History Main / NoImmortalInertia

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SamuraiJack'' episode "[[Recap/SamuraiJackS1E10JackAndTheLavaMonster Jack and the Lava Monster]]", Jack defeats a warrior who had been immortal for thousands of years as a punishment from Aku. He immediately ages to look about 100, but that's still pretty spry for someone in their thousands. This is exactly what he wanted, though, since it allowed his suffering to come to an end and he could finally join his friends and family in Valhalla--Valkyries descend from the heavens to take him to the afterlife right in front of Jack.

* In ''Literature/{{Dracula}}'', the Count rapidly dissolves into nothing when stabbed in the heart. It isn't explicitly stated, but the implication is that it's because he's so much older than he appears, and that when he's stabbed, centuries of decay instantly catch up with his body.

* In Creator/LarryNiven's short story "Literature/NotLongBeforeTheEnd", The Warlock deliberately consumes the magic-sustaining "mana" in the area to defeat a demon; it works but as a result he also loses the benefit of said magic and ages rapidly. At one point he spits out a complete set of now-blackened teeth.
* In ''Literature/DragonBones'' this is what happens [[spoiler: to Oreg, after his HeroicSacrifice. No aging is described, though, he simply becomes dust, while Castle Hurog, which is tied to his life, collapses.]]
* In ''Literature/ThePictureOfDorianGray'', Dorian is kept eternally young while his picture turns hideous and ancient. When he destroys the picture, his servants find the picture of a young Dorian and a crumpled, ancient corpse on the floor, only recognizing him by his rings. An extreme example as by the calendar Dorian should be barely middle-aged -- about 40 -- by now anyway (although he's implied to have led a reckless and toxic lifestyle).
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Facts_in_the_Case_of_M._Valdemar "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar"]] by Creator/EdgarAllanPoe.
* In ''Literature/MuchFallOfBlood'', this happens to [[spoiler:Elizabeth Bartholdy]]. Somewhat justified in that the immortality treatment had to be maintained at regular intervals.

** In ''Literature/{{Changes}}'', the [[spoiler: half vampires, after Harry lets loose with the bloodline curse.]]
* In ''Literature/PerryRhodan'', the devices providing certain main characters with immortality, poison resistance, and improved natural healing were for the longest time simple pendants usually worn on a chain; if ever lost or destroyed, the wearer had about 62 hours to live before dying of accelerated cell decay. (After a couple of millennia or so of use and a crisis involving [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien their creator]], these have been replaced by implanted chips.)
* In one of the later ''[[Literature/LandOfOz Oz]]'' books (by Ruth Plumly Thompson, not Baum, but still canonical), Dorothy returns to the United States, and starts getting older. Luckily, it's reversed when she goes back to Oz.
* Creator/HRiderHaggard's novel ''Literature/{{She}}''. Thousands of years ago Ayesha stepped into a pillar of fire and became immortal. At the climax she steps into it again and reverts to her true age, withering and dying.
* In one early-ish ''Literature/{{Xanth}}'' book, Electra begins aging rapidly when she enters the magic-less Mundania. Incidentally, she's not actually immortal, she just slept for 700 years.
* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''

