuable stuff, selling it off for gold, then going on a gambling spree to end all gambling sprees before losing all that money, then fantastic! Then, she'd probably concoct another overly-complex plan to steal the money right back. It's all about her whims, what she thinks would be funny or exciting or pleasurable. She's especially keen on the possibility of novel experiences, since those become more valuable the older you get.

 

Ten years spent building a Rube Goldberg machine is nothing when you've got tens of thousands of decades to go. All well said.

 

Your character actually sounds very interesting and I would love to hear more about her story.

 

Also, I've read over all the new comments, and I want to thank everyone who has responded for offering their advice. However, I've figured out at least most of what I will do with my immortal character.

So, as I've mentioned before Corvus will have been an overall shitty person in his original life. Eventually, he commits the crime of fratricide (killing one's brother), which is one of the biggest crimes one can commit. Therefore, as punishment, the Feathered Goddess intervenes and snatches him away. Corvus is then forced to become one of her White Crows, a group of people who act as immortal servants and messangers for the Feathered Goddess. On top of that, Corvus is further punished by having his identity fully taken away so that he is left as a blank slate. As for how he responds to all of this, Corvus is just going through the motions and completes his tasks as commanded.

However, I am also having second thoughts about taking away Corvus's identity and memories because what would be the point of all that? Any thoughts?

 

The process by which they return, or the effects of them slowly returning on their own, can be anything from a subplot to a whole book on its own! I think it's a great idea.

 

I always wondered how sane an immortal would be after a while. Even if they are well adjusted and happy, they would have developed quirks that might make them seem odd to others. For example, if they came of age in the medieval period and now live in modern times, they may gush over indoor plumbing and hot water on demand as those things are, to them new and exotic. I assume that an immortal would also develop esoteric interests because why not? They have the time.

In my story, one of the characters is, while not immortal, very long lived, and had not spent much time in this world since the roughly 11890. Due to this his language is different. He uses older slang. He does not use contractions.

I could definitely see an immortal being selfish. Everybody else around you will age and die and leave you alone so why prioritize them? It doesn't even have to be that they don't care, they may be afraid to care as that opens them up to emotional pain later. It could be a plot point to have someone forcibly realign their world view.

 

After more than three quarters of a century, all of this rings true.
I have developed quirks ...like...Get off my lawn.

 

I think an immortal character might slip up at first, but would learn to cover his or her tracks better over time. But gush over indoor plumbing? No, they'd have seen inventions develop and be eventually be replaced by other innovations, even if they spent a century or ten sealed in a glacier.

But I agree that an immortal would learn to appreciate the ability to develop interests that mortals would lose interest in because mortals have to fit all the interests they develop into a brief lifetime. Conversely, some interests that obsess mortals would likely to seem banal to an immortal, who is not driven by the brevity of one lifetime.