15 Characters Who Flat Out Refuse to Die

The time will come for everyone when they will have to die.  I know that this is a sad and depressing thought, but it is true.  No one can live forever.  With a few exceptions, it would seem.  So, today, I present to you 15 characters who I can't help but think, "How are you not dead?"  As always, in no particular order.

1. Aladdin


Come on, even Jafar says, "How many times must I kill you boy?"  The guy is a death-defying master. He is constantly chased by guards in Agrabah and presumably sometimes caught. Agrabah, need I remind you, is in Arabia, and Arabians weren't really known for their forgiving penal system.  He is also shut inside a hole, sent to the Arctic in a turret and attacked by the most powerful sorcerer in the world.  Repeatedly. 

2. Westley from The Princess Bride

Once again, our villain even recognizes it.  As Humperdinck says, "I killed you too quickly the last time, a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight."  Captured by pirates, lived as a pirate for five years, attacked by ROUSs, had 50 years of his life sucked away, etc., etc.  And yet, he has all his body parts and is still alive.  That's quite impressive.

3. Rasputin
 
Sometimes, it even happens in the real world.   He was stabbed such that his entrails came out of his abdomen.  And LIVED.  Then, a year later, he was poisoned with cyanide (which should kill you in minutes, if not in seconds).  And LIVED!  Again.  He was then shot in the back with a revolver.  And lived.  Then, he was shot three more times. And lived.  Then he was beaten to a pulp and thrown in a river.  He was found with water in his lungs, meaning that he was still alive when they threw him in the river.  Then, during cremation, he sat up.  That's probably because the heat tightened his tendons, but people were extremely nervous that he was still alive, and I think I understand that concern.

4. Eugenides from The Thief and sequels

(No picture, because fanart isn't what it used to be, and I could find no renderings of him that I actually find acceptable)

I have mentioned before how indestructible this guy is.  He is starved while incarcerated in Sounis, nearly drowned about three times, nearly buried alive about three times, stabbed in the back (and goes septic), starved again while incarcerated in Attolia, somehow does not bleed to death in Attolia, attacked by hunting dogs (goes septic again), is stabbed in the stomach (goes septic again), poisoned (kind of), on and on.  This guy is both extremely accident prone and lucky.  Whatever he's got that keeps him from dying of sepsis, I know some infectious disease doctors at work who would love to get their hands on it.

5. Spiderman from The Amazing Spiderman
 
I have also mentioned this one.   I'm sorry, you can't get sliced across the chest, then trudge through a sewer (methinks some of Eugenides' sepsis rightfully belongs to Mr. Peter Parker), and then be fine about an hour later.  And I don't care if you cauterized your wound with spiderwebs, gunshot wounds require serious medical attention!

6. Any of the Adoptive Children of Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman
 

I get that she needs to be able to have a medical save every episode.  However, I think these children would have been better off if she hadn't adopted them, and that fifteen/sixteen-year-old Matthew there on the right in the picture had become their guardian (which probably would have happened in the Wild West). Life's rough when your mother is the doctor in a medical drama.  The subdural hemorrhage, crush injury, typhoid fever, multiple broken legs, axe wounds, diphtheria, frostbite, hypothermia, gunshot wounds, influenza, broken ribs, and other sundry injuries type of rough.

7. Indiana Jones



Do I really need to say anything else?  I mean, in the first movie alone he should be very, very, very dead.  Particularly after being dragged for several minutes at probably 45 mph.  I may also point out that getting beaten up doesn't just make you go, "Oh that hurt," for a few seconds.  You can seriously mess up your anatomy and physiology for the rest of your life.

8. Peeta Mellark from The Hunger Games
 
I love the guy, but let's be honest.  He's kind of just a liability in the arena.  He is stabbed, goes septic (usually, people, going septic is not just an inconvenience, so let's stop using it that way in literature), nearly bleeds to death, gets electrocuted (and CPR has a very low success rate in the real world, especially without defibrillators), gets neurologically quite messed up, and more.  Methinks he should be dead.


9.  Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games

 While we're on the subject of Hunger Games, the odds really are in her favor, aren't they? She probably experiences enough things to be killed (you really can die from bees), but I think it's also important to note how many injuries/deaths she somehow avoids.

10. Nico DiAngelo from Percy Jackson and the Olympians
  (See previous reason for no visual aid)

I know that he's the son of Hades, so he gets some inherent pull with not dying.  Apparently a lot of pull.  Like being closed in a giant jar for a week and not suffocating pull--by, get this, going into a "death trance" and reducing the use of air.   Throughout the series, so far, he has also collapsed from overuse of power, gets pulled into Tartarus (and comes back out), and has boat masts fall on top of him, and pelted by boulders--more than once.  While we're in the Percy Jackson universe, I would put Luke Castellan on this list, because he definitely qualifies.  At least until he actually does die.

11. Marius Pontmercy from Les Miserables


Seriously?  Shot.  Multiple times. Multiple head wounds. Dragged threw a sewer with gunshot wounds (again with the sepsis!).  Comes through sepsis.  He really doesn't want to die, does he?

12. Pretty Much Any Character on Lost
 
I guess I should be fair.  If I say Luke Castellan can't stay on this list because he actually does die, no character on Lost can, either.  But, these characters took it to a whole new level of determination to not die.  The entire original premise, that they survived a plane crash, is a manifestation of that.  And then, pretty much every episode from then on out, a character should die.  But a character only dies about once every four or five episodes.  Until the last season, when they realize they still have way too many characters left and start killing them off three or four PER episode.  But, things that are survived on this show without medical resources (they have a doctor, so they can live through anything, right?): gunshot wounds, appendicitis, asthma attacks, hanging (yes, hanging), being beaten to a pulp, more gunshot wounds, spear-guns, brain frying from time being unstable (it makes sense in the show...kind of), and more.    Seriously, they had to keep on creating characters, just so that they could keep subjecting them to death and near death.  The picture shows just how many major characters there were or had been by the end of the show.

13. Pretty Much Any Character on Merlin
 
I know.  I fought against this show so strongly, and now I like it.  But, even with the magical healing abilities, it is pretty amazing what they survive.  Curses, life-trading, assorted Celtic mythological creatures that literally steal your soul, poisons that supposedly have no antidote and yet an antidote is always found, fevers of every known type, sword wounds going septic (again? really?), being beaten quite brutally, torture, more sword wounds, and everything else under the sun. 

14. Any Video Game Hero

The one thing about video game characters that has always bothered me is if you get injured, that should continue to sap hit points until you get healed.  Because it's not like you get stabbed and then if it didn't kill you, you are good.  It will continue to damage you.  But, this would never happen, because no one would buy a game like that.  I also like that you can fall off extremely high heights and it just costs some hit points--unless, of course, you trigger that threshold of height to fall, and then you are dead and its game over.

15. Twilight characters
 
This one isn't so much who suffered something and should have died.  I just feel like if you are going to have a mortal battle between two major undead creature groups, someone is going to die.  And yet, I think Jacob might be the only major casualty, and of course, our doctor for humans, Carlisle (who is actually a vampire...don't ask) can figure out how to heal him, even though Carlisle admits that Jacob's body is not like a normal human's.  No one else even gets hurt?  How did that happen? 

So, you see, some characters refuse to die.  It's not on the agenda, so they don't die.