Needs subtropes moved off: Immortality

Currently, there is a lot of overlap in what is covered on Immortality and what we already have. Furthermore, the page is divided into twelve numbered types, which is generally frowned upon with tropes these days.

Most of the types listed already have a existing subtrope that we can shuffle the examples off to. Suggest we create (or find, in case I missed them) subtropes for the other types and make Immortality a high-level supertrope or perhaps about Type I (true immortality).

Here's the result of my research on the page:

Type I: True Immortality - ? This page?

Type II: Undying - ? doesn't age, immune to disease, but no particular invulnerabilities or regenerative powers.

Type III: Regenerative - From a Single Cell

Type IV: Resurrective - Back from the Dead? Doesn't seem to be one trope that covers this, but it's pretty broad - just "character will always come back to life, somehow." May need to be narrowed or split down into more subtropes. Do subtropes already exist?

Type V: Undead - The Undead

Type VI: Immortality Only - Age Without Youth and possibly Elderly Immortal

Type VII: External - ? would be a supertrope to Soul Jar, it seems

Type VIII: Immortality Through Legacy - not even really immortality. Drop? Keep on index but note?

Type IX: Parasitic - Body Surf

Type X: Vampiric - ?

Type XI: Projected Avatar

Type XII: Non-diegetic - Joker Immunity. Also not even really immortality. Same q's as legacy.

Not currently on page, but maybe should be:

Nigh-Invulnerable - can be killed, unlike true immortality, but it's usually REALLY hard to do.

Thoughts? Things I missed?

edited 11th Jan '12 8:31:59 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

I think for Type X, we need a trope that is about people stealing others youth and life for immortality if we don't already have it. That could possibly be sent to the YKTTW.

edited 11th Jan '12 8:44:46 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Yeah, almost all the ones with "?'s" mean that I couldn't find a subtrope and they probably need one. Assuming we don't uncover one I'll YKTTW them all as part of this TRS.

edited 11th Jan '12 8:46:03 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Thanks for making a thread about this.

One idea would be to make Immortality about Perfect Immortality and move the examples to their appropriate tropes.

Another would be to merge Immortality and This Index Will Live Forever, shorten the descriptions of each type of immortality a great deal and place them next to the tropes on the index. I think that would be the easiest route since Immortality has 865 wicks and is already set up like a supertrope.

edited 11th Jan '12 8:45:31 AM by LouieW

"irhgT nm0w tehre might b ea lotof th1nmgs i dont udarstannd, ubt oim ujst goinjg to keepfollowing this pazth i belieove iN !!!!!1 d

Yeah, my preference is probably the second option, and spinning True Immortality or Perfect Immortality off as a new trope.

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

I will also go with the second and spin off those two as well.

edited 11th Jan '12 9:20:47 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

These are the subtropes I couldn't find that we probably need, assuming we go with that plan (names tentative):

• Perfect Immortality - truly invulnerable and undying
• The Unaging - doesn't age or die of any natural causes, but otherwise vulnerable
• External Immortality - character is immortal through the use of an external object. Supertrope to Soul Jar.
• Vampiric Immortality - character is immortal by siphoning off life/youth/whatever from others.

There is possibly one or more in resurrective immortality, as well.

edited 11th Jan '12 9:22:50 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

Sounds like a good plan. I can already think of a few examples of those proposed tropes, too.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

Maybe for Vampiric Immortality, we should say that blood is often one of things being stolen for being immortal, which is why they kill people or beings that have blood that is rumored to make one immortal. Like in Blood Bath in which it can be used as a Fountain of Youth. Of course I could be wrong about this, but it does seem like those two are related.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:50:39 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

I don't know about Vampiric Immortality. There are a lot of different ways vampires can be immortal.

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Interesting point. Thanks!

Okay, these are the options as I see them:

1. Rework Immortality to be about perfect immortality. Remove everything else.

2. Rework Immortality to be a high-level supertrope to all immortality tropes. Exclude those that are not technically immortality, like Joker Immunity and Immortality Through Legacy.

