Immortality

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**Immortality**, also known as **Deathlessness**, means that a character cannot be killed by normal means. There are multiple types and degrees of immortality, and two immortal characters may not have the same type of immortality. This page strives to explain each major immortality type in use on the wiki, as well as provide known examples of them.

In addition, some other wikis may employ additional immortality types that we have opted not to use. We will explain these immortality types in the section *Rejects*, along with our reasoning for not using them.

## **Types**

### Type 1: Eternal life

Other names

* Biological Immortality
* Eternal Youth
* Agelessness

Description
Characters with this type do not die from senescence (old age), for their lifespan is infinite. They either do not age, or do grow older but lack an age at which they will die from natural causes. As such characters have an eternal lifespan, they are generally assumed to have some sort of resistance or immunity to conventional illness/disease, but this is not guaranteed, and it is perfectly possible for a character with this type to still die from a sickness; such an event does not disqualify them.
Regardless of how the subject handles aging and illnesses, characters with this type alone can still die in unnatural ways, such as accidents or murder, unless they also have other immortality types. By itself, this type **only** grants the character biological immortality.
Other traits
Characters with this immortality type are usually immune to Age Manipulation (especially if they do not age). This makes them immune to tricks like aging someone to death.
How to bypass
By itself, Eternal Life only grants immunity to senescence (and perhaps disease), so characters with only this immortality type can usually be killed just like one would kill any mortal being.
Examples

* Alucard (Hellsing) has lived for 598 years. He is, after all, a vampire – and in the Hellsing universe, vampires live forever.
* Bel (Dungeons and Dragons) has lived since before the dawn of time, just like other Devils.

Notes
This type of immortality should **not** be confused with Longevity. Characters with that ability age slower than regular humans, but will eventually still die from old age.
### Type 2: Resilience

Description
Characters with this type of immortality are able to survive mortal injuries, without needing to heal. For example, a character could be impaled through the heart or have a hole blown in their body, and yet be perfectly alive and kicking. Whether or not the subject still feels pain, or is fully unaffected by being mortally wounded in every way, varies per character.
Other traits
On its own, Resilience means that characters can survive lethal injuries without being able to regenerate from them. For example, the aforementioned character with the hole in their body may be fully alive, but this hole may never heal, leaving them permanently mutilated.
It is, however, also possible for Resilience to be combined with Regeneration/Healing Factor. In those cases, characters are usually able to regenerate many, but not all injuries. Id est, characters cannot die from mortal wounds and they will usually regenerate, but there are injuries that they cannot regenerate from, even though those same injuries cannot kill them either.
Examples of both subtypes will be given in the Examples section.
How to bypass
Characters with Resilience may have a resistance to most, but not all mortal injuries. For example, several characters can survive impalement, but not decapitation; in those cases, beheading them would do the trick.
If a character cannot be slain with any mortal injury, then completely destroying their body, such as with evaporation, disintegration, or a powerful enough explosion, will probably still kill them.
Characters who have the second subtype of Resilience can still be permanently overcome even if their opponent cannot truly kill them. If a character can regenerate limbs and organs, but cannot regrow their head, then defeating them is as simple as beheading them. The character will not be dead, but they will also not be capable of continuing the fight. As a mere severed head, the character will be completely incapacitated, even if alive and conscious, which may be a valid win condition.
Resilient characters may still be vulnerable to spiritual damage, which targets their soul. Note that this is not 100% guaranteed, as specific characters may potentially resist spiritual attacks using a separate Resistence to Soul Manipulation, or lack a soul entirely.
If nothing else helps, erasing the character from time, reality or existence entirely usually disposes of them, assuming that they do not resist erasure.
Examples

* Members of The Collective (Slenderverse), which includes characters like The Observer and The Administrator (Slender Man), have had their throats and wrists slit, and yet lived. However, they have never shown any form of regenerative abilities, and these wounds remained open.

