this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2023
866 points (98.7% liked)
Comic Strips
12519 readers
2743 users here now
Comic Strips is a community for those who love comic stories.
The rules are simple:
- The post can be a single image, an image gallery, or a link to a specific comic hosted on another site (the author's website, for instance).
- The comic must be a complete story.
- If it is an external link, it must be to a specific story, not to the root of the site.
- You may post comics from others or your own.
- If you are posting a comic of your own, a maximum of one per week is allowed (I know, your comics are great, but this rule helps avoid spam).
- The comic can be in any language, but if it's not in English, OP must include an English translation in the post's 'body' field (note: you don't need to select a specific language when posting a comic).
- Politeness.
- Adult content is not allowed. This community aims to be fun for people of all ages.
Web of links
- [email protected]: "I use Arch btw"
- [email protected]: memes (you don't say!)
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
You mistake invulnerability with immortality.
An immortal can still die they just aren't effected by time.
Invulnerability would mean you can still die of age but your body is physically invincible.
I don't know what scenario you think we're discussing here. If the astronaut is capable of dying from damage then the comic doesn't work.
My interpretation is that they are not, but they can be in eternal agony or be rendered a chunk of living meat that's too damaged to sustain sapience.
If the astronaut is unable to sustain sapience then there's no problem. It's no different from regular death.
True. It's the best outcome if they're unable to make it home. Gross, though.
But it IS a problem for the astronaut, as "I don't want to die!" implied they didn't want to lose sapience. Only a problem until it happens, of course, but then, so is death.
By definition, an immortal should not be able to die, but it depends on the writer. You're correct that nothing says they can't experience pain, though.
I've always seen the two as different but like you said it depends on the writer.
In my experience though "immortal" is mainly used in the sense that there's no physically possible way for a mere human to kill said immortal.
It could also be the difference between something that's biologically immortal (like lobsters who could theoretically grow forever due to their ability to reconstruct telomeres) and something physically immortal like certain atoms. Or event potentially something "essentially immortal" where by all accounts to human life they will outlive us by eons and there's nothing we can do to even affect them let alone cause damage.
"Mortal" means "subject to death," so without qualifiers "immortal" should mean something cannot die at all. But of course everything in the real world dies eventually, so when used on real things it's being hyperbolic. Since there's a supernatural being in the comic, all bets are off.
Fair enough