* The first book of the ''Franchise/{{Mistborn}}'' series uses this trope. The BigBad, who has essentially been the emperor of the entire world for the last thousand years or so, managed to obtain immortality by heavily abusing multiple forms of magic, essentially keeping himself young with a number of magical trinkets. When they get removed, his youth does too.
* ''Literature/TheSecretsOfTheImmortalNicholasFlamel'' series:
** Not only are Nicholas and his wife rapidly aging without their book that has the recipe of the elixir of life (they can't rebrew it from the same process as last time because it changes every month and old recipes cause them to age faster). Also it's the standard punishment for an immortal that displeases their master Elder to have their immortality removed and quickly age to dust. [[spoiler: John Dee's master has now threatened Dee with undoing it and then just before Dee dies of age, making Dee immortal again at that age for the rest of eternity.]]
** The alternate universe, somewhat more benevolent, version of Nicholas Flamel is used in the first ''Literature/{{Harry Potter|and the Philosophers Stone}}'' novel. He had used the Philosopher's Stone for centuries as a part of the process of brewing an elixir of life, but after learning that Voldemort was seeking it out, he and his wife willingly turned it over to Dumbledore for safekeeping. The trope is played straight, though bent sideways; without the Stone, Flamel only has a limited supply of the elixir remaining. Just enough, Dumbledore says, to put his affairs in order and finish up last-minute business before he and his wife pass on. Though it's not explicitly stated, the tone of it is that he will eventually pass away quietly of natural causes, without any skin-sloughing ickyness.
* ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' does a non-living form of this in ''Literature/TheColourOfMagic''. Time was too afraid of [[EldritchAbomination Bel-Shamharoth]] to go anywhere near its temple. After Bel-Shamharoth flees to the nether realms, the temple ages thousands of years in a matter of seconds.
* ''The Meq'' subverts this by having the loss of their immortality be a vital part of their life cycle.
* ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime''
** Aes Sedai invert this. The One Power makes channelers naturally LongLived, with their aging slowed proportional to their lifespan, but a side effect of the Aes Sedai's magically binding Oaths makes them look oddly ageless instead. [[BroughtDownToNormal Losing their powers]] [[spoiler:severs the Oaths]] and reverts their appearance to how they looked when they swore the Oaths, which can leave a centuries-old woman looking around twenty.
** Played straight with [[DiscOneFinalBoss Ba'alzamon]], who was close to three and a half thousand years old at the time of his death. After his death, his body is described as decaying at a tremendously accelerated rate.
* In ''Literature/IAmLegend'', any vampire who was dead for quite a while before being raised (as opposed to those vampirized while living) crumbles into dust as soon as Neville drives a stake into them. Neville recalls this process happening to dead people who opt to be preserved in a vacuum - [[ScienceMarchesOn if the vacuum failed, decay would catch up and reduce them to corpsedust.]]

* Oskar Matzerath from ''Literature/TheTinDrum'' was a [[OlderThanTheyLook three-year-old adult]] who remained a child out of his own free will. Once he had enough, he underwent the same process to reverse it. His years caught up to him immediately, although he was in his twenties at the time so it wasn't as dramatic as other examples here.
* The result of failing to keep up annual [[HumanSacrifice child sacrifices]] in return for immortality in the ''Literature/RepairmanJack'' novels.
* In ''Literature/MissPeregrinesHomeForPeculiarChildren'', the peculiar children are protected inside [[GroundhogDayLoop "time loops."]] The main group of protagonists have been living September 3, 1940 over and over for 70 years. If they go outside the time loop, into the 21st century, they'll age within a matter of hours. This wouldn't necessarily cause death immediately, since some of them would be in their eighties or nineties, but it's seen as undesirable anyway.

* This happens to the BigBad of the ''True Princess'' series by N. Egorushkina, once his immortality undergoes a RetGone. Justified since "RetGone" implies making it as if he '''never had''' the immortality in the first place.
* In ''Literature/BryonyAndRoses'' by Creator/UrsulaVernon, it's mentioned that people transformed by curses don't age while the curse lasts, but when they regain their true form all their age catches up with them at once, with possibly disastrous results if they've been under curse for a long time. [[spoiler:This becomes important when Bryony is able to break the Beast's curse at the end, because he's been a Beast for over a century and he'll be killed instantly if he becomes a man again.]]
* In the sequel to ''Literature/{{Impossible}}'', [[spoiler:it's subverted when Fenella completes her tasks and has her unnaturally-long lifespan ended. Despite being around for several centuries, she looks and feels just the same. Comments from the fairy queen and her brother indicate that assuming she doesn't die of other causes, Fenella will be able to live out a normal human lifespan.]]
* In ''Literature/LucysBlade'', once Lilith absorbs all the energy from the crystal that was powering the Fountain of Youth through the titular blade, Lady Isabella, who had apparently been using said fountain for a very long time, reverts to her natural age and dies instantly.

* In ''Literature/ShamanBlues'', [[spoiler:Tadeusz]] dies just a few hours after the wraith that kept him alive is sent away. Justified, as he's under constant medical care even when it's still around.
* In ''Literature/VoidCity'', vampires have the power to slow, halt, or even reverse the ageing of the humans who serve them as thralls. If the vampire is destroyed, however, the thralls rapidly revert to their true ages.
* Averted in ''Literature/TheAgeOfFive''. An important item is hidden in an AntiMagic zone to keep immortals out. However immortals have inertia and simply age normally for the few moments it takes them to walk in and out.

