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Immortality Inducer: Difference between revisions
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These characters typically weren't born immortal, but they didn't let that stop them. They find or create an object, magical or scientific, that will grant them that which they seek.
This trope happens whenever a character is immortal through the agency of a physical object. How the object works can be very varied. It may be [[Powered by a Forsaken Child]], thus invoking [[Immortality Immorality]], or it could be powered by harmless [[Techno Babble]].
The extent to which it works and what kind of [[Immortality]] it bestows also varies. It might only work on a single character, or it could work on anyone in the vicinity. It may also have negative side effects, especially if it's a prototype or created by a [[Mad Scientist]]. Said object will often be an [[Amulet of Dependency]]: they will typically lose that immortality if the object is destroyed or sometimes just if they lose contact with the object, often resulting in [[No Immortal Inertia]].
In some cases, characters may try to merge with this item in order to gain its effects permanently. This may work, or it might backfire horribly, depending on the story and what the object is.
There are typically three forms this trope can take: the object simply existing grants them immortality, the object must be used in some way periodically to keep them immortal, or the object must be worn or carried in order to make them immortal.
Likely to be a [[MacGuffin]] or [[Plot Coupon]]. If the [[Immortality Inducer]] can be mass-produced, it may lead to a [[Society of Immortals]].
Supertrope to [[Soul Jar]] and [[Heart Drive]]. Subtrope of [[Immortality]].
Contrast [[Artifact of Death]].
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{{examples|Examples: }}
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Bleach]]'': the Hogyoku was originally created to eliminate the barrier between shinigami and hollow. Later, it is revealed to grant the heart's truest desires; assuming the Hogyoku is exposed to twice captain level reiatsu, and that one has the inherent potential to fulfill their wish. And then...? {{spoiler|Aizen merged with it and was somehow granted immortality. So... either he was immortal to begin with, or had the potential to become...?}}
* In [[One Piece]], some devil fruits give their user immunity to some lethal attacks. To gain such immortality, a person has to eat a devilfruit.
** Logias are immune to everything except their natural weaknesses, devilfruit weaknesses or haki users.
** Buggy is immune to slashes. Even Mihawk, the 'greatest swordsman in the world', couldn't kill Buggy with his sword.
** Brook's power is the closest to immortality of any of the fruits. After dying, his ghost was able to reanimate his skeleton body. With a lack of organs, most attacks cannot kill Brook, though he can still suffer pain and be defeated in battle. Brook can also turn into a ghost by escaping his body.
* The Grand Panacea from ''[[Baccano]]'' has this effect; anyone who drinks it ceases aging and [[Good Thing You Can Heal|almost immediately]] recovers from any injury (seriously, if they're burned the ash turns right back into flesh). The only way to "kill" an immortal is for another to [[Identity Absorption|absorb]] them (which gives them their memories in the process). There's also lesser versions of it that grant invulnerability and the weakness to being absorbed but not immunity to aging.
* In ''[[Zombie Powder]]'', various "powder hunters" search for the Rings of the Dead, which when brought together produce a substance called Zombie Powder that can be used to either raise the dead or grant immortality to the living.
* Rin and Mimi in ''[[Mnemosyne]]'' became immortal when "time spores" entered their bodies. They can sustain severe injuries and regenerate themselves fully, as is shown with the often [[Gorn|gruesome stuff]] that is inflicted on Rin. There is one character in the show who actually eats time spores, preferably old ones, so Rin and Mimi still have to watch their step.
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* ''[[Samurai 7]]'' has a ruler enthroned in a machine that prolongs his life.
* Both Yukiko and Liselotte Werckmeister from ''[[11eyes|Eleven Eyes]]'' share the same immortality that comes with an rapid [[Healing Factor]] and [[The Ageless|the inability to age]]. It is revealed that the Voidstone is the source of the immortality and separating it from the host will disable that immortality.
* In L. Jagi Lamplighter's ''[[Prospero's Daughter]]'' trilogy, Prospero and his children are immortal between the effects of Miranda's Water of Life, and Eramus's staff's ability to cure.
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* [[Marvel Comics]]' [[wikipedia:Ulysses Bloodstone|Ulysses Bloodstone]] is immortal because of a meteorite/gem shard stuck in his chest. At the end of his story, it gets surgically removed by some bad guys and he dies.
* The Sphinx, an enemy of [[Nova]], was an Ancient Egyptian Priest given immortality and great powers by a gem he found in a mysterious temple. But he came to [[Who Wants to Live Forever?|regret living for thousands of years]]; his main motivation was to find a way to end his own existence.
