History Main / AgeWithoutYouth

The TropeMaker is possibly the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek myths]] of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus Tithonus,]] whose lover and abductor, the dawn goddess Eos, asked Zeus for immortality for him. Because of a curse Aphrodite laid upon Eos, she forgot to ask Zeus to also simultaneously bless the man with eternal youth. As a result of [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Eos' thoughtlessness]], poor Tithonus eventually ended up an immobile old man, squeaking endlessly, [[AFateWorseThanDeath but still living forever]], making this OlderThanFeudalism. (Zeus eventually took pity on him, though, and let the living fossil [[JustSoStory find a fulfilling career]] [[ChirpingCrickets as the first cricket.]]) There is also the myth of Sibyl, a mortal prophetess, who wished to the gods for immortality, and was granted it. However, she forgot to wish for eternal youth, and thus, did not receive it. Eventually, she withered down to tiny size, and was placed in a tree by children, who would ask her what she wished for. She would answer, "I wish to die".

* ''Film/TheBrothersGrimm'' has this as a central plot point. A queen gains immortality to protect her from a plague, but is not [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor careful what she wishes for]] and ends up indefinitely prolonged. She must kidnap twelve girls and steal their youth in order to revitalize herself, a project the aforementioned Grimms are eager to stop. When Jacob finds out and warns Will, Will incredulously comments about how old the queen must be and Jacob replies, "Yes, but [the years] haven't been kind to her."

* This is the fate of [[spoiler:Porky Minch]] in ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'', after traveling through the time stream so many times that he has rendered himself unable to die by any means.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has [[spoiler:[[AlternateUniverse Farmworld!Marceline]]. Due to not becoming a vampire in this timeline, she continued to age over the course of time. It seems that being half-demon gave her an extended lifespan, but not immunity to aging]].

* Downplayed in ''Film/TheGreenMile'': Paul Edgecombe looks to be 80 at most-but he really is 104, and outlived several nurses at the retirement home. Given to the pet mouse, Mr. Jingles, whom [[MagicalNegro Jim Coffey]] brought back to life, which lived to 64 (mice seldom live over two years), Paul is most likely destined to live over 1,000 years.

* Morgan Le Fey in ''[[WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague Justice League Unlimited]]'' wears a mask all the time so nobody can see her face. She has to continually absorb LifeEnergy to stay young. Her son, on the other hand, stays young all the time... until he gets sick of being a child in "Kid's Stuff" and magically makes himself older... which breaks his eternal youth and causes him to quickly reach his true age, without breaking the separate spell that made him immortal. As the episode ends, [[spoiler:he has become an extremely old, drooling, possibly senile man, while Morgan continues to care for him, as she would with a baby]].
** In the tie-in comics, he gets better.

* Again, General Immortus, who appears in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' and ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheBraveAndTheBold''.

* ''Website/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-910 SCP-910]] is a protein that causes this in mammals. Combined with the resulting inability to heal or even die properly, WhoWantsToLiveForever was inevitable.

* ''ComicBook/XMen''[=/=]ComicBook/{{Gambit}} character Amanda Mueller, alias "Black Womb" for her part in a secret mutant-breeding program, was very long-lived, but slowly aged into a shriveled form that didn't quite look like a normal elderly woman, more like someone mummified but still alive (that could simply be the artist's style).

* The One Ring from ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' seems to give this. Gollum was kept alive for hundreds of years, and looks like it.
** Bilbo started to feel the effects of this in ''The Fellowship of the Ring'', describing it as feeling like too little butter spread over too much bread. After he gave up the ring his one hundred and eleven years really caught up with him.
** It is explained that the One Ring cannot grant new life, but simply stretches what's left over, slowly warping the bearer into a shade of what it was. This is actually just a side effect of its intended use of preventing Sauron being destroyed, since he is naturally ageless anyway.

* The Norwegian folktale "The True Grandfather", about a traveler who has to find the true grandfather of the house so he can stay the night. The true grandfather is [[spoiler: a little shriveled up mouse-sized man, who sleeps in a hunting horn.]]
** Two versions explain why. In one version, the old men are actually secondary world beings, who don't die, and punish the guest when he forgets to thank them for their hospitality. In the other version, death is caught in a barrel, and then nobody dies in that area - they just age for an incredible stretch of time, until the barrel rots, and death escapes to do his job.

