Peter Pan

Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up is a play written by Scottish novelist and playwright J. M. Barrie (18601937), and first presented on the stage at the Duke of York's Theatre on 27 December 1904. In 1911, Barrie adapted the play into a book, Peter and Wendy. It is a story of a mischievous little boy who spends his never-ending childhood adventuring on the island of Neverland as leader of the Lost Boys. The story features many fantastical elements, one of them being that Peter has the ability to fly, and his friends include a fairy named Tinker Bell. In addition, a crocodile that has swallowed a ticking clock stalks the pirate leader, Captain Hook.

Although the character appeared previously in a section of an earlier book, the play and the novel based on it contain the portion of the Peter Pan mythos that is best known. The two versions differ in some details of the story, but have much in common. In both versions Peter often visits the "real world" of Kensington, London to listen in on bedtime stories told by Mrs. Mary Darling to her children. One night, Peter is spotted and, while trying to escape, he loses his shadow. On returning to claim his shadow, Peter wakes Mary's daughter, Wendy Darling. When Wendy succeeds in re-attaching his shadow to him, Peter takes a fancy to her and invites her to Neverland to be a mother to his gang of Lost Boys, children who were lost in Kensington Gardens. Wendy agrees, and her brothers John and Michael go along. Their magical flight to Neverland is followed by many adventures. The children are blown out of the air by a cannon and Wendy is nearly killed by the Lost Boy Tootles. Peter and the Lost Boys build a little house for Wendy to live in while she recuperates (a structure that, to this day, is called a Wendy House.) Soon John and Michael adopt the ways of the Lost Boys, while Wendy plays the role of mothering them, all the while provoking the jealousy of Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily, and the mermaids. Peter is often oblivious, concentrating on real and make-believe adventures and on taunting his nemesis, the pirate Captain Hook of the ship the Jolly Roger. Later follow adventures at the Mermaids' Lagoon, the near deaths of Tinker Bell and Peter, a violent pirate/Indian massacre, and a climactic confrontation with Captain Hook. In the end, Wendy decides that her place is at home, much to the joy of her heartsick mother. Wendy then brings all the boys back to London. Peter remains in Neverland, promising to return and take Wendy back with him once a year to help him with his spring cleaning.

In the novel, Barrie includes an additional scene which was not in the play, but which he created for the stage under the title An Afterthought. In this scene, Peter returns to Wendy's house, not realizing that more than twenty years have passed since he took Wendy, John, and Michael to Neverland, and that Wendy is now a married woman with a daughter, Jane. Confronted with the news, he breaks down and cries. Wendy leaves the room to try to think, and Peter's sobs awaken Jane, who asks him to take her with him to Neverland and to let her be his new mother. Peter joyfully accepts, and the two fly off together with Wendy sorrowfully looking off after them. Peter will now return for Jane once a year as he once promised to return for Wendy. This scene is only occasionally used in presentations of the drama, but it made a poignant conclusion to the famous musical production starring Mary Martin, and provided the premise for Disney's sequel to their animated adaptation of the story.

Barrie created Peter Pan in stories he told to the sons of his friend Sylvia Llewelyn Davies, with whom he had forged a special relationship. Mrs. Llewelyn Davies' death from cancer came within a few years after the death of her husband. Barrie was named as co-guardian of the boys and unofficially adopted them.

The character's name comes from two sources: Peter Llewelyn Davies, one of the boys,Peter Pan, the mischievous Greek god of the woodlands. It has also been suggested that the inspiration for the character was Barrie's elder brother David, whose death in a skating accident at the age of thirteen deeply affected their mother. According to Andrew Birkin, author of J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys, the death was "a catastrophe beyond belief, and one from which she never fully recovered If Margaret Ogilvy [Barrie's mother as the heroine of his 1896 novel of that title] drew a measure of comfort from the notion that David, in dying a boy, would remain a boy for ever, Barrie drew inspiration."

Peter Pan first appeared in print in a 1902 book called The Little White Bird, a fictionalised version of Barrie's relationship with the Llewelyn Davies children, and was then used in a very successful stage play, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, which premiered in London on December 27, 1904.

In 1906, the portion of The Little White Bird which featured Peter Pan was published as the book Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with illustrations by Arthur Rackham. Barrie then adapted the play into the 1911 novel Peter and Wendy (most often now published simply as Peter Pan).

There are seven statues of Peter Pan playing a set of pipes, cast from a mould by sculptor George Frampton, following an original commission by Barney. The statues are in Kensington Gardens in London, England; Liverpool, England; Brussels, Belgium; Camden, New Jersey, United States; Perth, Western Australia, Australia; Toronto, Canada; and Bowring Park in St. John's, Newfoundland, Canada.

