Eternal life (and what it does to a character)

Eternal life

It seems that most people have focused primarily on what type of behaviours someone would exhibit when faced with eternal life.
When I think of eternal life I think of how the person would be affected by everything going on around them that continues to grow, change, etc, while they do not.
I think of how sad it would be to have this never-ending existence when everyone around you is born and dies. It would be really quite depressing to live through the lives and deaths of all your loved ones. Everything that made sense and meant the world to a person wouldn't mean the same with eternal life. Eternal life is extended permanently (unless you die or are killed) and thus, time would drag on forever.
I figured I may as well mention the negative emotional aspects of the idea of eternal life. You need good as well as bad

 

I think it would have a number of different effects.

1. Wisdom, acceptance, some sense of a greater purpose in life
2. Intense boredom and disilusionment, with the knowledge that when mortal pledge to love each other forever it's only till they die, and that is far more magical than the actuality of forever.
3. Heartbreak, from watching everyone they know die and the inevitability that they will be alone in that
4. Madness.

 

Possibly heartbreak at first but then probably apathetic, would realise everything else is transient and would manipulate everyone else for short term satisfaction realising there would be no no long term satisfaction.

 

I think I would have to have a purpose, something I did better than anyone else, something that was helping others even if they didn't know it, to keep that weight of years from becoming a depression after the first century.

Maybe this would be more pertinent to a character who was not raised among fellow immortals, or thought they were normal before they stopped aging or what have you.

For a character like that, I also think that even the little things, like reading a dramatic novel about family ties or relationships, would hurt because as an immortal you will never experience certain normal day to day things almost everyone else gets to experience.

As for the first type of immortal, I guess it depends on the society, but it's always nice to know you're are not alone.

 

If you live (as the mystics teach) in the moment, then the period you keep going for is actually irrelevant... one day of living in the moment is not much different from thousands, in the respect that you don't hold grudges, miss the people you've lost etc. I assume most immortal beings would reach this state of mind when they'd seen enough loss.

 

Awesome quote. I've actually never heard that before.

 

I was reading a book yesterday that showed the development of an immortal charater named Jianna. Jianna was bored with her extended life so she ended up raising an army and conquering a large portion of land. With a kingdom firmly under her control, she began provoking wars and skirmishes around her borders until she declared war and took over the areas. There was a prohecy for her downfall, but she didn't believe it. Instead of trying to prevent her demise, she actually aided the assassins that were going to kill her. Jianna was bored with her long life so she periodically challenged herself by setting up challenges for her to overcome. Eventually she was killed by a lover, but hey, irony is important right?

 

Of course, ALL these examples are fiction. If you envisiona different scenario, write it!

 

Okay, I really apologize if I necromancy this thread, but I see it has been recently replied to. Still - sorry.

The first question you need to ask yourself is... How old will the person really be? This, trust me, is of great value. I saw some posts thinking people born in the 1930s could be immortal. I still know such people that are not (my great-grandmother turned recently 98).

Personally, when I hear of "eternity", I understand "before the dawn of time". But it could be from any period of time, really.

One could back up both stories quite easily, leaving everything a bit into the middle of the conflict, since there is no evidence. Yes, dying was not a hard task in most parts of our known history so far... Even in XX century, the World Wars could easily cause even a sentient being, one that is over 2000 years old, to get his head quickly chopped off by a fanatic (they were a lot then). Then again... for 2000 years, they might have got to know something more than the casual human. One could never know, so both are believable.

The second question would be - alone or in societies ? Who's to say that this is the only such being? I recall, although faintly now, in the Wheel of Time series, that there was a sentient being below age of maturity... aged ~his 80s or 90s (I really don't recall, WoT was my first series and I have read some amount since. The sentient beings I think did die of age, but this is close to immortality, no?). He was treated as a kid in his own kind. They lived separately, treated well by all, for they did good to anyone who desired to rule without causing solely utter destruction everywhere.

But let's abandon the boring part. Let's go to the person's character itself, the question at hand:

The 10$ question: Is he powerful or not?

I'll describe first the non-powerful version relatively (relative to the amount that is this post) short and then the mind-boggling close-to-god version in all his variables. Skip one paragraph if you can't stand reading the part about the casual human undying.

