Great longevity is something that some might aspire to and it is said that some biblical characters lived for thousands of years. However such beings are rarely enjoying their unnaturally long lives, some are no longer human or never were in the first place. Here is a selection of characters from all walks of fiction that lived for over a thousand years.

1. Akasha

The first in our list to come out of Ancient Egypt, Akasha and her husband Enkil was history’s very first vampires. Created in Anne Rice’ series, The Vampire Chronicles, Akasha and Enkil were King and Queen of Egypt long before the country even had a name. It was believed in the books that they were born around the year 5000BC, making them 7000 years old.

2. The Doctor

The most iconic fictional character in British television is celebrating his 50th anniversary in 2013 thanks to the plot device that permits the actor to change every few years and give the show a new lease of life. The character’s actual age is subject to speculation. Commenting that he was over 900 years old in the first few years of broadcast, he told companion Amy Pond that he was 907 and then 1200 within the space of a few episodes. Most recently, Matt Smith’s incarnation told companion Clara Oswald that he was at least 1000 years old.

3. Dave Lister

There was nothing special about Third Technician Dave Lister aboard the mining ship Red Dwarf, except perhaps that he was stupid enough to smuggle a cat aboard the ship. As punishment, he was put into stasis for the remainder of the journey back to Earth. Consequently it also meant that he was spared the engineering catastrophe that killed all other crew members. Dave Lister woke up three million years later making him arguably the oldest human every to appear in fiction.

4. Elrond

One of the most famous Elves in Lord of the Rings, Elrond was present at the first battles against Sauron. He was also present when Isildur failed to destroy the One Ring at Mount Doom and helped to form the Fellowship of the Ring, the group that would travel to Mordor to destroy Sauron for good. Having been born in what in Middle Earth is known as ‘The First Age’ means that Elrond is at least 6000 years old. Elves lived a very long time and Elrond is one of the eldest in the books.

5. Imhotep

Based loosely on the very real polymath of Old Kingdom Ancient Egypt, this character from the Stephen Sommers film The Mummy, is a New Kingdom sorcerer and aide to the royal family who is condemned to mummification while still alive for his betrayal. Over thousands of years his body breaks down until his tomb is discovered in the early 20th century and he is restored again. By the time of the first film, he is approximately 3,500 years old.

6. Leto II

Son of Paul Atreides from the book Dune, Leto became Emperor of the universe at a very young age. After taking what was called ‘The Golden Path’, Leto slowly turned into a sandworm, taking the planet of Arrakis back on course to becoming a desert world again. It was known that the worms lived a long time, but very few knew just how long. In the end, Leto lived over 3,500 years before being murdered when his enemies ordered the destruction of the bridge he was crossing.

7. Bowerick Wowbagger

A minor character from Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy series, Wowbagger was not born immortal but became so in a freak accident. He eventually grows bored with this unending existence and decides to relieve the boredom that he will ‘insult every single living being in the universe’. It is never explicitly stated how old he is but Arthur Dent meets him both in the present day and during an unspecified period of the Stone Age.

8. Ra

Another Egyptian link here in the form of an alien species whose modus operandi was to mimic the ancient gods of Earth. In the film Stargate, Jay Davidson has created a community on an ancient planet with himself as its Pharaoh/God. It has a palace and a city and a pyramid (which is actually a spaceship) and had been there for at least 10,000 years. A later TV series introduced many more gods from across the spectrum of mythology.

9. Hancock

If there was ever an anti-hero superhero, Will Smith’s grumpy and accident-prone superhuman was it. Though it was never clearly stated in the film who he was or where he came from, it is made clear that he is very old. The indication of his earliest memory suggests he was attacked in the 1930s and lost his memory; in those 80 years he hadn’t aged. Charlize Theron later states clearly that both of them are at least 3,000 years old, making vague references to ancient Greece meaning possibly that they were Heroes or Gods from the time.

10. Lorien

Joseph Michael Straczysnki’s multiple homages to Lord of the Rings in his Series Babylon 5 didn’t come more blatant than this. Lorien was the last of his species, reportedly he was part of the first sentient species every to evolve in the galaxy. Though not immortal, they could conceivably live forever (avoiding serious illness and injury). Lorien suggested that he is close to 7 billion years old. He is the last of his kind and at the end of the fourth series leaves with the other First Races.

Conclusion

As people who love fiction, we never fail to ponder the ‘what if’ questions about characters who live for a long time. At first glance, unnatural longevity might seem something to aspire to. However, when we look at the sort of characters who live for thousands of years such as those above, what is clear is that over time they become very haunted as the people they know and love die off time and time again. They are very much isolated by their longevity.