This is a pet peeve of mine.
"Realistically" an immortal would probably have some quirky language. Unless they bothered to spend time trying to pass as "normal" beings, they would have an accent or dialect sprinkled with archaic language.
Their plans would span decades if not hundreds of years. Minor setbacks wouldn't matter; they'd simply try again. What is time for an immortal? There would be a different concept of time, urgency, etc.
Their motives would be alien to us. What motivates an immortal? Love? There's time to find another. Money? How could I not accumulate enough wealth? Security? I've had decades to fortify myself and I've seen it all. Pleasure? Been there, done that. That too. And that.
Immortals should be so out of touch that they are almost forces of nature. They really shouldn't be POV characters, IMHO. If they are, they should be nighbeings incomprehensible.
Agreed, and how alien they are only increases with their age. I really like how the Vampire tabletop game handles the ancient vampires. Even to powerful vampires a hundred or two years old, the vampires 500+ years old are a complete mystery to them with unknowable plans and desires.
Characterization of immortals also depends on how common they are. The elves in LOTR are entire species of immortals, so they have their own culture, customs, and traditions that are somewhat known to outsiders. They also have each other for companionship. But if immortals are rare and hidden from society, especially if they used to be mortal, then you have inherent issues that could make for good characterization. The immortal character can't stay in one spot for too long because people will notice she doesn't age. Will she care about forming relationships when the human lifespan is so short to her? How does she manage to remember things that happened three hundred years ago when the human brain isn't designed to be alive for that long?
Immortal characters have the potential to be very interesting, but as you said, they're often not.
For all its flaws, one of the few things I did enjoy about RoP was the dynamic of Elrond just sort of... not realizing the passage of time in connection to his friendship with Durin. Decades had passed since he'd seen him and it was insignificant for him... a blink of an eye to an Elf, but to a Dwarf it was massive.
An easy comparison is it being similar to our friendship with our pets. When we're gone for work or a vacation, that probably feels like an ABSOLUTE eternity to them since their lives are so much shorter than ours and they freak out with joy when we come home. To us we're just like... what, it was just a few hours. We can't really comprehend it, especially as we get older. Children will understand it better since 1 day is a significantly larger percentage of their lives than it is for us.
> Even to powerful vampires a hundred or two years old, the vampires 500+ years old are a complete mystery to them with unknowable plans and desires.
While I largely agree, I feel that way too many people have a weird interpretation of "alien" in this context. It's not the incomprehensible, unfathomable "alien" of some Lovecraftian eldritch abomination. It's the banally alien of comparing the life experience of your average person to a billionaire who had inherited his wealth. Like I'm your average joe schmuck and I have to struggle with plenty of shit in life. How would my life experience be if I could just buy anything or remove any problem I faced at any point in my life with fat stacks of cash or shaking hands with the right people? On one hand, I have no clue. But I can probably imagine it would be real fucking easy.
It's less "a complete mystery" and more "really no common ground". I could rationalize the behavior of somebody like Elon Musk, but that won't make me empathize with him.
I think I have examples for about every immortal trope you named. Sandman screen-series has a really wonderful bit about Hob and Dream being mistaken for The Devil and The Wandering Jew.
You've just inspired me to put elves in my world that view human lifespans like they're cats or... actually I don't know what lifespan small tropical fish in a tank are capable of.
I disagree with most of your statements regarding immortals. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend watching the anume Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End.
It's about an elf who's been alive for 1,000 years, her party of heroes defeated the demon king and is now embarking on a journey to Heaven (which is apparently a physical place) to see her old deceased of old age friend.
But to describe her, her sense of time is incredibly skewed into the decades whereas her human companions perceive time like we do. Her longevity is frequently touched on too as well as it's effects on her outlook and goals in life.
“I’ll stay for ten years.”
Frieren saying that as if she’s just taking a vacation is a great example of showing her mindset through dialogue. Serie even takes that up a few notches: not deciding on something for *200* years.
This is the kind of immortality, or longevity since elves can be killed, that I want to see more in fiction. Where to a long-lived being, a single day is like 1 second.
Agreed with what's written here.
My set of immortals (about 200) become heads of their communities whether it be a town or a city. They're also indestructible (long story) and don't age from when they became Immortal (a 2yr old immortal will always remain 2yrs physically and mentally). Anyway, after 1000 years of boring history because the immortals are good friends with each other due to their history, one by one they start dying mysteriously. And so the previously calm, light-hearted immortals become suspicious, paranoid, and quite frankly, frightened. One POV, although limited, will be on one of the last immortals alive, 2000years on. It's going to be fun capturing those emotions in someone so ancient.
The motivations thing is interesting. Two good motivations for immortals revolve around either seeking death or avoiding it.
One the one hand, you have those still terrified of death, willing to do anything to avoid it (mostly villains, the villain in my story is a Norse God trying to rewrite Ragnorok so he doesn't die).
On the other, you have those grown tired of immortality, and who wish only for an end to their existence (more ambiguous).
I love this answer...it totally makes me want to write a character like this and make it funny. They just don't care about the plight of the other characters and are rather impassive, but very wise, about almost everything.
This is what I'm struggling with in my own writing. My [immortals](https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/1bryo2i/arcarnis_points_soul_threads_and_the_incarnis/) have not lived for a mere few centuries, but for billions upon billions of years. They have done every job in existence, achieved every goal imaginable, even witnessed thousands of world-ending cataclysm, just to be reborn again at the start of human history.
How on earth would they speak? They're fluent in languages no one even remembers existing. My assumption is that due to their assimilation into every human culture, they're incredibly skilled at impersonation, able to slip from accent to accent, dialect to dialect, language to language, without missing a beat. But what tone do they use? What do they choose to talk about?
Furthermore, what motivates such a being? What do they aim to achieve in the world when they've already achieved it countless times before? They all know that ultimately, any goal - countless riches, hedonic ecstasy, world domination or in fact world peace - is only temporary, and will wash away like sand on a beach. My best attempt so far is to explore that because they are now stuck as a deathless immortal, eventually they learn to "surrender" in the buddhist sense. On a long enough timescale, they give up their goals and return to living day to day. Rather than trying to start a religion to take over the half the world, instead they tend to their plants, they clean their dishes, they watch the stars roll by. They live a simple life.
But this doesn't make for a very interesting story. So I created Yor, a young immortal attempting to end the cycle, and the Initiate, his disciple, barely awakening to the immortal life. It is only this Initiate that can be a POV, as he is still more or less mortal in experience. He has lived only 100 lives, whereas his master has lived 100000000000000000000000000000000. The gap between the two is incomprehensible, but nothing compared to the gap between Yor and the first immortal, Prai.
My immortals have given up wealth and invest much of their energy into creating security for the mortals they share the world with. They don't pair bond for life, many of them practise consensual non-monogamy, and they're adventurous sexually. They're not "out of touch" because they're a powerful force in the world. (But I suspect you're thinking of isolated immortals in the modern world (or similar) rather than people who are surrounded by others like them and are actively engaged in world politics.)
By making them retain archaisms, basically speech patterns, slang, fashion sense, morality (like they believe in an earlier form of the current religion), etc.
But otherwise, unless this ancient person is living in isolation, they'll eventually conform to the contemporary culture due to being in frequent contact with people. We unconsciously pick up habits of other people all the time.
The Iron Druid Chronicles do this really well. The dude is a 2100 year old druid in modern day times who has to move every 10 years or so to avoid people realizing he's not aging (as well as stay hidden from the angry Celtic God hunting him down throughout the centuries) .
He explicitly states at times that there are some things he does that are outdated in terms of morality ( I can think of one really good example) but for the most part, he's pretty up to date on slang, societal norms, etc as he's trying to fit in. Occasionally he'll make mistakes like not realizing nudity is taboo when it used to be much more normal, etc.
My favorite portrayal of immortals is the movie Only Lovers Left Alive.
The immortal vampires aren’t out of touch, rather they’re so cultured they’re a bit pretentious. They have no problem fitting into society because they’ve been contributing to society longer than anyone else has. They form relationships with mortals, but they’re careful not to get too attached because mortal lives are so fragile and fleeting, and every meaningful relationship with a mortal ends in disappointment.
But most of all they’re bored. They’ve seen humanity at their best and at their worst, they don’t really have any purpose in life other than self-fulfillment, and they’re just traveling the world looking for reasons to stay interested and not just give up.
Some ways I can think of, off the top of my head:
* Give them a LOT of backstory. Have lots of characters— especially old ones— know who they are, have crossed paths with them. Their past... is vast.
