This post originally went live on December 21, 2016.
Immortality comes up a lot in fiction. These timeless beings turn up as villains, heroes, love interests, cursed secondary characters, and everything in-between. Many people hate a protagonist with this power because it’s seen as a sign of perfection. They live forever at a perfect age with no physical flaws and an intelligence that allows them to absorb all that time has to offer. To be fair, one could think a person who has been given immortality would also have the natural ability to evolve with time. Then again, they are still human in some way, so giving them Eidetic memory too might be going too far. So, what are some ways to make your immortals work?
- Even though they live forever, you should have some way for them to die or be removed from the story. There needs to be a threat to these characters. Maybe a special item can undo their powers or another immortal can do the job. Trapped for eternity can work as well. This is what happened to the Baron in Legends of Windemere and even Dariana to some extent. The real limit on her is that she can still be knocked out, injured, possibly killed, or overwork her body by using her powers.
- A physical flaw can help in the removal of the ‘perfection’ tag. A scar or missing body part can be explained as happening prior to immortality or the price. It doesn’t even have to visible, but be part of a big reveal later. Maybe the character is ashamed and has found a way to hide it someway. I will admit that I didn’t really do this with Dariana since she uses her telepathy to limit the attention she gets.
- If the immortal is your protagonist then you need to factor in their long life. They should have a lot of knowledge and maybe get confused at times. After a couple hundred years, you get your social etiquette mixed up. Is it still right to high five or is that old news? What phrases no longer mean what they used to mean? Even after being in multiple books, Dariana still isn’t sure about her reactions. She uses old greetings and blessings instead of the more casual interactions of today.
- This might be an odd one, but you need to keep in mind that immortals could lose any concept of time. They could always be late or never know what day it is. Maybe they even lack the knowledge of the year because they work off a different calendar. This has mostly comedy effects.
- Building off the previous idea, an immortal could have an apathy toward life events like marriages, births, funerals, and other milestones. A mortal will only have about 100 years to have all of these happen, which gives the more impact. Somebody who has gone through hundreds of these events will either not care or try to fake it for those around them. Honestly, there are people my age that have become emotionally numb to life, so immortals would have a higher risk of this.
- Like any character, these types should have some kind of goal. There has to be something they want even after centuries of life. For example, Dariana wants friends and to see the world instead of being put back to sleep. There are a few other things that are spoilers, so read The Spirit Well to find out.
- Finally: Insanity is always an option. This explains Yola Biggs and Stephen Kernaghan perfectly. Dariana . . . read The Spirit Well to find out!
Legends of Windemere 
In fiction I think of the elves in regard to immortality. But this aspect is a little confusing, since some of the elves died in Peter Jackson’s movie adaptations. Many left Middle-earth and went west. In The Silmarillion, the Valar are immortal.
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I always felt elves lived forever, but could die from violence. That seemed to be how it went. Makes sense since they talked about low birth rates, which implies they can die somehow.
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I’ve always felt immortality would be more of a curse than a blessing. I retired from the day-to-day grind a little over a year ago, and I’ve lost a lot of my sense of time. If I extrapolate from my own personal experiences, I can imagine that an immortal may have trouble telling you what year it was.
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Guess it depends on what the immortal does then. If they continue working or staying active, they should be okay. Although, I wonder if an immortal would really care about remembering exact times. Gods don’t seem to concern themselves with that.
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Great post, use them but put some deep thought into them so readers can relate. Maybe the fallen angel trope could be useful here. Discarded but trying to accomplish something.
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That’s a good trope. Don’t even have to make them a demon. They could be something else after falling.
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There is a lot of information here. This is like a primer on immortal characters. Excellent.
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Thanks. Hope it helps if you need it.
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It will. Thanks.
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It’s my antagonist who is immortal. He’s only immortal through nefarious means, though. He needs to drain the life force from young people to keep himself alive and in his prime.
He can be killed, but only by a specific sword. This is the subject of the quest in the first book of The Wolves of Vimar. No one knows where it is!
You’ve made some excellent points here I’d not thought about: viz the confusion about time, and the etiquette thing.
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Wonder how we would categorize that kind of immortality. He isn’t that way without effort and can die naturally if cut off from his energy source. Situational immortality?
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Interesting thought. I guess he’s not truly immortal, so situational mortality sounds good. In fact the latest book in the series, which is going through the critique process, is called Immortal’s Death.
In the earlier books he’s called The Never-Dying Man.
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