TV Thoughts: Immortality Edition

[rhysiana]

This subject definitely deserves more time and energy than I'm going to be able to give it now, but in the spirit of reminding myself that not every post here has to be a full-fledged essay, two fandom tweets I made, separated in time (and on different accounts, for that matter):

"Having some thoughts about the contrast between the angsty immortals of my youth (Highlander, Forever Knight, book series, etc.), for whom immortality was largely imposed from the outside, and those in xianxia, where cultivation to immortality is an ongoing effortful choice." (June 19, 2021)

"Because we're watching s10 of SG-1 and I'm reading Tai Sui at the same time, I just realized SG-1 is the only Western SFF TV I can think of that shows people cultivating to an ascended immortal state with the ability to reverse it." (Nov 17, 2022)

The first tweet, I'm told, spawned a 4th Street panel proposal, but I did not attend any cons at all this year, so I have no idea if it ran. Anyway, we finished SG-1 last night and I'm well into the second arc of Tai Sui, so I think I'm going to be coming back to these thoughts again and again.

Comments

[ehyde]

Without getting into spoilers, I do think you'll be having more thoughts about immortality before you're done with Tai Sui, and I'll be interested in hearing them.

I think Tuck Everlasting was my first introduction to angsty immortals! I've never watched any Stargate -- how do things work there?

[rhysiana]

Tuck Everlasting is in a weird little place on the immortality org chart because they have to choose to drink, as opposed to being born that way (Highlander) or having it imposed on them by another (vampires, werewolves), but once they choose to drink, it's absolutely irreversible and implied to truly *never* end, which is more horrifying in its own way than the author probably intended. (I really wonder now if I first saw Highlander before I read Tuck, because I think they would have happened the same year.)

Stargate has a complicated and ever-expanding mythos behind it, but the most relevant part here happens mostly in the later seasons, when they discover that the Ancients, an alien civilization they've been finding evidence for the whole time, didn't really die so much as turn themselves into energy and ascend to a higher plane. One of the main cast decided he wanted time away from the show, and wisely rather than kill him off, the show ascended him instead. (They had actually established this as a thing before that, it wasn't just suddenly in the show for the one episode.) When he decided to come back the next season, we learned it was possible for an ascended being to decide to retake mortal form, except the trade-off was they had to give up all the knowledge they had gained while ascended. Simple, right?

Then in the last two seasons (9-10) they meet another branch of ascended beings who appear to be off-shoots of the Ancients, called the Ori, who gain power for their ascended forms through enforcing a religion that funnels belief to them as gods. Much like the explanation Xi Ping just got about the differences between good and evil cultivators and Tai Sui himself.

[ehyde]

*zips lips about upcoming Tai Sui plot points*

Honestly it's been so long since I read Tuck Everlasting that I don't remember the precise details. It felt very angsty to me at the time--I read it sometime in elementary school.

[rhysiana]

I can feel rumbles of the upcoming plot points! I think this is going to be one of those weird things where two completely unrelated media become inextricably linked in my mind due to serendipity.

I agree that Tuck is very angsty at heart no matter what, though it had less impact on me the first time I read it because I had to read it split up in parts with extremely boring discussion questions in between from the school textbook. Any time I revisit it, though, the premise gets more and more existentially horrifying.