* As stated above, Tithonus the cricket. Eos' sister Selene, the moon, averted this trope when she fell in love with a mortal, carefully asking Zeus to freeze Endymion ([[Franchise/SailorMoon no, not that one]], nor [[Literature/HyperionCantos that other one]]) just as he was, in that moment - so she had an ever-sleeping ([[AndIMustScream hopefully!]]), eternal PrettyBoy for company. (The myths did suggest he was happy at least, dreaming that he held the moon in his arms, and seeing as Selene ''was'' the moon, it was technically true.)
* Apollo offered the Sibyl of Cumae a wish in exchange for her sleeping with him, whereupon she took a handful of sand and asked for so many years of life as the grains of sand she held in her hand. But she did not keep her promise, and Apollo punished her by [[LiteralGenie interpreting the wish literally]], so that she lived for a thousand years but aged normally. According to ''Literature/TheMetamorphoses'', her body grew smaller with age until she was kept in a jar, and eventually only her voice was left. In ''Literature/TheSatyricon'', Trimalchio claims to have seen that very jar, and relates that when people asked the Sybil what she wanted, her only answer would be "I want to die."

* Roger Bacon from ''Koudelka'' and the ''VideoGame/ShadowHearts'' trilogy attained immortality by following a ritual depicted in the [[TomeOfEldritchLore Émigré Manuscript]] so he could share his vast knowledge with the future generations. Though successful, he could not stop his body from being ravaged by time, explaining his skeletal, grotesque visage. When he was tasked by the Vatican with the creation of a copy of the century years old cursed book, Bacon omitted the ritual so it could not be abused by immortality seekers. He also claims he cannot replicate the process on others.

* ComicBook/RasAlGhul from ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' becomes this if he doesn't periodically rejuvenate himself in the Lazarus Pits.

* ''Series/TheOuterLimits1995'': In the episode "Blood Brothers", the CorruptCorporateExecutive uses an experimental regenerative drug on himself in an attempt to cure his Huntington's disease and become biologically immortal. It renders him unable to die but degenerates his body into a fragile husk.

* In ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'' episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E6EscapeClause Escape Clause]]," the hypochondriac Walter Bedeker, while ironing out the details of his CompleteImmortality with the Devil, brings up this concept. The Devil plays impressed and offers the mortal a relatively unchanging appearance and it would be within his tolerances. If Mr. Bedeker can live 1,000 years, he won't change much at all.
* Downplayed, [[NonIndicativeName despite its title]], in the ''Series/TheXFiles'' episode "Tithonus". An immortal man looks perpetually 65 [[{{fanon}} presumably]] because that was his age when he was made immortal.

* ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'' has a recurring enemy by the name of Von Kreist, who so happens to be a former Prussian soldier who won a card game against the Devil that granted him immortality. Of course, the Devil gave him the ExactWords interpretation of "unending life", causing Von Kreist's body to eventually decay but never being able to die.

The TropeMaker is possibly the [[Myth/ClassicalMythology Greek myths]] of [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus Tithonus,]] whose lover and abductor, the dawn goddess Eos, asked Zeus for immortality for him. Because of a curse Aphrodite laid upon Eos, she forgot to ask Zeus to also simultaneously bless the man with eternal youth. As a result of [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor Eos' thoughtlessness]], poor Tithonus eventually ended up an immobile old man, squeaking endlessly, [[AFateWorseThanDeath but still living forever]], making this OlderThanFeudalism. (Zeus eventually took pity on him, though, and let the living fossil find a fulfilling career [[ChirpingCrickets as the first cricket.]]) There is also the myth of Sibyl, a mortal prophetess, who wished to the gods for immortality, and was granted it. However, she forgot to wish for eternal youth, and thus, did not receive it. Eventually, she withered down to tiny size, and was placed in a tree by children, who would ask her what she wished for. She would answer, "I wish to die".

* Liches in ''LightNovel/AkashicRecordsOfBastardMagicInstructor'' have this form of immortality. One lich, [[spoiler:Henrietta]], hates and envies Celica for her immortality (which does come with agelessness).

