History Main / ImmortalityHurts

* In ''Film/MenInBlack'', the character Jack Jeebs has a HealingFactor so powerful ''he can survive even if the ChunkySalsaRule is invoked!'' Though as he remarks after K quite literally blew his head off, "Don't you have any idea how much that stings!?" Oh yeah, it sucks to be Jeebs.

** Jeebs looks a little worse for wear in the [[Film/MenInBlackII second film]], though. WordOfGod is that not all parts grow back the same. In the animated series, Jeebs's brother shows up at one point and reveals that, in his family, blasting each other pretty much means "Hello", although it's usually Jeebs who gets blasted.

** It was implied by Barbossa that the cursed pirates don't feel anything positive, only negative. They are constantly feeling the suffering that comes with dying of starvation and thirst, but they keep going on.

** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E6EscapeClause Escape Clause]]", a guy makes a DealWithTheDevil to live forever. Getting bored with life over the decades, he eventually amuses himself by committing crimes. When he is finally caught and arrested, he gets a life sentence. He then pleads with the devil to die, and the devil grants his wish.

* [[PsychoPrototype Rampage]] of ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' made it clear that his seemingly immortal life has brought him nothing but pain. On top of the higher-than-usual-for-the-series battle damage, he's been subjected to horrific experimentation, had every method of execution that the Maximal High Council could think of attempted on him, and has his heart/soul analogue regularly tormented in ways that would kill anyone else to enforce obedience.

* In Creator/JRRTolkien's Literature/MiddleEarth, not only do Elves not die of old age (though to be fair they don't really age either), but their bodies can only be destroyed by the most extreme sorts of injuries. This makes torturing an Elf particularly "fun." One Elf, Maedhros, was taken captive by [[BigBad Melkor]] and hung by the wrist of his right hand on a cliff face for decades until he had gone quite suicidal.

* In Creator/SergeyLukyanenko's ''Literature/LineOfDelirium'', the [=aTan=] technology allows ResurrectiveImmortality. However, to even get to it, one must first undergo an excruciating molecular scan in order to get the person's body template into the [=aTan=] databanks for future [[MatterReplicator replication]]. The pain is so great that a certain percentage of new clients quit partway through and walk out, refusing immortality. Despite decades of study, [=aTan=] researchers are no closer to making the process less painful. Additionally, anyone who dies and is brought back remembers everything up to the moment of death, including the circumstances, which can be quite traumatic for some types of violent death. Every [=aTan=] facility employs a "thanatologist", a counselor specializing in helping people come back from death. For example, Kay's first death in the book is from an AgonyBeam weapon coupled with him being covered in razor-sharp fix-spray (he cut his own body to pieces by jerking and spasming from the induced pain).

* [[Franchise/{{Whoniverse}} The Doctor Who universe]]:

** ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "The Escape Clause", a guy makes a DealWithTheDevil to live forever. Getting bored with life over the decades, he eventually amuses himself by committing crimes. When he is finally caught and arrested, he gets a life sentence. He then pleads with the devil to die, and the devil grants his wish.

* Franchise/{{Buffyverse}}:

*** In "[[Recap/BuffyTheVapireSlayerS3E13TheZeppo The Zeppo]]", Xander gets undead sociopath Jack to back down and deactivate his bomb in the school basement by pointing out how immortality won't be any fun when he's blown to bits. The story thankfully didn't dwell on the aspect of Jack and his undead pals being decapitated, crushed, or eaten.