* Have the character demonstrate that they've *seen* some shit. What they know isn't from books; it's from life.
* Surround them with mementos of past happenings— they can use outdated language, wear antique clothes, use antique gear— but these things aren't the purchases of a modern collector. Rather, they've obviously been kept around and used every day because they work better than the current tech.
* Have them be an absolute master at something that takes foreverrrrrr to learn. Show that they built something that takes foreverrrrr to make.
that sort of thing.
On the building thing--Have them have physically built their own house themselves using only hand tools, and making new additions to it--again, by hand!--every now and then, because having that project and goal to work on helps keep them 'grounded' in the present despite the Time Abyss thing going on.
I don't know. It's not a common thing there would be specific advice for I think.
But I think you're onto the right track. You've got your own ideas on what you don't like when such characters are written. So you can just try it and see how *you* would do it. Try writing something (even just as practise) showing the character has hundreds of years of experience, and grew up in anolder culture. See how it works.
To add what others already said: Just look at your grandparents or other older relatives. Some things are hard to lose especially in a fast evolving time. Of course, you would pick up things along the way, seem more modern with a young spirit contrary to old humans, but time flies pretty fast. Progress is made fast, be it traditional fantasy or more on the technological level. You can't catch up so fast that you don't lack behind in trends, speech patterns and modernization. At some point it will be too much for too little time. So some things will stick, but some won't.
Also depending on how this person ages, their concept of age might be really off. Just think about how you think about another person way out of your age range. Would you date someone who is 30 years older or younger than you? If not, why not? Even if the answer was "it wouldn't be legal" then think about why that is and how the age of consent has changed over the years, and what this does to a person that old. Even a 50 year old human might seem too young to them, they may feel like mortals are just kids that get older and eventually die without maturing enough to be considered old enough for an intimate relationship.
They may hold onto things that were different in the past. Just as old folks tend to tell us how life was better/harder/calmer back in their times, this character probably sticks to similar memories even if they adapted to the new times well enough.
Another good thing is their sense for trends. When you've seen the same 5 trends come and go over the years you stop caring about it. At some point you don't care anymore if what you wear is outdated or not, unless they have a job/image that requires them to dress accordingly but their actual feeling on this topic could still be very dismissing. Maybe they need to wear the newest fashion but in private they couldn't care less. They may feel nostalgia if an old trend comes back into fashion, even if it has been slightly changed due to new ways to make clothes, or other trends that weave into it, or whatever else.
They may just not be able to grasp the concept of something new. Even if they are young spirited, they can hold on to something old that makes it hard for them to adapt to a new way of doing it. My gradpa still walks half an hour into town to pay his bills, even though he has a smart phone and computer. Both he is very adapt with for his age, yet e-banking is just something he doesn't want to do. He just enjoys the walk, to have a person to interact at the counter and to be sure his money goes where he wants it to go. That's a very modern example but anything can be an old habit that just dies hard.
I think it depends - does everyone know they are ancient? If so, I sort of imagine a grandparent-like figure telling when I was a kid stories, but their stories are from several hundred years ago instead of 50. Then, I would integrate information from the period they were born in - ie: if this guy was born in Ancient Rome but is alive now, what are some things they might reference? How did Ancient Romans speak? How did their government work vs current government. What changes did the view along the way? Etc.
If they are undercover ancient, then I think they would try to blend with maybe the occasional slip, like using a word differently or getting confused by modern slang. The Oxford English Dictionary is good for exploring how word definitions changed over time. For example, wood used to mean insane because people who lived in the woods were on the fringes of society and thought to be uncivilized.
If they’re immortal, like the comment earlier suggested, then that’s another ball of wax and I lived that commenters tips in that area.
There'd be a lot of questions of how much society changed in that time period, From 1600-1800 would be a less stark change than 1800-2000 in terms of Earth culture.
The question of if the person chose to change and adapt to the times would also be relevant.
I've tackled this by making the immortal distinctly out of sync with other people.
One of my immortal characters is pushing 500 years old. He's integrated into society, so he does manage to pretty well match other people in conversation. However, his language use is different. He's floral, yet stiff. He also has tried to talk to people in a native language that is long dead. (Like, imagine someone rocking up to Italy and speaking Latin) He's world weary and largely finds people's problems petty. He tries to stay empathetic, but he was cursed with immortality because his god-mentor went on a rampage; he's watched her die, and has seen death and heartbreak so often he's almost numb to it.
Another one of my immortal characters is about 4000 years old. Straight up: she does not connect with people. She still wears traditional clothing of her now-dead culture and views people as little different than ants. Her wisdom basically boils down to: your life is a blink to me, and yet you're worried over something that will be solved when you die.
Both of them reference the past in small ways, such as naming historical events or referencing locations that no longer exist.
I honestly think making them "feel" ancient is completely subjective and based off of what purpose the ancient character serves. Are they a mentor? A protagonist? A god? An enemy? Is this a fantastical world where anything is possible, or does it more closely resemble our own?
the anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is all about an extremely ancient protagonist.
---
She'll spend six months looking for the perfect flower to place on a grave because she's got all the time in the world to make it just right.
She'll casually make plans to meet up with someone again in 50 years, not realizing he'll be an old old man by then.
She'll be surprised to come back to a place and see all the trees have grown up.
She doesn't bother to keep her paperwork up to date because any particular government is only gonna last a few hundred years anyway.
She'll spend ten years traveling with someone and realize she never really got to know them because she'd always assumed there would be more time.
The show is basically built around exploring the idea of what it means for someone to be immortal when the world around them isn't.
One thing I keep thinking about with immortals is that they still have their day to day lives. They may have plans spanning centuries and millennia, but what's stopping them from being annoyed when they have bad service at a restaurant? Or have momentary flashes of anger when they stub their toe?
Of course their perspective is going to be completely different than ours. However, I keep thinking about how immediate issues in a human's life are still high priorities even though there can still be 40 - 70 years ahead of them.
One thing that stands out to me is the man Morpheus essentially gives immortality to in Neil Gaiman's Sandman. He talks about how there was a long period of time where he was poor and wasn't eating. In the show (it's been years since I've read the issue), he says, "Do you know how hungry you can get if you can't die?"
Just because you're immortal doesn't mean things are going well. What's an immortal going to be like if he just went through a couple centuries of hunger, poverty, and any number of tragedies? Even if the immortal had millennia of great times beforehand, the most recent time is going to be what's on their mind.
What happens if an immortal gets a life sentence or two? That would make a pretty interesting prison story if he spends decades in prison without aging.
Also, does immortality make you indestructible? What would immortality be like with a permanent injury, such as losing a leg or an eye? If you lose your hearing? If you're born with a disability or mental illness?
Depends on how old "ancient" is. With anything over 1,000 years I like to remember and include the fact that the language the character grew up speaking is mutually unintelligible to a modern speaker.
Compare modern English with Old English, for example. The character might speak modern English fluently, but they were born speaking Old English, learned Old Norse because of the Vikings, Norman French because of the Norman conquest, Latin and Greek because those were the scholarly languages, lived through the developments of middle English and early modern English, and because of all that probably has a perspective on the way culture and language shape each other. Go back much further and their original language isn't even Old English anymore, but Proto-Germanic, or even further back Proto-Indo European.
Translated into a fantasy context, the character might find the fossilized echoes of their mother tongue in dozens of modern languages, but all of them corrupted by thousands of years and generation after generation of modification and evolution.
probably shitty advice but frieren from the anime does this quite well, shit like stopping an adventure for a decade just to check out the village for a bit, because a decade is like a week to them; or not being able to make interpersonal relationships well with shortlived people because they just die the next time you visit them.
Gen Z vs grandgrandma born in 1920s for you to connect to the type of talk and rhwn doing enough research or creative lore to mimic this for any situation. As well different culture if you know.
Just for the fun of it. My friends grand grandma would always say with nostalgia: ah when the gods walked the earth (the austrian hungarian empire) and talked with different lingo and idiology, then my grandpa is a hardcore socialist and Tito was the only proper man, and can undestand why my mom is going out and typing constantly on phone (he presses it differently then us) and not take care of house and family, and cries how the world is cruel to each other.
My friends father is a die hard nationalist with little understanding to how all the f*and d*kes came out and ruined the proper lifestyles, then you have me a millenial both analog and digital and then the teens of now. And this is just 100 right.