* Rikuo Nura (Nura: Rise of the Yokai Clan) was able to consciously live with his internal organs molten and a large part of his head ripped off.

* Deadpool (Marvel) is one of the most recognizable characters with a healing factor, though its scope is not very consistent. For example, Deadpool has been depicted, several times, as being unable to regenerate from decapitation, even though he does not die after being beheaded. In those cases, Deadpool is perfectly alive and well with his head cut off, but he cannot grow a new head, despite being able to regrow limbs and heal other injuries.
	+ As previously stated, Deadpool’s healing factor is inconsistently depicted. In particular, some versions of Deadpool are capable of successfully regenerating from decapitation, or even from being reduced to ashes.

### Type 3: Regeneration

Other names

* Healing Factor

Description
Characters with this type of immortality can simply regenerate injuries that would otherwise be lethal, though the scope and effectiveness of the healing factor depends on the degree of the regeneration. These degrees may be found at the Regeneration page, and must **always** be specified within parentheses after the Regeneration ability (not Immortality).
How to bypass

* Depending on the degree of regeneration, users may still be susceptible to certain mortal injuries (e.g. decapitation, damage to the brain/heart/spinal cord) or forms of destruction (e.g. evaporation or melting).

* Characters with a degree of regeneration lower than Mid-Godly can still die if their soul or non-physical mind is destroyed, unless otherwise stated.

* Unless the character resists this power, erasing them from existence usually works.
	+ Characters with High-Godly regeneration can regenerate from being erased from history or having the reality containing them destroyed, but may still die if they are also erased from nonexistence.
	+ Those with True-Godly regeneration (the highest degree of regeneration) can regenerate even if dually erased from existence and nonexistence. These characters can only be killed by very specific circumstances (e.g. Lord English from MS Paint Adventures, who could only be destroyed with an anomalous, plot-consuming black hole created by someone who transcended him), if at all, and are usually 1-A or higher.

* Characters or weapons with Regeneration Negation can usually still kill these characters. Some notable weapons with this trait include Deadpool’s Carbonarium Sword in the world of Marvel, and the North Star Weapons in the Slenderverse, which have been used by HABIT, Vincent Caffarello and Evan Myers. Some characters who have this ability inherently include Daken from Marvel and Danny Phantom from the eponymous series (through the Ghostly Wail technique).

Examples

* Deadpool and Wolverine (Marvel) are arguably the poster children of regeneration.
* Majin Buu (Dragon Ball) can regenerate from being reduced to vapour.
* The Beast (inFAMOUS) could reconstruct himself atom by atom after being nearly disintegrated by the explosion of a Ray Sphere.

### Type 4: Self-Resurrection

Other names

* Respawning
* Retroactive Immortality
* Self-Revive

Description
Characters with this type of immortality are usually killable, but are still immortal in a sense because they will simply come back to life as if nothing happened. This can manifest itself both as a so-called “auto-revive”, or as a longer, overtime process. Some users of this ability may only have a finite number of lives, while others can return as many times as they please (assuming their immortality isn't interfered with, of course).
Other traits

* TBA.

How to bypass

* Immortality Negation.
* Characters who can only self-resurrect a limited number of times may be overcome if they are continually slain until they have ran out of self-revives.

Examples

* It doesn’t matter how brutally or plentifully Tuska the Daemon-Killa (Warhammer 40,000) is slain – he’ll simply return to life by the dawn of the next day.

* Doomsday (DC Comics) cannot be killed the same way twice – once a certain method of murder does him in, he’ll eventually resurrect with extreme resistance to whatever just killed him. The amount of time it takes for Doomsday to return to life depends; the more brutally he was destroyed, the longer he will take to revive.

* Chas Chandler (Vertigo) has 48 lives, and will be revived in his own body up to 47 times.

