History Main / ImmortalityHurts

* In "Xanadu" by Music/{{Rush}}, the narrator clearly regrets having become immortal, since now he is trapped in the Pleasure Dome forever, the stars do not change, and he has clearly gone insane.

* Henry from ''Series/{{Forever}}'' dies and comes back quite a bit, and comments that dying still hurts regardless. He can often be rather blase about a painful death (killing himself with poison to get a test result without the three week wait for example), but when he's faced with the possibility of having to go through being dissected again, he starts panicking and packing his bags immediately. Adam reveals that he once did undergo constant dissection and torture under the scalpel of the infamous [[MadScientist Dr. Mengele]] in Auschwitz, who was trying to figure out the secret to immortality. The last episode has Henry [[spoiler:deal with Adam by giving him a brain embolism, [[AndIMustScream paralyzing him]] and keeping him on perpetual life support. While dying would fix the problem, Henry has no intention of letting that happen]].

* Discussed in some ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' fanfics. If Nightmare Moon was imprisoned for 1,000 years, shouldn't she be [[GoMadFromTheIsolation completely insane by now]]? Of course, she intended on creating TheNightThatNeverEnds, which would probably cause all life on Equestria to eventually die due to lack of sunlight, so maybe she was crazy.

** Taken UpToEleven in ''Film/{{Logan}}'': thanks to his advanced age [[spoiler: and possible metal poisoning from his Adamantium-reinforced skeleton]], his healing factor isn't what it used to be, and as a result, he is covered in scars and open wounds (which apparently get infected on a regular basis), is visibly stiff and arthritic, has vision and hearing issues, and intermittently has his claws get stuck halfway, which requires him to pull them the rest of the way out and visibly causes incredible pain. It's also caused his drinking to go from heavy but reasonably well-managed to absolutely out of control, and he is frequently visibly drunk or hungover due to his metabolism slowing down. The years have ''not'' been kind to the man.

-->-- ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark,'' "Coon vs. Coon and Friends"

* In ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', the immortal Hob Gadling once comments on how it feels to starve when you are unable to die. Although when promptly offered the chance to renounce his immortality, he turns it down, as he has so much to live for. Being immortal, he always has the chance to improve his lot (and indeed, the next time he meets his benefactor, he's pulled himself into high society). The whole point of his first story (besides its reflection on Morpheus's character) is to subvert the Hell out of this trope because, for all its suffering, life is worth living and certainly preferable than the alternative. It's a bit weird in a comic where Death is so nice, but it works very nicely, especially with Gadling's later appearances.
** CainAndAbel. Abel is the first victim, and so he has to spend eternity reliving his story by having Cain repeatedly murder him on a daily basis, sometimes in rather horrid ways. Cain is the first murderer, and so he has to spend eternity reliving his story by murdering his brother on a daily basis. Their family dynamic is a little disturbed.

* ''Manga/RevolutionaryGirlUtena'': [[spoiler: Anthy is an immortal "WickedWitch" (and implied PhysicalGod), doomed to forever serve as TheScapegoat for ''humanity's fury over "losing" their Prince ''. Said hatred manifests as a million million invisible swords constantly impaling her body.]] [[FromBadToWorse As if her life wasn't bad enough already]]...

* Congratulations to ''Manga/DragonBall'' movie villain Garlic Jr., one of only two characters in the entire franchise to ever obtain [[CompleteImmortality perfect immortality]]. Unfortunately, he has this [[WhatAnIdiot habit]] of trying to send his enemies through the [[PhantomZone Dead Zone]] when he's pissed off [[WhyDontYouJustShootHim instead of just killing them]]. Naturally, this typically ends in him getting [[HoistByHisOwnPetard knocked into his own void]] courtesy of Gohan. Immortality... truly a FateWorseThanDeath.

* Myth/NorseMythology: Loki at one point gets drunk, crashes a party, and starts insulting all the other gods. Whereupon the other gods tie him to a rock in a cave, and hang a snake above his face. Every time the snake's venom drips into his eyes, Loki trashes in pain, causing earthquakes.

[[folder:Mythology And Religion]]

** [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tithonus Tithonus]] was a mortal gifted with eternal life by the goddess Eos,[[labelnote:*]]In some versions, she got Zeus to do it for her.[[/labelnote]] who had kidnapped him to be her lover. Unfortunately, she forgot to give him (or ask for) eternal ''youth'' as well, so [[AgeWithoutYouth he just gets older, and older...]] Tennyson wrote [[http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/tennyson/section5.rhtml a rather horrifying poem]] about it.
* The [[Literature/TheBible Book of Revelation]]:
** John witnesses a plague of "locusts" ([[EldritchAbomination with human faces, women's hair, lion's teeth, and scorpion's tails]]) that terrorize the unsaved for about half a year; their venom inflicts a pain so severe that the afflicted want to kill themselves, but it also renders them unable to die.
** Hell. Revelation refers to it as the Second Death, but that's because of its finality and totality, not because those cast into the Lake of Fire are annihilated. Far from it. The inhabitants are immortal and not consumed by the flames, but quite capable of being tortured by them.
** Oh, and there's also that part where in order for Jesus to die and fulfill the prophecies throughout the rest of the Bible, he had to subject himself to the most painful death penalty the Roman state could muster. At the end of "Good Friday" he had the skin flayed from his back, nail-sized thorns driven into his head, nails driven through all four limbs, severe life-threatening sunburns... and he was awake for every second of it.
* In Myth/NorseMythology, Loki at one point gets drunk, crashes a party, and starts listing all the other gods' faults. Whereupon the other gods kill one of his sons, tie him to a rock in a cave with said son's guts, and hang a snake above his face in such a way that the snake's venom drips into his eyes. Forever. And they wonder why he starts Ragnarok.

* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' provides the {{Trope Namer|s}}. [[GoldfishPoopGang The Dark Hand]] is in possession of all 12 talismans, have split them up equally between the four of them, and are using them to wreak havoc. Finn notices that he has both the Dog and Horse talismans, which grant immortality and healing respectively. Considering this redundant, he trades the Horse to Ratso for the Pig (EyeBeams). This later comes back to bite him in the ass when he slams into a rock wall at 60 miles an hour, and he learns that while the Dog might prevent him from dying, it most certainly does ''not'' prevent him from being injured or feeling pain.

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone'':
** There was an episode where a guy made made a DealWithTheDevil to live forever. Getting bored with life over the decades, he eventually amused himself by committing crimes. When he was finally caught and arrested, he got a life sentence. He then pleaded with the devil to die, and the devil granted his wish.
** In the 2002 revival, the Angel of Death decided to slack off from his job for a day, which had some UnfortunateImplications for some firefighters arriving at a hospital, burnt to a crisp but still alive.

* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures provides the {{Trope Namer|s}}. [[GoldfishPoopGang The Dark Hand]] is in possession of all 12 talismans, have split them up equally between the four of them, and are using them to wreak havoc. Finn notices that he has both the Dog and Horse talismans, which grant immortality and healing respectively. Considering this redundant, he trades the Horse to Ratso for the Pig (EyeBeams). This later comes back to bite him in the ass when he slams into a rock wall at 60 miles an hour, and he learns that while the Dog might prevent him from dying, it most certainly does ''not'' prevent him from being injured or feeling pain.

* The [[TropeNamers trope namer]] is Finn of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Dark Hand Enforcers]] from ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' when he gets slammed into a rock wall at sixty miles per hour (with immortality). [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp This was after he had traded the Horse talisman, which possesses the power of healing, to Ratso]] for the Dog talisman, which possesses immortality, because he thought having Healing ''and'' Immortality was redundant -- [[RequiredSecondaryPowers not realizing that the Dog talisman doesn't include healing and only seems to prevent outright lethal injury]]. It certainly doesn't prevent pain.

* [[TheyKilledKennyAgain Kenny]] of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', who dies over and over and keeps coming back, which is explained in the Coon Trilogy, where he rants about it in his Mysterion persona:

* Being a god, Xie Lian from ''Literature/TianGuanCiFu'' can't die, but can still feel the effects of injury. This is used against him when the villain orchestrates his torture through being repeatedly fatally stabbed, to the point where his entire narration becomes a repeated [[NightmareFuel "IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS"]].

* The [[TropeNamers trope namer]] is Finn of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Dark Hand Enforcers]] from ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' when he gets slammed into a rock wall at sixty miles per hour (with immortality). This was after [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp he had traded the Horse talisman, which possesses the power of healing, to Ratso]] for the Dog talisman, which possesses immortality, because he thought having Healing ''and'' Immortality was redundant -- [[RequiredSecondaryPowers not realizing that the Dog talisman doesn't include healing and only seems to prevent outright lethal injury]]. It certainly doesn't prevent pain.

* The [[TropeNamers trope namer]] is Finn of the [[QuirkyMinibossSquad Dark Hand Enforcers]] from ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'' when he gets slammed into a rock wall at sixty miles per hour (with immortality). This was after [[AlwaysNeedWhatYouGaveUp he had just traded the Healing talisman to Ratso]] because he thought having Healing ''and'' Immortality was redundant -- [[RequiredSecondaryPowers not realizing that the Immortality talisman doesn't include healing and only seems to prevent outright lethal injury]]. It certainly doesn't prevent pain.
--> '''Finn:''' Immortality hurts...

* In ''ComicBook/{{Fables}}'', Goldilocks is immortal as long as she remains a popular character. It leads to a tragicomic scene where she takes an axe to the head, gets shot, hit by a truck, thrown off the cliff into the river and nibbled on by the fish all the way to the sea (which took over a week of constant drowning and returning to life).

* Due to his immmortality, Utsuro from ''Manga/Gintama'' was regarded as a monster and thus was captured, tortured, and killed in all imaginable methods for centuries. This led him to create multiple personalities to cope with the trauma, most of which are empty and nihilistic monsters that desire nothing but the death of himself along with the whole world.

* Hidan from ''Anime/{{Naruto}}'' needs to use a fighting style that includes self-mutilation to maintain his immortality. His partner [[ImmortalLifeIsCheap isn't very sympathetic]] when he specifically comments on how painful decapitation (and being picked up by the hair afterward) is. Then there is the AndIMustScream solution Shikamaru comes up with to deal with his immortality - although [[AllThereInTheManual supplemental material]] stated he ''would'' eventually die from it. But not before he begins to rot ''while still conscious''.

