Why do we, as humans, invent fictional characters with inhumanly long life spans?

Princess Alice

I've always wondered about this. What is it about characters who are hundreds or thousands of years old that fascinates us?

I ask partly because I'm fascinated by such characters too, but can't quite pinpoint why.

glennmagusharvey

Because we would like to live forever ourselves?

Human perceptions of time are a curious thing.

Imipolex G

Personally, I just wonder about the psychological effects of living that long.

Yarrun XIX

So you can have characters with 'wisdom of the ages' while still being sexy shipping fuel for the fans.

-casually shakes a fist at generic fantasy elves-

glennmagusharvey

Something I've noticed about people who get older is that they tend to be more experienced about the world but also sometimes also more jumpy-to-conclusions as a result.  I wonder if this would continue if you assumed you maintained your mental faculties past senescence.

Princess Alice

It's always interesting to me to note that, in relation to many other species, humans are mythical long-lived beings.

Imipolex G

Time is relative, eh

Klinotaxis

Yarrun XIX said:

So you can have characters with 'wisdom of the ages' while still being sexy shipping fuel for the fans.

-casually shakes a fist at generic fantasy elves-

imagining this being the motivation for Genesis

Tanya

Central Avenue said:

It's always interesting to me to note that, in relation to many other species, humans are mythical long-lived beings.

Somewhere in the depths of the oceans are Gigantic horny lobsters that could be hundreds to thousands of years old.

Princess Alice

Counterclock said:

Central Avenue said:

It's always interesting to me to note that, in relation to many other species, humans are mythical long-lived beings.

Somewhere in the depths of the oceans are Gigantic horny lobsters that could be hundreds to thousands of years old.

It's pretty crazy, isn't it? The sheer range of lifespans of different creatures.

Imipolex G

gigantic horny lobsters

Obā-san

the real question: why do we invent fictional characters that live

Klinotaxis

lobsters only live a couple decades. you want gigantic horny sponges, corals, clams, big ol sharks

Sredni Vashtar

I like the range of potential responses that a sapient being might have to functional immortality or unusually long active lifespans. I could give you particulars, but they might spoil future writing...

Tanya

Tamlin said:

the real question: why do we invent fictional characters that live

Bee

Mostly for the sense of mystique.  Tolkien-style elves are meant to be mysterious, secretive, and possessing wisdom of age (though not necessarily wisdom of street smarts).  Also, it's a lot harder to write thousand-year-old evils when nobody who was around for it the first time is left.

Sometimes, usually in sci-fi, it's to contrast the worldviews of people with wildly different amounts of time to live.  Mass Effect for instance presented two very long-lived races -- the asari were basically space elves in every sense of the word, and the krogan were space orcs who rarely died of natural causes.  We also had examples of races with much shorter lifespans (salarians) who tended to live rather high-strung by comparison.

Either way, it's an opportunity to present a character that fundamentally feels alien just by virtue of their outlook.

Aliroz

It ain't inhumanly long.  Many Sumerian kings lived to be thousands of years old.

If you're talking modern times, well, there's your problem, you uniformitarianism-fettered fool.

Salix Babylonika

Roz

Fossilmaiden

Being a demigod is cheating.

Odradek

There was a book I read once where they went back to Noah times, and everyone lived for hundreds of years but also was really hairy and short, because early man.

Klinotaxis

sumerian king lists own

Odradek said:

There was a book I read once where they went back to Noah times, and everyone lived for hundreds of years but also was really hairy and short, because early man.

i know you don't like Illuminatus, but there's an exchange like

<naive> Wow, so Atlantis really existed and was populated by early humans?
<wise> Yep
<naive> And they had amazing technology that is now lost to us?
<wise> Yep
<naive> Cool! So... I have this awkward question... were they white?
<wise> They were covered in fur
<naive> wh
<wise> It was like a million years ago dude they were apes

and it's sickkk

Imipolex G

Illuminatus is badass