* [[Vandal Savage]] was a Cro-Magnon man named Vadar Adg who found a strange meteorite that fell to Earth one cold night. He fell asleep near it, being bathed in its rays during the night, and he woke up an immortal being. However, the meteorite's effects aren't permanent; Vandal occasionally needs to eat the flesh and organs of his own descendants to maintain his immortality.
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== Literature ==
* ''[[The Picture of Dorian Gray]]'': the caveat is that the immortality wears off if the titular picture is destroyed.
* In ''[[Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone]]'', the title object turns out to be one of these, as you might expect. It produces the Elixir of Life, which makes the drinker temporarily immortal.
* In ''[[Gor]]'', humans have immortality thanks to "stabilization serums" - shots - developed by the Caste of Physicians; basically, it's an immunization against old age. In one book, a woman from Earth actually gets de-aged from her 60s to age 18 or so thanks to the serum. The priest-kings, alien gods of the planet, have even more advanced stabilization serums which make them immortal until they decide to die, although they can be killed.
* "Anti-gerosome" in [[Kurt Vonnegut]]'s short story "Tomorrow And Tomorrow And Tomorrow" is a cheaply produced serum that stops ageing. This makes the world horribly over-populated, and static - one family's great-great-grandfather is still holding sway over all the descendants crammed into his home.
* The Font of Immortality (the drink, not the typing) is one of the five artifacts in [[Fablehaven]]. The catch is that it must be drank from at least once a week (don't worry, it's infinite), or else the drinker will spontaneously [[No Body Left Behind|turn to dust]].
* [[Evil Overlord|The Lord Ruler's]] bracers in ''[[Mistborn]]'', which work due to the fact that {{spoiler|he's a master of two metal-based magic systems which have odd interactions between them}}. They're made of [[Unobtainium|atium]] which {{spoiler|the Lord Ruler can use to store youth for later consumption using Feruchemy- with the side effect that he has to become old for an equivalent amount of time that he's young, because Feruchemy is an [[Equivalent Exchange]] system}}. Add his ''other'' magic system, Allomancy, which lets him draw power from the metal itself- {{spoiler|by "burning" the bracers he's charged with Feruchemy, he's got a pair of magical objects that make him- and only him- infinitely young}}. This neat trick is called "compounding", and was the source of his [[Physical God|godlike general abilities]], though only the bracers are this trope.
* In Megan Whalen Turner's ''[[The Queen's Thief|The Thief]]'', Gen ([[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|the titular character]]) is recruited to help find a stone that grants immortality to whoever is wearing it. {{spoiler|After he steals it, he hides it in his hair and attempts to escape, but is caught up in a fight and stabbed in the chest. When the sword is removed Gen describes it as feeling as though his life is being stretched thin by the blade, and it causes him an immense amount of pain. Gen decides the pain isn't worth it and swears off ever wanting to be immortal again.}}
* {{spoiler|Durzo Blint, and later Azoth/Kylar Stern gain immortality after bonding with the Black Ka'kari}} from ''[[The Night Angel Trilogy]]'' by Brent Weeks.
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* In ''[[The History of the Runestaff]]'', King-Emperor Huon's life is indefinitely prolonged by the Throne Globe, an elaborate piece of [[Lost Technology]]. From the outside, it looks like a glass sphere full of translucent fluid in which Huon floats. He can talk to people in the room, but he can't leave the sphere or move it. If it were to be destroyed, which would not be terribly hard considering it's made of glass, he would die. This is the [[Ur Example]] of this kind of life prolongation (1967) as far as I know. (I don't think Huon is ever explicitly ''called'' a [[God-Emperor]], but he otherwise fits the trope; for instance, people swear "By Huon's Teeth".)
* The narrator in Xanadu by ''[[Rush]]'' gains immortality after entering the Pleasure Dome, dining on the honeydew, and drinking the milk of paradise. He is ''not'' happy about it.
* In ''[[Dragonlance]]'', [[Evil Sorcerer|Fistandantilus]]'s bloodstone pendant allowed him to drain the life-force from other wizards to prolong his own existence. {{spoiler|Unfortunely for him, his [[Bastard Understudy]] Raistlin figured out that he would be the next victim and turned the tables, stealing the bloodstone and using it on Fistandantilus himself, killing him, absorbing his memories and life-force, and stealing his identity to boot}}.
* In the Old Norse ''[[The Tale of Norna Gest|Tale of Norna Gest]]'', the magic of a norn makes Norna-Gest immortal so long as a certain candle is not destroyed.
