39,327
edits
Immortal Life Is Cheap: Difference between revisions
m
Mass update links
m (Mass update links) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 4:
[[Immortality]] is a sweet gig. Whether it's because the character can download into a new body as part of a [[Hive Mind]], has a [[Healing Factor]] strong enough to reconstruct [[From a Single Cell]], or possesses some even stranger way of staying among the living. The downside is everyone else now considers you fair game for target practice.
It's common sense. There's nothing wrong with using non-lethal force to stop someone. So what if it just so happens that, with this person, non-lethal force happens to include bullets? It's not that [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|the code against killing]] doesn't apply. They're just not killing anyone. Which means heroes who normally have to fight with [[Swords Set to Stun]] to avoid [[Could Have Been Messy|things getting messy]], or otherwise take pains to [[Never Bring a Knife
This can be implicit or acknowledged in the story. The characters might never come out and say that they feel no remorse for blowing off a regenerator's head or throwing a grenade into a room full of robo-clones, or they may well explain it at length as a form of dehumanizing their enemy or as [[Trash Talk]] in a fight.
Line 19:
* Also, the {{spoiler|ES Members}} in ''[[Kiddy Grade]]'' are commonly sent on suicide missions because GOTT can always resurrect them.
* ''[[Mai Chans Daily Life]]'' is ''all'' about this. To clarify, the protagonist's [[Healing Factor]] makes her effectively immortal...which makes her the client favourite of a ''[[Gorn|torture brothel]]''.
* In ''[[Excel Saga (
* The Homunculi of ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' get this a lot, as they can instantly regenerate. To be fair, several are eventually killed, but it still counts seeing as one can get take three clips of bullets, get up, and ask, "Are you ''done'' yet?"
** Later really show how damn ''painful'' this trope can be. {{spoiler|Envy}} was burned alive several times, and at one point {{spoiler|Mustang}} let his [[Eye Scream|eyes explode]]. And {{spoiler|Sloth}} was impaled again and again, twice right through his face.
Line 25:
** And the [[Big Bad]], who suffered an [[And I Must Scream]] defeat.
* Yakumo Fujii, from ''~3x3 Eyes~''. Being unkillable is a lot less fun than you might think, especially when horrible monsters are trying to kill you ''anyway''.
* Several characters in ''[[
** Accordingly, {{spoiler|Isaac and Miria}} avert this, as during the entire anime {{spoiler|Isaac}} was only injured one or two times, and {{spoiler|Miria}} wasn't at all.
* ''[[Code Geass]]'': Quite a few characters suffer grisly deaths and reappear in the next episode unharmed. C.C. also sometimes gets this sort of abuse, such as when [[Yandere|Mao]] decided he was going to "[[Chainsaw Good|make her compact]]."
* A couple of characters in ''[[Naruto]]'' are like this. The Akatsuki member Hidan takes sick pleasure in doing horrible painful things to himself in battle after performing a ritual to ensure that his opponent feels the same thing. Hidan is virtually immortal (e.g. getting his head cut off hardly slows him down), but the same cannot be said of his opponents who get trapped by the ritual.
** He's paired with Kakuzu specifically for this reason. See Kakuzu has a habit of killing his partners so the [[Big Bad]] gave him a partner he couldn't kill.
* ''[[
* ''[[Love Hina]]'': Keitaro isn't any more durable than is usual for a main character in [[Unwanted Harem|his genre]], but unusually for the genre, other people notice and take advantage of this. Kitsune outright states that lethal force is acceptable against an "immortal" like him.
* ''[[
* Hakamada from ''[[Aphorism]]''. Used as scapegoat once by his friend to dodge an attack.
Line 50:
== Fan Works ==
* ''[[
== Film ==
Line 61:
* In [[Richard Morgan]]'s ''[[Takeshi Kovacs]]'' series, everybody is implanted from birth with a "cortical stack" that records their personality in case of death. The hero occasionally kills people and steals said stack for later interrogation.