* In one of the ''Film/Subspecies'' films, it's shown that, [[LateInstallmentWeirdness at least in this film]], vampires revert to what their bodies would look like if not undead when they sleep.

** The comics make this even more confusing by revealing that the master was actually sired by an Old One, but not the Old One who was the progenitor of vampires (who also appears) meaning the Master's appearance may not have anything to do with age and casting doubt on whether he and his bloodline are even really vampires or just something similar.

* ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'': Brotherhood of Evil member General Immortus is an example of this trope, having aged incredibly over the years while he was immortal.

* Aginor, one of [[QuirkyMinibossSquad the Forsaken]] from ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' had this happen; bound inside [[GodOfEvil the Dark One's]] prison, but only on the edges of it, he was kept alive for ''three thousand years'' by his master's power but not stopped from aging. When finally freed, he looks more like a desiccated corpse than a living man. His comrade Balthamel also appears to have had this problem, but hid his features behind a leather mask from shame and horror, so what form the decay took with him is never made clear. The other Forsaken, deeper within the prison, were held in complete stasis and did not visibly age during their imprisonment.
** Aginor merely looked like an impossibly old man. Balthamel was trapped the closest to the surface of the bore and had been ground down almost to a skeletal zombie that couldn't even speak any more as his lower jaw had rotted off completely which he covered in a creepy leather mask.

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'': [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-910 SCP-910]] is a protein that causes this in mammals. Combined with the resulting inability to heal or even die properly, WhoWantsToLiveForever was inevitable.

* [[http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-910 SCP-910]] from the Wiki/SCPFoundation is a protein that causes this in mammals. Combined with the resulting inability to heal or even die properly, WhoWantsToLiveForever was inevitable.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has [[spoiler: [[AlternateUniverse Farmworld!Marceline]]. Due to not becoming a vampire in this timeline, she continued to age over the course of time. It seems that being half-demon gave her an extended lifespan, but not immunity to aging]].

* Creator/MarvelComics moved in this direction for a few characters. [[ComicBook/GhostRider Cosmic Ghost Rider]] was a rather old [[ComicBook/ThePunisher Frank Castle]] who looked late 50s or early 60s when he made the deal with Mephisto. Centuries after that he made a deal with Galactus for the Power Cosmic and then he hung with Thanos for millions of years, so now he lost muscle mass and looks like an Amish grandpa. ComicBook/IncredibleHulk is immortal but it took less than a century (despite being in suspended animation) to get a bunch of wrinkles and watch his hair go as the ComicBook/{{Maestro}}. Jason Aaron's ComicBook/TheMightyThor will live well into the ending of the universe, when most stars have collapsed and almost every other god is dead, and he's looking older than his father.

* Apollo offered he Sibyl of Cumae a wish in exchange for her sleeping with him, whereupon she took a handful of sand and asked for so many years of life as the grains of sand she held in her hand. But she did not keep her promise, and Apollo punished her by [[LiteralGenie interpreting the wish literally]], so that she lived for a thousand years but aged normally. According to ''Literature/TheMetamorphoses'', her body grew smaller with age until she was kept in a jar, and eventually only her voice was left. In ''Literature/TheSatyricon'', Trimalchio claims to have seen that very jar, and relates that when people asked the Sybil what she wanted, her only answer would be "I want to die."

[[folder:Anime and Manga]]

* Master Roshi of ''Franchise/DragonBall'' is immortal, (though he can still be killed through violent means,) but perpetually elderly. There are [[MultipleChoicePast various explanations]] for how he attained immortality, but all agree that he was already old by the time he found it and that it only prevented him from aging further rather than restoring his youth.
* ''Manga/JujutsuKaisen'': Master Tengen has the cursed technique of immortality, but has continued to age in such a way that he doesn't look human--his head is cylindrical and he has [[ExtraEyes four eyes]]. He states that any human who has lived as long as him would look this way.

* ''ComicBook/XMen''[=/=]ComicBook/{{Gambit}} character Amanda Mueller, alias "Black Womb" for her part in a secret mutant-breeding program, was very long-lived, but slowly aged into a shriveled form that didn't quite look like a normal elderly woman, more like someone mummified but still alive (that could simply be the artist's style).