* Henry from ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'' 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]].
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': In ''Tithonus'' (inspired by the Greek myth of a man who asked for eternal life but [[AgeWithoutYouth forgot about eternal youth]]) the immortal character suffers from the constant misery of being alone, changing his identity periodically so no one will know his secret and wishing only to die. He once tried to look up what had become of his wife, but found he [[TheFogOfAges couldn't even remember her name after so long]]. [[spoiler: In the end he finally gets his wish and is killed. It's implied that his immortality is transferred to Scully.]]
* In the Franchise/StargateVerse, the Goa'uld distorted the healing use of sarcophagi for the purpose of a particularly painful punishment against one of them (whose crimes were high even by Goa'uld standards). They locked up the convicted person inside a sarcophagus with a fierce alien wild beast. In that way, the goa'uld was condemned to fight eternally against the animal since their respective injuries were constantly healed by the machine they were trapped in.

* ''Series/KamenRiderWizard'' sentences the immortal Phantom Phoenix to the fate of burning up in the sun for all eternity. He’ll keep living as he’s revived each time; the pain will just never stop and he’ll never be strong enough to leave.
* ''{{Series/Gotham}}'': It turns out that being immortal ''hurts like hell'' for R'as al Ghul, and he wants to die. Bruce thus kills him at his request.

* Nolan of the ''Ashtown Burials'' series has a HealingFactor which involves [[BodyHorror peeling his own skin off]], for starters. Over the course of three books, he is shot, stabbed, severely burned, overdosed with spider venom, and caught in an explosion that leaves him looking as though he's been "sanded by an avalanche". A lot of this is down to his tendency to go human shield for his allies. He also doesn't technically need to breathe or eat, though he still feels the effects of drowning or starvation and prefers to avoid that.

-> '''Nolan:''' For the record, we do feel pain. We just don't die.

* In ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure Part 2: Battle Tendency'', [[BigBad Kars]] succeeds in his plan to combine the [[NinetyPercentOfYourBrain potential-unlocking]] abilities of a [[MaskOfPower Stone Mask]] with the [[AmplifierArtifact Red Stone of Aja]], removing his weakness to sunlight and evolving him into an unkillable ultimate being. He was beaten when Joseph desperately held out the Red Stone, amplifying Kars' [[KiManipulation Ripple powers]], inducing the volcano they were standing on to erupt violently enough to blast Kars into space. Drifting through the cosmos, [[AndIMustScream unable to breathe or alter his course]], he eventually stopped thinking at all.

* 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'''."

[[folder:Films]]

[[folder:Myths & Religion]]

'''Kenny:''' ''"Pretty cool"?!'' Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed?! To be shot? Decapitated? Torn apart? Burned?! ''Run over?!''\\

'''Kenny:''' ''"Pretty cool"?!'' Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed?! To be shot, decapitated, torn apart, burned, run over--\\

'''Kenny:''' ''"Pretty cool?!''" Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed?! To be shot, decapitated, torn apart, burned, run over--\\

'''Kenny:''' It's ''not'' "pretty cool," Kyle! It ''fucking HURTS!''

* ''LightNovel/IsThisAZombie'' has this as an important factor for both the main character and [[spoiler:Kyouko]]. While a zombie, Ayumu can still feel any injury he suffers, his non-Magical Girl power attacks break his body painfully, and he painfully dries out in the sun. [[spoiler:Kyouko has stolen dozens of lives and so isn't afraid to die or be horribly maimed in combat, though she does still suffer pain]].

->'''Kyle/Human Kite:''' What's the big deal? I mean, I think it'd be pretty cool not to be able to die.\\
'''Kenny/Mysterion:''' ''"Pretty cool?!''" Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed?! To be shot, decapitated, torn apart, burned, run over...\\
'''Stan/Toolshed:''' Kenny, Kenny, calm down!\\
'''Kenny/Mysterion:''' It's ''not'' "pretty cool", Kyle; it fucking ''hurts!'' And it won't go away, and nobody will believe me!

* The Neverborn of ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' offer a slight variant. As Primordials, they possessed CompleteImmortality and could not be killed. Unfortunately for them, when the Solar Exalted [[BeyondTheImpossible managed to kill them anyway]], this meant that the cycle of death and rebirth was unable to process them, leaving them stuck forever in a state of tortured undeath.

