## Where are all the Fantasy and Scifi books where the hero goes on a grand monumental quest to defeat death and acquire immortality for all?

* Author: u/OrzBrain  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull***
* URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/3ojclu/where_are_all_the_fantasy_and_scifi_books_where/
* Score: 49

* Created: 2015-10-13T02:56:12

### Post:

I've read plenty of books (series) where the hero sets out and goes on a grand multi book quest to defeat the Dark One/ Great Evil/ Evil Emperor. The Wheel Of Time is a good example (if somewhat bondage, spanking, and braid pulling obsessed). 

Now I want to read about the young hero who looks around at his happy (or unhappy) home, and realizes that everything and everyone he loves is going to go to dust and rot in the end, that everything he loves will be forgotten and everyone he loves will die alone in desperation and confusion, and that this is true not only of him but of everyone else in Magicland or wherever, and will be true for all of the foreseeable future. 

And so, our likable hero sets out with a heavy heart to slay the greatest of all evils, to vanquish the darkest of all dark ones -- Death. And he has great adventures tracking down the secrets of immortality, investigating the many schools of magic, and visiting many so called wise and holy ones, dealing with scores of charlatans, delving into the darkest pits in pursuit of rumors of mass replicable immortality, foiling bad guys and rescuing innocents, perhaps being drawn into webs of intrigue on a national level as he amasses more and more power to assist him on his quest, and always with his overriding goal in mind.

He acquires a band of plucky sidekicks, who stick around long enough to create emotional attachment and then die one after another, sacrificing themselves so that the chance can go on that the great evil of death will be defeated, so that the hero can create a world where no more must die, and each of these deaths will be more profound than in a regular "defeat the dark one" plot, because in *this* story there won't be that voice at the back of the reader's mind saying "Well, everyone dies eventually, at least they did some good." No, this story will make explicit that the various plucky sidekicks were giving up so much more than a bare three score and ten.

Where the * frumple * is this book series? I want to read it right now!

### Comments:

> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+28]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (47 minutes later)
> 
> The problem is that defeating death is like defeating cancer or world hunger. No one's done it yet, so it feels insensitive to make a story where defeating death is that easy, or even feels that easy. So there are a hundred stories, epics, even, where heroes seek immortality, for themselves or for all, but few, if any, where they win, and even less where they win for everyone. There are stories where the war with death is over, and its 80% beaten or 90% beaten or 99% beaten, but there's still accidents, and it's still possible to kill people, even if they'll never die from age or disease. 
> 
> Most people either don't believe death can lose, or they don't believe it can win, and the latter half all believe there's something else, or someone else, to catch them. Even in rational-fic, you need to zoom out, because death isn't going to be defeated by one person, or a hundred, or a thousand, working alone. Death won't stop for one person, no matter how fast they run. It won't stop for any one man, and stories are all about 1 man, or 5 women or 100 humans. they're rarely about real populations, and the scale of death-killing is enormous in any mundane setting, the scale of death-killing in a mildly magic setting is high, the scale of death-killing in a highly magic setting is small enough it might work. (Note: harry injures death with a few other's help, though the weapon itself has been around for centuries. increase the power of the setting, and death gets weaker, decrease it and death gets stronger.)
> 
> As such, any story of this type needs to be in a setting where magic (or whatever the setting resource is,) is amazingly powerful, if you want death to die. if not, there needs to be some lesser point to stop at. HPMOR stopped at voldemort. With an amazing cure for age itself, a chance of stopping death forever and a prophecy pointed against him, harry has won for now, and that's where the story stops. 
> 
> Because stopping death permanantly is just... difficult to write well, and i don't know if i'd try, even in a setting where it's doable. I might save thirty, or fifty, but I don't know if i'd try to universaly destroy death. Claiming "...and then science discovered a cure for death" is anti-climatic, and for all that it's a vicious race against death, from a storytelling perspective, it feels like an anti-climax, like the hero was rewarded immortality for everyone as a reward for defeating enough advirsaries. it doesn't matter that he left for it, it feels like giving him rulership of the world in a mideaval setting or complete control over magic in all forms in D&D.
> 
> Everyone agrees, deep down inside: If death can be beaten, she won't go down without a fight.

>> **u/OrzBrain** [+8]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (an hour later)
>> 
>> Eh, the story I described is basically The Wheel of Time with "Find Immortality" substituted for "Beat the Dark One." The story can stop the moment the hero finds the cure for aging and getting stabbed through the head and the means for mass producing it. No need to go further. 
>> 
>> The story is the journey to get that cure, and the sacrifices justified to get it (including, arguably, mass murder, since, you know, they're all going to die anyway, and this way they actually die to save people, to really save people, permanently.)
>> 
>> And how is "find cure for death" something more improbable than "kill planet/universe eating force of pure evil" which is the plot of, like, thousands of books and book series out there?

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+16]  *Time flies like an arrow* (an hour later)
>>> 
>>> > And how is "find cure for death" something more improbable than "kill planet/universe eating force of pure evil" which is the plot of, like, thousands of books and book series out there?
>>> 
>>> "You can ask the audience to believe the impossible but not the improbable." It's a matter of willing suspension of disbelief. Suspending disbelief about Superman flying through the air like ~~a bird~~ ~~a plane~~ Superman? Easy. Suspending disbelief about a man curing cancer on his own with thirty minutes in a college laboratory? Hard. Yet one is impossible and the other is merely improbable. Call it a quirk of human psychology.

>>>> **u/Iconochasm** [+8]  (14 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I've repeatedly heard as an example that people will accept a protagonist who can punch down a vault door, but not one who guesses the combination correct on the first try.  The first scenario makes us think "Ok, this protagonist is supernaturally strong.  I can accept that as a premise..  The second scenario makes us go "Oh, come the fuck on!"

>>>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+4]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (16 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Second scenario is "Is that Tattletale from Worm?"

>>>>>> **u/Iconochasm** [+4]  (16 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> That's actually a perfect example.  She does exactly that - but only after it's shown how useful and versatile her power is.

>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+3]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (15 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'll accept the seond, but i'd go "okay, this protagonist is supernaturally lucky, i can accept that as a premise." it's when they try to turn it into interligence that i go, "really? Next you'll try to tell me punching down the door is the ability to talk to ghosts!" You need a good idea of how he figures it out, after all. punching is simple enough- we've all broken something by hitting it hard enough, but thinking our way through a problem is different dependingon the situation.

>>>>>> **u/Iconochasm** [+4]  (15 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The second can be, and has been (Mat Cauthon, Nick Campbell), acceptable as a premise.  But it desperately needs some set-up.

