It would be interesting to see how the author sustained tension when you know your central character cannot die no matter what – it forces the author to be a lot more creative. I have to say that I do miss those characters as they do tend to open the way to more interesting narratives and ideas if done well.

Just to add, Captain Jack does die in the end though, doesn't he? Didn't it turn out that he became the Face of Boe?

Yes, that’s true. But for story purposes back when he was Captain Jack, in Doctor Who and Torchwood, he’s pretty darned immortal. [wry smile] In Children of Earth they blew him up pretty thoroughly, and it took days and days but he did come back to life.

The Face of Boe died, what, thirty thousand years in the future, or fifty thousand, or something like that? I think that’s about as immortal as I can wrap my brain around. :)

Angie

Just to add, Captain Jack does die in the end though, doesn’t he? Didn’t it turn out that he became the Face of Boe?

(Interview Link: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Shire/5014/interview.html Unfortunately, he goes straight on to claim the Dwarves are obviously Jewish – even though he talks mainly about the deliberate language simulatiries, it’s still slightly cringe-inducing)

I voted for Immortal as not dying of natural causes; not dying at all I’d class as Immortal Invulnerable. Mostly Gods, really. As Angie points out, you can have tension with ‘true’ Immortals, like Captain Jack and the women in Death Becomes Her, but it’s a very different kind of tension to an immortal that can be killed.

There can be only one!

[hee! Check out this 90's trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnJt9p-sHho ]

Not that I wouldn’t like more ‘real’ immortals in the storytelling context. But I’ll easily go with the psuedo-immortals if you serve it up to me.

Though none of this ‘live long lives’ b.s.

I’ve written immortal characters who had to die and revive to realize they were. 3000 years is a hellacious life-span encompassing everything from a bronze-age soldier in the army of King David to a modern crime lord. With living that long, it’s laugh and love or go mad. And a lot of Immortals in that universe do, around their second millennium. Non-killable immortals have a LOT of baggage.

However, when it comes to books I tend to think of the Elves in the Lord of the Rings trilogy who could be killed in battle or eventually die of old age after a prolonged life. Or, as others have mentioned, Highlander. So perhaps I should have thought about it more before voting…oh well.

Fictional — as apposed to the one(s) you believe in, if you do — gods have always has some type of sword hanging over their powerful heads. That’s what makes them fun characters.

Vampires in fiction have (mostly) not been immortal but that’s changed too. They’re still hard to kill. Maybe. I never tried.

My ususal caveat: it’s up to the author and the world they write but once the rules are set please, please, pullllease don’t change them when you need a different direction for your story.

Or in the movie Death Becomes Her with Goldie Hawn and Meryl Streep — the women can’t die, but they’re left at the end of the movie with their bodies broken in pieces. The movie was essentially a comedy, and treated the ending as something to laugh at, but to me that was horrific.

On the other hand, a character who has the potential to live forever but can be killed has so much more to lose, that adds its own tension to any dangerous situations. So you can make use of the whole wise-experienced-ancient thing, but without falling into the pit of having a character who can never be in danger and therefore whom the reader will never really empathize with nor worry about.

I think what “immortal” means is more a matter of what the writer wants it to mean, what they need for the story they’re telling. And if it doesn’t work, that’s the fault of the writer rather than the concept itself.

Angie

Can die but not by natural causes (like old age or illness).

That seems to be the prevailing interpretation of “Immortal” in the majority of books that I read in the paranormal and fantasy genres. Yes, there are a few true ‘immortals’ who quite literally cannot be destroyed by any means, but the majority have some weakness that can be exploited to make them vulnerable to death.

There can be only one! LOL

by Melissa Blue October 8th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

I went with can die, but not naturally. My answer is influenced by books like Interview With a Vampire and the old legends of how you could kill vampires i.e. stake to the heart, beheading, etc. It keeps a balance of life and death even for immortals and makes for good reading knowing the character can die just not by “mortal” means.

Thank goodness for editable comments. *sigh* What Melissa said. :D

For me, it really depends on the story. Like vampires, I’m OK with the rules changing from story to story so long as it’s internally consistent.