* In [[Ursula K. Le Guin]]'s ''[[Literature/Changing Planes|Changing Planes]]'', one world that the narrator visits has an island which has a small population of immortals, whose eternal life is believed to be granted by the mosquitoes that are endemic there. Unfortunately, this is Type VI immortality, with a normal human ability to heal. The immortal that she is fortunate enough to meet is a withered husk after having survived falling into a lava stream. The natives don't seem to worry about this fate because, according to them, {{spoiler|there is just one}}.
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== Mythology ==
* The Fountain of Youth.
* This was said to be one of the many effects of the Philosopher's Stone.
** The ultimate goal of Chinese alchemy, rather than the western "lead into gold," was to create an elixir that granted immortality.
** For some western alchemists, the point of turning lead into gold was also to create an elixir of immortality: the the thinking was that gold is the purest metal, and transmuting the base dross of lead into gold would mean turning common flesh into angelic perfection.
* In [[Chinese Mythology]], the Peaches of Immortality grow in the garden of the Jade Emperor of Heaven and are given to gods, sages and others deemed worthy of them.
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== [[MMORPGs]] ==
* In [[Ragnarok Online]], the Soul Linker job change implies that your character owns several.
{{quote|This Witherless Rose will wither away instead of you...
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== Video Games ==
* The [[Trope Namer]] is the +ii emitter in ''[[I Miss the Sunrise]]'', affectionately referred to as the "immortality inducer" by some characters. It works by emitting radiation that stops cell aging, and is mass-produced, effectively making the entire human race immortal. It induces type II immortality.
** In the sequel, ''[[The Reconstruction]]'', it is also {{spoiler|the "artifact" that Havan finds. Tezkhra reveals in the [[Golden Ending]] that there are five in total. Four are destroyed or deactivated by Tezkhra, so the fifth is likely a [[Sequel Hook]].}}
* {{spoiler|Jacob Crow}} in ''[[Time Splitters]]'' achieves immortality by merging himself with one of these, or turning himself into one, it would seem. The good? He is immortal and can time-travel at will. The bad? His [[Body Horror|body is plastered to a giant bipedal mech, and he has absolutely no hands whatsoever]].
* In ''[[Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots]]'', {{spoiler|Vamp, who previously demonstrated his immortality in ''[[Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty]]'', is revealed to have nanomachines [[Doing in the Wizard|(what else?)]] in his body that enhance his already impressive [[Healing Factor|natural healing abilities]], making him practically immortal. Naturally, the only way to beat him later on is to inject him with a shot that supresses his nanomachines.}}
* The ''[[Touhou]]'' series has the Hourai Elixir, which was literally created by distilling the concept of eternity into liquid form. It makes whoever drinks it immortal by removing the very concept of death from their being: they will never age, never grow sick, and will instantly heal any injury, no matter how severe. The closest one can get to defeating one is beating them down until the pain makes them not want to fight you anymore. Fortunately, only two people have consumed the Elixir, neither of whom is particularly interested in a fight to the death ([[Cycle of Revenge|except between]] [[Revenge Before Reason|each other]]).
* In ''[[Pokémon Ranger]]: Guardian Signs'', {{spoiler|The Societea become immortal by wearing pieces of the Golden Armor. This seems to be of the "stop the aging process and survive mortal blows" kind, but we never actually see them suffer any direct physical harm until after they lose their armor to [[The Starscream|Purple Eyes]], so we can't be sure about the latter. After Purple Eyes is defeated, the armor disappears, thus making sure no one remains immortal.}}
* The Heart of Chaos serves this purpose for Caius of ''[[Final Fantasy XIII-2]]''. As long as it beats in his chest, he always revives instantly after being defeated, [[Justified]] via him having the Auto-Raise status boost. If it's destroyed, he dies {{spoiler|and so does the goddess who gave it to him.}}
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== Web Original ==
* From the [[SCP Foundation]], there's [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-963 SCP-963], a talisman which, if you are killed while holding it, is imprinted with your soul. From then on, anyone else who touches the talisman has their personality overwritten with whoever is contained inside. It's actually possible to make multiple copies of yourself this way.
** Anyone who touches [http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-596 SCP-596] is kept alive forever until they release it, even regenerating from any injury. Not that you would want to be however, since you're kept alive in permanent agony, and the only way to let go is for someone else to touch it at which point you die. Its heavily hinted that it was a booby trap to curse tomb robbers with a case of [[And I Must Scream]].
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[[Category:This Index Will Live Forever]]
[[Category:Immortality Inducer]]
[[Category:Magic Items Index]]
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