* ''Accelerando'': Taken to extremes in the last chapter of [[Charles Stross]]' novel. {{spoiler|Children, free to take backups of their personality, play war with real weapons. Additionally, they keep software copies running at faster-than-real-time to grow up and watch over them.}}
* Threnody in ''[[
* Gilbert Gosseyn in A.E. van Vogt's ''The World of Null-A'' can be killed, and then he just wakes up in a new Gilbert body with all his memories.
* Used and subverted in ''Kiln People'' by [[David Brin]], in which people download their personalities into short-lived clay golems which they use for work and pleasure. While these golems are regarded as totally expendable, no-one risks their real self any more, and for someone to suffer even minor injury is quite a scandal.
Line 73:
* Cylons in ''[[Battlestar Galactica]]'' would occasionally shoot each other without batting an eye if it were expedient, since they could download into new bodies.
** The horrifying aspect is played up on occasion, such as when a Cavil mentions being too impatient to bleed to death after an ambush, and so has to cut his carotid open with an empty shell casing. Later episodes also feature the prospect of 'death as a learning experience' and the major trauma caused after someone is killed in an especially gruesome way and essentially suffers the worst PTSD ever.
* In ''[[
* Leo from ''[[
* The crew on ''[[
* The immortal heroine in ''[[Painkiller Jane]]'' was repeatedly shot by her friends for very little reason. Examples include being in the way, to convince someone else they were bad-ass or just for a cheap trick. Incidentally she was called "Painkiller Jane" because she had to eat a lot of them. Because she was repeatedly shot. By her friends.
** She also shot herself plenty of times, like to convince a mind-altering [[Differently-Powered Individual|Neuro]] that she reversed his nightmare-causing powers on him by shooting herself in the hand and having him watch the wound close.
** It should be noted that she can die given sufficient damage. In one episode, her body is pulverized by a claymore mine. Luckily, this episode has a [[Groundhog Day Loop]], and she is fine in the next cycle.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* In ''[[Smallville]]'', the [[Lesbian Vampire|Lesbian Vampires]] have fun throwing each other off the balcony. Since this is done to [[Creator's Pet|Lana]], the scene might be [[And the Fandom Rejoiced|favored]] [[Take That Scrappy|more]] [[Karma Houdini|than]] [[The Woobie|it was intended]].
* ''[[
* The writers of ''[[Misfits]]'' seem to gain some kind of sadistic pleasure out of killing the immortal character {{spoiler|Nathan Young}} week after week in ways so gory and painful that it [[Crosses the Line Twice|quickly becomes hilarious]]. The fact that he's a total [[Jerkass]] might have something to do with it.
* ''[[Sanctuary]]'': [[Nikole Tesla]] is the occasional [[Butt Monkey]], since, being a [[Our Vampires Are Different|vampire]], he can't die (at least until he is turned back into a human, sort of). He has been stabbed, electrocuted, having [[Jack the Ripper]]'s fist punched through his chest, sliced with claws, dropped from a high-rise, etc. And he's still as cheerful and annoying as ever, especially since he lacks the any of the traditional vampire weaknesses (he walks in the sunlight, can eat and drink, does not require blood, can survive a stab through the heart).
Line 96:
== Video Games ==
* There are sidequests in ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' that take advantage of this. The Nameless One can break his own neck to win arguments or let a woman pay for the opportunity to stab him, among other things.
** And then there's the Practical Incarnation's 'tomb', an elaborate deathtrap for his enemies where the only way to navigate it is to die. Repeatedly.
*** And then there's the general quests and power up that take advantage of the attendant [[Healing Factor]], which generally make the ''player'' [[Good Thing You Can Heal|glad the Nameless One can regenerate]].
* ''[[Touhou]]'': [[Immortality Immorality|Fujiwara no Mokou]] [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|passes the time]] by ''killing'' ([[Cycle of Revenge|and being killed by]]) [[Everything's Better
** Mokou actually endorses this on herself as a way to toughen up her body against attacks, in Inaba of the Moon and Inaba of the earth. Amusingly, this is with Reisen, probably the only person in the series who wouldn't be looking for an excuse to get in a fight.
