Side Effects of Living A Thousand Different Lives

[ShadeZ]

I've got a long lived race. They are known to fundamentally remain the same but they live different lives in part or whole through the millennia amongst humans. For example, one of this species Robin is the younger brother of a warlord and is known to be a skilled tactician and warrior, those who study him heavily know he works for his brother in secret as a spy and assassin. A mortal King Roan's palace comes under secret seige and a number of his guards are wounded. At this point this species are coming out of hiding to humans and Robin begins to heal the soldiers as best he can and reveals years ago he was caught burying one of his victim's corpses. He had to claim he was a medic and was merely burying a dead soldier. Because of this he has to pretend to be a medic for several years. The older ones in this species have even lived whole lives as if human, they learned new skills and or got married and had families that they've had to watch grow up as they leave.

What effects/skills would someone possibly pick up living dozens of human lives? They always tend toward being hunters, warriors, travelers or such since hunting and wandering are in the nature of this creature.

 

[ThinkerX]

multiple languages, including the ability to speak/read 'dead languages. Maybe pass themselves off as a scholar if need be.

survival skills - tracking, hunting, making shelters, cordage (rope from tree bark). Also good at training and taking care of animals. Chief huntsman, Master of Kennels for this or that petty lord.

theft - picked up when times are hard.

any number of crafts skills - essentially refinements of the more sophisticated survival skills.

sailor, including navigator. Detailed, if badly outdated knowledge of distant lands.

 

[ButlerianHeretic]

I'd focus on life lessons over skills and abilities, as that's where the narrative drama lies. Even in something like The Highlander who just lives one very long life where different circumstances of birth don't play a role, the different experiences Connor MacLeod has at different points in his life are more important to the story than how much fighting skill he gains at each stage.

In particular, does each life represent a continuation of former life in a different form, where the life lessons are relatively similar each time - say maybe in one life they chose to take one path and that didn't work out, so in another life they chose a different path, but the two aren't radically different in theme?

Or are the different lives meant as opportunities for them to gain radically different perspectives on the meaning of existence? There is a lot of potential drama for example if a warrior was born a noble with great power in one life, and was brutally cruel. Then if in their next life they were born as someone powerless so they could see life from that side - even if a warrior, they were a foot-soldier forced to struggle and eventually perish in a meaningless war (German soldiers on the eastern front of WW2 come to mind if you need to dig into what that might be like - or check out the 21 year Siege of Candia in the 1600s as more ancient example). And then to be reborn as a warrior who still remembers the intoxicating power of their life of evil, but tries to live a better life having seen the consequences of such evil on others.

 

[Queshire]

Something I haven't seen that much with immortal characters is dealing with outdated knowledge when it comes to skills. The fact that you mentioned him as a medic stands out to me. Sure, it'd be different in a fantasy setting vs a modern day one, but medical knowledge and practices can change dramatically even over the course of a single doctor's career in real life.

 

[ButlerianHeretic]

Continuing the medical knowledge idea, or a warrior who came of age in an age of 13th century mail, shields, swords and spears, having to adapt to first late medieval shock cavalry and then rennaisance pike and shot. But yeah, as to medical practices there's be a huge amount of variation over the centuries - and it hasn't always been steady upward progress. Roman and later Arab medicine which carried the Roman learning forward were far ahead of most medieval European medical knowledge until the renaissance, for example. Also, are all the rebirths in the same geographic region or do they have to adapt to different cultures too?

 

[Chasejxyz]

You can look at What We Do In The Shadows for some comedic examples.

It really depends on the perceived age/life stage of your character. If you have someone who's always a kid, they would be going through school a LOT, so they would be able to pick up on new cultural norms from other kids. But if your character is always an old hermit who lives alone, they'd be out of the loop a to what is considered normal to the younger generations and would probably have some outdated viewpoints. Meanwhile a thief or a spy would always be aware of what the common person is up to or the political state of an area.

 

[K.S. Crooks]

Being an expert at any mode of transportation- horse, wagon, raft, sailboat, train, car, etc
Being able to make or repair weapons
Farming techniques
Knowing what is eatable or poisonous in various environments
Learning the latest technology that impacts their life

 

[FifthView]

People are different. I can only guess from the framework of imagining a long-lived human. But some will be a bit like Phil in Groundhog Day. They will have learned new skills, new ways of looking at the world, and so forth. Others will be mostly unchanged, since they are incapable or uninterested in learning. Even those will have learned some things. But by and large they will be doing the same things they've always done, on endless repeat, preferring what they know to what they don't know.

 

[ShadeZ]

Also, are all the rebirths in the same geographic region or do they have to adapt to different cultures too?

It isn't reincarnation, it is just him/her moving from one chosen life to the next. For example, he/she might fake their death in a war, shapeshift to look a bit younger and reinlist on the opposite side or and allies side. There is one guy who just keeps reenlisting and keeps making it to general everytime then "dying" and coming back for more over and over because he loves to watch how war evolves humanity and how it affects them. Eventually, one side figures out their is a warlord in their ranks who keeps regenerating when he "dies". But at this point, the few warriors left alive who know who he is swear loyalty to him and him alone as he has only ever made sure to 1 stay hidden 2 protect his men as much as possible. This character is highly protective of humans especially those he perceives to be "his guys" territorial instinct is high for these beings and they tend to claim certain humans as theirs. The silence vows of him men allows him to really let loose on the enemy knowing they will cover him where previously he had to wait till battle got really chaotic and he could blame it on what we know as adrenaline what he refers to as the rush of battle.