>>>> **u/None** [+7]  (17 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> "Impossible" merely requires us to believe that some counterfactual universe has different laws -- it's conditioning on a "meta-level" counterfactual.  "Improbable" requires us to believe that the *real* laws of reality generate something we're pretty damn sure they don't generate -- an "object-level" counterfactual.
>>>> 
>>>> So actually, our mental algorithms are, in a certain way, pretty justified in considering the impossible easier than the improbable.  Unfortunately, they also make us think metaphysics is a thing.  It's an open question how to build a mind using algorithms tuned "ahead of time" to operate under the same complexity and efficiency constraints real humans face *while also* biasing themselves heavily towards reductionist, physicalist, scientific-style reasoning.

>>>> **u/None** [+5]  (8 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> We'd be perfectly willing to accept it if Superman cured cancer on his own with thirty minutes in a college laboratory.

>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+9]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (12 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I wouldn't. It would throw my suspension of  disbelief, not that superman's gamebreaking powers don't do it already. Now, If tony stark, doctor doom, or loki cured it i'd be willing to accept it, but superman has the flying brick powerset already, and now you're giving him highly potent tinker powers as well? I get that superman can do it, but i won't accept them giving him all the abilities in the universe, and they generally do just that.

>>>>>> **u/None** [+11]  (13 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Eh, the guy's pulled every power in the world out of his cape at some point or another. Accelerated thinking, Krytonian superscience, and high intelligence are all abundant.

>>>>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+7]  (14 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Many versions of Superman are Tinkers, actually. It's a blend of "Super-Intelligence" (which many versions have - not all *that* superintelligent, but Kryptonians are canonically very bright) and access to alien technology.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> The most common thing he does with it is build "Superman robots", but Supergirl literally cured cancer once.

>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+6]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (12 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Because killing is easier, and finding a cure for death isn't more improbable, it's just harder to write *well*. There's no one enemy, facing you, mortal and vulnerable. There's nothing directly facing you, it's not a person. In any quest to defeat death, the main thing opposing you is other people, because death doesn't seek you out faster or more because you oppose it. In our world, it's taking thousands of scientists to defeat cancers, and they haven't succeeded yet. it's a lot easier to write the story of taking the secret of immortality from the gods and trying to get it to everyone, than writing the story of finding the secret of immortality. The stories that people like to read are generally the least effective methods of fighting death there is, and the most likely methods here are boring, to most people.
>>> 
>>> Because just giving a character the secret from science is the easiest method, and it feels like a deus ex machina, unless he's significantly more powerful than anyone alive today, or like a final feather in his cap, and the protagonist really didn't work for the immortality itself- he earned power, but not immortality.

>>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+4]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (14 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Make the cost of acquiring the knowledge or artifacts that the hero needs to progress in his quest high enough and you can justify everyone in the setting banding together to kill him. The enemy is that the general public doesn't see their own and everyone else's imminent death from disease or old age as a problem worth doing anything about. I cannot imagine a worse enemy. And it's a real enemy, not something created whole cloth from the author's imagination. It's an enemy that says something about the real world. Why don't more authors use it?

>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+3]  *Time flies like an arrow* (15 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > The enemy is that the general public doesn't see their own and everyone else's imminent death from disease or old age as a problem worth doing anything about. I cannot imagine a worse enemy. And it's a real enemy, not something created whole cloth from the author's imagination.
>>>>> 
>>>>> 1. Most authors are members of the general public. That means most authors don't see their own and everyone else's death from disease or old age as a problem worth doing anything about. Why would such an author want to write about something they don't particularly care about?
>>>>> 2. Most authors are trying to make money. If they're not trying to make money, they're trying to gain acclaim (or at least have people read their book). If most people don't see their own and everyone else's death from disease or old age as a problem, why would the author write about that? It's not going to sell. People aren't going to read it.
>>>>> 
>>>>> So your hypothetical author has to be within the subset of people who really care about death, *and* he has to be writing for ideological (rather than profit or status) reasons. You probably want a competently written book, which cuts your possible authors down even further. And then there's the question of getting it published, which seems like it would be difficult since (as you said) the general public doesn't care about the central conflict.

>>>>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+3]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (15 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Um, is the entire real general public really like that? Are there no subsections with different opinions who would buy the book? I meant that the inertia and disinterest of the *fictional* exaggerated general public in the book is the enemy. I hope that the real world isn't so lacking in nuance and, er, realism.

>>>>>>> **u/None** [+4]  (17 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> > Um, is the entire real general public really like that?
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> No.  The real general public just haven't been given a coherent notion that there is a *clear, understood path* towards a world without dying.  They don't actually like it, they tolerify it.
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> If you show them a fictional setting in which there was never any death in the first place, like the Garden of Eden, they instantly label that state of being as more desirable than our real one.

>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+3]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (15 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Because suddenly you have a single protagonist versus the world, even if he's trying to kill death, that's not the main conflict anymore. It leaves me, already, wondering, 'wasn't there a better way to avoid this?'
>>>>> 
>>>>> I would say that might make sense. it's just that defeating death is hard, and neither has it been done, nor has it had an inferior prototype, so we have no idea how hard death is to destroy. Most authors think it's too hard, that it's like throwing in world peace or something into the setting. it's just not easy to do.
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'm of the opinion that that is the moral of gilglamesh, no matter what others might think. Not death can't be cheated, there were three ways right there, but that it's really hard, or maybe even, note capitalization, No One can defeat death.

>>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> > I cannot imagine a worse enemy.
>>>>> 
>>>>> Starvation?  Disease?  I mean, there are a lot of things that, if we "abolished" death today with a magic wand, would still create very extreme suffering, and are still used as threats and tools of oppression by every human who ever wants to control another.

>>>> **u/None** [+3]  (17 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> > There's no one enemy, facing you, mortal and vulnerable. There's nothing directly facing you, it's not a person. In any quest to defeat death, the main thing opposing you is other people, because death doesn't seek you out faster or more because you oppose it.
>>>> 
>>>> You know, this sounds like an excellent opportunity for portraying the human high drama involved in struggling for a goal that simply cannot be accomplished with muscles or violence.

>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+3]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (19 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> It is. but those kind of dramas don't really have heroes and sidekicks, don't have mages and heroic journeys, and destroying death will fall into the background with those elements, i expect, just like he complained about happening in hpmor. I should clarify- you can write it, just not in the genre he seems to be talking about.
>>>>> 
>>>>> It might be possible to write it, so please, prove me wrong. write a heroic epic against death that has sidekicks, where wandering the lands is the most viable anti-death tactic, that roughly follows his description.

>>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (20 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ever gone from undergrad to PhD to postdoc?  I hear it involves a lot of wandering the lands.

>>>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+2]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (21 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Is that path the most viable anti-death tactic? Is it still the most effective, assuming the hero works at the most cooperative possible interpretation of the prompt, and no more cooperative than that? If so, I acknowledge that point is valid.

>> **u/None** [+8]  (58 minutes later)
>> 
>> > Because stopping death permanantly is just... difficult to write well,
>> 
>> Is it?  Or is it just hard to write genuine immortals well?