* ''Film/{{Highlander}}'' contains a scene set sometime during the 17th century in which Connor [=McLeod=] shows up to fight a duel while stinking drunk. His opponent swiftly runs him through to no effect, since Connor is both immortal and too drunk to pretend otherwise, (this was before the idea of temporary death, which only was shown in the [[Series/{{Highlander}} TV series]]) and simply gets right back up. A montage of Connor getting run through repeatedly ensues, until finally, still drunk, Connor apologizes for his behavior towards his opponent's wife and wanders off none the worse for wear. The other guy's face is priceless.

* Chirico Cuvie from ''Anime/ArmoredTrooperVOTOMS'' has a serious case of [[ShellShockedVeteran PTSD]] due to the trauma of living through countless things that ought to have killed him many times over. Notable incidents include being soaked in burning mech fuel, [[TisOnlyABulletInTheBrain being shot through the head (several times)]] and [[TheyWouldCutYouUp being dissected in an attempt to figure out just how he does it]].
* [[spoiler: Zeno]] from ''Manga/YonaOfTheDawn'' has an interesting variation: [[spoiler: he can survive getting his head or arms chopped off, as his body will simply come back together; and when he heals his body becomes covered in scales as hard as steel, giving his attacks much more strength. This makes him a veritable OneManArmy... but, of course, this is only ''after'' getting injured. Beforehand, he's a short, thin, physically weak 17-year-old boy, which means that fighting anyone essentially requires him to suffer through what would kill a normal person multiple times.]] By the time his power is revealed in-series, he seems more or less desensitized to it, though he's clearly in a lot of pain, but his backstory arc shows him to have been terrified of the prospect.

** Even after that, it turns out he could ''still'' be traumatized further: [[spoiler:after he tried to have an entire train car full of innocents killed [[CrazySurvivalist out of paranoia]], Vino decides to dish out [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill some of that]] [[{{Gorn}} special Rail Tracer justice]] and grind his limbs off on the train tracks until he (Vino) gets bored.]]

** Taken UpToEleven in ''Film/{{Logan}}'': thanks to his advanced age, his healing factor isn't what it used to be, and as a result, he is covered in scars and open wounds (which apparently get infected on a regular basis), is visibly stiff and arthritic, has vision and hearing issues, and intermittently has his claws get stuck halfway, which requires him to pull them the rest of the way out and visibly causes incredible pain. It's also caused his drinking to go from heavy but reasonably well-managed to absolutely out of control, and he is frequently visibly drunk or hungover due to his metabolism slowing down. The years have ''not'' been kind to the man.

[[folder: TabletopGames]]

* ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'': The Fused are TimeAbyss spirits who return to the world during Desolations and get reincarnated [[BodySnatcher into new host bodies]] whenever their bodies die. The process is agonizing to the body and every reincarnation damages the Fused's mind, to the point that many of them are now babbling lunatics.

* This comes up in ''{{Anime/Mnemosyne}}''-- the immortal protagonist gets put through a lot of pain and suffering. The tagline for its trailers was "It only hurts '''forever'''."

* The angels in Fanfic/{{Weightless}}, and ''how''. First off, they're kept as sex slaves and ridiculously dehumanized; secondly, they have an ''incredible'' HealingFactor, meaning that people can do whatever they want to an angel without having to worry about damaging it ''permanently'' and often torture them for fun, and ''they can't even kill themselves to escape it''.
* Discussed in some WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic fanfics. If Nightmare Moon was imprisoned for 1,000 years, shouldn't she be [[GoMadFromTheIsolation completely insane by now]]? Of course, she intended on creating TheNightThatNeverEnds, which would probably cause all life on Equestria to eventually die due to lack of sunlight, so maybe she was crazy.

* A popular piece of ''Manga/AxisPowersHetalia'' {{fanon}} is that the [[AnthropomorphicPersonification Nations]] live as long as the country they personify lasts. Between this and the fact that a lot of the series depicts the Nations interacting in battle (most notably World War II), many fanfictions show the Nations suffering diseases and injuries that could kill a normal person, only for them to manage to survive.
** [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/5399721/1/Awakening Awakening]] has an incredibly disturbing variation. The initial experiments Josef Mengele performs on America and Canada (infection with tuberculosis and vivisection and injection of dye into the eyes respectively) don't kill them, but do leave them in immense pain. [[spoiler:Injecting chemicals directly into their hearts is the closest to killing them he manages. They show all the signs of being dead (no pulse, no breathing, etc.) but come back to life once their hearts are restarted.]]
** For a fanfiction that has this happen in a non-war setting [[http://hetalia-kink.livejournal.com/12046.html?thread=27716878#t27716878 Trials]] has Canada BuriedAlive by a serial killer and forced to repeatedly come back to life, only to asphyxiate over and over.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' project, Fujiwara no Mokou and Kaguya-hime both have resurrective immortality and hate each other's guts, so they spend their time killing each other.