A new statue of Peter Pan was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital to celebrate J.M. Barrie's generous gift of the copyright. Unveiled by former Prime Minister James Callaghan in 2000, the bronze by Diarmuid Byron O'Connor shows Peter blowing fairy dust over the passing children. The original design included Tinker Bell stealing Wendy's kiss from his finger. The Countess of Wessex unveiled this addition in 2005. A limited edition of this statue has been created to raise money for the children's charity.

Peter Pan is the main character of the novel and various adaptations. He is described in the novel as a young boy who still has all his first teeth; he wears clothes made of hemp. He is the only boy able to fly without the help of fairy dust, and he can play the flute. Peter is afraid of nothing except women. He loves Wendy; however, it is not a romantic love he thinks of her as his mother. Barrie attributes this to "the riddle of his existence".

Wendy Darling Wendy is the eldest, the only daughter and the heroine of the novel. She loves the idea of homemaking and storytelling and wants to become a mother; her dreams consist of adventures in a little woodland house with her pet wolf. She bears a bit of (mutual) animosity toward Tiger Lily because of their similar affections toward Peter. She does not seem to feel the same way about Tinker Bell, but the fairy is constantly bad-mouthing her and even has attempted to have her killed. She grows up at the end of the novel, with a daughter (Jane) and a granddaughter (Margaret). She is portrayed with both blonde, brown, and black hair in different stories. While it is not clear on whether or not she is in love with Peter, it is safe to assume that she does have feelings toward him, at least as a child. Perhaps consequently, Wendy is often referred to as the "mother" of the Lost Boys and, while Peter also considers her to be his "mother", he takes on the "father" role, insinuating that they play a married couple at least in their games. Barrie is sometimes said to have "invented" the name Wendy with this story. He wanted to use an uncommon name for the girl, so his original name for the character of Wendy was "Mia Angela Carol Darling." The name Wendy came about because Barrie's friend, poet William Henley, called Barrie "friend". Overhearing this word, Henley's 4-year-old daughter Margaret could only pronounce it as "My Fweiendy" or "Fwendy-Wendy". In fact, the name was already in use in both the United States and the United Kingdom, but was extremely rare. The Peter Pan stories popularized the name, at first in the UK. Wendy is related to the Welsh name Gwendolyn, and was used by Barrie at a time when Welsh names were making a resurgence in England.

John Darling John is the middle child. He gets along well with Wendy, but he often argues with Michael. He is fascinated with pirates, and he once thought of becoming "Redhanded Jack". He dreams of living in an inverted boat on the sands, where he has no friends and spends his time shooting flamingos. The character of John was named after Jack Llewelyn Davies. Michael Darling Michael is the youngest child. He is approximately five years old, as he still wears the pinafores young Edwardian boys wear. He looks up to John and Wendy, dreaming of living in a wigwam where his friends visit at night. He was named after Michael Llewelyn Davies. Mr. and Mrs. Darling George and Mary Darling are the children's loving parents. Mr. Darling is a pompous, blustering businessman who seeks to attract attention (from his co-workers to his wife and children), but he is really kind at heart. Mary Darling is described as an intelligent, romantic lady. It is hinted that she knew Peter Pan before her children were born. Mr. Darling was named after the eldest Llewellyn Davies boy, George, and Mrs. Darling was named after Mary Hodgson, the Davies boys' nurse. In the stage version, the same actor who plays Mr. Darling usually also plays Captain Hook. Nana Nana is a Newfoundland dog who is employed as a nanny by the Darling family in Kensington Gardens. Nana does not speak or do anything beyond the physical capabilities of a large dog, but acts with apparent understanding of her responsibilities. The character is played in stage productions by an actor in a dog costume.

The most apparent thematic thread in the story concerns "growing up" (or not), with the character of Peter wanting to remain a child forever in order to avoid the responsibilities of adulthood. "Peter Pan syndrome" has become a psychiatric term named by Dr. Dan Kiley to describe an adult who is afraid of commitment or refuses to act his age. It is also sometimes used to positively describe an innocent, childlike approach to life.

Peter, Wendy, and Hook form a contrast between different stages of childhood and maturity. Peter Pan remains a child in mind because he cannot feel the pain of death and loss. He forgets soon after the fact anything that is not happy and lighthearted: "I always forget them after I kill them". Wendy behaves with more maturity, taking on a maternal role with her brothers and the Lost Boys. Hook is a more negative view of adulthood, constantly fearful of death and the passage of time. As the 2004 film Finding Neverland notes, "It is all the work of the ticking crocodile. Time is chasing after all of us."