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+12]  *Time flies like an arrow* (an hour later)
>>> 
>>> I actually think it's genuinely difficult to write stopping death well. Immortals are comparatively easy (at least, if you want to write them to the fidelity that people will buy into it). But stopping death ... there's a reason that it's in the background of a lot of scifi instead of at the forefront. And even then, it's most often presented as "we want to extend life" rather than "we want to stop death forever", partly because the former is much more palatable than the latter.

>>>> **u/kenkopin** [+9]  (2 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> A story that deals with this directly (or at least, the consequences of actual immortality for all) is The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. http://localroger.com/prime-intellect/index.html. Plus it's a good read just for its own sake.
>>>> 
>>>> I guess technically this story is what OP was looking for, except that the one to achieve it [is](#s " an AI, and also not the protagonist of the story.")

>>>>> **u/Solonarv** [+5]  *Chaos Legion* (7 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> This is not how spoiler tags work. Check the sidebar for the format used here.

>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (17 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Yo, fix your spoiler tags.  Also, *Prime Intellect* mostly dodges the consequences of actual immortality for all by *claiming*, without evidence, that [Prime Intellect](#s "everyone will wirehead themselves eventually"), effectively making the "immortals" mortal.

>>>>>> **u/kenkopin** [+1]  (20 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Depends on your particular flavor of immortality, I suppose. Actual Immortality for all is achieved, and people react to it in various ways. What you call dodging the consequences, I call.... the consequences. [Just because](#s " some people choose to become wireheads doesn't change the fact that everyone who wants to live forever can.") I'd be willing to bet that most people who found themselves in a state where they could continue forever if they choose would call that being Immortal.

>>>>>>> **u/None** [+0]  (20 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Look, if eternal wireheading is what you call True Immortality, you have stupendously missed the point.

>>> **u/Izeinwinter** [+7]  (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Immortals. Because, well, writing a setting where death isn't a thing is fairly straightforward, but we have no good examples of what long stretches of time will do to human minds. Even extrapolation is unlikely to be very helpful, because while some problems can be predicted, the solutions that will be attempted and what their effects, both intended and unintended will be.. not so much. 
>>> The easy cheat is, of course, to set the story in the time period right after the defeat of death, because that way you dont have to write 3000 year olds. - Noone will have aged much past a normal lifespan. 
>>> Of course, you still have to write 90 year olds with the health of a 29 year old. Which.. No bloody clue what the typical reaction to that would be.

>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+4]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (12 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Stopping death permanantly is the hard thing to write well. The number of stories with 1 immortal character, or immortal unless killed, is significantly more than the number of stories with a permant cure for death at that level, or than stories with such a cure in common circulation.

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (14 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> For God's sakes, people.  You world-build magic systems and ultra-futuristic technology systems *all the time*.  *Surely* you can invent a *fictional* cure for death.  Hell, you should be able to invent *multiple redundant* fictional cures for death.
>>>> 
>>>> Milo from HPN20 can do it with a single *Lesser Wish*, so why can't you do it with fully general world-building?

>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+7]  *Time flies like an arrow* (14 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> The issue is not introducing *Curus Deathus*. That's *easy*. The issue is doing it in a way that people will find satisfying on an emotional or dramatic level. That's *hard*.

>>>>>> **u/None** [+0]  (15 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Screw the emotional and dramatic level!  In real life, you don't cure a disease, let alone death, like killing Ganon and getting the Triforce in some game.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Edit: Disregard that, I suck cocks and further thought is required.

>>>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+2]  *Time flies like an arrow* (15 hours later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> The question was whether it was difficult to write stopping death *well*. If you're just going to give a giant middle finger to emotion and drama, you're probably not going to end up with something worth reading.

>>>>>>>> **u/buckykat** [+5]  (a day later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> start with a cure for death on page 1.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> the struggle is against deathists. how do you make a world that's been telling itself that immortality is impossible, wrong, and evil for ten thousand years live forever?

>>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (6 days later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> I would very gladly read that book, as it would quickly have to cut to the real meat of the issue: how worthwhile we can really make our lives.

>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+3]  (16 hours later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> Yeah disregard the above post, I suck cocks.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> But actually, if Asimov could make drama of the slow grinding of entropy in *The Last Question*, I think good writing can make drama of a *slow, gradual* defeat of death.

>>>>>>>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+1]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (16 hours later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Yeah!

>>>>>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+1]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (17 hours later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Yes, they can. I can see that. But not the story he's asking for. If I were doing it, it would be the other way around- a series of mages (magic being one of the most knowledge-based powers) trying to gradually defeat death. the hero in book 1 founds the order and makes some progress, book 2 focuses on the apprentice and book 1's hero either dies by book three or the end of book two, and so on, a chain of not fast enough and could-have-liveds that each cut off another part of death, but fail to destroy it and saved themselves.
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> (It would be a good short-story, but an epic would be hard, and the type he's describing is too easy. 1 generation to beat death, and banish a demon that's pursued us for generations just feels too easy.)

>>>>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> PD;ISC.

>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+5]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (15 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Because everything feels too easy. combining every super-power in the world? Good enough to beat a destroyer of continents or planets, but not enough to give true, permanant immortality to everyone- what're you going to do, punch death to death? use supernatural attacks to punch death to revival? 
>>>>> 
>>>>> The simplest trick, is death *already* can be cured, the cure is known in society, but it has a price. maybe it's a certain number of souls. maybe you become irrevokably evil, and exclusively self-interested. maybe it's limited to revival, costs 1 diamond, $3333, and an order of druids tries to kill you if you revive more than three times. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> Then the issue is paying the price for everyone who wants it, which is a lot more dramatic, and also easier to justify. death was always possible to avoid, you're trying to cheat the price, now.

>> **u/notmy2ndopinion** [+7]  *Concent of Saunt Edhar* (11 hours later)
>> 
>> OP (and many others with similar sentiments) you've simplified a complex problem with the phrase "cure aging" and/or "defeat death." NotAHeroYet is absolutely correct.
>> 
>> In order to accomplish the end goal of "curing aging", there are a number of assumptions that need to be overcome. First of all, aging is a series of collective processes that accumulate over time. Degeneration of joint tissues, irreversible damage to fine structures (kidneys, brain, heart, etc), shortening of telomeres, UV/radiation damage to DNA... I could go on, but the point here is that we label ALL of these things as a part of the Syndrome of Aging. They will require independent novel solutions to "cure aging," not to mention the diseases like strokes, dementia, and cancer.
>> 
>> Second of all, we can "cure" diseases where life is a problem -- we can halt the progression of infectious diseases or surgically remove rumors and treat with (increasingly more targeted) chemo and radiation therapy.  (Note how we are "killing" to cure, in the cases of cancer and infections....) But other areas of medicine aren't necessarily "cured" in the same way. As much as we tout advancements like a knee replacement for the elderly, they aren't like the original -- they aren't self-repairing units, so they wear out after 10-15 years of use (and even if we make them more mechanical or advanced, they will still wear down and need routine replacement like a car part.) Stem-cell research to renew our own organs would be a promising mode of research, which transitions to the next point...
>> 
>> Third: society has difficulties with scientific advancements on the cutting edge due to misunderstanding of basic science, distortion of the truth by select lobbies, and even questionable/unethical historical practices. If we are trying to save everyone from death and violence, that should include public health/evidence based solutions like reduction of gun violence, domestic abuse, basic preventive health services and social support for all... and from here, this blows up into an incredibly large problem that all (good or at least aspiring to be good) governments are trying to tackle. 
>> 
>> How are you expecting your single sci-fi/fantasy protagonist to tackle this huge nuanced issue without coming off as laughably naive? HPJEV is quite naive about what it will take to save everyone, but he is also trying to be less wrong -- excepting his choice of tutor, of course. The ambitious project Significant Digits does approach the subject in a refreshingly mature way, exploring the political ramifications of trying to preserve everyone through prodigious use of the Philosopher's stone, though, and I love how the story mixes action and the type of plot-sentiment that the OP wants.