** ''TheTwilightZone1959'': In the episode "The Escape Clause", a guy makes a DealWithTheDevil to live forever. Getting bored with life over the decades, he eventually amuses himself by committing crimes. When he is finally caught and arrested, he gets a life sentence. He then pleads with the devil to die, and the devil grants his wish.
** ''TheTwilightZone2002'': The Angel of Death decides to slack off from his job for a day, which has some UnfortunateImplications for some firefighters arriving at a hospital, burnt to a crisp but still alive.

** [[spoiler: Russell Edgington]] experiences the punishment kind; buried alive in concrete while tied up in silver (silver immobilizes vampires and hurts them badly). Also in [[spoiler: Bill's ]] trial we learn that the punishment for killing another vampire is to be buried alive in a silver coffin for ''years''.

--> '''Jeebs''': Oh great, right in the piehole! Now nothing's gonna taste right.

-->'''Ernie:''' Why do you eat people?
-->'''Zombie:''' Not people. Brains.
-->'''Ernie:''' Brains only?
-->'''Zombie:''' Yes.
-->'''Ernie:''' Why?
-->'''Zombie:''' The PAIN!
-->'''Ernie:''' What about the pain?
-->'''Zombie:''' The pain of being DEAD!
-->'''Ernie:''' It hurts... to be dead.
-->'''Zombie:''' I can feel myself rotting.
-->'''Ernie:''' Eating brains... How does that make you feel?
-->'''Zombie:''' It makes the pain go away!

->'''Kyle/Human Kite:''' What's the big deal? I mean, I think it'd be pretty cool not to be able to die.\\

--> '''Marceline:''' ''(staring at her fingertips flayed to the bone)'' One second of eternity hurts ''so much!''

* Csezlaw Meyer of ''LightNovel/{{Baccano}}''. He was tortured by another immortal that he had deeply trusted for at least one hundred years under the pretenses of "testing the limits of immortality". Understandably, at his first opportunity he cut his right hand free to devour his torturer (the only way to kill an immortal, performed by placing your right hand on their head and thinking you want to eat). As if ''that'' wasn't enough, devouring absorbs memories, so he has memories of doing all that to ''himself'' for a century, along with the knowledge that it was done [[ForTheEvulz purely out of sadism]].

* Discussed in ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat''. Kumoko survives having her body destroyed by [[spoiler:Ariel]] thanks to the Immortality skill but is left waiting several days while regenerating a new body from her head. She muses that if she lacked the self-healing abilities it would be entirely possible to be reduced to a still-conscious paste incapable of doing anything but suffer.

* The parahuman ability of Grey Boy from Literature/{{Worm}} is to inflict a TimeLoopTrap on anyone he touches. Worse, he can interact and inflict injuries on people trapped this way so that they constantly feel their bodies get stabbed, revert, get stabbed again, etc. over and over again for potentially thousands of years. Even among the other sociopaths from the Slaughterhouse Nine, he was one of the most feared.

* ''TabletopGames/DeltaGreen'' has the Disciples of the Worm. Thanks to a very interesting accident in a monastery devoted to extraplanar travel via meditation, the cult's founder got an astral parasite stuck inside him. The plus side is, the parasite's waste byproducts induced a state of immortality with associated HealingFactor. The minus side is, the parasites are active, writhing, and given to reproduce quickly, putting their hosts in excruciating pain. To even be able to function while infested requires large amounts of opioids... and between that and magic that allows for extradimensional travel, the cult has managed to become a powerful player in drug smuggling.

* In ''/Manga/UQHolder'', Karin feels the pain of the damage dealt to her, but her body cannot be damaged, making her nigh perfectly immortal. It is at many points discussed whether it is a blessing or a curse, but either way it doesn't seem as awesome as it looks. Moreso, this becomes suddenly terrifying when she [[spoiler: nearly falls into a star, and realize she might spend the next billions of years being continuously burnt to death]]