There is a slight romantic aspect to the story, which is sometimes played down or omitted completely. Wendy's flirtatious (by standards of the day) desire to kiss Peter, his desire for a mother figure, his conflicting feelings for Wendy, Tiger Lily, and Tinker Bell (each representing different female archetypes), and the symbolism of his fight with Captain Hook (traditionally played by the same actor as Wendy's father), all could possibly hint at a Freudian interpretation (see Oedipus Complex). Most "children's adaptations" of the play omit any romantic themes between Wendy and Peter, but Barrie's 1904 original, his 1911 novelization of it, most musicals, and the 2003 feature film, all at least hint at the romantic elements.

It is traditional in productions of Peter Pan for Mr. Darling (the children's father) and Captain Hook to be played (or voiced) by the same actor. Although this was originally done simply to make full use of the actor (the characters appear in different sections of the story) with no thematic intent, some critics have perceived a similarity between the two characters as central figures in the lives of the children. It also brings a poignant juxtaposition between Mr. Darling's harmless bluster and Captain Hook's pompous vanity. This technique of tying two characters together was later used in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz, the 1995 film Jumanji, and the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods, among others.

Dracula

Dracula is an acclaimed novel by Irish author Bram Stoker, featuring as its primary antagonist, the vampire Count Dracula.

Dracula has been attributed to many literary genres including horror fiction, the gothic novel and invasion literature. Structurally it is an epistolary novel, that is, told as a series of diary entries and letters. Literary critics have examined many themes in the novel, such as the role of women in Victorian culture, conventional and repressed sexuality, immigration, colonialism, postcolonialism and folklore. Although Stoker did not invent the vampire, the novel's influence on the popularity of vampires has been singularly responsible for many theatrical and film interpretations throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Between 1879 and 1889 Stoker was business manager for the world-famous Lyceum Theatre in London, where he supplemented his income by writing a large number of sensational novels, his most famous being the vampire tale Dracula published on May 18, 1897. Parts of it are set around the town of Whitby, where he was living at the time. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, authors such as H. Rider Haggard, Rudyard Kipling, Robert Louis Stevenson, Arthur Conan Doyle, and H.G. Wells wrote many tales in which fantastic creatures threatened the British Empire. Invasion literature was at a peak, and Stoker's formula of an invasion of England by continental European influences was by 1897 very familiar to readers of fantastic adventure stories. According to modern writers Nina Auerbach and David Skal, the novel is more important for modern readers than contemporary Victorian readers, who, they assert, enjoyed it as a good adventure story; and allege that it reached its iconic legend status only later in the 20th century.This assertion is contradicted, however, by the actual statements of Victorian readers and reviewers themselves who described Dracula as "the sensation of the season" and "the most blood-curdling novel of the paralysed century". The Daily Mail review of June 1, 1897 proclaimed it a classic of Gothic horror: "In seeking a parallel to this weird, powerful, and horrorful story our mind reverts to such tales as The Mysteries of Udolpho, Frankenstein, Wuthering Heights, The Fall of the House of Usher ... but Dracula is even more appalling in its gloomy fascination than any one of these."

Other reviewers compared it favorably to the novels of Wilkie Collins and similar good reviews appeared when the book was published in the USA in 1899.

Before writing Dracula, Stoker spent seven years researching European folklore and stories of vampires, being most influenced by Emily Gerard's 1885 essay "Transylvania Superstitions", and an evening spent talking about Balkan superstitions with Arminius Vambery. Though arguably the most famous vampire novel, Dracula was not the first. It was preceded and partly inspired by Sheridan Le Fanu's 1871 "Carmilla", about a lesbian vampire who preys on a lonely young woman. The image of a vampire portrayed as an aristocratic man, like the character of Dracula, was created by John Polidori in "The Vampyre" (1819), during the summer spent with Frankenstein creator Mary Shelley and other friends in 1816 (Polidori had in turn based his vampire character, Lord Ruthven, on friend and fellow guest Lord Byron). The Lyceum Theatre, where Stoker worked between 1878 and 1898, was headed by the tyrannical actor-manager Henry Irving, who was Stoker's real-life inspiration for Dracula's mannerisms and who Stoker hoped would play Dracula in a stage version. Although Irving never did agree to do a stage version, Dracula's dramatic sweeping gestures and gentlemanly mannerisms drew their living embodiment from Irving.

