Immortality, How to live with it.

Let's talk about immortality and other literary characters who deal with it. Lazarus Long. Dracula. Highlander, though they do have the game to distract them. Elves. I'm sure there are more.

What's the worst thing immortality does to these characters? The best? Do they love it. Or hate it?

One theme that recurs for many stories of immortality is change. The world changes. Rip van Winkle slept through one hundred years and when he woke his house was empty, his children grown, his wife and friends were gone. Lazarus Long returned from long space journeys to find places he'd enjoyed changed or closed, the owners and friends deceased.

Jack, having already been a time traveler, seems to be somewhat inured to the whole world being different while he stays nearly the same. After all, once you've lost the 51st century, how much different can things get?

Change depends on the situation, I think. One who lives for an extended linear time would develop different personality ticks than one who lived ala Rip van Winkle.

One thing that seems to be a common theme in those who live linear for extended periods (Time Lords, Ascended beings in SG1/SGA, elves in LotR, etc...) is a certain...aloofness? They don't get involved. They have 'rules' as far as how they use their knowledge and who they share it with.

Immortality is such a curious thing that I love playing with in writing original stuff. Or at least, extended life.

One thing that really gets me (being the biopsych nut that I am) is the biological aspects of immortality, not necessarily cellular regeneration/decay - that's all relatively easy to explain off - but the physical aspects of the human brain. I'm sure it's just ... one of those things that is ignored because considering it makes one's brain hurt. But as an immortal ages, the brain is a finite organ. It's contained within a finite piece of bone. No matter how many pathways are connected within the brain, there is a finite -space- and finite # of neurons (or finite space for the neurons). Yet, an immortal keeps acquiring knowledge, keeps experiencing new things, changes, shifts, etc...keeps adding to the total quantity of 'stuff' within the brain. It might not matter right away, but what about Jack as he ages? What -happens- within the limited confines of a brain? It's not going to change from year 1 to year 5000, there is no evolution of the brain because you're not talking multiple generations, you're talking one individual.

That's why I can totally buy the Face of Boe being Jack, no matter my squick factor going into play. A -human-, no matter how far they were born into the future, is not meant for immortality. The brain is an amazing organ and fascinatingly complex - but it's just not meant to exist forever. There are upper limits - and when you start pushing those, what happens? What gives? What gives first? Is there physical transformation/expansion (ala FoB) to compensate? Do you start literally losing early memories/knowledge as new data is acquired, because the new pushes out the old? What about psychologically -dealing- with the immortal life?

This changes when you're talking about a -species- which has an extended/immortal span I think. Time Lords, elves, Ancients (Ascended beings), etc... who have physically evolved over time, genetically changing and developing into the extended lifespan (or simply existing as the elves). There's more caveats to work with in re: to brain function and capacity, psychology and physiology.

Wow. Okay. Enough blather. Never let it be said I don't know how to BS a sales pitch, a history essay or a lengthy topic babble.

Perhaps weirdly, I thought of Orlando, which I haven't read in a long time so pardon if I'm hazy on the details. Orlando's physical gender change is sort of a concrete manifestation of how strange the world ends up looking through the eyes of someone who lives through more than their share.

Orlando led me to think of Gaiman's Hob Gadling, because the two of them, rather than getting stuck with immortality as a curse or happenstance of genetics, decide they want it. And it doesn't turn out to be so bad. There's something appealing to us mere mortals, I think, about simply not dying because one doesn't want to (i.e. through sheer will, not a sell-your-soul Dorian Gray thing).

And okay, this is so not literary, but Angel. He sees his immortality as a big nasty curse, but he also has this sense of obligation, and twice gives up his chance to become human out of concern for the greater good (well, his reasoning the second time is debatable, but whatever). The Doctor gives up the chance too. I think most immortal-not-by-choice characters (heroes, anyway) would do the same. [A notable exception is Arwen, but my Tolkien's not good enough to go into her.] It's sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy for them. They believe that there's a reason they're living forever/extra long, and therefore they spend their time proving that true.

That's actually what sort of breaks my heart about Jack, because as of S2 he can't believe his immortality was anything other than an accident, not some part of a greater plan. But still, you stick around one planet for that long and you start to feel sort of responsible for it, which I think is what's happened to Jack.

Possibly have not made any sense, sorry.

Well, I kind of thought he discovery that he didn't have a higher purpose was actually a relief. The thought he was around for Abbadon, but wasn't, then talked to the Doctor and found out it was an act of love with unintended concequences (we assume).

I think that Jack is the sort of person who prefers to make his own purpose/destiny and (honestly, not one for responsibility, though he's come to accept Torchwood) the freedom to do so is positive, not negative.

Re: physicality. I kind of assume that early memories get lost over time. Though, generally, I handwave that sort of thing.

Well, I kind of thought he discovery that he didn't have a higher purpose was actually a relief. The thought he was around for Abbadon, but wasn't, then talked to the Doctor and found out it was an act of love with unintended concequences (we assume).

I think that Jack is the sort of person who prefers to make his own purpose/destiny and (honestly, not one for responsibility, though he's come to accept Torchwood) the freedom to do so is positive, not negative.

That'll be where the not making sense comes in. What I was utterly failing to say properly there was I felt bad for him because he thought he was finally going to get to be done after a century-plus of waiting around wondering what he's for. Now that he knows, yes, it's more positive, because he's not 'for' anything and finally has the freedom that comes with the knowledge that his life is his own to shape. But I think he probably only arrived at that conclusion while chained up on the Valiant and must've been pretty torn up about it before he got his head around it.