 

[SwiftieDaughterOfAthena13]

Seeing someone's descendants could be confusing, especially if they look similar. For example, Hazel Levesque, who died and came back to life many years later, met the grandson of someone she used to know. This caused her to have flashbacks of her previous life.

 

[Finchbearer]

Creaky knees, or a bad back.

 

[pmmg]

I would think a type long term perspective to everything, and maybe an approach resembling ennui.

They would always know that their relationships would not last, that the things people think are so important are not really in the long span of time. It would make them hard to truly relate and connect to those who in the midst of their shorter lifespans. A sense of urgency for them would be harder to come by, and an understanding that all things in time will likely win out.

I think they might also pick up a lot of skills, but also....they would lose a lot of them as well. If one has not been a medic in 500 years, they probably will forget many aspects of it over time. They will get to saying, I have forgotten more than you know, and that will be just about everything.

 

[skip.knox]

Forget the thousand years for a moment. Think of someone who has lived a hundred years. How different are they from a person who lives fifty years? There's the physical deterioration, sure, but ultimately human is human. If these are merely long-lived humans, then they'll still be mostly like us.

The accumulated knowledge is a two-edged sword (I'd love to see a three-edged sword). This was pointed out wrt medical knowledge but it applies across the board. What we learn when young tends to stick with us. Take our favorite music as an example. So your long-lived character might really like music from seven hundred years ago. There would be dozens of other aspects of personality that would make this person seem odd, or even ridiculous.

Another angle to explore is how young and old people interact. What is history to the one is memory to the other. That affects conversations and relationships. I would think a long-lived person would feel terribly alone, unless they had others of their own kind. And even then, not all of them would be the same age; some would be separated by centuries.

 

[Prince of Spires]

I'd love to see a three-edged sword

You ask, we deliver:

It's a bit hard to see, but that's a tripple-edged blade (source, and another one). Commonly referred to as a French Court Sword, from the 18th or 19th century. It's the ancestor of the Epee. There's also the similar Preval sabre.

 

[Finchbearer]

For real, to answer the OP, it seems to me to be a type of reincarnation model. This is different from living as the same person for thousands of years, with the same people, like Tolkiens Elven race for example. Maybe the different lives influence different phases of this persons life. How can you learn from grief, sorrow, loss, joy, happiness and love? And live all of those lives thousands of times over? How would that affect someone psychologically? It’s hard to fathom those things, and also address them within a narrative IMO. Immortals in fantasy fiction tend to basically be normal people, just often with superpowers that they’ve honed over the years. There are very few stories that successfully convey what an immortal being would actually be like, and often there is some separation between the reader and the person, with them having an air of mystery about them, because it is truly out of our mortal ability to truly understand living thousands of lives of men, is it not?

 

[CupofJoe]

In the Belgariad books by David and Leigh Eddings, there are several characters that are practically immortal, one is over seven thousand year old.
At least one of them spent a lot of their time indulging themselves as they saw fit.
Physically [getting drunk and womanising] or more esoteric [exploring a wilderness for generations or the meaning of magic].
But generally just nudging things along in what they think is the right way.

 

[Finchbearer]

In the (very cheesy) book I am reading there is an immortal who is millennia old, but is just basically a ‘bloke’ with some fancy powers.

 

[JBCrowson]

For real, to answer the OP, it seems to me to be a type of reincarnation model. This is different from living as the same person for thousands of years, with the same people, like Tolkiens Elven race for example. Maybe the different lives influence different phases of this persons life. How can you learn from grief, sorrow, loss, joy, happiness and love? And live all of those lives thousands of times over? How would that affect someone psychologically? It’s hard to fathom those things, and also address them within a narrative IMO. Immortals in fantasy fiction tend to basically be normal people, just often with superpowers that they’ve honed over the years. There are very few stories that successfully convey what an immortal being would actually be like, and often there is some separation between the reader and the person, with them having an air of mystery about them, because it is truly out of our mortal ability to truly understand living thousands of lives of men, is it not?

My MC is stuck in a cycle of reincarnations (I won't give the whole backstory, in essence he gets caught up in an experiment gone wrong by the god of trees) He has minimal recollection of past lives - occasional deja vu or brief flashbacks triggered by people saying things that were highly meaningful for him in last incarnations. In each life his friend, the god responsible, tries to find him and then work out how to fix the issue. Those efforts in the current incarnation form one of the series arcs. The ending of course is not what you might expect

As I've written the flashback scenes I'm conscious that the previous lives might make a prequel book one day, so there's a little bit of shaping towards that possibility creeping in.

 

[Prince of Spires]

How can you learn from grief, sorrow, loss, joy, happiness and love? And live all of those lives thousands of times over? How would that affect someone psychologically?

I've always wondered about this. It's a fairly common trope with immortal characters that they grow detached from the world because people around them always age and die, while they keep on living. They grieve for their lost love and vow to never love again.

Maybe it's just my brain which is wired differently, but I never fully accept this trope. People I care about come and go in my life all the time. I wont stop meeting new people and enjoy relationships just because I've lost people or am afraid of losing them. I made tons of friends in high school who I've never seen again. I got over it. And the divorce rate in the modern world lies somewhere between 30 and 50%. Having just 1 person you fall in love with and you never meet someone like that again is just a silly idea with that in mind.

Now, I can imagine that you get a very different view when it comes to doing stuff and spending / wasting time. On the other hand, almost all 15-30 year olds consider themselves immortal, so maybe not that much would change.

 

[skip.knox]

I don't think long-lived people necessarily become detached. I can see them becoming caring, patient, and cherishing of other peoples. They have seen people come and go. They have seen the full arc of existence and so can come to appreciate it in ways more ephemeral people cannot.