The Dead Un-Dead was one of Stoker's original titles for Dracula, and up until a few weeks before publication, the manuscript was titled simply The Un-Dead. The name of Stoker's count was originally going to be Count Vampyre, but while doing research, Stoker became intrigued by the word dracul. Dracul is derived from the word draco in the Megleno-Romanian language, meaning devil (originally dragon). There was also a historic figure known as Vlad III Dracula, but whether Stoker based his character on him remains debated and is now considered unlikely.

On publication, Dracula had just moderate success though the novel received great praise from contemporary reviewers. The contemporary Christian World called it the "one of the most enthralling and unique romances ever written" and the theme of good triumphing over evil struck a chord everywhere.

The novel has been in the public domain in the United States since its original publication because Stoker failed to follow proper copyright procedure. In England and other countries following the Berne Convention on copyrights, however, the novel was under copyright until April 1962, fifty years after Stoker's death. When the unauthorized film adaptation was released in 1922, the popularity of the novel increased considerably, owing to the controversy caused when Stoker's widow tried to have the film banned.

Dracula has been the basis for countless films and plays. Three of the most famous are Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992). Nosferatu, a film directed by the German director F.W. Murnau, was produced while Stoker's widow was alive, and the filmmakers were forced to change the setting and the characters' names for copyright reasons. The vampire in Nosferatu is called Count Orlok rather than Count Dracula. Bram Stoker's Dracula, by Francis Ford Coppola, reimagines Count Dracula as a tragic figure instead of a monster. It adds an opening sequence that focuses on Dracula's Romanian background and inserts a new romantic subplot into the story.

Stoker wrote several other novels dealing with horror and supernatural themes, but none achieved the lasting fame or success of Dracula. His other novels include The Snake's Pass (1890), The Jewel of Seven Stars (1903), and The Lair of the White Worm (1911).

The novel is mainly composed of journal entries and letters written by several narrators who are also the novel's main protagonists; Stoker supplemented the story with occasional newspaper clippings to relate events not directly witnessed by the story's characters. The tale begins with Jonathan Harker, a newly qualified English solicitor, journeying by train and carriage from England to Count Dracula's crumbling, remote castle (situated in the Carpathian Mountains on the border of Transylvania and Moldavia).The purpose of his mission is to provide legal support for Dracula for a real estate transaction overseen by Harker's employer, Peter Hawkins, of Exeter in England. At first seduced by Dracula's gracious manner, Harker soon discovers that he has become a prisoner in the castle. He also begins to see disquieting facets of Dracula's nocturnal life. One night while searching for a way out of the castle, and against Dracula's strict admonition not to rest outside his room at night, Harker falls under the spell of three wanton female vampires, the Brides of Dracula. He is saved at the last second by the Count, however, who ostensibly wants to keep Harker alive just long enough because his legal advice and teachings about England and London (Dracula's planned travel destination was to be among the "teeming millions") are needed by Dracula. Harker barely escapes from the castle with his life.

Not long afterward, a Russian ship, the Demeter, having weighed anchor at Varna, runs aground on the shores of Whitby, England, during a fierce tempest. All of the crew are missing and presumed dead, and only one body, that of the captain, is found tied up to the ship's helm. The captain's log is recovered and tells of strange events that had taken place during the ship's journey. These events led to the gradual disappearance of the entire crew apparently owing to a malevolent presence on board the ill-fated ship. An animal described as a large dog is seen on the ship and leaping ashore. The ship's cargo is described as silver sand and boxes of "mould" or earth from Transylvania.

Soon Dracula is menacing Harker's devoted fianc?e, Wilhelmina "Mina" Murray, and her vivacious friend, Lucy Westenra. Lucy receives three marriage proposals in one day, from Hon. Arthur Holmwood (later Lord Godalming); an American cowboy, Quincey Morris; and an asylum psychiatrist, Dr. John Seward. There is a notable encounter between Dracula and Seward's patient Renfield, an insane man who means to consume insects, spiders, birds, and other creatures in ascending order of size in order to absorb their "life force". Renfield acts as a kind of motion sensor, detecting Dracula's proximity and supplying clues accordingly.

Lucy begins to waste away suspiciously. All her suitors fret, and Seward calls in his old teacher, Professor Abraham Van Helsing from Amsterdam. Van Helsing immediately determines the cause of Lucy's condition but refuses to disclose it, knowing that Seward's faith in him will be shaken if he starts to speak of vampires. Van Helsing tries multiple blood transfusions, but they are clearly losing ground. On a night when Van Helsing must return to Amsterdam (and his message to Seward asking him to watch the Westenra household is accidentally sent to the wrong address), Lucy and her mother are attacked by a wolf. Mrs Westenra, who has a heart condition, dies of fright, and Lucy apparently dies soon after.