* The [[ComicBook/DoomPatrol Brotherhood of Evil]] member General Immortus is an example of this trope, having aged incredibly over the years while he was immortal.
* A classic horror comic had a peddler offer a ring that gifted Immortality to whoever bought it to a baron, who quickly bought it but failed to let the peddler finish explaining it was part of a set. Cut to a century later, when he's an aged and decrepit man living in his broken-down mansion when the peddler, still youthful, returns and offers to buy the ring (as it cannot be given away or lost). Grateful to be free of his curse of immortality he quickly accepts and instantly is reduced to a skeleton, having missed the peddler's explanation (in response to asking how the peddler was still young and alive) that the rings were a set, one offering eternal youth while the other offered eternal life.
* ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'' has a recurring enemy by the name of Von Kreist, who so happens to be a former Prussian soldier who won a card game against the Devil that granted him immortality. Of course, the Devil gave him the ExactWords interpretation of "unending life", causing Von Kreist's body to eventually decay but never being able to die.

* Max Schreck, the vampire [[CastTheExpert "actor"]] (based on the real life actor who portrayed ''Film/{{Nosferatu}}'') in ''Film/ShadowOfTheVampire'', appears to suffer from this: though he is still powerful enough to defend himself, his outward appearance has become decrepit and grotesque, his thirst for blood has become erratic and almost uncontrollable ("I feed the way old men pee," he remarks: "Sometimes all at once, sometimes drop by drop."), and [[TheFogOfAges many of his memories from his early years as a vampire have faded]]. To drive the point home, Schreck even recites excerpts of Tennyson's poem on occasion.
* In ''Film/TheHunger'', vampire Miriam Blaylock possesses eternal life and youth. Her chosen companions will share her endless existence... except they only retain their youth for about 200-300 years before rapidly aging into a husk.

* In ''Film/TheImaginariumOfDoctorParnassus'', the titular character suffers from this.

* ''Film/TheBridesOfDracula'': Baron Meinster inflicts this on his mother after he's freed by turning her into a vampire as a form of cruel retribution for keeping him chained in his room. Knowing it's the one thing she fears after he was turned: to be a walking corpse forced to kill to survive. Doubly so as being turned in her elderly state means she's bound by the vampirism, regardless of how old she was when she was drained.
* Downplayed in ''Film/TheGreenMile'': Paul Edgecombe looks to be 80 at most-but he really is 104, and outlived several nurses at the retirement home. Given to the pet mouse, Mr. Jingles, whom [[MagicalNegro Jim Coffey]] brought back to life, which lived to 64 (mice seldom live over two years), Paul is most likely destined to live over 1,000 years.
* Grandpa Sawyer from ''Film/TheTexasChainsawMassacre'' is 124 years old in the first film and looks every bit of it. When Sally first sees him, she mistakes him for a corpse.
* In the ''Film/HarryPotter'' and ''Film/FantasticBeasts'' series, Famous Wizard and Alchemist, Nicolas Flamel and his wife have lived for centuries, thanks to the Elixir of Life produced from the Sorcerer's Stone, but they still age like mortal beings. If they should ever stop taking the elixir, which happens when the stone is destroyed, they will eventually die from very, very old age - something they [[WhoWantsToLiveForever both heartily desire]]. When we finally get to meet him in the second ''Fantastic Beasts'' film, he's a frail, doddering old man and Jacob accidentally breaks the bones in his hand when he shakes it.

* ''WebVideo/TheHire''. In the short film "Beat the Devil", Music/JamesBrown is revealed to have made a DealWithTheDevil for fame and fortune, but as he's getting old he can't do the James Brown Split any more. He uses this as LoopholeAbuse to renegotiate another contract, provided the Driver win a car race with Satan!
* In ''Film/TheDarkCrystal'' it applies to both the Mystics and Skeksis (though they're not technically immortal), but the Skeksis suffer a bit more from it, especially when you learn that they weren't outwardly evil in their early days, but rather represented the passionate hedonistic side of the urSkeks, and were rather pleasant to party with. Then as they aged for a thousand years, their true nature slowly manifested itself as a rotting from the inside out. They could reverse their decay by drinking the vital essence of other living creatures, but the effect was always temporary.