>>> **u/None** [+2]  (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> > If we are trying to save everyone from death and violence, that should include public health/evidence based solutions like reduction of gun violence, domestic abuse, basic preventive health services and social support for all... and from here, this blows up into an incredibly large problem that all (good or at least aspiring to be good) governments are trying to tackle. 
>>> 
>>> Yeah, but personally, I think more time should be spent on Civic Duty as Media Purveyors to support these noble efforts.

>>> **u/lehyde** [+1]  *Nudist Beach* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> > First of all, aging is a series of collective processes that accumulate over time. Degeneration of joint tissues, irreversible damage to fine structures (kidneys, brain, heart, etc), shortening of telomeres, UV/radiation damage to DNA... I could go on, but the point here is that we label ALL of these things as a part of the Syndrome of Aging. They will require independent novel solutions to "cure aging," not to mention the diseases like strokes, dementia, and cancer.
>>> 
>>> Strokes, dementia and cancer are more like consequences of aging, not a *part* of aging. Young people very rarely get cancer. And there is no real biological reason that old people's bodies couldn't fight cancer just as well as young ones. It's just that health decline is programmed into our DNA. From an evolutionary perspective it makes sense it makes sense to have short generations and to kill off the old so they don't use as much resources. (See also this: http://joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com/2014/04/07/no-the-body-doesnt-just-wear-out-as-we-get-older/ )
>>> 
>>> So, to put it a bit provocative, if we solve aging, we have also solved cancer.

>>>> **u/notmy2ndopinion** [+1]  *Concent of Saunt Edhar* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> Here's to hoping that aging is epigenetic and we can tweak things such that degenerative processes that Josh describes can be overcome.
>>>> 
>>>> >Living things are fundamentally homeostatic.  They can repair themselves.
>>>> 
>>>> In gerontology, there's a term called "homeostenosis" or a decreasing buffer zone of health where progressively smaller incidents may be all it takes to tip an older person over the edge.
>>>> 
>>>> I picked stroke, dementia and cancer as examples of structural damage that often disrupts the homeostenotic older person and tips them over the edge into decline. Even more concretely, 1/4-1/5 of people who fall and break a hip die within a year -- an association between a loss of function even if they have surgery and the downward spiral that can happen.
>>>> 
>>>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/24933345/
>>>> 
>>>> I'd go a step even further in being provocative and say that if we "solve" aging, we solve cancer, dementia, chronic pain, diabetes, organ failure, etc. This makes it incredibly hard for us as readers to comprehend the scope of the goal of the Transhumanist Hero, and even harder to sort through the obstacles in a rationalist fashion even when you hand wave with "magic" or "nanotechnology"... Hard but admirable.

> **u/Nighzmarquls** [+26]  (39 minutes later)
> 
> Sounds like Gilgamesh.

> **u/qznc** [+9]  *Chaos Legion* (7 hours later)
> 
> In [Accelerando by Charles Stross](http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/fiction/accelerando/accelerando-intro.html) the protagonists become immortal. Some also die a few times. However, winning against death is not the main quest, it is just the background.

>> **u/Gaboncio** [+6]  (10 hours later)
>> 
>> Don't forget Glasshouse! There, everyone already has immortality but also dies more than once.

>> **u/Stop_Sign** [+1]  (6 days later)
>> 
>> Every plot in accelerando is a sub plot. The main plot is basically "we need to get out of this solar system because of the inevitable Dyson sphere" which doesn't describe the book even a little bit.

> **u/MugaSofer** [+9]  (9 hours later)
> 
> Actually, I'm pretty sure the protagonist of *Twilight* goes to great lengths to become immortal, and - having overcome various obstacles along the way - she succeeds and it's awesome.
> 
> Her motivations are primarily selfish, though, IIRC. No vampire revolution for anyone else.
> 
> *
> 
> I guess Deadpool deliberately set out to become immortal, and did. Some versions depict him as having changed his mind, but he certainly didn't roll over when an alternate-universe him showed up with a gun capable of killing Deadpools. But unfortunately he's largely unaware.
> 
> (Hey, why haven't they used whatever process created Deadpool on anyone else? It worked fine, it just made his brain cancer slightly worse but non-terminal.)
> 
> *
> 
> Defeating/ending death is a major motivation of the Necromancers in the *Skulduggery Pleasant* series, and it's treated fairly sympathetically by the protagonist (who flirts with Necromancy for a while.) SP Necromancy is mostly just shadow-manipulation, too, not undead, so it's a fairly ambitious long-term goal.
> 
> But the protagonists do not end up going on an epic quest to defeat Death.
> 
> *
> 
> ... yeah, I genuinely don't think anyone popular has done what you suggest since the Epic of Gilgamesh the King.

> **u/Yuridice** [+8]  (11 hours later)
> 
> I mean, it sounds like you want a generic fantasy macguffin quest where instead of living happily ever after the surviving heroes live happily forever after.
> 
> Which is cool, but death is a unique problem in that while feasability is one thing, many of the potential problems comes from desirability, and a lot of the stories I've read that feature defeating death cover that aspect more. 
> 
> Although it's ponies, [Mortal](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/95424/mortal) came to mind, and counts as fantasy as far as I can tell because Magic, Monarchs, Mythical creatures. Also ponies adjacent is [Friendship is Optimal](http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/friendship-is-optimal), a sci-fi this time. The heroes fighting against death are RD and CelestAI respectively, and they both roughly follow your description of overcoming challenges and losing people on their way to defeating death.

>> **u/None** [+1]  (3 days later)
>> 
>> He is choosing a book for reading

>>> **u/Yuridice** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>> 
>>> Not aware of those, disappointed to hear that it happened.

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (3 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> I am choosing a dvd for tonight

> **u/HereticalRants** [+7]  (14 hours later)
> 
> I once read a My Little Pony fanfic where the protagonists defeated death and built a colony of immortals on the moon.  A lot of it was pretty much a debate between those who would withhold immortality from the masses and those who believe that death is bad. It got pretty angsty and I don't know whether I would recommend it.