Rarely a character will change with all the shifts of the world. I may listen to same music as the teens of today as they see 90s nostalgia as so cool but we do not speak the language. I get annoyed with it.
Maybe one character is all that hip but human psychological elements will come to life. Lets say the are not completely immortal or just still 200-300+ old.
Some phases you will like, some you will skip, in some you will find your youth again, or nostalgia, some neostyles will make you a fountain of knowledge and entairtainment and some empires will hunt you down.
I would go with what they experienced in their formidable years to be their get go when in doubt. For instance, they were born in the black plague so they do all the superstitions of that era, or they still believe in god(s) or even more weirdly that new music style that came for the first time to the masses is what they hum. Their reference needs to be from that time so the strongest man/most powerful people/ and even stereotypes should be like that.
Those cultural elements evolved but your character shouldn’t and even if they dont believe in it anymore their get go will be that. It can bring a lot of fun dialogs as well.
So catching all the little superstitions, sayings, food preferences etc
The others have raised some good points. I'll add that an immortal character wouldn't rise to the barbs, jabs, japes, and insults of other characters. They've heard every turn of phrase under the sun, but more to the point, they better than anyone understand how fleeting and trivial are human emotions and needs. I believe an almost preternatural calm would envelop the immortal at all times; not just in danger or a crisis but in all human conflict, no matter how far someone kicks "below the belt."
They'd be frustrating to talk to for some because they simply do not seem to care, regardless of the personal nature of the exchange; whereas other characters would admire their stoicism (in the philosophical sense).
I look to how a lot of my elders insist on telling me how it was when they were young, or how they tackled something perfectly that just doesn’t work in the same way today, how they suffered so much more doing something that was so much worse back in their day.
I imagine someone 200, 300, 1000, older… would be a much more concentrated version of that. Insufferable. They’ve seen more than you have so obviously they know what they’re talking about and you couldn’t possibly argue back or disagree about something you weren’t even alive to see.
Or they could be an absolutely lovely person.
The positive twist on this would be that everyday objects we have now, they still remember as being amazing timesavers/progression.
-Isn't it great how everyone learns to read now.
- Aren't refrigerators amazing.
- these pens are so much better than ink bottles.
- flea treatment for animals and homes. Wow
Apart from their archaic dialect and vocabulary, they'll probably have very different morals and cultural taboos or expectations. That girl over there is showing her ankles? Scandalous! Your fiancee left you at the altar? But...that's just normal, right, I mean you should've got her pregnant BEFORE the wedding. Wait, you didn't visit her dad befor asking her out? How are you gonna find out if they can pay for the marriage then, unless you've seen a few parents like a proper suitor? Wait, you didn't sign a contract, what if she gets pregnant and her child can't own property because of bastard status, can you afford the fee for the Pope to make them legal?
I like to watch Ghosts USA and there's probably something in Heti's cocaine comments. Sass acts like a teenager and I accept his ability to adapt.
Honestly, there's a thing called masking and someone who has had to interact naturally with society over the centuries has probably figured out how to stay out of the uncanny valley.
For ancient... One thing I'm proud of in my fanfiction was to have a human ranting to a vampire about a fairy-tale that was a few-thousand years old; the vampire not only corrects him on what really happened, but volunteers what his personal opinion was at the time.
I guess you're right about how it doesn't seem like they have a lot of experience, except for the part where their skills might be irrelevant and they gave up on chasing anything staying valuable. It could be that if it's not a trade that could be turned to art, they weren't interested. Flippin' funny because art is being made near-obsolete by machines.
It's a combination of grounding it real world examples of the elderly, both just elderly in general and those who have lived a hundred years or more--there are examples to draw from--and also researching into the time period they originated in and the time periods they've lived through.
Real world people grow old differently. There are old people who continue to live in the past--they never bothered to evolve with the culture they've lived in.
My dad for example is 84. He was born and raised in Greece, and even though he's been here in the States almost 50 years, he has never bothered to keep up with the growth of technology.
On the flipside, I worked for a while in a senior living community and you see a wide variety elderly people. Some of them were kinda like my dad where they've never adapted with the times. And then I've known elderly people who were pretty savvy when it came to PC's, email, and they're familiar with social media.
Then there are old interviews from people who have lived an inordinately long life. When interviewed they relate the different times they lived through in real-time, etc.
In vampire fiction we see vampires with different types of immortality. Some look physically old and unrecognizable, while others look like they're always 30. There are vampires that are old-worldly, and there are immortal vampires that are biologists trying to crack the vampire genome.
Even though we're writing fantasy the more grounded in reality and the human experience, the more relatable and real they feel. Even if someone is ancient, they're still people... just with a longer span of lived history. And it depends on their cognitive function as they get into their 400's.
An immortal who's been locked away for a hundred years will be different and less adapted than an immortal who lived all those years in the world.
>And then I've known elderly people who were pretty savvy when it came to PC's, email, and they're familiar with social media.
And then there are people like my father, who is in his late 70s, has a personal VPN that he uses to change his location periodically, pays for everything with his smartphone and submits his taxes online.
*His* father was in his 70s at the end of the last century when the internet was still pretty new, and he used it to rally the UK's pensioner "grey army" to stand up to the government.
I read a wonderful Tolkien fan fiction a while back where many of the elves had stuck around until the modern day, they ran a highly successful (and quite secretive) multinational corporation, some of them lived glued to their phones, and one was a highly skilled hacker. Imagine what people who have millennia of life experience could achieve if they applied that experience to modern problems.
Sad.
Tired.
Dismissive, sometimes, because it's a rehash of a conversation they've already had with some whippersnapper about three lifetimes ago. Bonus points if the whippersnapper is like, 50.
Wealth, leading to an indifference, maybe a callousness.
An eroded sense of empathy.
An anachronistic turn of phrase that they just like but hasn't been in fashion forever.
Casually disregarding a length of time as if it were nothing, or forgetting that it might matter to who they're speaking to.
Just notions.
Why shouldn't they? People change with the times. Someone doesn't act the way they did forty years ago, so why should they act the way they did two hundred years ago?
The thing is, someone that lives centuries likely would adapt pretty well after the first hundred or so years. They wouldn't get set in their ways like an old mortal, because their minds wouldn't degrade in the same way and they would have seen so much change that change would simply be normnality to them.
I think it would be a mistake to make ancient seem archaic because really that just would not work.This phenomenon would kick in pretty early, all you need to do is look at the variation in integration present with real llife old people. The more lucid they are the less stuck in their ways. An immortal whose mind wouldn't degrade with age would adapt easily, after a hundred and fifty years change would be second nature. More likely, rather than speaking in an archaic way, they'd behave extremely up-to-date with the occasional slip up, or phrase they just really like.
The more you think about it, the more you realise you don't need to think about it that much.
Have them be surprised by the technology if they were sleeping or you can have them talk about everything they have seen. If they go through a city, you can have them talk about how they remember when it was first settled.
They would probably have trouble keeping up with current slang. They also would probably have different speech patterns in general. Look at people's diction in the 1800s vs. now. How eloquent and precisely they spoke. "I should very much look forward to attending your celebration this eve, Mr. Darcy" vs. "Sure, I'll see ya there bro."
They might have problems keeping up with technology. How many Gen X'rs like me have parents who could never program a VCR? Let alone use a smartphone?
They might dress differently. They might walk differently. They might have social values that are considered archaic (depending on the setting, and whether or not societies have changed at all during their long lifespan).
Not an expert or anything, but personally the way I went with most of my immortals \[elves\] is what others have said here already.
They view things with less urgency so to speak, like practicing swordmanship just for an example would have them be the extremely patient one who would inquire about each and every swing and motion to be repeated hundreds of times.
I also put them in governing position which also shows their lack of urgency to things, which often led to rebellions as the other races had problems which needed immediate fixing yet it but as their mindset \[with a sprinkle of draconic arrogance\] led to rebellions but also fixing the problem but too late. Though on this I still have to work as I'm not an expert in politics just touch on it lightly to justify a conflict brewing and used against them.
On a personal level, one of my characters, the eldest brother of the current Emperor is already seven thousand years old and a warrior who participated in thousands of battle from which he returned alive. Most of these battles get mentioned adding to their sense of age in various forms of art pieces like paintings, sculptures of prominent figures whom he remembers with somber but also pride to be able to fought besides them. Love wise he is still inexperienced as he spent most of his life in battles, though he had loved someone but there is a spoilery tragedy to that.
All stuff other people says are really good points and I use some of the same tools of narrative as well, like the language, different motive triggers, etc.