### Type 5: Reincarnation

Other names

* Rebirth
* Born-Again
* Transmigration

Description
Characters with this type of immortality will reincarnate after death, meaning they will be born again in another body. This immortality is usually overtime, as many users will be born as a baby, but exceptions do exist and this type of reincarnation is by no means the norm.
How to bypass

* Several reincarnation cycles in fiction, such as that of The Avatar, can be broken.

Examples

* The Avatar (Avatar: The Last Airbender) will cyclically reincarnate within one of the four nations through the Avatar Spirit when they die of natural causes. This cycle can broken in a small number of ways.

* Vincent Carafello, Evan Myers, Jeffrey Koval, Stephanie and possibly Doctor Corenthal and Noah Maxwell (Slenderverse) are avatars of a group that is involved in an eternal struggle with Slender Man, HABIT and The Rake; every so often, they manifest within mortal human bodies assigned to predetermined roles. If any of them dies, they will manifest within the Candleverse and remain there until all other avatars have died and a new cycle eventually begins a little while later. The cycle can only be broken if all avatars avoid the fates prophesied by a medieval play called Everyman, and has been ongoing since at least 1589.

* The spirit of Link (The Legend of Zelda) constantly reincarnates. The goddesses of Hyrule have chosen Link as the legendary hero who will defend Hyrule from any and all threats, and they cause him to be reborn after his death whenever danger arises.

### Type 7: Undeath

Description
Undead characters are typically immortal, due to already being dead. This immortality type is often bundled with others and, in its purest form, can be little more than a state of being. For example, many depictions of zombies can typically still be killed in certain ways, though this is not consistent. Vampires on the other hand are typically unkillable except with specialized tricks, like the stake and sunlight, and ghosts are arguably even harder to destroy, often being immune to most physical attacks.
Other traits
How to bypass
Examples

* Chara Dreemurr (Undertale) is long dead by the time the game begins, but their spirit is reawakened from death after Frisk falls into the Underground.

* Nathan Grantham (Creepshow) is a reanimated skeleton, one of several in his verse; his kin further cement his immortality by surviving headshots, with one undead hitchiker even surviving as a bloody pulp after having been repeatedly hit with a car.

* Nanashi (Megami Tensei) was brought back from the dead by Dagda, but not as a human. Rather, he is a special type of undead called the Godslayer, with low body temperatures and blood pressure, and without a soul (which is held by Dagda).

### Type 8: Unbirth

Other names
* Amortality

Description
Characters with this form of immortality cannot traditionally be killed, because they aren’t even “alive” to begin with. This is not the same as being undead; the character has never been a living being in the first place. Rather, they “just exist”, or may not even exist at all (being a sentient void or other force).
Put simply, the character is neither alive or dead, and therefore cannot usually be put down with physical means. Typically, some sort of existence erasure or reality-warping is needed to destroy them.
More broadly, this type can also contain characters who are simply beyond the reaches of life and death in a general sense.
Lastly, this category also includes so-called metaphysical beings, who exist entirely outside of reality and are primordial entities who completely transcend and/or predate the very concepts of life and death at a fundamental level. This subtype is also known as “Meta-Immortality”, and is sometimes used as its own type (see *Rejects*).
How to bypass
Examples

* The true form of Kuromueina (I Was Caught up in a Hero Summoning, but That World Is at Peace) is completely beyond the ideas of life and death, existing in a metaphysical state of being that is entirely aspatial.

* Dementors (Wizarding Word) have never been alive to begin with, and are described as “non-beings”.

* Super Dimentio (Mario) is an interesting example, as he pushes the boundary of this immortality type with a unique technicality. In the world of *Super Paper Mario*, those who die would be sent to one of two afterlives, namely The Overthere and The Underwhere. However, using The Void (which, coincidentally, also has this type, due to being a sentient void of emptiness), Dimentio would’ve destroyed all universes, including both afterlives. Subsequently, Super Dimentio would’ve been deathless, due to there being no afterlives to contain him. This is further corroborated as Queen Jaydes, the ruler of The Underwhere who controls life and death, cannot kill Dimentio or claim his soul.