3. Merge Immortality and This Index Will Live Forever, and make it an index page. Wouldn't really be a supertrope anymore, since some of the tropes on that index wouldn't fit that mold.

Any other options for fixing this that I missed?

I'm going to YKTTW the three other than Perfect Immortality, since however we fix this those will probably be needed.

EDIT: It's not about vampires, specifically, being immortal, but about a character achieving immortality by stealing a vital something from others, be it life energy, youth, or blood. Any vampire who is immortal without drinking blood (like Anne Rice's vampires) wouldn't actually have Vampiric Immortality.

The example that immediately pops into my head is from Gargoyles when Demona offers Xanatos immortality by stealing one minute of life from every person who sees an incantation.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:55:40 AM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.

I think there other things that steal can fit not just vampires. Another name might be needed, so it just won't be assumed that the trope is just about that.

Edit:Nevermind I was ninja'd so this isn't really relevant.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:55:38 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Vampires are the most famous for it unless you want to go with the extreme title dissonance of Mosquito Immortality.

Of course Mosquito Immortality definitely wouldn't work. Vampiric Immortality might be okay then.

edited 11th Jan '12 10:59:12 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Well you could call it Parasitic Immortality.

The problem isn't necessarily people thinking it would mean "Vampires are immortal." I'm more worried about people thinking it means "Immortal in the same way that vampires are immortal," because, well, that's exactly what that name implies. But vampires can be immortal in lots of different ways. In fact, in modern pop culture, it's actually fairly uncommon for them to do direct lifespan-syphoning stuff—being immortal is just part of being undead.

I think that's out of the question. The name Immortality belongs to either a supertrope or an index. We can't use a name that broad to refer to an absurdly specific subtype.

edited 11th Jan '12 11:05:25 AM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Or maybe something like Life Drinker.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

I'm fine with vampiric. If it was Vampire Immortality, that would cause problems, but vampiric is more commonly used to denote leeching than directly being used for vampires.

Yeah, vampiric means similar to vampires,leeching is implied.

edited 11th Jan '12 11:18:13 AM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

Most vampires don't have that kind of immortality, though. Dracula doesn't have it (in the incarnations of him that I'm familiar with). Buffy vampires don't have it. Twilight vampires don't have it. Magic The Gathering vampires don't have it. It's not a standard trait among vampires—as the Our Vampires Are Different page points out, it is actually quite rare—probably because it's at odds with the "Stake them in the heart" business (you can't just starve a vampire to death).

Rhymes with "Protracted."

That's true, vampires usually aren't immortal.

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

They're typically immortal as a result of being The Undead.

Also, as far as The Unaging, I can't shake the feeling that We Have This One Already. Do we have that one already?

edited 11th Jan '12 12:01:12 PM by troacctid

Rhymes with "Protracted."

Oh right, they are that in the first place, being immortal isn't usually what vampires seem to want or care about much and their reason for drinking blood to become immortal doesn't typically happen so it's sort of rare, is what I wanted to say.

edited 11th Jan '12 12:51:37 PM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

I think we might as well.

SPATULA, Supporters of Page Altering To Urgently Lead to Amelioration (supports not going through TRS for tweaks and minor improvements.)

No, it appears we just missed that one. Ccoa just made a YKTTW for that now. It's here.

edited 11th Jan '12 12:21:53 PM by Oreochan

"Learning without thinking is labor lost. Thinking without learning is dangerous."

I finished the three YKTT Ws and noted that Vampiric Immortality may need a better name.

The Unaging Immortality Talisman Vampiric Immortality

If it turns out someone in YKTTW is better than me at tracking down tropes and we do have one or more of them, no harm done. We can shift the examples there and discard the YKTTW.

Good point about Immortality being too broad a title. I'll YKTTW Perfect Immortality, then. We need to decide on supertrope vs index (or some third option).

EDIT: And Perfect Immortality

edited 11th Jan '12 1:06:18 PM by ccoa

Waiting on a TRS slot? Finishing off one of these cleaning efforts will usually open one up.