** In "The Tale of Many Faces", the BigBad falls dead and turns into a skeleton when given back her original face.
** "The Tale of the Captured Souls" (Season 1 Episode 7) features Peter who uses a machine to take life force from other people, and even animals, to stave off the effects of aging. The protagonist saves her parents by sabotaging his lab and giving back the life force he took from them, ultimately forcing him to spend his last remaining moments as a helpless, lonely old man.
** A ''third'' BigBad ([[OverlyLongGag sense a theme here?]]) maintained her perfect beauty by luring vain girls in with a MagicMirror before turning them into dogs to drain their life-force. Her plan fails when a girl whose low self-esteem ironically leaves her too skeptical to fall for the witch's flatter-based MoreThanMindControl smashes the mirror. The witch, [[LoadBearingBoss her house]] and [[TheLittleShopThatWasntThereYesterday place of business]] to crumble into dust.

** "[[Recap/DoctorWhoS18E4StateOfDecay State of Decay]]": When the Great Vampire is destroyed, the Three Who Rule's thousand years of unlife suddenly catches up with them, and they rapidly age to dust before the TARDIS team's eyes.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E6TheLazarusExperiment "The Lazarus Experiment"]]: Richard Lazarus uses a device to rejuvenate himself to a younger age, which has the side effect of also causing him to transform into a life-draining monster. When he's finally killed for real, his body turns back into his original aged appearance.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E12TheSoundOfDrums "The Sound of Drums"]]/[[Recap/DoctorWhoS29E13LastOfTheTimeLords "Last of the Time Lords"]]: The Master does this to the Doctor by suspending his capacity to regenerate with a laser screwdriver and aging his physical appearance to that of his true age, all ''900'' years.
* The pilot episode of ''Series/EerieIndiana'' had a woman who was keeping herself and her children young forever by sealing them in bed-sized tupperware containers every night. When she was stopped, the three of them aged 30 years overnight.

* Averted in ''Series/{{Lost}}'' -- [[spoiler:when the immortal Richard Alpert loses his immortality after Jacob's ashes are burnt, he's perfectly fine, although he begins to age normally: he simply notices he's grown a single grey hair]]
* This was part of the Con of the Week in a ''Series/MissionImpossible'' episode: A village had a water source that the group convinced the villain granted immortality, but the inhabitants would become decrepit corpses if deprived of it (which Shannon "demonstrates" by wearing two layers of masks when the mark "kidnaps" her.
* ''Series/TheNewAvengers'': The soldiers in the Russian 'secret army' who have been in 'cold storage' since UsefulNotes/WorldWarII in the "K is for Kill" two-parter. When they are killed they revert to their biological age.

* In the first season finale of ''Series/{{Sanctuary}}'', James Watson (''almost'' THAT [[Franchise/SherlockHolmes John Watson]]) finally dies. He had lived for over one hundred years thanks to a combination of AppliedPhlebotinum and a special mechanical device that kept him young, but the device finally fails and Watson dies from accelerated aging. A flashback episode shows Watson being tortured by [[UsefulNotes/JackTheRipper John Druitt]] by turning the device on and off, causing Watson great pain.

* ''Series/SirArthurConanDoylesTheLostWorld'' has a Spanish woman named Anna, who discovered the Fountain of Youth and remained young as long as she applied some of the water to her skin. [[spoiler: This act caused a drought in the nearby area.]] She starts to age quickly when the water runs out (she ages fifty years over the course of a day), but when the water dries up at the source, she immediately crumbles to dust.
* A MonsterOfTheWeek in ''Series/{{Smallville}}'' drained people's life force by kissing them. Once her means of retaining her LiquidAssets was destroyed, she crumbled away.

* In ''Series/WhatWeDoInTheShadows2019'', it is revealed that [[spoiler:if a vampire's sire is killed, said vampire's humanity is restored, and their appearance immediately changes to match their real age. Unusually for this trope, this example is demonstrated non-fatally; after his month-long stint as a vampire, Guillermo simply grows a full beard upon regaining his humanity.]]

* In ([[OurVampiresAreDifferent some]]) folklore, usually what happens to vampires if you manage to actually kill them.

Also, usually this [[ImmortalityImmorality depends on the particular immortal's place on the sliding scale of morality]]. A really, really nice immortal? Someone who [[WhoWantsToLiveForever wanted to get rid of their immortality]] and live a mortal life? Most of the time these guys start aging at a normal pace instead of crumbling into old age. A selfish and/or evil immortal, especially one whose immortality was PoweredByAForsakenChild? Much higher chance of this happening. Even more likely to happen if LiquidAssets were [[LifeDrinker exploited to cause the youth to begin with]]. ShapeShifterSwanSong is similar but for shape shifters.

* In ''ComicBook/FallenAngel'', Juris, sick of being Magistrate of the magical GeniusLoci city Bete Noir, passed the mantle onto his son so he could finally leave the city. Upon going beyond the city limits, he aged rapidly and ultimately crumbled to dust.

