From angels to elves, and especially vampires who can live for gazillion of years , you say immortality is always a given when writing supernatural creatures . But what’s the immortality of werewolves look like ? Can they usually live forever in fiction? Let’s explore the immortality of werewolves within fiction.
First what is immortality within the context of supernatural creatures ?
Immortality is usually explored in fiction to explain the theory of death and existence as a whole.
Immortality to humans are where the human is usually exempt from death. Eternal everlasting life where we can cheat death in a magical way. The human does not and cannot die.
As in terms of supernatural or mythological creatures. The creature cannot be harmed in anyway and they live forever.
There are usually five types of immortality:
- Prolonged lifespan or eternal youth.: where a being lives and stays young but they can be killed if mortally wounded.( most common in fiction and explored through objects such as the fountain of youth or a magic elixir)
- Undeath immortality – where a being has died but they are still alive . (example vampire or zombie)
- Reincarnation immortality – where a being dies but comes back to life over and over again in different forms.
- Postmortality- where a being lives on in the afterlife after they die. ( examples of post mortality is usually explored in many cultures famous ones being heaven and Valhalla )
- Absolute immortality – is where the being cannot be harmed in anyway or die at all and is basically indestructible and then is one of the reasons why it can be explained why immortality is used as a curse in some fiction novels.
Now let’s delve into werewolf immortality and if it is possible.
In my research from most sources say that in werewolf folklore a werewolf in not immortal because they can die of their wounds and the closest thing I found of werewolves being immortal is when talking about the Wendigo.( I will have a separate post later about the wendigo)
Werewolf folklore says werewolves in general can have a long lifespan close or up to over 2000 years. Thus making their ageing process slow. In other words they can still look forever young similar to a vampire in a way except they are not dead.
They can also heal themselves . If they shapeshift more they are said to stay younger longer than some .
But if the definition of what immortality is true. Then original folklore about werewolves not being immortal is not true.
Infact they might just be immortal if you take and use the prolonged lifespan / eternal youth type immortality .
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THEN LET’S START A DIALOGUE
WOULD YOU CONSIDER A WEREWOLF TO BE IMMORTAL WHY OR WHY NOT ?
I want to know so let me know in the comments below.
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