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Someone or something that lives for a long time. This often varies from a "mere" 150 years of life to several thousand, although it's not unheard of for them to live longer than that. This is usually achieved either through personal enhancement or naturally being long-lived, in which case they often belong to a species or race that's long lived as well.

Humanity is often portrayed as having a low-end version of this in Sci-Fi works, usually because We Will Have Perfect Health in the Future. This actually makes some amount of sense, considering this is Truth in Television if we compare our normal lifespans to humans of the past.

Wizards often benefit from this. See Really Seven Hundred Years Old, for when these characters look younger than their age. On the other hand, if they still keep getting older-looking and more decrepit as they age past "normal old age" and into "Methuselah is jealous", they may have Age Without Youth. Also compare The Ageless, for when the character in question will live forever.

When adding examples, please remember that the character is only long lived and not Immortality.

Examples of Long Lived include:


General[]

  • Most versions of Elves.
    • Dwarves tend to get a lesser version of it as well.
    • Also common among Dragons.
  • Most Vampires, when they are not effectively Immortal, at least have a lifespan way longer than that of humans.
  • Wizards, as noted in the description.

Anime and Manga[]

  • The Methuselah/vampires and Kresnik on Trinity Blood.
  • Shinigami in Death Note can increase their lifespan indefinitely by using their notes to kill humans. The king of the Shinigami has been around so long that he is known simply as The Old Man by other Shinigami.
  • The Uzumaki clan was well known for this, among other things.
  • Youkai, and even Hanyou, often have multi-century lifespans in Japanese stories. Inuyasha, for example, was 150 when he was sealed, and looked like a teenager. Nurarihyon is over 400.

Comic Books[]

  • Notably, Superman is understood to be, if not immortal, then very, very long lived.
  • Anna Hark in the series Planetary estimated her lifespan to reach 300 years.
  • The X-Men comics have Apocalypse, who has been alive since ancient Egypt. No one knows why he's lived so long exactly, but one theory is that he has a very long life span.
  • Also from X-Men, Wolverine, due to his Healing Factor. He's more than 120 years old.

Film[]

  • Yoda. When 900 years old you reach, look as good, you will not. As The Mandalorian shows, at fifty years old, Yoda's species is still the equivalent of a toddler.
  • According to Odin and Loki, the Asgardians in the Marvel Cinematic Universe live for roughly 5000 years.
  • The urRu and the Skeksis in The Dark Crystal lasted one thousand trine. Their true urSkek forms lived for an earlier thousand year period without any sign of visible aging. Though it is implied, but never outright stated, that the urSkeks are immortal.

Literature[]

  • In Isaac Asimov's Robot Trilogy, Spacers (humans who live on one of the 50 colony worlds) regularly live for over 300 Earth years. They measure their lives in decades instead of years.
  • In The Big One universe, a number of the characters have extended lifetimes, some reaching several millenia. They are not immortal and can be killed or die of disease (the Great Influenza of 1919 wreaked havoc on their ranks). Some are prominent in history (Parmenio, Nell Gwynne, Shakespeare to name a few) but most are normal people trying to cope with the problems caused by unexpected longevity
  • In Gor, thanks to Stabilization Serums, people are disease free and don't age, so hypothetically they can live forever, unless they're killed.
    • Except for Dar-Kosis, a kind of leprosy. And a plague. And whenever author Norman doesn't remember that he killed off all diseases.
  • Members of the "Howard Families" in Robert Heinlein's stories are very long-lived, having been established by a foundation in the name of a rich young man who died of old age. Lazarus Long is long-lived even amongst his fellow long-lifers: at least 2,379 years. Non-Howards are also long lived (but not as long as the Howards are).
  • In the Miles Vorkosigan saga, Betans and Cetagandans live about double the life of the average person today due to the level of technology and removal of harmful genes at birth.
  • The Honor Harrington series has Prolong, which is a genetic engineering process that extends human life to several centuries.
  • The Numenoreons in The Lord of the Rings have a lifespan of centuries, as do the Dwarves. Hobbits aren't that long lived, but still live about half again as long as regular humans. The lifespan of the orcs is unclear, but hinted in some places to be extremely long- like their Elven cousins, they may in fact be The Ageless.
  • Fairies and all sub-species in Artemis Fowl are implied to live for a few hundred years, or at least long enough for 'decade' to roughly equal 'year' when scaled to human life-span.
  • In Harry Potter, it is implied that Wizards live longer than muggles, though how much longer is unclear.
  • Ditto the wizards in The Dresden Files. This is explained in one of the books with magic making their bodies able of perfect recoveries (that is, any wound or broken bone they receive will heal completely over time, with no nasty lasting side effects whatsoever), which extends to a near-complete halt of aging processes, as well.
  • In The Kane Chronicles, the head magician of the House of Life is over 2,000 years old, though no one else can can live as long as him because the spell was lost when Egypt fell as Kingdom to the Romans.
  • The Dragaerans in Dragaera are considered to be adolescents until they reach about 100.