Lucy is buried, but soon afterward the newspapers report a "bloofer lady" (sometimes explained as "beautiful lady") stalking children in the night. Van Helsing, knowing that this means Lucy has become a vampire, confides in Seward, Arthur, and Morris. The suitors and Van Helsing track her down, and after a disturbing confrontation between her vampiric self and Arthur, they stake her heart and behead her.

Around the same time, Jonathan Harker arrives home from Budapest (where Mina joined and married him after his escape from the castle); he and Mina also join the coalition, who turn their attentions to dealing with Dracula.

After Dracula learns of Van Helsing and the others' plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting and biting Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, creating a spiritual bond between them to control her. The only way to forestall this is to kill Dracula first. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that flows through her veins, switching back and forth from a state of consciousness to a state of semi-trance during which she is telepathically connected with Dracula. It is this connection that they start to use to track Dracula's movements. It is only possible to track Dracula's movements when Mina is put under hypnosis by Van Helsing. This ability is getting gradually weaker as the group makes their way to Dracula's castle.

Dracula flees back to his castle in Transylvania, followed by Van Helsing's group, who manage to track him down just before sundown and destroy him by shearing "through the throat" and stabbing him in the heart with a Bowie knife. Dracula crumbles to dust, his spell is lifted and Mina is freed from the marks. Quincey Morris is killed in the final battle, stabbed by Gypsies who had been charged with returning Dracula to his castle; the survivors return to England.

The book closes with a note about Mina's and Jonathan's married life and the birth of their first-born son, whom they name Quincey in remembrance of their American friend.

In 1914, two years after Stoker's death, the short story "Dracula's Guest" was posthumously published. It was, according to most contemporary critics, the deleted first (or second) chapter from the original manuscript and the one which gave the volume its name, but which the original publishers deemed unnecessary to the overall story.

"Dracula's Guest" follows an unnamed Englishman traveller (whom most readers identify as Jonathan Harker, assuming it is the same character from the novel) as he wanders around Munich before leaving for Transylvania. It is Walpurgis Night, and in spite of the coachman's warnings, the young Englishman foolishly leaves his hotel and wanders through a dense forest alone. Along the way he feels he is being watched by a tall and thin stranger (possibly Count Dracula).

The short story climaxes in an old graveyard, where in a marble tomb (with a large iron stake driven into it), he encounters the ghost of a female vampire called Countess Dolingen. The spirit of this malevolent and beautiful vampire awakens from her marble bier to conjure a snowstorm before being struck by lightning and returning to her eternal prison. Harker's troubles are not quite over, as a wolf then emerges through the blizzard and attacks him. However, the wolf merely keeps him warm and alive until help arrives.

When Harker is finally taken back to his hotel, a telegram awaits him from his expectant host Dracula, with a warning about "dangers from snow and wolves and night".

Although Dracula is a work of fiction, it does contain some historical references. The historical connections with the novel and how much Stoker knew about the history are a matter of conjecture and debate.

Following the publication of In Search of Dracula by Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally in 1972, the supposed connections between the historical Transylvanian-born Vlad III Dracula of Wallachia and Bram Stoker's fictional Dracula attracted popular attention. During his first reign (14561462), "Vlad the Impaler" is said to have killed from 20,000 to 40,000 European civilians (political rivals, criminals, and anyone else he considered "useless to humanity"), mainly by using his favourite method of impaling them on a sharp pole. The main sources dealing with these events are records by Saxon settlers in neighboring Transylvania, who had frequent clashes with Vlad III and may have been biased. Vlad III is sometimes revered as a folk hero by Romanians for driving off the invading Turks. His impaled victims are said to have included as many as 100,000 Turkish Muslims.

Historically, the name "Dracul" is derived from a secret fraternal order of knights called the Order of the Dragon, founded by Sigismund of Luxembourg (king of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia, and Holy Roman Emperor) to uphold Christianity and defend the Empire against the Ottoman Turks. Vlad II Dracul, father of Vlad III, was admitted to the order around 1431 because of his bravery in fighting the Turks. From 1431 onward, Vlad II wore the emblem of the order and later, as ruler of Wallachia, his coinage bore the dragon symbol. The name Dracula means "Son of Dracul".

Stoker came across the name Dracula in his reading on Romanian history, and chose this to replace the name (Count Wampyr) that he had originally intended to use for his villain. However, some Dracula scholars, led by Elizabeth Miller, have questioned the depth of this connection. They argue that Stoker in fact knew little of the historic Vlad III except for his nickname. There are sections in the novel where Dracula refers to his own background, and these speeches show that Stoker had some knowledge of Romanian history. Yet Stoker includes no details about Vlad III's reign and does not mention his use of impalement. Given Stoker's use of historical background to make his novel more horrific, it seems unlikely he would have failed to mention that his villain had impaled thousands of people. It seems that Stoker either did not know much about the historic Vlad III, or did not intend his character Dracula to be the same person as Vlad III.

