I'm curious as to what made the devs decide to go in this particular direction.
Why is immortality treated as an unambiguously bad thing in this setting?
- Thread starter Melakoth
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It's very common, especially in this day and age and with a western mindset to treat immortality as a curse.
Probably because immortality is unambiguously a bad thing.
I never got that impression, really. Both among the various immortal characters in the game and those around them there seems to be a fairly wide spread of opinion on the subject, between the view that it's a curse (Komari and the kitsune close to her) to a gift (the overwhelming majority of demons who take a view on the topic, zhara seems rather pleased once she gets over the shock of learning who agni is. Definitely doesn't wish she was gone instead) with relative indifference or no normative opinion in particular in the middle (some demons, most of the seven, agni herself). Because of the nature of the game and how crowdsourced the writing there's very little I would confidently put forward as "the devs [collectively] decided x"
It really, really depends. I will never belive that life extension options are a bad thing: The ability to live as long as you want, and pass gracefully when you are tired, would be a blessing beyond any that we have been given since the ability to look at our reflection and see ourselves with bright eyes.
On the other hand, FORCED endurance would inevitably turn into "I have no mouth and I must scream". At the very least, you'd be stuck floating in the void, praying that Protons eventually decay and that your mind turns off.
That second one seems impossible in OUR universe, thankfully: Once physical form is destroyed, the mind seems to go with it as far as we know. So there's no reason NOT to pursue longer and longer lives, as long as we can fill them with meaning!
So it's not necessarily bad as long as you have the ability to opt out, in other words, or at least willing to accept the drawbacks?
Immortality being bad has kinda become a common sentiment nowadays. Maybe not universal, but still popular. And CoC2 puts a lot of focus on love, family, and relationships. Hell, one of the two main antagonists is motivated entirely by her inability to have a true child. The fact that you'll outlive almost everyone you know and love is a pretty big deal in a game/setting like this one.
Doesn't help that some of the immortal characters, such as Agni, don't simply live until killed. They straight up can't die. Agni can't even kill herself, she will continually self-resurrect whether she wants to or not. She will live, have loved ones, and watch them die again and again and again forever.
Doesn't help that some of the immortal characters, such as Agni, don't simply live until killed. They straight up can't die. Agni can't even kill herself, she will continually self-resurrect whether she wants to or not. She will live, have loved ones, and watch them die again and again and again forever.
Slightly off topic so apologies, but I don't think Kas would actually be any happier if she could have kids. If the ones she's adopted and raised aren't fulfilling her desire for kids, being able to give birth to/have someone else give birth to a kid probably won't either. Her problem isn't being unable to have kids its being literally incapable of actual love due to being a demon
Would you be happy if you had to see everyone you knew and loved get old and pass away while you remain? As entire ecosystems perish right in front of you eyes? As the last star explodes and all that remains is a dark black void? Would you be happy that, no matter if time itself stopped existing, you will not?
That's only because the form of immortality that Agni has is a cage, she has no choice or ability to opt out.
That's what makes it bad.
If people knew they could opt out at any time, would they really be so eager to give it up?
Besides, at the very least Savarra has more evidence for an afterlife than our world does.
Yeah, but that's the issue. Usually, immortality is not something you can just say "know what? this shit kinda fell off" and just "unsuscribe" from it. Immortality is permanent, a curse you have to bear until time itself ceases to exist, and even then there's no guarantee you'll be granted release
Sure, you can just say nope and decline the offer of immortality, but being realistic, anyone who willingly gives their mortality away is probably either blinded by their own ego, or plain stupid
The problem isn’t immortality being a curse, it’s the game treating all immortality as the same thing when it clearly isn’t.
If it’s irreversible and you’re stuck forever, yeah, that can absolutely turn into a curse. No argument there. And from a storytelling standpoint, I get why that version gets used. It creates tension, consequences, and something to actually struggle against.
But that’s still just one version of immortality.
This setting literally has genies and reality-warping magic. There’s no real reason you couldn’t have conditional immortality. “I don’t age unless I choose to” or “I can end it whenever I want” removes most of the usual downsides.
At that point it stops being a curse and becomes a choice. If you regret it, you opt out. If you don’t, you keep going.
Saying anyone who’d take immortality is just egotistical or stupid feels shortsighted. People take long-term risks all the time, except here you could actually build in a safety net.
If the game wants to focus on immortality as a curse for narrative reasons, that’s fine. But acting like that’s the only possible outcome in a setting where reality itself is flexible feels less like a rule of the world and more like the writers forcing a specific theme.
That’s just a really narrow definition of immortality.
If you don’t age and can live indefinitely, that’s still immortality in any practical sense. Adding an opt-out doesn’t suddenly make you “mortal again,” it just means you’re not trapped.
If anything, the version where you can’t die under any circumstances is just one extreme form of immortality, not the default definition.
Calling it “mortality with extra steps” is like saying invulnerability with an off switch isn’t real invulnerability. It still functions the same way 99.9% of the time, you just aren’t locked into it forever.
Biological Immortality is also called Bio-indefinite Mortality, so saying it's "mortality with extra steps" isn't entirely wrong. But Immortality as a Curse is usually done with True Immortality, which means absolutely no dying, even if you did something like jump in a volcano. And I don't think it is unreasonable to make a distinction between "I need not fear the touch of time" and "No matter how traumatizing or painful an experience is, I will be forced to continue to get up and bear it every single day."
That’s a fair distinction, honestly.
“I don’t age” and “I am physically incapable of dying under any circumstances” are very different concepts, and most “immortality is a curse” stories are definitely talking about the second one.
I think my issue is more that the game tends to treat those two ideas as interchangeable when they really aren’t.
True immortality where you’re forced to exist forever no matter what absolutely can become horrifying. I don’t even disagree with that. But biological immortality or conditional immortality doesn’t automatically carry the same baggage, especially in a setting with reality-warping magic.
If a genie can make you ageless while still allowing an exit condition, then most of the existential horror disappears because you’re no longer trapped. At that point immortality becomes a choice you continue making, not a sentence you’re condemned to forever.
So I don’t really object to “true immortality is terrifying.” I just don’t think every possible form of immortality should get shoved into that same category.