Live Action TV[]

  • Star Trek:
    • The Vulcans of being Space Elves, have lifespans that can extend hundreds of years. Spock's father died at 203.
    • The humans of Trek live a lot longer than in real life.
    • The El-Aurians of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Guinan looked the same in the 19th century as she did in the 24th.
  • Zhaan in Farscape is over 800 cycles old (a cycle being equivalent to one Earth year). Some aliens are over 100 cycles old. The Hynerian emperor spent over 100 cycles in prison.
  • In Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, the Ancient may be 700 years old, and he certainly looks it.
  • The Time Lords of Doctor Who. Going by the Eleventh Doctor, a single Time Lord body can last roughly 1,000 years. And Time Lords get thirteen bodies.

Mythology and Religion[]

  • Methuselah, according to The Bible, lived 969 years. Adam himself died aged 930. In fact, most of antediluvian humanity lived for many centuries, and only after the Flood did the life spans begin rapidly decreasing.

Tabletop Games[]

  • In Warhammer 40000, the Eldar potentially have lifespans in the thousands of years, Space Marines can live for several hundred years, and baseline humans can live for well over a hundred years or more thanks to juvenat treatments.

Video Games[]

  • Basically all Youkai in Touhou have a lifespan significantly longer than that of a human's. It's unclear exactly how long, though there's been some that are known to be over one thousand. A few, like magicians and vampires, don't age at all.
  • Asari and Krogan live up to a thousand years in the Mass Effect universe. In particular, Wrex is a 1000-year-old Krogan warlord.
    • Humans and Turians live to 150 years of age on average, but Salarians invert this trope as they rarely live past 40 years of age.
  • There are several races in the Warcraft Expanded Universe whose lifespans are unknown aside from "much longer than humans." Suffice to say that there are draenei still living who still remember getting the hell outta Argus...twenty-five thousand years ago.

Webcomics[]

  • Elves in Ears for Elves live into their 900s, with adulthood being between 200 and 700 (explained here). They don't act or look old when they're officially elders, either.

Western Animation[]

  • King Kashekhim Nedakh of Atlantis from Disney's Atlantis: The Lost Empire is actually tens of thousands of years old, but dies somewhere in the year 1914, because that's when his film's events take place.
  • In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Aang and other past Avatars live significantly longer than regular humans. Avatar Kyoshi lived over 200 years. It's rumored to have something to do with their chi.
  • The Irkens in Invader Zim. Per Word of God, Zim is older than any living human. And he appears to be a young adult by his race's standards.

Real Life[]

  • Centenarians and supercentenarians, people who live to be (respectively) 100 and 110 years old.
  • Jeanne Calment, who currently holds the world record for oldest person of all time, at 122 years and 164 days old.
  • Some animals are this, including parrots, which can live up to 100 years, and turtles/tortoises, which have been known to live over 200 years.
    • Some bats can live for up to 20 to 30 years, which is exceptionally long compared to a rodent of a similar size, which may only live 2-3.
    • Another contender for longest lived animal is the Bowhead Whale. One individual was found with a wooden harpoon dating back 200 years embedded into it's body.