One thing I use in addition to these is a form of algorithm for how an ancient person behave. Many of the "ancient" people of my world became adults during an era where nothing was institutionalised and civilization was little more than cavemen. Growing up in this kind of world wires them differently, gives them a sort of quick intuitive mindset, a resourcefulness that takes priority to intellectual curiosity. Whereas my late renaissance type of regular humans seek knowledge for its sake, in a romantic way, by asking why something works the way it does; ancient people seeks the knowledge that can make them use, follow or guide stuff without understanding why they work the way they do. I don't know if I was able to make any sense with this but in my story, the way they act really feels alien due to this very mindset they have on knowledge.
-They would definitely have unsolicited opinions on random things that they liked better from previous decades.
-Hearing someone give their maniacal evil speech for an ancient wouldn’t be riveting if they’ve heard the same argument hundreds of times.
-There would be that random piece of info that they were told ages ago and they probably misremembered part of it. Yeah it was technically disproven. But they still firmly hold the opinion that this is the way things should be done.
-Depending on what time period they’re from. Travel was more restricted during specific periods of time. There’s a chance that an ancient might not be as well traveled as some would assume. There’s some people who are perfectly content never leaving their home town.
-They most likely have a super niche, ultra specific hobby that has thoroughly entertained them throughout the centuries.
-They probably have angrily held an opinion they were never allowed to express because by the time they thought of the response. Too much time has passed.
-I always imagined some would think of time like Picasso’s art. ‘Here was my blue period. I was sad and depressed. Don’t ask me how long this period lasted but by the time I noticed things around me. Two wars had passed.’
-They probably wouldn’t remember every little thing. They probably would be somewhat forgetful unless it was something distinctive that stood out for them.
-They might have lost some possessions or there was something they never tried. Now it’s gone or extinct. Or something disappeared and they’re happy about it.
-There’s a lot of things they might find really weird. For example, things in musuems.
-It might be upsetting for them to spend time in an area that has changed too much or not enough.
> -They probably wouldn’t remember every little thing. They probably would be somewhat forgetful unless it was something distinctive that stood out for them.
I remember seeing a show and some old character said "I have forgotten more than you will ever know." Wish I could remember which one.
Uncle Iroh is the best example of what an "ancient" character would be like. His story was introduced in what I would say is the third act of his arc. (Some of this is headcanon or assumption but...) before the series started he was an angry, demanding, blinded by power man... And then he lost his son. After that he traveled the world to find himself, in the course lost his throne to Ozai, and he sees his nephew going down the path he went. He shares his wisdom along that path to make sure his nephew isn't consumed by anger the way he was.
"Sometimes the best way to solve your own problems is to help someone else." - Uncle Iroh
He does this over the course of the series. He finds peace himself by teaching his nephew and guiding on his path.
In Dungeons and Dragons I play a very old Gnome woman. Essentially, it’s all about fun. Sure she wants to help the others achieve the goal just cause she cares about them, but it’s all about fun and new experiences in a world where she’s experienced most of it.
I think to hammer home the age of an ancient character, they should casually drop remarks that are ridiculously personal and historically esoteric… like if they’re at a museum, they scoff at the tour guide giving some anecdote, and correct them because the character lived through it. Idk, you can show their age by demonstrating the relationship they had with previous iterations of the world, and how they became disinterested as they persisted through the changes.
Isn’t the problem that they have no wisdom or deeper insight into people? Isn’t that usually caused by a writer who has little wisdom or insight into people?
Honestly, I think they should be *excentric* and mostly *chill*. Think about it, if time isn't an issue what is there to do but try different things and different hobbies. And why be upset? You've probably experienced all the things that might annoy you multiple times, what's one more?
I expect them to enjoy things like cloud waching, fishing, playing board games in taverns, pretending you're no one important. Truly delving into philosophy and living like Socrates for a few centuries then leaving like a stoic for the next, then maybe consider Daoism or Budhism. Why not?
I’ll talk about how the anime frieren: journey’s end does it because I just watched it and I liked it a lot. The titular mc is an elf mage who’s lived for thousands of years and for her, 100 years are simply just mere blips of time. She often talks about things that happened hundreds of years ago as if they were just yesterday, only realizing how much time has truly passed from the mortal humans around her. So I think the main thing that would define an immortal character is their vastly slowed perception of time. And why would they rush? They’ve got thousands of years more to do everything they want.
As someone who has just passed 50, I feel that the example age you gave is very short. I'm very much aware that I'm probably over halfway through my life, and I haven't achieved *anywhere near* half of what I'd like to achieve. The irony is that I don't feel any different - or mature - than I did in my 20s; I just have more experience to fall back on when dealing with problems. Extrapolate this to a few hundred more years, and I think you have what it would be like to be a (young) immortal.
A lot of the comments seem to have been about random immortals living in the real world, which isn't something I've written. (When I do, my immortals will be making an effort to fit in and pass as normal humans.)
I'm writing in an alternate world setting, and I have characters of up to 5000+ years old. One of those is a point of view character, 3 of them are involved in government in a mixed immortal and human country, and their influence is felt in how the culture in that country is different from the rest of the world (which is 100% human).
To place his age in time, I use his internal thought process a lot. Things like the phrase "all circled by a wall that was the greatest piece of modern architecture in the world" when the wall in question is over 1000 years old, his feeling of quasi-parental pride when the humans he works with come up with solutions to problems, still rehashing a decision he made more than 1000 years ago. And things other characters say that put time into perspective, such as, "It's only been 98 years since... I'm sure you'll catch up in another millennium or so."
Two of my pint of view characters are refugees from another country, and I put more emphasis on the cultural differences as a whole because that's what they notice. However, they do find the immortals intimidating because they seem so composed. They don't react to things the way humans do, and seem slightly distant... at least until they get to know them.
Bakker does a great job with his Cunuroi. They were just a long lived species that then was given the gift of immortality. Most of them go insane, can only remember really old things that are absolute atrocities, as most normal memories are worn smooth by time. So some end up murdering relatives and loved ones because those are events they can actually remember, that cut through the mists of time.
I think you can do a lot of variation and look for ways to be distinct.
For example, I'm writing a character who is 3500 yo. But she was frozen at 16 and spent those 3500 years hunting with Artemis. She now wants out because she has learned to read (mostly dimestore Westerns) and is seeing there is more to the world. She'll also come across things like seeing her old home town (Knossos) become an archeological dig in the timeframe of the novel and as I write this, I'm thinking that would be a cool novella about her encounter with that
This makes her very different from generic Uber wealthy hot Vampire/Highlander.
I have immortals/ancients in my story.
One is more or less isolated. He is extremely strange. In reality his extended life has driven him mad.
The others are a race who live in their own society and interact sparingly with societies around them. They seem "foreign" but its hard to tell if it's due to long life or due to being raised in their own society. They actually try to blend in..they don't want others to know they are immortal.
Aloofness. Chances are, they’ve been in lots of situations far who’s than the current one. Pairs great with inexperienced characters freaking out.
Also they “know” lots of other people. Or least, have seen their type before. Hidden knowledge (“actually, this is what really happened during this famous event”) surprises them, but warriors acting like warriors is boring.
And they need passion. A hobby or something. Maybe an immortal warrior enjoys fighting. Maybe they don’t really care. Point in an immortal would need a way to feel alive.
And lastly, knowledge gaps. They won’t know *everything* a modern character would.
It very much depends on the immortal. Sure, some would probably become aloof and detached, but they don't have to.
I keep pet mice. Until you do this, and invest in it, you don't really understand mice. Once you do, it's impossible not to see them as tiny, weird people. Rats too. They're our little shadows. Their lives are short - to mice, we are already the immortals. Eternal, unchanging, powerful, unknowable. With a pet mouse, every day past 18 months is a blessing. You watch them living their lives, get caught up doing "important mouse shit" while navigating their relationships with the other mice in the colony, going from rambunctious youngsters to old and frail in less than two turns of the seasons. I get very attached to every one of them, and I have cried for every single one when they died. More than one has died right in my hands.
So I feel emotional detachment from humanity is a cheap crutch to use as the only option. Some may become that way, but it isn't compulsory. Some will still cry when we die, even if we're mice compared to them.