* In ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'' the priests of the Mortuary Cult were tasked with finding immortality by the kings of Nehekhara, and eventually learned to bind their souls permanently to their bodies and achieved this trope. Due to the undesirability of this form of immortality, and the Cult having grown accustomed to their current high status, they kept this breakthrough for themselves and continued working to find a more perfect version. While they never found it, someone else did reanimate their kings as [[{{Mummy}} undead mummies]], from which the priests' technically alive bodies are almost indistinguishable.
* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' (and by extension ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'') has an interesting inversion with druids. At 15th level they get the Timeless Body ability which means they stop aging (presumably at whatever age they were when they got the ability) and get the mental benefits of old age without the physical drawbacks. They still die of old age when their normal lifespan is up though.
** Liches are wizards who performed a dark ritual to seal their souls inside a magic artifact called a phylactery, granting them a magically extended lifespan, greater magic powers, and an inability to die (that is, unless their phylactery is destroyed, their bodies will regenerate any damage over time). Of course, the ritual requires the wizard to kill themselves before rising again as a lich, so they start off as a walking corpse and eventually end up rotting away until they are just a skeleton in robes- though, given how liches are born from those who are truly desperate for power and immortality, vanity is of little concern for them.
* Old-school Planeswalkers from ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' played with this, as their physical forms were entirely constructs of their minds and so would appear as how they perceived themselves: pure-hearted walkers such as Daria and Serra maintained a youthful appearance, while more bitter walkers such as Leshrac and Tevesh Szat tended to manifest in forms like this that betrayed their true age. Urza is perhaps the most pointed example, as he initially has the form of a young man (despite dying/ascending at a very advanced age) but as the centuries drag on and he starts succumbing to HeWhoFightsMonsters his physical form becomes increasingly more elderly in appearance.

* Kraden in ''VideoGame/GoldenSunDarkDawn'' has a variant: he ''has'' stopped aging, but he was already over seventy when it happened. Several characters remark on how much it must suck that he'll be a fragile old man forever.
* This is the fate of [[spoiler:Porky Minch]] in ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'', after traveling through the time stream so many times that he has rendered himself unable to die by any means.

* ''VideoGame/ChakanTheForeverMan'' is cursed with this form of immortality as his [[JackassGenie "reward"]] for beating Death in a one-on-one duel.

* This trope is inverted in a sense with Rusalka from ''VisualNovel/DiesIrae''. The oldest of all the L.D.O. members, she has a fear of death and will make whatever she can to prolong her life. And while she does manage to keep her body eternally young, she comes more and more to accept the realization that even though her body stays young, her soul keeps aging, and that soon she will die despite her efforts since her soul can no longer keep her alive.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/AladdinTheSeries'', one of the Genie's old masters, [[PunnyName Ajed al-Gebraic]], traded Genie to a sorcerer for eternal life. He got this. He's shown kicking himself for his thoughtlessness. "You'd think eternal life meant eternal youth, but ''nooooo!''"

* ''WesternAnimation/FreakyStories'': One story was about a wealthy businessman who wanted to live forever out of fear his estate would be inherited by someone who'd squander it all. [[{{Irony}} Not only did his immortality cost him his wealth]] (he hoped to build another one - never happened), but he forgot about the trope.
* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has [[spoiler: [[AlternateUniverse Farmworld!Marceline]]. Due to not becoming a vampire in this timeline, she continued to age over the course of time. It seems that being half-demon gave her an extended lifespan, but not immunity to aging]].
* Implied in ''WesternAnimation/PeterPanAndThePirates'' in captain Hook's case: It seems from various episodes that ''nobody'' ages while in Neverland, but Hook was already old when he got there... And he doesn't understand it: An episode has him suspect Pan uses a FountainOfYouth to stay young.

* Master Roshi of ''Franchise/DragonBall'' is immortal, but perpetually elderly. There are [[MultipleChoicePast various explanations]] for how he attained immortality, but all agree that he was already old by the time he found it and that it only prevented him from aging further rather than restoring his youth.