* In ''[[Comicbook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics Sonic the Hedgehog/Knuckles the Echidna]]'', mad scientist Dimitri, after messing with a Chaos Emerald, wound up absorbing its power, and was trapped under a mountain for hundreds of years. Knuckles accidentally 'woke' him up, and Dimitri, now calling himself Enerjak, set about to conquering Knuckles' home land. However, when Mammoth Mogul came to the scene, he used the Sword of Acorns to drain all of the Chaos energy from Enerjak, and all those years definitely caught up to him. He was forced to live in an entirely robotic body just to survive, and many issues after that, only his robotic head is alive. (If you can call that 'living'.)

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Tangled}}'', Literature/{{Rapunzel}}'s hair can heal and restore youth, but if said hair is cut, the person who gained youth from it begins to age rapidly. The hair's effect also wears off just by physical separation. The above-mentioned person visibly aged a decade after being away from the hair for less than a day; a week or longer might've been fatal. At the end of the movie [[spoiler:when all of Rapunzel's hair is cut, Mother Gothel begins to rapidly age but wraps her cloak around her body before it turns graphic. She then falls out the tower window and her body has dissolved into dust by the time it lands. She was implied to be several ''hundred'' years old]].

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E24LongLiveWalterJameson Long Live Walter Jameson]]", a man lives more than 2,400 years due to drinking an alchemical potion of immortality. When he's shot and mortally wounded, the effect wears off and he ages into dust in minutes.

* In ''Series/ChillingAdventuresOfSabrina'' when Sabrina is due to stand trial before the Court of Witches, her aunts are stripped of their powers start aging decades in a day. They instantly get their powers and youth back when Sabrina wins her trial.

* The Irish tale of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ois%C3%ADn Oisin]] (as well as possibly similar tales?) is like this. He is the son of the Irish hero Fionn mac Cumhaill (pronounced as "Finn [=McCool=]") and he falls in love with a fairy, who takes him away to Tir na Nóg ([[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin Land of the Young or Land of Youth]]) where each year inside lasts a century outside. When he decides to return to Ireland after three years he is given a horse and told not to touch the ground. 300 years have passed in Ireland and it is now a Christian country. He sees a man trying to lift a stone to build a road and offers to help but he falls off the horse and is transformed into an elderly man. In some versions of the tale he meets St Patrick before dying.

** Bilbo Baggins begins to age at a somewhat accelerated pace after giving up the Ring, although he still lives for at least 20 years afterward. (In the movie, where the intervening years between Bilbo's farewell party and Frodo leaving Hobbiton are seemingly compressed to a few weeks or months, it's far more apparent.) Interestingly, Gollum, who had the Ring a lot longer than Bilbo, is still alive and mostly unchanged 75 years after losing it, probably because he was also a lot more corrupted by the Ring than Bilbo was. After its destruction, he seems to grow far older, with him becoming noticeably senile.
** Gollum comments that if the Ring is destroyed, he will "die into the dust", which fits this trope exactly, aside from him not getting the chance.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/SimsalaGrimm'' episode "Snow White", the Evil Queen breaks her mirror, which was the only thing keeping her young, in a rage. Then, she starts to age rapidly ([[OffModel with her hands remaining as they were before that]]). Fortunately, there's no FamilyUnfriendlyDeath here: she just disappears in a blue zap.

* Tsubaki from ''Manga/InuYasha'' had this happen when all of her yōkai were killed and her jewel shard was taken back by Naraku. In the manga, she just began to look her true age (about 60-70); in the anime, she turned into dust.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': Something like this happens in one of the new series episodes: a scientist finds a way to seemingly keep people young and immortal, however it is discovered that this is done by hyperstimulating the cells of the person in question, thus causing them to eventually grow old and die in a matter of weeks when the cells can no longer sustain that activity.

* ''Series/{{The Sandman|2022}}'', "[[Recap/TheSandman2022S01E03DreamALittleDreamOfMe Dream a Little Dream of Me]]": Ethel Dee is 130 years old and doesn't look any older than 60 while she has the Amulet of Protection, but the moment she gives it to her son John she starts rapidly aging and is dead in minutes.

* ''Series/{{Space 1999}}''

* ''Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries'' episode "Miri". Children live for hundreds of years due to a virus, but when they reach puberty they become ill and insane and die.
* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "Long Live Walter Jameson". A man lives more than 2,400 years due to drinking an alchemical potion of immortality. When he's shot and mortally wounded, the effect wears off and he ages into dust in minutes.