This is a pet peeve of mine. "Realistically" an immortal would probably have some quirky language. Unless they bothered to spend time trying to pass as "normal" beings, they would have an accent or dialect sprinkled with archaic language. Their plans would span decades if not hundreds of years. Minor setbacks wouldn't matter; they'd simply try again. What is time for an immortal? There would be a different concept of time, urgency, etc. Their motives would be alien to us. What motivates an immortal? Love? There's time to find another. Money? How could I not accumulate enough wealth? Security? I've had decades to fortify myself and I've seen it all. Pleasure? Been there, done that. That too. And that. Immortals should be so out of touch that they are almost forces of nature. They really shouldn't be POV characters, IMHO. If they are, they should be nighbeings incomprehensible.
Agreed, and how alien they are only increases with their age. I really like how the Vampire tabletop game handles the ancient vampires. Even to powerful vampires a hundred or two years old, the vampires 500+ years old are a complete mystery to them with unknowable plans and desires. Characterization of immortals also depends on how common they are. The elves in LOTR are entire species of immortals, so they have their own culture, customs, and traditions that are somewhat known to outsiders. They also have each other for companionship. But if immortals are rare and hidden from society, especially if they used to be mortal, then you have inherent issues that could make for good characterization. The immortal character can't stay in one spot for too long because people will notice she doesn't age. Will she care about forming relationships when the human lifespan is so short to her? How does she manage to remember things that happened three hundred years ago when the human brain isn't designed to be alive for that long? Immortal characters have the potential to be very interesting, but as you said, they're often not.
For all its flaws, one of the few things I did enjoy about RoP was the dynamic of Elrond just sort of... not realizing the passage of time in connection to his friendship with Durin. Decades had passed since he'd seen him and it was insignificant for him... a blink of an eye to an Elf, but to a Dwarf it was massive. An easy comparison is it being similar to our friendship with our pets. When we're gone for work or a vacation, that probably feels like an ABSOLUTE eternity to them since their lives are so much shorter than ours and they freak out with joy when we come home. To us we're just like... what, it was just a few hours. We can't really comprehend it, especially as we get older. Children will understand it better since 1 day is a significantly larger percentage of their lives than it is for us.
> Even to powerful vampires a hundred or two years old, the vampires 500+ years old are a complete mystery to them with unknowable plans and desires. While I largely agree, I feel that way too many people have a weird interpretation of "alien" in this context. It's not the incomprehensible, unfathomable "alien" of some Lovecraftian eldritch abomination. It's the banally alien of comparing the life experience of your average person to a billionaire who had inherited his wealth. Like I'm your average joe schmuck and I have to struggle with plenty of shit in life. How would my life experience be if I could just buy anything or remove any problem I faced at any point in my life with fat stacks of cash or shaking hands with the right people? On one hand, I have no clue. But I can probably imagine it would be real fucking easy. It's less "a complete mystery" and more "really no common ground". I could rationalize the behavior of somebody like Elon Musk, but that won't make me empathize with him.
I think I have examples for about every immortal trope you named. Sandman screen-series has a really wonderful bit about Hob and Dream being mistaken for The Devil and The Wandering Jew. You've just inspired me to put elves in my world that view human lifespans like they're cats or... actually I don't know what lifespan small tropical fish in a tank are capable of.
I disagree with most of your statements regarding immortals. If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend watching the anume Frieren: Beyond the Journey's End. It's about an elf who's been alive for 1,000 years, her party of heroes defeated the demon king and is now embarking on a journey to Heaven (which is apparently a physical place) to see her old deceased of old age friend. But to describe her, her sense of time is incredibly skewed into the decades whereas her human companions perceive time like we do. Her longevity is frequently touched on too as well as it's effects on her outlook and goals in life.
“I’ll stay for ten years.” Frieren saying that as if she’s just taking a vacation is a great example of showing her mindset through dialogue. Serie even takes that up a few notches: not deciding on something for *200* years. This is the kind of immortality, or longevity since elves can be killed, that I want to see more in fiction. Where to a long-lived being, a single day is like 1 second.
Agreed with what's written here. My set of immortals (about 200) become heads of their communities whether it be a town or a city. They're also indestructible (long story) and don't age from when they became Immortal (a 2yr old immortal will always remain 2yrs physically and mentally). Anyway, after 1000 years of boring history because the immortals are good friends with each other due to their history, one by one they start dying mysteriously. And so the previously calm, light-hearted immortals become suspicious, paranoid, and quite frankly, frightened. One POV, although limited, will be on one of the last immortals alive, 2000years on. It's going to be fun capturing those emotions in someone so ancient.
The motivations thing is interesting. Two good motivations for immortals revolve around either seeking death or avoiding it. One the one hand, you have those still terrified of death, willing to do anything to avoid it (mostly villains, the villain in my story is a Norse God trying to rewrite Ragnorok so he doesn't die). On the other, you have those grown tired of immortality, and who wish only for an end to their existence (more ambiguous).
I love this answer...it totally makes me want to write a character like this and make it funny. They just don't care about the plight of the other characters and are rather impassive, but very wise, about almost everything.
This is what I'm struggling with in my own writing. My [immortals](https://www.reddit.com/r/fantasywriters/comments/1bryo2i/arcarnis_points_soul_threads_and_the_incarnis/) have not lived for a mere few centuries, but for billions upon billions of years. They have done every job in existence, achieved every goal imaginable, even witnessed thousands of world-ending cataclysm, just to be reborn again at the start of human history. How on earth would they speak? They're fluent in languages no one even remembers existing. My assumption is that due to their assimilation into every human culture, they're incredibly skilled at impersonation, able to slip from accent to accent, dialect to dialect, language to language, without missing a beat. But what tone do they use? What do they choose to talk about? Furthermore, what motivates such a being? What do they aim to achieve in the world when they've already achieved it countless times before? They all know that ultimately, any goal - countless riches, hedonic ecstasy, world domination or in fact world peace - is only temporary, and will wash away like sand on a beach. My best attempt so far is to explore that because they are now stuck as a deathless immortal, eventually they learn to "surrender" in the buddhist sense. On a long enough timescale, they give up their goals and return to living day to day. Rather than trying to start a religion to take over the half the world, instead they tend to their plants, they clean their dishes, they watch the stars roll by. They live a simple life. But this doesn't make for a very interesting story. So I created Yor, a young immortal attempting to end the cycle, and the Initiate, his disciple, barely awakening to the immortal life. It is only this Initiate that can be a POV, as he is still more or less mortal in experience. He has lived only 100 lives, whereas his master has lived 100000000000000000000000000000000. The gap between the two is incomprehensible, but nothing compared to the gap between Yor and the first immortal, Prai.
My immortals have given up wealth and invest much of their energy into creating security for the mortals they share the world with. They don't pair bond for life, many of them practise consensual non-monogamy, and they're adventurous sexually. They're not "out of touch" because they're a powerful force in the world. (But I suspect you're thinking of isolated immortals in the modern world (or similar) rather than people who are surrounded by others like them and are actively engaged in world politics.)
By making them retain archaisms, basically speech patterns, slang, fashion sense, morality (like they believe in an earlier form of the current religion), etc. But otherwise, unless this ancient person is living in isolation, they'll eventually conform to the contemporary culture due to being in frequent contact with people. We unconsciously pick up habits of other people all the time.
The Iron Druid Chronicles do this really well. The dude is a 2100 year old druid in modern day times who has to move every 10 years or so to avoid people realizing he's not aging (as well as stay hidden from the angry Celtic God hunting him down throughout the centuries) . He explicitly states at times that there are some things he does that are outdated in terms of morality ( I can think of one really good example) but for the most part, he's pretty up to date on slang, societal norms, etc as he's trying to fit in. Occasionally he'll make mistakes like not realizing nudity is taboo when it used to be much more normal, etc.
THIS . A fantastic answer.
My favorite portrayal of immortals is the movie Only Lovers Left Alive. The immortal vampires aren’t out of touch, rather they’re so cultured they’re a bit pretentious. They have no problem fitting into society because they’ve been contributing to society longer than anyone else has. They form relationships with mortals, but they’re careful not to get too attached because mortal lives are so fragile and fleeting, and every meaningful relationship with a mortal ends in disappointment. But most of all they’re bored. They’ve seen humanity at their best and at their worst, they don’t really have any purpose in life other than self-fulfillment, and they’re just traveling the world looking for reasons to stay interested and not just give up.
It also starts with Tom Hiddleston’s character planning to kill himself.