Vlad III was an ethnic Vlach. In the novel, Dracula claims to be a Sz?kely: "We Szekelys have a right to be proud..."

The Dracula legend as he created it and as it has been portrayed in films and television shows may be a compound of various influences. Many of Stoker's biographers and literary critics have found strong similarities to the earlier Irish writer Sheridan le Fanu's classic of the vampire genre, Carmilla. In writing Dracula, Stoker may also have drawn on stories about the s?dhe some of which feature blood-drinking women.

It has been suggested that Stoker was influenced by the history of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, who was born in the Kingdom of Hungary. It is believed that Bathory tortured and killed up to 700 servant girls in order to bathe in or drink their blood. She believed their blood preserved her youth, which may explain why Dracula appeared younger after feeding.

Some have claimed the castle of Count Dracula was inspired by Slains Castle, at which Bram Stoker was a guest of the 19th Earl of Erroll. However, since as Stoker visited the castle in 1895five years after work on Dracula had begunthere is unlikely to be much connection. Many of the scenes in Whitby and London are based on real places that Stoker frequently visited, although in some cases he distorts the geography for the sake of the story.

It has been suggested that Stoker received much historical information from ?rmin V?mb?ry, a Hungarian professor he met at least twice. Miller argues that "there is nothing to indicate that the conversation included Vlad, vampires, or even Transylvania" and that, "furthermore, there is no record of any other correspondence between Stoker and V?mb?ry, nor is V?mb?ry mentioned in Stoker's notes for Dracula."

Sources

Lazarus Long

Lazarus Long is a fictional character featured in a number of science fiction novels by Robert A. Heinlein. Born in 1912 in the third generation of a long-life selective breeding experiment run by the Ira Howard Foundation, Lazarus (whose birth name is Woodrow Wilson Smith) turns out to be unusually long-lived, living well over two thousand years with the aid of occasional rejuvenation treatments.

His exact (natural) life span is never determined. In his introduction at the beginning of Methuselah's Children he guesses his age to be 213 years old. Approximately 75 years pass during the course of the novel, which ends with the first form of rejuvenation being developed. However, due to the fact that large amounts of this time are spent traveling interstellar distances at speeds approaching that of light, the 75-year measurement is an expression of the time elapsed in his absence rather than how much time passed from his perspective. At one point, he estimates his natural life span to be around 250 years, but this figure is not expressed with certainty. Heinlein acknowledged that such a long life span should not be expected as a result of a mere three generations of selective breeding, but offers no alternative explanation except for letting a character declare, "A mutation, of coursewhich simply says that we don't know".

In one scene in Methuselah's Children, Long says that he visited Hugo Pinero, the scientist in Heinlein's first published story ("Life-Line"). Pinero possessed a machine that was capable of measuring how long a human would live. When Pinero measures Long, he does not provide an answer; he simply advises Long that the machine is broken. The story does not explicitly state whether Pinero's reading was simply so high as to defy belief, Lazarus' later travels in time made a reading impossible, or the reading indicates that Long will never die, though Lazarus seems to believe the last explanation. He is actually told, at the end of Time Enough For Love, that he cannot die (although it is implied that this was probably said to comfort him rather than based on any actual evidence).

The promotional copy on the back of Time Enough For Love, the second book featuring the character of Lazarus Long, states that Lazarus was "so in love with time that he became his own ancestor," but this never happens in any of the published books and is almost certainly a misunderstanding on the part of the copywriter (such back copy is rarely written by the author of the work it appears on). In the book, Lazarus does at one point travel back in time and have sex with his mother, but this affair happens after the birth of Lazarus. Heinlein did, however, use a similar plot in the short story "All You Zombies" in which a character does become his own ancestor.

A rugged individualist with a distrust of authority, Lazarus drifts from colony world to colony world, settling down for a few years or a few decades and leaving when things get too regimented for his tasteoften just before the angry mob arrives.

The Lazarus Long set of books involve time travel, parallel dimensions, free love, consensual incest, and a concept that Heinlein named pantheistic solipsismthe theory that universes are created by the act of imagining them so that somewhere the Land of Oz is real.

