Characterizing an Immortal Character

One of the projects I've started to develop features an Ambiguosly Human being with Complete Immortality as one of the central characters. I'm not exactly sure what his age will be described as in the work itself (I'm thinking around 250-150 y/o)

A lot of the aspects of being immortal are deconstructed (to say he isn't the most well adjusted person would be a serious understatement)

Something I've run into while developing his character is the team he is a part of. He is part of a group that are essentially True Companions for each other (none of them share his immortality but it is implied that their aging has slowed due to supernatural means) They happen to be a somewhat diverse bunch (including a Latina woman, a couple LGBT people and a black woman who is one of his very close friends)

The question is exactly how would I write his interactions with his background in mind. Obviously they would involve some Deliberate Values Dissonance to some degree, but I want to avoid it from being insensitive and, on the flip side, from completely ignoring the contexts he has lived through.

Any thoughts?

I would think that if he's been around long enough, he's probably seen and understands what produced the stereotypes that have affected his friends, and has probably also met enough people to know they don't apply to them as a whole.

If he was really that prejudiced or let outdated values color his view so much, how the hell could he have wanted to be friends with them at all?

/in kind of an activistic mood right now because I literally just got done reading this

edited 3rd Aug '14 10:06:23 AM by CrystalGlacia

I was thinking there might be some situation where he is a mild form of an Innocent Bigot (mostly things like using an outdated term to refer to someone or something like that) Obviously this would be treated in narrative as a "Bad Thing, Don't do It™" but I'm aware I could run into problems with that.

Accepting people who aren't heterosexual probably wouldn't be too much of a stretch anyway, as he is canonically asexual and doesn't have any religious convictions that would justify homophobia.

It depends really on how long has the character been immortal.

A common trait (which I honestly find understandable and would need a REALLY good reason to avoid) is that the longer a character has lived the more nihilistic he becomes.

For example, Deadpool is (as far as I know) a new-immortal, so he runs around getting into situations that would kill anyone else, just because why the heck not, he's immortal.

Wolverine/Edward Cullen (yes, I went there) seem to be at the point where they try to protect the "mortals" around them the best they can, even when they know they will outlive them they at least want to have them around for a long time.

Then you get Dracula/Dr. Who who outlived everything and everyone they cared about, so they don't really give a shit about anything other than finding the next amusing thing to keep them entertained.

Superman seems to have found a reason for his existence and is happy protecting mortals, but he's a special case because he's not only immortal but his power level is retarded so he can actually protect most people (and as both him and Dr. Who have can testify, it really gets into their heads when they fail to protect someone).

So you should start with the question: for how long has your character lived? and a good second question is: how much has him gone through?

He's around 200 years old and has lived for essentially 1800-present day American history. Immortality Hurts is played straight in his case and it's eventually revealed he's tried to kill himself multiple times (obviously it hasn't worked)

Basically he gave very few shits about everything and everyone, as he was VERY aware he would outlive them (especially during eras with low life expectancy) and also has some other weird supernatural things going on with him that make maintaining a long term (platonic) relationship.

Before the story begins, he manages to find someone who also has supernatural abilities and whose aging has slowed down. They manage to find other people like them and form a Family of Choice.

The thing is, living through a particular historical context can have an enormous effect on one's outlook. For example: writing Steve Rogers and Tony Stark the same way would make absolutely no sense (other than the fact their personalities themselves are very different) considering they've lived through VERY different decades (one post about I've seen is that Tony has lived a post-Vietnam war era and the proceeding decades that caused people to become more cynical about their government)

With a character who's lived a couple centuries, that would be even more magnified and I'd like to write it in a way that is believable.

Sure he's a pretty open minded person now, but what if a few decades or so ago, he had ideas that were Fair for Its Day but he eventually realized they were bigoted? How does one write that?

Unfortunately this question is too specific to find an answer to anywhere online. There also is little to no media with situations similar to to this to see how it can be done.

The closest to my situation would probably be stories with vampires, but I haven't seen any works that actually touch upon ANY of these issues (and most that I've seen don't feature them interacting to any meaningful degree with non-white characters either)

edited 15th Aug '14 5:40:25 PM by TheMuse

This is why getting some help/feedback regarding this would be EXTREMELY helpful

I write about an immortal character, so from my own writing experience- after a few centuries the character's memories-bank would start to get extremely blurred to the point that they get really forgetful. There is also the possibility that the character will become really sad unless they are used to coping with the loss of their friends and families, so they would have to be extremely resilient. Maybe that's something you can incorporate because of why your character hangs out in a team, so they don't feel lonely

The immortal's personality would be rather childish because they wouldn't have the same emotional maturity of other mortals... But they will be able to learn quickly certain skills.

edited 21st Aug '14 4:42:13 AM by sabrina_diamond

From my own experience writing immortals (I have a strange tedency to write a lot of immortals), there's two broader paths. One of them is: As the centuries pass, he becomes detached from the world (society, philosophy, people, e.t.c), he becomes a man with no country, no ethnicity, no society, no family, he doesn't belong anywhere and doesn't feel kinship towards anyone (which is not to imply he can't become friends with people, but he will be a lot more detached). How they deal with this varies, some Walk the Earth, others try to carve a society for themselves, others just lurk around not doing much.

The other is the precise opposite. The immortal in question becomes stuck and deathly obsessed with his age (or some age he experienced). Like, say, a immortal Nazi attempting to bring about the Third Reich even though it's been nearly a century. He clings to his time, his age, his society and desperately seeks to bring it back in some shape or form, even if he's completely deluded at it.

Immortals in general also become The Stoic in regards to human suffering (which is not to say he doesn't feel bad for people, but after millenia in our world, he is probably going to be very used to it), or, in a more evil case, The Sociopath. They see human as short-lived insects and treat them as such.

Of course it varies in a case-by-case basis, some immortals will just be The Hedonist, others will try to be normal people, but in general I feel those traits are broadly applied to the immortals.