>> **u/None** [+8]  (17 hours later)
>> 
>> MLP fandom spends a bizarrely large amount of effort thinking about immortality, given that the original subject is a cartoon for six-year-old white girls.
>> 
>> It warms my heart that this just seems to be *what happens* when you put examples and prototypes of immortal life forms who *aren't fundamentally broken individuals* in front of people and let their imaginations speculate.

>>> **u/Jiro_T** [+3]  (2 days later)
>>> 
>>> >It warms my heart that this just seems to be what happens when you put examples and prototypes of immortal life forms who aren't fundamentally broken individuals in front of people and let their imaginations speculate.
>>> 
>>> I don't think that's true at all.  MLP fandom has a lot of immortality stories because of path dependence--that is, by chance, the fandom happened to spread through groups that were attracted to immortality stories and then as the fandom expanded, people used ideas from existing stories.
>>> 
>>> On Lost Girl, the fae are functionally immortal (both the good guys and bad guys).  I don't think it has much of a fandom at all among our crowd, let alone a fandom that actually is about immortality.
>>> 
>>> (Especially considering the recent storyline where Lauren basically scientifically found a way to become fae and rejected it.  The show never said so explicitly, but it is likely she just gave up immortality for no good reason.  Why hasn't anyone written a fanfic around this?)

>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> Well crud then.  There goes that sociological theory of internet nerddom!

>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>> 
>>>> He looked at the lake

>>>>> **u/Evan_Th** [+2]  *Sunshine Regiment* (10 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> >though I believe WoG has since jossed that theory
>>>>> 
>>>>> [Says Meghan McCarthy](http://www.equestriadaily.com/2013/04/twilight-sparkle-wont-outlive-her.html): *"Twilight will not outlive her friends."*
>>>>> 
>>>>> Of course, there's more than one way to interpret that statement...

>>>> **u/d60b** [+0]  (a month later)
>>>> 
>>>> Distant tangent: I really wish the G. M. Berrow books were more popular so I could see people's thoughts on Daring Do finding the Eternal Flower that grants immortality; giving it up because "no one should have that kind of power" or something (she writes, in a book she's publishing with detailed instructions on how to find it); then, one book later, happily accepting the task of finding it again and using it in order to join a secret club of immortals (who, again, she apparently believes won't mind her exposing them to the world in a popular book).

>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+2]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (23 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I don't know what makes you add the white qualifier. Sorry if that's rude, but it seems like a valid question, and it provides valid input, right?

>>>> **u/None** [+0]  (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> >I don't know what makes you add the white qualifier.
>>>> 
>>>> Because to anyone who didn't grow up in Middle America, the show is *very obviously* Middle American, including from the very first episode, in which little miss academic is sent to *go live in Middle America and learn its folk-ways* as a solution to saving the world.
>>>> 
>>>> Still a really endearing show, but I often wonder how they expect to market it anywhere outside the continental USA.  And yet, they've gone and done it, so it works somehow.

>>>>> **u/Sithoid** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> As someone who never even visited America, let alone being raised there, I barely even saw any national or regional overtones in MLP. If there was anything specifically Middle American that an outsider would miss, that's probably what happened - I missed it and still enjoyed the show. For me, only the Apple family could probably qualify, because they clearly tap into cowboy imagery - imagery that has gone global long before the show. I'm pretty sure it's true for most of the non-American viewers.

>>>>>> **u/None** [+2]  (2 days later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Huh.  That's kinda weird, considering the background cities in Equestria are actually named for analogous cities in the USA.  Like, *Manehattan*?  It's literally one letter away from Manhattan, an actual place where real people live.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Or "Appleoosa", which I think is actually a pun on a part of the American West.

>>>>>>> **u/Sithoid** [+2]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Now that you've pointed it out, I can probably recall a few more specifically American things there. Here's probably what happens in such cases: if I recognize the pun (did they say Manehattan? I know, that's where the Spiderpony lives!) it doesn't register as something too specific (when they added Greek mythology to the mix I didn't feel like the show was becoming Greece-targeted; same here). If I don't recognize it (I'll have to actually google right now what Appleoosa stands for) - it passes as just another part of that whimsical fairytale setting. So they have the Crystal Empire, Ponyville and also Appleoosa - fine by me!
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> Also bear in mind that targeting shows for regional audiences usually involves translation - and some of the more subtle puns and references can easily get lost. If I weren't a fan of watching shows in English, I would probably even miss Applejack's obvious Southern accent.

>>>>>>>> **u/None** [+1]  (3 days later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> > If I weren't a fan of watching shows in English, I would probably even miss Applejack's obvious Southern accent.
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> So you're saying I should watch it in some language in which her accent is less grating and sounds a lot less like someone's about to ask me if I've accepted Jesus into my heart?

>>>>>>>>> **u/Sithoid** [+3]  (6 days later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Wow, that's probably another layer that I totally overlooked. Nah, I still believe that original voice actors did an amazing job :) But now every time I watch a cowboy movie my brain will add "...do you want to talk about Jesus?" to every line they say. And for that wonderful atrocity, Sir, I thank you.

>>>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+1]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I'd like examples, since i never watched the show, i'm afraid. I've read enough fanfic and fan novelizations, both of canon and AU that i have a pretty good idea of all the stops on the original train, but i've never been on the original route myself, just the historical reenactment.
>>>>> 
>>>>> that was probably an overextended metaphor.

>>> **u/HereticalRants** [+1]  (26 days later)
>>> 
>>> ...except for every MLP story that portrays immortality as a desirable thing there are ten about someone angsting about the Curse of Immortality.

>>>> **u/d60b** [+0]  (a month later)
>>>> 
>>>> I'd like to see the lists you used to calculate that number.

>> **u/OrzBrain** [+1]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (15 hours later)
>> 
>> Here's hoping the "death is bad" ponies nuked the "withhold immortality" ponies at the end. After all, they wanted to kill everyone.

>>> **u/None** [+7]  (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> The point.  You're missing it.

>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> The nukes didn't. :\^)

>>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+5]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Here's hoping they didn't have to. Death is bad, just or unjust, after all.