When the character of Lazarus Long is introduced in Methuselah's Children, he is 224 years old, and the breeding experiment that created the Howard Families has proven to be a success, with most "Howards" enjoying a lifespan of approximately 150 years. The Howards have, to this point, existed in secret, changing identities when needed to conceal their long lifespans. Ten percent of their number have elected to end "The Masquerade" and live publicly, with the approval of the Howard Foundation, but this process has backfired.

The general public of Earth, once faced with the inescapable reality, believes incorrectly that the Howards have discovered some sort of anti-aging process that they are choosing to conceal, despite the fact that the truth has been made public. Public resentment of this process builds slowly, until it reaches a boiling point. Civil liberties, as applied to the Howards, are suspended, and the entire membership of the Howard Families is detained, with the exception of Lazarus himself.

With the aid of the elected head of the world government, Slayton Ford, Lazarus hijacks the New Frontiers, a very large starship designed to travel to distant stars, and then liberates the Howards. While the New Frontiers was designed to sustain a colony in travel at speeds significantly below the speed of light, a Howard named Andrew Jackson "Slipstick" Libby has developed a way to boost the ship to speeds just under that of light itself. With the ship so modified, the Howard Families, under the leadership of Lazarus Long, escape the solar system in search of a planet of their own.

The first planet they encounter is populated by the Jockaira, who turn out to be little more than domesticated animals for an unnamed species they see as gods. When it becomes clear to the latter that humans cannot be domesticated, all of the humans are forcefully removed from the planet and placed in their ship, which is then pushed to another star system and planet. The technology used for this is so advanced that it is not observable by the humans.

This second planet is populated by a diminutive furry species called "The Little People," who are a very advanced collective intelligence. They are very accommodating to the humans, and in fact their world is pleasant enough to be considered a paradise. After many years, Mary Sperlinga close friend of Lazarus and the second-oldest of the Howard Familiesjoins the collective intelligence in order to escape her persistent fear of death. Lazarus (and many other Howards) are so disturbed by this that the decision is made to return to Earth. Around twelve thousand remain behind, but the rest return to Earth with the aid of even further advanced technology learned from the Little People.

Upon their return to Earth, the Howards learn that a rejuvenation treatment has been developed based on new blood grown in vitro. This is believed to be the secret to eternal life the Howards had taken with them when they departed. The political pressure to learn that secret has been so powerful as to force this technique to be discovered independently. Lazarus, who has been expecting death at any time due to extreme old age, now has a new lease on life.

Some details of the next two thousand years of his life are covered in Time Enough For Love through exposition and flashback. Most of the details of his life for this two thousand year span are not disclosed, although he has stated that he has worked in practically every conceivable occupation, including (but not limited to) actor, musician, beggar, farmer, priest, pilot, politician, con artist, gambler, doctor, lawyer, banker, merchant, soldier, electronics technician, mechanic, restauranteur, investor, and slave. (He also tells of one point in time where he was the manager of a bordello on Mars, which took place prior to the events of Methuselah's Children.)

Lazarus led the Howard Families on another exodus, this time to a planet he had discovered called Secundus. Lazarus himself, however, was not content to remain on Secundus, and headed back out to pioneer several more planets.

One of the stories told in Time Enough For Love begins with his return to Blessed, a theocratic planet with a state-sponsored slave trade. Lazarus himself had been a slave on this planet several generations prior, but declines to give details. He had returned to Blessed for commercial reasons, but his experience as a slave there makes him unable to ignore a high priced closed-bid slave auction for what appears to be two ordinary slaves. The slave merchant advises him that these slaves (Joseph and Estrellita) are, through genetic manipulation, both brother and sister (twins, in fact) and a perfect breeding pair. When he sees that the girl is in a chastity belt, he is so outraged that he purchases the pair and immediately frees them. He takes the pair with him and teaches them how to support themselves as free people, as well as giving them the general education that they had not been given as slaves. Because of their upbringing, they consider themselves to be a mating couple, and 'Llita becomes pregnant. Lazarus, as ship's captain, performs their wedding ceremony, and eventually assists them in setting up a small restaurant, and then later a larger one. After a number of years have passed, the "twins" realize that they are not aging as much as they would expect, and Lazarus infers that they are probably his descendants. (It is suggested in the introduction of Time Enough For Love that by the time of that book's opening, a vast majority of the human race (and almost all of the Howard Families) are descended from him.)