* As they're more or less human souls encased in cheap penguin suits, Prinnies of the ''[[Disgaea]]'' universe are infinitely revivable (slap on another suit and they're good as new), and thus infinitely ''expendable''. Invoking this trope quite literally, it only costs 1 HL to revive a Prinny at any level, so their bosses will kill them for just about any reason.
* ''[[Tales of Monkey Island]]'': {{spoiler|1=Near the end of Chapter 5, LeChuck gives zombie Guybrush [[No-Holds-Barred Beatdown|a terrible beating and maiming]] that [[Normally I Would Be Dead Now|would have killed an ordinary human being]], often [[Evil Gloating|gloating about many ways to kill our hero]] and [[Trash Talk|trash-talking him]], yet unaware that Guybrush can't die, thanks to the effects of the Spirit Gum inside him. And while Guybrush is continuously beaten, he feels so exhausted and in so much pain that he can't even ''quip'', indicating that [[Immortality Hurts|immortality]] ''[[Immortality Hurts|does]]'' [[Immortality Hurts|indeed hurt]]. He eventually finds a way to get back to the rip in the Crossroads and destroy LeChuck with help from Elaine and Morgan in the end, just to end our hero's [[Fate Worse Than Death|continual suffering]].}}
* [[Fate/stay
* There is also Raziel from the ''[[Legacy of Kain]]'' series. Managed to get yourself killed? No worries, you just get sent to the spectral realm where sucking on souls floating there gets you back to the land of the living. Managed to somehow get yourself killed in the spectral realm? No problem, you just get sent to an earlier check point in the spectral realm where there are lots of free floating souls to eat. There is no way to get a game over because you died.
* In ''[[Arkham City]]'', Batman follows his usual [[Thou Shalt Not Kill|no-killing rule,]] right up until the boss-fight with the giant immortal zombie.
Line 112:
* ''[[Looking for Group]]'': A certain undead warlock has been [[Rasputinian Death|stabbed by twin blades, shot with many arrows, buried under hot lava, nailed to a mast, beheaded]], [[Too Kinky to Torture|stuck with hundreds of knives]] and is still [[No Sell|completely fine.]] In fact, {{spoiler|he isn't even undead}}.
* In ''[[Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire]]'', Buck pits the very dangerous Der Rock the Destroyer against 35 [[Hive Mind|PSmIths]], and doesn't bat an eye when Der Rock kills them all.
{{quote| '''Buck Godot:''' The PSmIths? You heard him. He/it's not really dead. Embarrassed, yes. Dead, no.}}
* In ''[[Starslip]]'', the Quels' policy for Cyte attacks to to let the Cyte kill as many as they want until they leave.
Line 127:
* Starscream from ''[[Transformers Animated]]'' gets killed a lot. [[Transformers]] in general tend to get this treatment. Being eons old war machines, they are ''very'' hard to kill. [[The Chew Toy|Waspinator]], being nigh unkillable even by Transformer standards, gets it even worse.
* [[Lampshade Hanging|Lampshaded]], [[Inverted Trope|inverted]], and played both for [[Played for Laughs|laughs]] and [[Played for Drama|drama]] in [[South Park]] with the super power of Mysterion. Being {{spoiler|Kenny}}, he has died a thousand times, but wakes up back in his own bed every morning with nobody remembering that he died. At one point he gets so pissed off that nobody believes him that he can not die while he has to suffer through the pains of all kinds of horrible deaths on a regular basis and shoots himself in the head to prove it, but two minutes later everyone has forgotten. He later uses his ability to escape from [[
* Agent K of [[Men in Black The Series]] has no compunctions about blowing the head off of the immortal alien informant Jeebs as part of his regular interrogation technique. Jeebs, [[From a Single Cell|after regenerating his head]], usually complains about how much it stings before relenting the requested information.
** There're also other [[Butt Monkey]] treatments for Jeebs; he also gets stomped into a puddle by a giant alien and ripped in half by a couple of teleporter guns.
| |||