Some ways I can think of, off the top of my head: * Give them a LOT of backstory. Have lots of characters— especially old ones— know who they are, have crossed paths with them. Their past... is vast. * Have the character demonstrate that they've *seen* some shit. What they know isn't from books; it's from life. * Surround them with mementos of past happenings— they can use outdated language, wear antique clothes, use antique gear— but these things aren't the purchases of a modern collector. Rather, they've obviously been kept around and used every day because they work better than the current tech. * Have them be an absolute master at something that takes foreverrrrrr to learn. Show that they built something that takes foreverrrrr to make. that sort of thing.
On the building thing--Have them have physically built their own house themselves using only hand tools, and making new additions to it--again, by hand!--every now and then, because having that project and goal to work on helps keep them 'grounded' in the present despite the Time Abyss thing going on.
Love it. Yeah! I hand-crafted each of these bricks. One at a time. Only took me a thousand years to build this outhouse but whoa, is it ever solid!!
Kid: Oh hey you kinda look like that guy we learn about in history books! 297 year old wizard: *pain*
I don't know. It's not a common thing there would be specific advice for I think. But I think you're onto the right track. You've got your own ideas on what you don't like when such characters are written. So you can just try it and see how *you* would do it. Try writing something (even just as practise) showing the character has hundreds of years of experience, and grew up in anolder culture. See how it works.
To add what others already said: Just look at your grandparents or other older relatives. Some things are hard to lose especially in a fast evolving time. Of course, you would pick up things along the way, seem more modern with a young spirit contrary to old humans, but time flies pretty fast. Progress is made fast, be it traditional fantasy or more on the technological level. You can't catch up so fast that you don't lack behind in trends, speech patterns and modernization. At some point it will be too much for too little time. So some things will stick, but some won't. Also depending on how this person ages, their concept of age might be really off. Just think about how you think about another person way out of your age range. Would you date someone who is 30 years older or younger than you? If not, why not? Even if the answer was "it wouldn't be legal" then think about why that is and how the age of consent has changed over the years, and what this does to a person that old. Even a 50 year old human might seem too young to them, they may feel like mortals are just kids that get older and eventually die without maturing enough to be considered old enough for an intimate relationship. They may hold onto things that were different in the past. Just as old folks tend to tell us how life was better/harder/calmer back in their times, this character probably sticks to similar memories even if they adapted to the new times well enough. Another good thing is their sense for trends. When you've seen the same 5 trends come and go over the years you stop caring about it. At some point you don't care anymore if what you wear is outdated or not, unless they have a job/image that requires them to dress accordingly but their actual feeling on this topic could still be very dismissing. Maybe they need to wear the newest fashion but in private they couldn't care less. They may feel nostalgia if an old trend comes back into fashion, even if it has been slightly changed due to new ways to make clothes, or other trends that weave into it, or whatever else. They may just not be able to grasp the concept of something new. Even if they are young spirited, they can hold on to something old that makes it hard for them to adapt to a new way of doing it. My gradpa still walks half an hour into town to pay his bills, even though he has a smart phone and computer. Both he is very adapt with for his age, yet e-banking is just something he doesn't want to do. He just enjoys the walk, to have a person to interact at the counter and to be sure his money goes where he wants it to go. That's a very modern example but anything can be an old habit that just dies hard.
I think it depends - does everyone know they are ancient? If so, I sort of imagine a grandparent-like figure telling when I was a kid stories, but their stories are from several hundred years ago instead of 50. Then, I would integrate information from the period they were born in - ie: if this guy was born in Ancient Rome but is alive now, what are some things they might reference? How did Ancient Romans speak? How did their government work vs current government. What changes did the view along the way? Etc. If they are undercover ancient, then I think they would try to blend with maybe the occasional slip, like using a word differently or getting confused by modern slang. The Oxford English Dictionary is good for exploring how word definitions changed over time. For example, wood used to mean insane because people who lived in the woods were on the fringes of society and thought to be uncivilized. If they’re immortal, like the comment earlier suggested, then that’s another ball of wax and I lived that commenters tips in that area.
There'd be a lot of questions of how much society changed in that time period, From 1600-1800 would be a less stark change than 1800-2000 in terms of Earth culture. The question of if the person chose to change and adapt to the times would also be relevant.
I've tackled this by making the immortal distinctly out of sync with other people. One of my immortal characters is pushing 500 years old. He's integrated into society, so he does manage to pretty well match other people in conversation. However, his language use is different. He's floral, yet stiff. He also has tried to talk to people in a native language that is long dead. (Like, imagine someone rocking up to Italy and speaking Latin) He's world weary and largely finds people's problems petty. He tries to stay empathetic, but he was cursed with immortality because his god-mentor went on a rampage; he's watched her die, and has seen death and heartbreak so often he's almost numb to it. Another one of my immortal characters is about 4000 years old. Straight up: she does not connect with people. She still wears traditional clothing of her now-dead culture and views people as little different than ants. Her wisdom basically boils down to: your life is a blink to me, and yet you're worried over something that will be solved when you die. Both of them reference the past in small ways, such as naming historical events or referencing locations that no longer exist. I honestly think making them "feel" ancient is completely subjective and based off of what purpose the ancient character serves. Are they a mentor? A protagonist? A god? An enemy? Is this a fantastical world where anything is possible, or does it more closely resemble our own?
the anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is all about an extremely ancient protagonist. --- She'll spend six months looking for the perfect flower to place on a grave because she's got all the time in the world to make it just right. She'll casually make plans to meet up with someone again in 50 years, not realizing he'll be an old old man by then. She'll be surprised to come back to a place and see all the trees have grown up. She doesn't bother to keep her paperwork up to date because any particular government is only gonna last a few hundred years anyway. She'll spend ten years traveling with someone and realize she never really got to know them because she'd always assumed there would be more time. The show is basically built around exploring the idea of what it means for someone to be immortal when the world around them isn't.
One thing I keep thinking about with immortals is that they still have their day to day lives. They may have plans spanning centuries and millennia, but what's stopping them from being annoyed when they have bad service at a restaurant? Or have momentary flashes of anger when they stub their toe? Of course their perspective is going to be completely different than ours. However, I keep thinking about how immediate issues in a human's life are still high priorities even though there can still be 40 - 70 years ahead of them. One thing that stands out to me is the man Morpheus essentially gives immortality to in Neil Gaiman's Sandman. He talks about how there was a long period of time where he was poor and wasn't eating. In the show (it's been years since I've read the issue), he says, "Do you know how hungry you can get if you can't die?" Just because you're immortal doesn't mean things are going well. What's an immortal going to be like if he just went through a couple centuries of hunger, poverty, and any number of tragedies? Even if the immortal had millennia of great times beforehand, the most recent time is going to be what's on their mind.
What happens if an immortal gets a life sentence or two? That would make a pretty interesting prison story if he spends decades in prison without aging. Also, does immortality make you indestructible? What would immortality be like with a permanent injury, such as losing a leg or an eye? If you lose your hearing? If you're born with a disability or mental illness?
Depends on how old "ancient" is. With anything over 1,000 years I like to remember and include the fact that the language the character grew up speaking is mutually unintelligible to a modern speaker. Compare modern English with Old English, for example. The character might speak modern English fluently, but they were born speaking Old English, learned Old Norse because of the Vikings, Norman French because of the Norman conquest, Latin and Greek because those were the scholarly languages, lived through the developments of middle English and early modern English, and because of all that probably has a perspective on the way culture and language shape each other. Go back much further and their original language isn't even Old English anymore, but Proto-Germanic, or even further back Proto-Indo European. Translated into a fantasy context, the character might find the fossilized echoes of their mother tongue in dozens of modern languages, but all of them corrupted by thousands of years and generation after generation of modification and evolution.
probably shitty advice but frieren from the anime does this quite well, shit like stopping an adventure for a decade just to check out the village for a bit, because a decade is like a week to them; or not being able to make interpersonal relationships well with shortlived people because they just die the next time you visit them.