Non-powerful version: He's just another guy. He simply won't die. „He must be a genius.” Nope. The stereotype I'm describing was hinted to me by a film supposedly named "A man from Earth" or something close - I know the heading in my native language. The character described there was not much smarter than the rest of the characters- he knew as much as the geniuses of his time could. He knew as much as his time could. At prehistoric ages, he thought the Earth is flat. Later, he began to receive hints that maybe it's not. Just maybe, though. Also, one must address the question here: Is his memory immortal as well? For the person I'm describing didn't remember everything from his life. That is impossible for a human being and after all, he was such. He had basically only two things essentially different from being a human (boggling that neither is a purpose, yes, but I never said the film was flawless) - one was that he did not age, his organism managed to make a full recovery and never getting tired from it. The other is that he excelled at human relationships. He knew people very well. He knew how they would react. Laid back and thoughtful, not rushing through things.

Now about the more almost-omnipotent and what not person. Alas, there are a whole ton of them in written stories.

Type one: He's bored. He's lived so long. He's not really into relationships. Why should he be? Why need he such things? He did in the past, back in the days when he was young... He got tired and bored after a couple of such things. They do things... simply out of boredom. Oh, these people still die... But they haven't so far. They mock everything that surrounds them. All they'd reply to "I have banks worth of millions of dollars" is "Heh" . They might cling onto some greater purpose or just do something for fun. Because they can.

Type two: They're not bored. They look with a wise smile at the world. Calm, patient, cautious, hard to irritate. Do so, though, and better run as far away as you can. Their wrath is something none can stand against.

Alas, this post is getting rather long now. Last things to add in general: This person has done a lot in his life, definitely. They can hide their emotions extremely well, most people think they are without such, yet when the mask finally breaks, they suffer just like humans. They don't live with humans. Or move around if they do. And about all those secrets that they hold... for them, the secrets are such for a reason.

God, this is a long post. Thank you for reading. ANd keep in mind, this is just my personal opinion.

 

So many ideas, this is cool just to read and think about.

As I see it, you could develop an immortal character as many ways as any other character, but the biggest questions are things like:

1. When were they born, or how and when did they come into existence?
2. How 'immortal' are they? Do they just not age? Do they age, more slowly? Do they retain youth for millenia? Are they immune to harm?
3. Why are they immortal? Were they born that way, or did they attain it in some dark manner (or good manner)?
4. Do they live among other immortals, or have you simply thrown an immortal into a setting (past, present, or future)?
5. How are they any different from the mortals who we are so used to? Are they differrent emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, etc?
6. Do they view immortality as a blessing, or as a curse?

This last one, I think, is fundamental to any immortal character.

 

I'd say that an immortal character is likely to see a lot of things as ephemeral; in fact, I'd almost say it was a given for anyone who wanted to write an immortal character realistically. Of course, how they interpret this is likely to be up to the personality of the character themselves, but I can imagine that it would make the majority of people extremely nihilist and lazy. Why bother in life if you can't really die in any way? Of course, immortals would probably prefer a high-quality life to a life in the gutter, like most mortals, but they won't mind minor problems. Likewise, though, they'll likely see the larger problems and agonise over them, like a philosopher or the like would nowadays - when you don't have 'trivial' distractions, what reason do you have not to try and change political or social matters? Thus immortal characters are likely to have built things that others take merely as 'something that just happened'.

Or so I believe.

 

I have an "immortal" character. i put that in quotes because it comes with a price. i think an immortal character that didn't have to pay for his/her extended life would be boring. and that character would have to have some driving goal to give purpose to their eternity.

my character is only immortal because he feeds off the lives of others. this is why he sometimes shows up at different ages within the series. he'll kill someone and use their "lifeforce" to rejuvenate himself.

the reason he does this is because he wants to change mankind. the way he wants to do this is to pose such an enormous threat to the world that mankind must either unite to stop it, or die. if they do stop him and he dies, then he accomplished his goal, and mankind is off for the better. if he succeeds in destroying the world, then it was never worth living in anyway.

this is an example of what i feel makes an immortal character interesting. the fact that they could conceivably die if they wanted to. that as well as having to pay a price for immortality and having a reason to live so long.