> **u/Sagebrysh** [+7]  *Rank 7 Pragmatist* (17 hours later)
> 
> I'm actually working on brainstorming a story with something like this for the premise. I'm also looking for a co-author so if this is something that might appeal to you, send me a PM.
> 
> The idea is roughly this: its 200-300 years in the future, humanity has spread to every planet in the solar system and launched a series of generation ships into deep space to seed the galaxy with humanity. 
> 
> But while things are awesome (everyone lives to an average age of 120, universal access to your world's internet through implantable cybernetics and free public terminals) things aren't that amazing. Earth is slowly melting down from the cumulative stress of supporting 40 billion people. The biosphere is just slowly coming apart at the seams, the sea levels are rising, desertification is rampant, and severe weather is common. The terraforming attempts on Mars and Venus are bogged down and expected to take  hundreds of years more to get any progress, and most of humanity's food is processed algae bricks farmed in giant orbital habitats. A good percentage of the population has dove headfirst into VR and never come up for air. Technology to indefinitely extend the human lifespan exists, technology to scan and back up a human mind to a server exists, and technology to copy, download, and merge human minds exists. But all of this is unavailable to the average member of society. A group of 4 giant corporations have clamped down hard on this technology, protecting it behind patents, trade agreements, and copyrights.
> 
> Enter our first character, an AI researcher who has spent the last twenty years slowly grinding away at the problem of AGI. While incredibly powerful, lifelike, and interactive Narrow AIs are common and everyday, serving every purpose from customer service to frontline soldiers, a general purpose, human level, sentient AI has been a pipe dream for hundreds of years. Working from the small mobile colony on Mercury he lives at, this researcher is starting to think it might just be impossible to create an AGI. That is, until he gets an encrypted email from a satellite node orbiting at Jupiter's L2 point. 
> 
> Enter our second character. A twenty-something hotshot hacker working out of her own (stolen) ship and on the run from the corporate authorities has managed to crack the encryption on a corporate satellite in the asteroid belt, and extracted the technique to upload and digitize a consciousness. She realizes the technology isn't anything but off the shelf components used in a new way, and creates a digital copy of herself. She's being hunted down by faster, newer ships and knows she doesn't have much time. So she transfers the digital copy of herself through fifteen different routers, eventually bouncing the signal back and forth across the solar system. She's hunted down and killed, but her digital copy ends up in the email of our first character. 
> 
> Now, he's just been handed the keys to the kingdom as it were. Not only is there a sentient, digital consciousness living on his home computer which holds the keys to mind uploading, but by studying the base code of the uploaded hacker, he's able to make some crucial insights into how to put an AGI together, and assembles a new consciousness from scratch using this method. The digital girl, the AI researcher, and the AGI are thus thrown into a pitched battle against the corporations hunting them down. Their goal: cure death for *everyone* once and for all. 
> 
> There's obviously much more to it that I've worked out, but :spoilers: and so on. I'd really really like to create something publishable, so if this seems interesting to you, send me a PM and lets collaborate.

>> **u/nerdguy1138** [+1]  *GNU Terry Pratchett* (23 hours later)
>> 
>> I love this idea, and everything about it! Can't wait to read it.

>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+1]  *Level 1 author* (a day later)
>> 
>> When you get started on it, definitely let us know here!

>> **u/Khaos1125** [+1]  (3 months later)
>> 
>> Please write this

> **u/Jakkubus** [+4]  (2 hours later)
> 
> Well, chasing immortality isn't uncommon theme in literature, but nowadays it's mostly attributed to bad guys (Voldemort) and since ancient times it almost never end well. The cause is simple: people are still insecure about death and story about acquiring immortality through science or magic seems rather like an childish wish-fulfillment.
> 
> Basically moral of most stories about it is that while trying to beat the death, you lose your life.

>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+4]  *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (8 hours later)
>> 
>> Greg Egan and Charlie Stross and Vernor Vinge have written about the aftermath quite a bit.

>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+1]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (16 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Yeah, everything by Vernor Vinge is *awesome*. Except, sadly, his last book. Not sure what went wrong there.

>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+2]  *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (16 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> I kind of get the impression _Children of the Sky_ may have been written because people kept demanding to know what happened next, because so much was left hanging at the end of _Fire_... not because he had a story he needed to tell.

>>>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+1]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (16 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I thought the problem was something else. What happened next should have been the Blight fleet arriving and the kids and Tines dealing with it. But we didn't get that. We just got some political games and teased at what MIGHT happen next with the fleet.

>>>>>> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+2]  *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (16 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Plus a bit of Skroderider and Tine biology.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think he wanted to put some barriers in Ravna's way, and fill in some of the Tine backstory, and get started on a new series... but he kind of went overboard and lost his way. There are all these loose ends:
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> * Amdi's problem with the tightness of his pack and his fear of losing his soul. This was kind of thrown over the side with Ravna going "Oh, well, there's too much extrapolation in the message I'm getting from my spy bots and we're too deep in the Slow Zone to trust the High Beyond software".
>>>>>> * The spy bots were too much like the Localizers of the Queng Ho, really.
>>>>>> * We find out about Ravna's super-superuser power, and she does nothing with it.
>>>>>> * The "Pro Blight" faction really never seemed convincing in the first place.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> Ravna could have followed up on the hints from her spy bots, redeployed them to use them more effectively, or gone into the raw data and used her librarian smarts to figure out what was really going on with Amdi. Even if the evocation was wrong, she should be able to use actual natural intelligence and skill (she won a fucking interplanetary scholarship!) to do something with that. 
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> And the whole super-super-user power on the OOB is totally dropped.

> **u/Farmerbob1** [+2]  *Level 1 author* (a day later)
> 
> I'm going to risk having bricks thrown at me, but one of the oldest books in existence is very close to this, and there are variants in almost every language.  It's really not very good rational fiction though.  They don't even get Pi right.

>> **u/Farmerbob1** [+2]  *Level 1 author* (a day later)
>> 
>> On a more serious note, immortality is a significant theme in a lot of Heinlein's books, especially the ones with Lazarus Long.

>> **u/xamueljones** [+2]  *My arch-enemy is entropy* (a day later)
>> 
>> *throws Bible as a brick at /u/Farmerbob1*

> **u/ArgentStonecutter** [+2]  *Emergency Mustelid Hologram* (8 hours later)
> 
> The story is told in retrospect in Greg Egan's [_Border Guards_](http://www.gregegan.net/BORDER/Complete/Border.html).

> **u/libertarian_reddit** [+2]  (18 hours later)
> 
> Full Metal Alchemist Brotherhood? Not a book but...

>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>> 
>> First of all, why add Brotherhood? It *was* a manga, and the reason Brotherhood is so good is because it sticks *to* the manga. And second of all, it's not about ending death, it's about [](#s "preventing a national massacre and ending the homunculus trying to become God.")

>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+6]  *Time flies like an arrow* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> /u/Transfuturist, it appears that you have been **shadowbanned**. I've manually approved this comment, but you'll want to [message the admins](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23reddit.com) to try to get it reversed. [See this FAQ](https://www.reddit.com/r/help/wiki/faq#wiki_i.27ve_been_banned._why.3F_how_do_i_get_unbanned.3F). Subreddit mods (like me) have no control over shadowbans and can't do anything about them.

>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>>>> 
>>>> ~~Are you sure it's not the spam filter?~~
>>>> 
>>>> I seem to have been unpersoned.

