Vampires And Other Immortals Part 2 of 2

Before we talk about fictional immortals, here's a bit of information about the above photograph. Scientists have recognized Turritopsis nutriculaas as the only known animal that is capable of rejuvenating itself, thus sustaining life over and over again—being immortal.

Jellyfish usually die after propagating, but according to the London Times, Turritopsis reverts to a sexually immature stage after reaching adulthood and is capable of rejuvenating itself. It is the only known animal capable of reverting to its juvenile polyp state. In theory, this cycle can repeat indefinitely, making it potentially immortal.

The creature is only 4-5mm in diameter. It is found in warm tropical waters but is believed to be spreading across the world as ships discharge their ballast water in ports.

And now on to the other type of immortal—the characters in our myths, literature, and movies/television.  I recently came across a list of the top ten immortal characters as compiled by LiveScience. This is a cross-section sampling from various forms of storytelling.

10.  Peter Pan:  The famous boy who never grows up (or grows old) and prefers to live on the magical isle of Never Land.

9.  Dracula:  If you're desperate to live forever, you could try getting bitten by Dracula or any of the other well-known vampires. Of course, you'd have to give up Italian food which is loaded with garlic and getting a nice suntan would be out of the question.

8.  Lazarus Long:  A character in many of Robert Heinlein's science fiction novels. Lazarus lives to be over 2,000 years old, travels to distant planets, and travels through time.

7.  Nicolas Flamel:  J.K. Rowling based Flamel's character (good friend to Hogwart's headmaster) on a real-life French 15^th Century alchemist who legend claims successfully created the Philosopher's Stone, a mythical elixir that turns lead into gold and grants eternal life.

6.  Tithonus:  When Greek goddess Eos asks Zeus to grant her mortal lover, Tithonus, eternal life, she forgets to also ask for eternal youth. Tithonus lives forever, but he grows old and frail, and begs for death.

5.  Dorian Gray:  Oscar Wilde created this character who remains young and handsome while his portrait ages. He becomes corrupt, but his crimes and true age show only in the face of the painting which grows progressively more monstrous and withered.

4.  Highlander:  In the 1986 movie, Connor MacLeod is a member of the immortals, a mysterious race who die only when they are beheaded. The immortals must battle each other until only one is left to claim The Prize: the gift of immortality.

3.  Grail Knight:  A knight of the First Crusade. In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade he is given the task of guarding the Holy Grail, a crucible that grants eternal life to any who drink from it.

2.  Methuselah:  He's the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Old Testament of the Bible, becoming a father at the age of 187 and living to be 969 years old.

1.  Arwen:  A half-elven maiden in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings who renounces eternal life to marry her mortal sweetheart. She lives to be 2,901 years old.

This is just a top ten list according to one source, not a complete list of immortals. Do you have a favorite immortal character among the many?

Vampires And Other Immortals—Part 1 of 2

Halloween is almost here, if all the Halloween candy in the stores is any indication. Vampires are big business this time of year, thanks in part to such popular book and movie series as Twilight in addition to various television series. Of course, vampires have never really been out of style. They were popularized in literature by Bram Stoker's 1897 novel, Dracula. But stories of vampires go back many centuries before that.

Where did the concept of vampires come from? The answer to that question exists somewhere in the space separating science and superstition. Some sources claim the stories of vampires began with the Romanian prince Vlad Tepes who lived 1431-1476 and fought for independence against the Ottoman Empire. His methods of dealing with his enemies included slowly impaling them on stakes, drawing and quartering, and burning them alive. It all seems very brutal and sadistic by today's standards, but not all that uncommon for those times. The same methods were used by the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition and by other rulers and powerful leaders during the Middle Ages to torture and kill their enemies.

Bram Stoker is said to have patterned some of his Dracula character after Vlad Tepes as the birth of the modern fictional vampire. However, the roots of real vampires have very different origins.  Stories of vampires are a worldwide phenomenon with localized versions of vampires coming from almost all cultures. Before science progressed to the point where it could explain such things as weather patterns and germ theory, any bad event that did not have an obvious cause could be blamed on a vampire (or a witch). The mythical creature was an easy answer to the age old question of why bad things happened to good people.

Superstitious villagers took their belief that something had cursed them and put it together with their fear of the dead and came to the conclusion that recently buried people who had risen from the dead to do evil deeds were responsible. They dug up graves and were surprised by the way the corpses looked. Not understanding the process of decomposition, they assumed bodies immediately turned to skeletons.

Even with the original vampires being long gone, the cultural phenomenon of vampires continues to fascinate the world. And it isn't just the macabre and horror stories that draw on the vampire character. We have several examples of vampires being used as objects of humor such as Al Lewis' Grandpa character on the old Munsters television series.  We have comedy vampire movies such as Love At First Bite and Mel Brooks' 1995 film Dracula, Dead and Loving It.

And more recently, we are just as likely to see the vampire on television and in movies as the drop dead (pun intended) gorgeous sexy hero as we are in the role of villain.

Even children have been caught up in the commercialism of the vampire world. There's General Mills' Count Chocula breakfast cereal, marketed to children. And not even the long running award-winning children's television series Sesame Street was able to ignore the vampire allure. One of their popular Muppet characters is Count von Count, complete with black Dracula style cape and fangs. His function on Sesame Street is to teach children numbers and how to count.

Vampire movies have been around since the days of silent films with the 1922 classic, Nosferatu, featuring a grotesque frightening looking monster type vampire. In 1931, Bela Lugosi showed us a new and different type of vampire—the charming, suave, and urbane Count Dracula who dressed in formal attire consisting of tuxedo and cape.

Do you have a favorite vampire movie or television series?

Next week, I'm going to post the second part of my 2-part blog about Vampires And Other Immortals, including a top ten list of immortals from myths, literature, and movies.