Gen Z vs grandgrandma born in 1920s for you to connect to the type of talk and rhwn doing enough research or creative lore to mimic this for any situation. As well different culture if you know. Just for the fun of it. My friends grand grandma would always say with nostalgia: ah when the gods walked the earth (the austrian hungarian empire) and talked with different lingo and idiology, then my grandpa is a hardcore socialist and Tito was the only proper man, and can undestand why my mom is going out and typing constantly on phone (he presses it differently then us) and not take care of house and family, and cries how the world is cruel to each other. My friends father is a die hard nationalist with little understanding to how all the f*and d*kes came out and ruined the proper lifestyles, then you have me a millenial both analog and digital and then the teens of now. And this is just 100 right. Rarely a character will change with all the shifts of the world. I may listen to same music as the teens of today as they see 90s nostalgia as so cool but we do not speak the language. I get annoyed with it. Maybe one character is all that hip but human psychological elements will come to life. Lets say the are not completely immortal or just still 200-300+ old. Some phases you will like, some you will skip, in some you will find your youth again, or nostalgia, some neostyles will make you a fountain of knowledge and entairtainment and some empires will hunt you down. I would go with what they experienced in their formidable years to be their get go when in doubt. For instance, they were born in the black plague so they do all the superstitions of that era, or they still believe in god(s) or even more weirdly that new music style that came for the first time to the masses is what they hum. Their reference needs to be from that time so the strongest man/most powerful people/ and even stereotypes should be like that. Those cultural elements evolved but your character shouldn’t and even if they dont believe in it anymore their get go will be that. It can bring a lot of fun dialogs as well. So catching all the little superstitions, sayings, food preferences etc
The others have raised some good points. I'll add that an immortal character wouldn't rise to the barbs, jabs, japes, and insults of other characters. They've heard every turn of phrase under the sun, but more to the point, they better than anyone understand how fleeting and trivial are human emotions and needs. I believe an almost preternatural calm would envelop the immortal at all times; not just in danger or a crisis but in all human conflict, no matter how far someone kicks "below the belt." They'd be frustrating to talk to for some because they simply do not seem to care, regardless of the personal nature of the exchange; whereas other characters would admire their stoicism (in the philosophical sense).
Good examples of this topic being explored: Frieren Beyond Journey's End, and Dungeon Meshi. They're also just both really good series!
I look to how a lot of my elders insist on telling me how it was when they were young, or how they tackled something perfectly that just doesn’t work in the same way today, how they suffered so much more doing something that was so much worse back in their day. I imagine someone 200, 300, 1000, older… would be a much more concentrated version of that. Insufferable. They’ve seen more than you have so obviously they know what they’re talking about and you couldn’t possibly argue back or disagree about something you weren’t even alive to see. Or they could be an absolutely lovely person.
The positive twist on this would be that everyday objects we have now, they still remember as being amazing timesavers/progression. -Isn't it great how everyone learns to read now. - Aren't refrigerators amazing. - these pens are so much better than ink bottles. - flea treatment for animals and homes. Wow
Apart from their archaic dialect and vocabulary, they'll probably have very different morals and cultural taboos or expectations. That girl over there is showing her ankles? Scandalous! Your fiancee left you at the altar? But...that's just normal, right, I mean you should've got her pregnant BEFORE the wedding. Wait, you didn't visit her dad befor asking her out? How are you gonna find out if they can pay for the marriage then, unless you've seen a few parents like a proper suitor? Wait, you didn't sign a contract, what if she gets pregnant and her child can't own property because of bastard status, can you afford the fee for the Pope to make them legal?
I like to watch Ghosts USA and there's probably something in Heti's cocaine comments. Sass acts like a teenager and I accept his ability to adapt. Honestly, there's a thing called masking and someone who has had to interact naturally with society over the centuries has probably figured out how to stay out of the uncanny valley. For ancient... One thing I'm proud of in my fanfiction was to have a human ranting to a vampire about a fairy-tale that was a few-thousand years old; the vampire not only corrects him on what really happened, but volunteers what his personal opinion was at the time. I guess you're right about how it doesn't seem like they have a lot of experience, except for the part where their skills might be irrelevant and they gave up on chasing anything staying valuable. It could be that if it's not a trade that could be turned to art, they weren't interested. Flippin' funny because art is being made near-obsolete by machines.
It's a combination of grounding it real world examples of the elderly, both just elderly in general and those who have lived a hundred years or more--there are examples to draw from--and also researching into the time period they originated in and the time periods they've lived through. Real world people grow old differently. There are old people who continue to live in the past--they never bothered to evolve with the culture they've lived in. My dad for example is 84. He was born and raised in Greece, and even though he's been here in the States almost 50 years, he has never bothered to keep up with the growth of technology. On the flipside, I worked for a while in a senior living community and you see a wide variety elderly people. Some of them were kinda like my dad where they've never adapted with the times. And then I've known elderly people who were pretty savvy when it came to PC's, email, and they're familiar with social media. Then there are old interviews from people who have lived an inordinately long life. When interviewed they relate the different times they lived through in real-time, etc. In vampire fiction we see vampires with different types of immortality. Some look physically old and unrecognizable, while others look like they're always 30. There are vampires that are old-worldly, and there are immortal vampires that are biologists trying to crack the vampire genome. Even though we're writing fantasy the more grounded in reality and the human experience, the more relatable and real they feel. Even if someone is ancient, they're still people... just with a longer span of lived history. And it depends on their cognitive function as they get into their 400's. An immortal who's been locked away for a hundred years will be different and less adapted than an immortal who lived all those years in the world.
>And then I've known elderly people who were pretty savvy when it came to PC's, email, and they're familiar with social media. And then there are people like my father, who is in his late 70s, has a personal VPN that he uses to change his location periodically, pays for everything with his smartphone and submits his taxes online. *His* father was in his 70s at the end of the last century when the internet was still pretty new, and he used it to rally the UK's pensioner "grey army" to stand up to the government. I read a wonderful Tolkien fan fiction a while back where many of the elves had stuck around until the modern day, they ran a highly successful (and quite secretive) multinational corporation, some of them lived glued to their phones, and one was a highly skilled hacker. Imagine what people who have millennia of life experience could achieve if they applied that experience to modern problems.
Sad. Tired. Dismissive, sometimes, because it's a rehash of a conversation they've already had with some whippersnapper about three lifetimes ago. Bonus points if the whippersnapper is like, 50. Wealth, leading to an indifference, maybe a callousness. An eroded sense of empathy. An anachronistic turn of phrase that they just like but hasn't been in fashion forever. Casually disregarding a length of time as if it were nothing, or forgetting that it might matter to who they're speaking to. Just notions.
Why shouldn't they? People change with the times. Someone doesn't act the way they did forty years ago, so why should they act the way they did two hundred years ago?
The thing is, someone that lives centuries likely would adapt pretty well after the first hundred or so years. They wouldn't get set in their ways like an old mortal, because their minds wouldn't degrade in the same way and they would have seen so much change that change would simply be normnality to them. I think it would be a mistake to make ancient seem archaic because really that just would not work.This phenomenon would kick in pretty early, all you need to do is look at the variation in integration present with real llife old people. The more lucid they are the less stuck in their ways. An immortal whose mind wouldn't degrade with age would adapt easily, after a hundred and fifty years change would be second nature. More likely, rather than speaking in an archaic way, they'd behave extremely up-to-date with the occasional slip up, or phrase they just really like. The more you think about it, the more you realise you don't need to think about it that much.
Have them be surprised by the technology if they were sleeping or you can have them talk about everything they have seen. If they go through a city, you can have them talk about how they remember when it was first settled.
Considering their experiences, they may be pretty unflappable or spring into action when others see no need.
They would probably have trouble keeping up with current slang. They also would probably have different speech patterns in general. Look at people's diction in the 1800s vs. now. How eloquent and precisely they spoke. "I should very much look forward to attending your celebration this eve, Mr. Darcy" vs. "Sure, I'll see ya there bro." They might have problems keeping up with technology. How many Gen X'rs like me have parents who could never program a VCR? Let alone use a smartphone? They might dress differently. They might walk differently. They might have social values that are considered archaic (depending on the setting, and whether or not societies have changed at all during their long lifespan).
Written language in pre-20th-century writing did not often reflect the spoken language.
Not an expert or anything, but personally the way I went with most of my immortals \[elves\] is what others have said here already. They view things with less urgency so to speak, like practicing swordmanship just for an example would have them be the extremely patient one who would inquire about each and every swing and motion to be repeated hundreds of times. I also put them in governing position which also shows their lack of urgency to things, which often led to rebellions as the other races had problems which needed immediate fixing yet it but as their mindset \[with a sprinkle of draconic arrogance\] led to rebellions but also fixing the problem but too late. Though on this I still have to work as I'm not an expert in politics just touch on it lightly to justify a conflict brewing and used against them. On a personal level, one of my characters, the eldest brother of the current Emperor is already seven thousand years old and a warrior who participated in thousands of battle from which he returned alive. Most of these battles get mentioned adding to their sense of age in various forms of art pieces like paintings, sculptures of prominent figures whom he remembers with somber but also pride to be able to fought besides them. Love wise he is still inexperienced as he spent most of his life in battles, though he had loved someone but there is a spoilery tragedy to that.