>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+4]  *Time flies like an arrow* (a day later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> Nope, definitely not the spam filter; you can test whether someone has been shadowbanned by going to their user page. (If you are that person, you have to log out first or use incognito mode.) One of the crap things about it is that even if you're a mod you don't get inbox replies from whoever has been shadowbanned, so the only way to know that they've tried to reply to you is by going into the thread in question.
>>>>> 
>>>>> (Shadowbanning is such a chickenshit method of moderation. /u/spez has [said it's not appropriate for anything beyond spam](https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/3fx2au/content_policy_update/ctss0fo?context=3) and that [they're working on better tools](https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/3euqwf/reddit_autoshadow_banning/ctj42qc?context=3) but that was all two months ago and they're still shadowbanning people, so I dunno.)
>>>>> 
>>>>> I think there's some way for a mod to whitelist a person on a subreddit via Automoderator but I need to dig for it when I have some free time.

>>>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> *invisible hug*

>>>>>>> **u/Evan_Th** [+2]  *Sunshine Regiment* (10 days later)
>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>> FWIW, you aren't shadowbanned now.  I can see your user page and some other comments you've made.

>>>>>>>> **u/Transfuturist** [+3]  *Carthago delenda est.* (10 days later)
>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>> I messaged the admins. One of the IPs either my college or proxy was using was bad.

>>>>>>>>> **u/Evan_Th** [+2]  *Sunshine Regiment* (10 days later)
>>>>>>>>> 
>>>>>>>>> Glad to hear that people can get un-shadowbanned!  I'd somehow gotten the impression that all messages pleading for relief went into the void.

> **u/RandomDamage** [+2]  (18 hours later)
> 
> Sub plot of the initial volume of " Cities in Flight" by James Blish.

> **u/atomfullerene** [+2]  (4 days later)
> 
> Well I mean that's basically the plot of the Gospels.  :P

> **u/SecretAgentVampire** [+4]  (9 hours later)
> 
> The story you're looking for is called...
> 
> Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

>> **u/Escapement** [+11]  *Ankh-Morpork City Watch* (10 hours later)
>> 
>> Um... The story bills itself as this sort of thing in the opening, and indeed has this sort of thing going on in the background, and the protagonist pays lip service to it a fair bit. However, the central focus of the story is on a bunch of different things than this central idea. Harry occasionally says stuff about ending death entirely, but by and large his onscreen actions do not particularly end death, and he makes no progress towards this goal in any particular way on his own other than ending some dementors (which 'ends death' in the same way that, say, donating to malaria bed nets do).  Indeed, Harry causes some few deaths, as well. The end of HPMOR sort of implies that maybe eventually Harry will fight death in some nontrivial sense and succeed at some point after the events of the book, but that premise is basically unfulfilled by the actual onscreen events of the story. The hero's journey in HPMOR, such as it is, is first concerned with trying to exploit magic, and, finding it very hard and complex, basically giving up and spending a long time doing intrigue and wizard politics with time travel exploits thrown in, before finally at the very end stumbling to a victory over an evil Wizard almost by accident which, by complete and utter fluke, grants Harry for his victory over the evil wizard a bunch of tools to potentially end death and remake the universe if he manages not to end himself or the world on accident first. 
>> 
>> Harry doesn't make any real progress on his end-death plan himself, and only when Tom Riddle basically hands the victory over death  to him and takes the time to explain everything about The Philosopher's Stone, before promptly losing permanently through carelessness, does Harry gain tools that might help him to an actual victory over Death (and then the story ends).
>> 
>> I think 'well intentioned guy accidentally stumbles into potential solution for mortality' does not quite fit the OP's request.

>>> **u/SecretAgentVampire** [+3]  (17 hours later)
>>> 
>>> Good point, and really succinct review of the writing! Have an upvote!

>>> **u/EliezerYudkowsky** [+7]  *Godric Gryffindor* (a day later)
>>> 
>>> I think you missed the part where the story is about Harry growing as a rationalist. If only I'd put that right into the title or something.

>> **u/Transfuturist** [+2]  *Carthago delenda est.* (a day later)
>> 
>> The story you're looking for is called...
>> 
>> Significant Digits.

> **u/OrzBrain** [+4]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (12 hours later)
> 
> The book I've read that comes closest to what I described is The Transhumanist Wager by Zoltan Istvan. It was while reading it that I realized that the basic idea is compelling enough to make a book readable and even good even in which the protagonist has certain ideas that wouldn't be very out of place in Nazi Germany and the author has an unfortunate love of straw men. Still, despite this it's a good read.
> 
> HPMOR comes pretty close, and while Tom mostly solves the problem for Harry, at least Harry always keeps the end goal of "defeat death" firmly in mind, and if Tom hadn't solved the problem one gets the sense that Harry would have died trying for a solution. Unfortunately, the author spends so much time showing off his intelligence and ability to get out of any corner that he could write himself into that parts of it are hard to stomach. He could have remedied this problem if he had remembered that intelligence is not the exclusive province of geniuses, and under sufficient pressure ordinary people occasionally have those flashes of brilliance that make war so dangerous, but instead after a while it feels like the only actual characters *in* HPMOR are Harry, Hermione, and Voldy.
> 
> Vernor Vinge's *Marooned in Realtime* can be seen as having this if you tilt your head and squint real hard, as well having absolutely exceptional writing, and addressing the issues of what kind of damage spending thousands of years living might do to a mind, and what minds would look like with various levels of augmentation. If you want to see well written immortals look no further than *Marooned in Realtime*.
> 
> *
> 
> *
> 
> *
> 
> I have trouble understanding those who call the idea of a lone hero solving immortality "childish" or something similar. Is it more childish than the lone hero becoming a god? Defeating some universal force of evil? Becoming ruler of a country and somehow doing a good job? Acquiring superpowers and putting on a costume and fighting crime? Coming up with some kind of weird and unrealistic political system and having it work and create a utopia? Having a harem of love slaves? What does it say about society that all of these ideas are "realistic" enough to appear again and again to the point of tedium, but defeating death is "childish"?

>> **u/alexanderwales** [+8]  *Time flies like an arrow* (13 hours later)
>> 
>> > I have trouble understanding those who call the idea of a lone hero solving immortality "childish" or something similar. Is it more childish than the lone hero becoming a god? Defeating some universal force of evil? Becoming ruler of a country and somehow doing a good job? Acquiring superpowers and putting on a costume and fighting crime? Coming up with some kind of weird and unrealistic political system and having it work and create a utopia? Having a harem of love slaves? What does it say about society that all of these ideas are "realistic" enough to appear again and again to the point of tedium, but defeating death is "childish"?
>> 
>> Society *does* call a lot of those things childish. You don't have to look very far to see someone calling superheroes a childish power fantasy. Or that mildly famous John Rogers quote, "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: *The Lord of the Rings* and *Atlas Shrugged*. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." And I have no idea where you get the idea that people are respectful of the idea of a harem of love slaves.
>> 
>> So I don't think the reason that "defeat of death" is so rare is that people perceive it as childish; there are lots of perceived-childish things that show up time and time again. You need some other explanation.
>> 
>> Personally, I think it comes down to emotion. There are plenty of stories where the hero goes to the underworld to retrieve his dead love, because that's more emotionally resonant than saving everyone from death forever. We're animals; we care more about people in our inner circle than we do about some random stranger on the other side of the planet. So if a story's purpose is to make you feel things, that story is going to work a lot better if the death in question is one we have a strong connection to. And you *do* see *those* stories.

