Timeline for What is the origin of the "being immortal sucks" trope?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
9 events
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| Jul 17, 2020 at 18:03 | history | edited | Marvel Boy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 25, 2019 at 12:43 | comment | added | Graipher | @terdon If you (would) live an infinitely long live, and there is a non-zero probability to be poisened by an incurable poison, it will eventually happen. You just haven't seen it all yet, until it happens. Hopefully you get bored before that and somehow end it while not in pain. Immortality sucks. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 15:19 | comment | added | terdon | Yes indeed, the difference for me was that there was a very special occurrence: poisoning. Without that, he'd have been perfectly happy remaining immortal. The trope is usually about how the immortal has read all books, seen all movies, experienced all forms of pleasure and is now horribly bored, They just want to end it all and can't. It is indeed a common trope in scifi and isn't usually (or not in my mind, anyway) associated with torture or poison or the like. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 14:22 | comment | added | Marvel Boy | @terdon maybe it's because I have lived a very privileged life, but I still honestly can't see the difference. Disgust is disgust, whether psychological (i.e.: boredom) or physical (pain from some condition). Intensity may vary, but I see both as the same thing. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 13:25 | comment | added | terdon | Well, my understanding of the question (which may be wrong, of course!) was about the concept of someone who discovered that immortality is unpleasant. I wouldn't consider someone who gave up their immportality because they were looking at endless pain a candidate. I was thinking more along the lines of Bowerick Wowbagger, i.e. someone who just dislikes their immortality because of how immortality itself works, rather than because they're being tortured or in constant pain because of external factors. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 12:44 | comment | added | Marvel Boy | @terdon I honestly can't see a difference. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 12:35 | comment | added | terdon | This isn't a case of an immortal being unhappy with their immortality though. It's about someone who was in horrible pain and had no way of dying. I don't really see how it's relevant here. | |
| Sep 18, 2019 at 11:29 | comment | added | ratchet freak | Not quite, Ancient Greek scholars will be happy to tell you that Ancient Greece is a period over a large territory, even with its own dark age, with a definite evolution in the mythos over time and location. Though I'm not studied enough myself to know which came first. | |
| Sep 16, 2019 at 12:28 | history | answered | Marvel Boy | CC BY-SA 4.0 |