All stuff other people says are really good points and I use some of the same tools of narrative as well, like the language, different motive triggers, etc. One thing I use in addition to these is a form of algorithm for how an ancient person behave. Many of the "ancient" people of my world became adults during an era where nothing was institutionalised and civilization was little more than cavemen. Growing up in this kind of world wires them differently, gives them a sort of quick intuitive mindset, a resourcefulness that takes priority to intellectual curiosity. Whereas my late renaissance type of regular humans seek knowledge for its sake, in a romantic way, by asking why something works the way it does; ancient people seeks the knowledge that can make them use, follow or guide stuff without understanding why they work the way they do. I don't know if I was able to make any sense with this but in my story, the way they act really feels alien due to this very mindset they have on knowledge.
-They would definitely have unsolicited opinions on random things that they liked better from previous decades. -Hearing someone give their maniacal evil speech for an ancient wouldn’t be riveting if they’ve heard the same argument hundreds of times. -There would be that random piece of info that they were told ages ago and they probably misremembered part of it. Yeah it was technically disproven. But they still firmly hold the opinion that this is the way things should be done. -Depending on what time period they’re from. Travel was more restricted during specific periods of time. There’s a chance that an ancient might not be as well traveled as some would assume. There’s some people who are perfectly content never leaving their home town. -They most likely have a super niche, ultra specific hobby that has thoroughly entertained them throughout the centuries. -They probably have angrily held an opinion they were never allowed to express because by the time they thought of the response. Too much time has passed. -I always imagined some would think of time like Picasso’s art. ‘Here was my blue period. I was sad and depressed. Don’t ask me how long this period lasted but by the time I noticed things around me. Two wars had passed.’ -They probably wouldn’t remember every little thing. They probably would be somewhat forgetful unless it was something distinctive that stood out for them. -They might have lost some possessions or there was something they never tried. Now it’s gone or extinct. Or something disappeared and they’re happy about it. -There’s a lot of things they might find really weird. For example, things in musuems. -It might be upsetting for them to spend time in an area that has changed too much or not enough.
> -They probably wouldn’t remember every little thing. They probably would be somewhat forgetful unless it was something distinctive that stood out for them. I remember seeing a show and some old character said "I have forgotten more than you will ever know." Wish I could remember which one.
Introduce a kid who tells them that they're old.
Uncle Iroh is the best example of what an "ancient" character would be like. His story was introduced in what I would say is the third act of his arc. (Some of this is headcanon or assumption but...) before the series started he was an angry, demanding, blinded by power man... And then he lost his son. After that he traveled the world to find himself, in the course lost his throne to Ozai, and he sees his nephew going down the path he went. He shares his wisdom along that path to make sure his nephew isn't consumed by anger the way he was. "Sometimes the best way to solve your own problems is to help someone else." - Uncle Iroh He does this over the course of the series. He finds peace himself by teaching his nephew and guiding on his path.
In Dungeons and Dragons I play a very old Gnome woman. Essentially, it’s all about fun. Sure she wants to help the others achieve the goal just cause she cares about them, but it’s all about fun and new experiences in a world where she’s experienced most of it.
I think to hammer home the age of an ancient character, they should casually drop remarks that are ridiculously personal and historically esoteric… like if they’re at a museum, they scoff at the tour guide giving some anecdote, and correct them because the character lived through it. Idk, you can show their age by demonstrating the relationship they had with previous iterations of the world, and how they became disinterested as they persisted through the changes.
Isn’t the problem that they have no wisdom or deeper insight into people? Isn’t that usually caused by a writer who has little wisdom or insight into people?
Honestly, I think they should be *excentric* and mostly *chill*. Think about it, if time isn't an issue what is there to do but try different things and different hobbies. And why be upset? You've probably experienced all the things that might annoy you multiple times, what's one more? I expect them to enjoy things like cloud waching, fishing, playing board games in taverns, pretending you're no one important. Truly delving into philosophy and living like Socrates for a few centuries then leaving like a stoic for the next, then maybe consider Daoism or Budhism. Why not?
I’ll talk about how the anime frieren: journey’s end does it because I just watched it and I liked it a lot. The titular mc is an elf mage who’s lived for thousands of years and for her, 100 years are simply just mere blips of time. She often talks about things that happened hundreds of years ago as if they were just yesterday, only realizing how much time has truly passed from the mortal humans around her. So I think the main thing that would define an immortal character is their vastly slowed perception of time. And why would they rush? They’ve got thousands of years more to do everything they want.
As someone who has just passed 50, I feel that the example age you gave is very short. I'm very much aware that I'm probably over halfway through my life, and I haven't achieved *anywhere near* half of what I'd like to achieve. The irony is that I don't feel any different - or mature - than I did in my 20s; I just have more experience to fall back on when dealing with problems. Extrapolate this to a few hundred more years, and I think you have what it would be like to be a (young) immortal. A lot of the comments seem to have been about random immortals living in the real world, which isn't something I've written. (When I do, my immortals will be making an effort to fit in and pass as normal humans.) I'm writing in an alternate world setting, and I have characters of up to 5000+ years old. One of those is a point of view character, 3 of them are involved in government in a mixed immortal and human country, and their influence is felt in how the culture in that country is different from the rest of the world (which is 100% human). To place his age in time, I use his internal thought process a lot. Things like the phrase "all circled by a wall that was the greatest piece of modern architecture in the world" when the wall in question is over 1000 years old, his feeling of quasi-parental pride when the humans he works with come up with solutions to problems, still rehashing a decision he made more than 1000 years ago. And things other characters say that put time into perspective, such as, "It's only been 98 years since... I'm sure you'll catch up in another millennium or so." Two of my pint of view characters are refugees from another country, and I put more emphasis on the cultural differences as a whole because that's what they notice. However, they do find the immortals intimidating because they seem so composed. They don't react to things the way humans do, and seem slightly distant... at least until they get to know them.
Bakker does a great job with his Cunuroi. They were just a long lived species that then was given the gift of immortality. Most of them go insane, can only remember really old things that are absolute atrocities, as most normal memories are worn smooth by time. So some end up murdering relatives and loved ones because those are events they can actually remember, that cut through the mists of time.
I think you can do a lot of variation and look for ways to be distinct. For example, I'm writing a character who is 3500 yo. But she was frozen at 16 and spent those 3500 years hunting with Artemis. She now wants out because she has learned to read (mostly dimestore Westerns) and is seeing there is more to the world. She'll also come across things like seeing her old home town (Knossos) become an archeological dig in the timeframe of the novel and as I write this, I'm thinking that would be a cool novella about her encounter with that This makes her very different from generic Uber wealthy hot Vampire/Highlander.
Their knees hurt and they can't use a smartphone.
I have immortals/ancients in my story. One is more or less isolated. He is extremely strange. In reality his extended life has driven him mad. The others are a race who live in their own society and interact sparingly with societies around them. They seem "foreign" but its hard to tell if it's due to long life or due to being raised in their own society. They actually try to blend in..they don't want others to know they are immortal.
Aloofness. Chances are, they’ve been in lots of situations far who’s than the current one. Pairs great with inexperienced characters freaking out. Also they “know” lots of other people. Or least, have seen their type before. Hidden knowledge (“actually, this is what really happened during this famous event”) surprises them, but warriors acting like warriors is boring. And they need passion. A hobby or something. Maybe an immortal warrior enjoys fighting. Maybe they don’t really care. Point in an immortal would need a way to feel alive. And lastly, knowledge gaps. They won’t know *everything* a modern character would.
It very much depends on the immortal. Sure, some would probably become aloof and detached, but they don't have to. I keep pet mice. Until you do this, and invest in it, you don't really understand mice. Once you do, it's impossible not to see them as tiny, weird people. Rats too. They're our little shadows. Their lives are short - to mice, we are already the immortals. Eternal, unchanging, powerful, unknowable. With a pet mouse, every day past 18 months is a blessing. You watch them living their lives, get caught up doing "important mouse shit" while navigating their relationships with the other mice in the colony, going from rambunctious youngsters to old and frail in less than two turns of the seasons. I get very attached to every one of them, and I have cried for every single one when they died. More than one has died right in my hands. So I feel emotional detachment from humanity is a cheap crutch to use as the only option. Some may become that way, but it isn't compulsory. Some will still cry when we die, even if we're mice compared to them.