First thought: Nice if you can manage it in this economy.
Second thought: Finally, a prompt that actually somewhat fits in with the main theme and purpose of this blog.
The idea of an increased lifespan (or near or full immortality) is a recurring concept in both fantasy and science fiction. There are various takes on how a person who would normally have a relatively short lifespan would react to suddenly having a potentially much longer one. There are also speculations on how beings who have a naturally long lifespan (or near or full immortality) would interact with beings with comparatively much shorter lifespans.
Okay, first I’m going to have to explain what I mean by “near or full immortality.” Near immortality means you have a very long lifespan. It might even be potentially infinite. However, you can still die if say, a building falls on you. Or if you get a disease that is otherwise incurable. Or if you get stabbed or shot or something. Full immortality would be like a rubber ball bouncing off of death and back into being alive. You keep coming back like a weed or maybe a mushroom. You either don’t die in the first place or don’t stay dead. (Needless to say these concepts rise out of fantasy and sf because uh. Immortals are about as real as katana space.)
A common trope with the portrayal of immortality in fantasy or science fiction is to portray immortality as a burden. You lose family and loved ones as you outlive them, living in a sort of melancholia as the years stretch ever onward. This is not one of my favorite tropes as this almost never seems to go in the direction of “but then the depressed immortal gets some goddamn therapy or the fantasy equivalent and does something useful with their life, or at least becomes less depressed.” I do not have a good example of this.
Another trope involving a negative presentation of immortality is the concept of long-lived species (often elves) being arrogant and dismissive of shorter-lived species. This is a theme that tended to show up a great deal in Margaret Weiss and Tracy Hickman’s various fantasy series. I tend to dislike this trope most of the time. However, this can occasionally be an effective metaphor for classism or other forms of systemic prejudice. (I tend to dislike the trope because nothing happens in relationship to it. It’s just there, and I get tired of boring bigoted elves being boring and bigoted.)
An interesting variation of this trope are the elves in Moon’s The Deed of Paksenarrion/Paladin’s Legacy. The elves tend to underestimate or otherwise be dismissive of humans…to the point where they decide an abused half-human child is too “broken” to be the heir to the throne…so they essentially mindwipe him and have him fostered out in another kingdom and then completely lose track of him. (Which leads to an entire Quest on Paksenarrion’s part to find the missing heir to the throne years later.) Moon does some interesting things with the idea of trauma, recovering from same and the difficulties of getting any mental health care in a society that has yet to invent it. Elizabeth’s Moon’s elves are so alien that they literally do not understand humans and as a result make extremely terrible decisions.
A trope I do like is “Immortal/long lived ancestor/family member/family friend who is always around.” This is I think a surprisingly rare trope? I don’t think I’ve seen it very often. The first example that comes to mind (because Pawn of Prophecy was one of the first fantasy novels I read) is possibly David Eddings Belgarath. This is an old man character whose bullshit is at least twenty percent for show. He’s part mentor, and mostly a pain in the ass. It’s a pity he wasn’t written by a better author, truly. I liked him much better when I was kid and almost no sense of nuance.
Two examples from the same author, Martha Wells. In the Books of the Raksura the “long lived ancestor” is Stone, who is a line-grandfather. Male consorts tend to live a very long time, and as they age their alternate form gets bigger. Much bigger. And also kind of Eldritch. Moon can never get a good look at what Stone even looks like in his alternate form Eldritch. Stone is a fun character because he is an cranky grandfather with very little patience for his descendants, but also clearly cares for them.
Another example is Kai from Witch King. Kai is actually fairly “young” as immortals go. He is apparently at the age where mothers in certain societies start nagging you about settling down and having kids. However, he is old enough to have seen the end of a potentially decades long war and at least two mortal generations. He’s extremely loyal to his found family but has a strained relationship with his birth family for Various Reasons. I would really like to see more of this character. (Martha Wells has indicated there would be more books in this setting.)
TL;DR: I would have to say my thoughts on the subject are going to be my impressions of various “immortality” tropes. One a personal level I don’t have have many thoughts about having a much longer lifespan. Because reasons.
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