>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+2]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (14 hours later)
>>> 
>>> What I mean about the love slaves and superheros and whatever else is that however childish these ideas are they show up again and again and are respected enough to get published in good books.
>>> 
>>> People understand that seeking immortality is a powerful motivation. That's why villains can use it to justify damn near any atrocity. Why not add a measure of altruism by making it for *everyone* and then have a hero committing those acts and making those sacrifices (with plucky sidekicks going "Don't let it end like this," gasp die, and the hero killing more and more people in his quest as a result)? Why does this never happen in all the morass of fantasy and scifi books struggling to stand out from the crowd?

>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+7]  *Time flies like an arrow* (14 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> > What I mean about the love slaves and superheros and whatever else is that however childish these ideas are they show up again and again and are respected enough to get published in good books.
>>>> 
>>>> Exactly. So the reason that you don't see "defeat death" show up must not be related to it being childish. Trying to defeat death is childish, but that's not the reason that you don't see it in fiction. It's not showing up for *other reasons*. The question is what those other reasons are.
>>>> 
>>>> People understand *personal* immortality as a compelling goal. They don't intuitively connect with *global* immortality. People understand not wanting to die. They understand not wanting their friends to die. They can intuitively extend that to not *ever* wanting to die, even if they disagree with that. You start running into problems when you try extending that to *everyone*, because the human brain isn't equipped with the emotional tools to conceptualize that. We can use logic, sure, but that's not the same as feeling it on a gut level.
>>>> 
>>>> Storytelling is about hedon production. You don't get hedon production by saving a bunch of people you don't know and never interact with, you get it from saving something *personal* and *close*. The problem with death is that it's *large* and *distant*, so (for most people) doesn't trigger anything instinctual. And if I'm writing a fantasy epic, why would I choose something that's not going to resonate with anyone, or that I'm going to have to work ten times as hard at in order to make it work?

>>>>> **u/OrzBrain** [+2]  **Fingers* to *dance*, *hands* to *catch*, *arms* to *pull** (14 hours later)
>>>>> 
>>>>> >Storytelling is about hedon production. You don't get hedon production by saving a bunch of people you don't know and never interact with, you get it from saving something personal and close. The problem with death is that it's large and distant, so (for most people) doesn't trigger anything instinctual. 
>>>>> 
>>>>> But that's exactly the plot of the standard defeat the dark one plot line. Hero sacrifices to save mass of unrelated people from certain death, unrelated people are personified by plucky sidekicks who die to motivate hero and make you sympathize with unrelated people who will die in the same way and will have people care about them in the same way.
>>>>> 
>>>>> How is defeat the dark one and keep him from killing everyone different from defeat death and keep everyone from eventually dying? They are *exactly* the same plot. Except that the later plot is more realistic, because death exists in the real world and will kill everyone, and death might be defeatable in the real world.

>>>>>> **u/alexanderwales** [+2]  *Time flies like an arrow* (16 hours later)
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> > But that's exactly the plot of the standard defeat the dark one plot line.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> No, it's not. Harry Potter didn't sacrifice to save a mass of unrelated people from certain death, he did it to save his friends and family. Luke Skywalker didn't do it for a mass of unrelated people, he did it for his friends. Frodo and Sam do it for the Shire and the Fellowship. The classic "defeat the dark one" plot is almost never about nameless, faceless masses, it's about people the hero has met during his journey, or his companions, or his hometown, or the woman he loves. These are people personally known to the reader and the protagonist; they are familiar and therefore compelling.
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> I think the other thing you're missing is imminence. That matters quite a bit. There's a reason that if a hero has to stop a bomb from going off it will usually come down to the wire. How many times have you seen a main character stop a disaster that was forty years away?
>>>>>> 
>>>>>> You seem to be saying that it *doesn't matter* whether the threat is far away, or that it doesn't matter whether the protagonist has personal stakes, but both those things aren't true. You'd know they weren't true even if you had only studied human psychology and not how to write fiction.

>> **u/NotAHeroYet** [+2]  *City of Angles Municipal Government* (12 hours later)
>> 
>> People have ruled nations well- never alone, but as the Highest overseer. People haven't become gods, but in a setting where magic is powerful enough to do that, defeating death is theoretically possible, (in fact, if gods rule afterlives, you've defeated it, even if the original world will die, so long as no one dies in the afterlife. now go work on claiming hell, so there's no eternities of torture~). Defeating death without Alternate universe powers (Stuff that doesn't exist here,) rings false, especially if you work alone. You can have a grand epic to defeat death, but defeating death for everyone would need to be a tale longer than the oddessey or in a setting where it is demonstratably viable. (harry potter, for instance, is a 3 out of 10, probably, on the 'death mortality rate'. City of Angles could be a 5, with proper manipulation of echoes, while D&D is a 4 as-is, but it'd be higher if the tech level was better.) Creating utopia is impossible to be done believably, but it can be done.
>> 
>> Harry is perhaps more distractable than he should be, but defeating death as a whole will take a lot of trouble in harry potter, and far more the weaker magic becomes. 
>> 
>> If you want to write a death-defeating fanfic, there are good characters for that. Now that I look for it, You could read byukaren from touhou's backstory that way- the she sought immortality for herself and for others, and currently seeks equality for those with prolonged lives. On the other hand, there are a lot of not-good facets of this, but After her brother died, she left to seek immortality for herself- and others, perhaps, with the right interpretation. Just make her keep her quest quiet- in character, i think- and her endgame everyone is immortal.

> **u/buckykat** [+1]  (20 hours later)
> 
> significant digits is continuing hpmor in this direction

> **u/EccentricArchitect** [+1]  (2 hours later)
> 
> Try The Golden Compass series (His Dark Materials)

>> **u/MugaSofer** [+4]  (8 hours later)
>> 
>> Pretty sure they don't cure death in those.
>> 
>> Heck, they [final book I think](#s "visit the afterlife and encourage the ghosts to commit suicide.")

>>> **u/EccentricArchitect** [+1]  (10 hours later)
>>> 
>>> I think their goal was to kill god, who was the reason death was a thing in the first place. But idk, it's been a while since I read it.

>>>> **u/MugaSofer** [+4]  (13 hours later)
>>>> 
>>>> Nah. This is a minor spoiler, anyone else reading, but HDM "God" is the first angel (who told the others he was the Creator), and he dies  without in anyway impacting the plot except to serve as a chance for the good (?) guys to be smug.

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