Another story picks up a short time after the colonization of a planet called New Beginnings. Lazarus adopts a young girl named Dora Brandon whose parents are killed in a fire. He raises her as her foster uncle, and when she reaches adulthood, prepares to leave the planet. Dora, in the meantime, has realized that he is a member of the Howard families (although she does not quite comprehend what that means), and asks him to give her a child by him before he leaves. Lazarus decides (by his own admission, rather coldly) that his own sense of self-love will not permit him to father, then abandon, a child, so instead he convinces Dora to marry him. A normal human lifetime, by this point, is a brief time for him, and he feels he can sacrifice that much time to make Dora happy. Because Lazarus cannot afford being recognized as a Howard, the two leave the settlement where they have been and pioneer a new settlement. They live alone with their children for a number of years before more settlers come along, and during this time and the years that follow, Lazarus discovers that he is truly in love with Doraan emotion he has not experienced before. He remains with her for her entire life and is devastated when she dies.

Centuries later, Lazarusnow over two thousand years oldhas grown weary of life and decides that it is time for him to die. He returns to Secundus, unaware that Ira Weatheral, Chairman Pro Tempore of the Howard Families, has been searching for him. (The title of "Chairman Pro Tempore" is a formalityunder the traditional rules, Lazarus is the Chairman because of his status as "The Senior".) Just before he dies, he is grabbed by the police and subjected to rejuvenation. Ira explains to a very irate Lazarus that he has done so because he needs him. He believes that the society and culture of Secundus is in its death throes, and wants to do as Lazarus didlead the families on a migration to a new planet, named Tertius. He wants Lazarus to impart as much wisdom as possible to assist him in the process. (This is where Time Enough for Love begins.)

Lazarus finally agrees, through a deal where Ira agrees to show up for "a thousand nights and a night" to listen to Lazarus' tales. If Ira fails to show up (with reasonable exceptions), Lazarus will commit suicidewhat they refer to as a "Reverse Scheherazade gambit". Additionally, Ira orders a search to find what Lazarus desperately wantssomething new. This search, using a "Zwicky Box", is performed by an artificial intelligence named Minerva. She handles most of the computer functions of the planetary government, is in love with Ira, and becomes friends with Lazarus. During one conversation, Lazarus refers to a "mythical time machine," and Minerva asks why he calls it "mythical." She notes that the current method of space travel could be modified for time travel. When Lazarus asks why she has not mentioned this as part of the search, she responds that she was looking for something new.

While Lazarus is going through the rejuvenation treatments, his caretakers, Hamadryad and Ishtar, both give birth to female clones of him, their Y chromosome being replaced by an identical copy of the X chromosome. The "daughters" are named Lapis Lazuli and Lorelei Lee.

Lazarus assists Ira in the migration to Tertius (although it is done as a private expedition rather than as a function of the Howard Foundation), and then plans a trip to Earth, circa 1919-1929. Due to a miscalculation, he arrives in 1916. He makes plans to avoid World War I by leaving the country, but continues his study of the time period. He looks up his first family, and manages to insinuate himself into that household under the name of "Ted Bronson." Due to his obvious family resemblance (and careful lies), his grandfather Ira says that he may be an illegitimate child of Ira's brother. (We later learn Ira suspects "Ted" is his own illegitimate son.) Ira, the grumpy and very dominant grandfather, bears a strong resemblance to "The Old Man" from Heinlein's much earlier The Puppet Masters. Long discovers, to his surprise and (initial) shame that he is overwhelmingly attracted to his own mother, Maureen.

Since Lazarus had not anticipated arriving this early, he had not researched the First World War in detail, and as a result the entry into it of the United States on April 6, 1917 catches him unawares. When his "adopted" family learns that he is not planning on joining the army to help in the fight, they spurn him. To regain their approval (and particularly that of Maureen), he enlists, although he intends to arrange it so that he is not sent into a combat zone by functioning as a drill sergeant. The family is enthusiastic. His father, Brian Smithwho is also in the Army as an officermakes arrangements for him to go overseas, thinking he is doing "Ted" a favor.

As part of his final leave before deployment, Lazarus visits his family one more time, whereupon he learns that Maureen is as attracted to him as he is to her. She explains that her husband does not insist on fidelity, although she is careful not to become pregnant by any man but Brian. Since she is newly pregnant, that danger is gone, and she takes Lazarus discreetly to bed. (A previous attempt to get "Ted" alone for such purpose is (inadvertently and most frustratingly) interrupted by Maureen's son, Woodywho is of course Lazarus at five years old.) Once overseas, Lazarus is mortally wounded in combat, but is rescued and healed by his family arriving just in time from the future.

In The Number of the Beast, the main characters discover a way to travel to fictional worlds, and in the course of their explorations, visit the world of Lazarus Long. Using the technology of these characters' ship (which can teleport through space and time), Lazarus snatches his mother out of the time stream at the end of her life and replaces her with a dead clone. Lazarus also appears as a minor character in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls and plays a role in Heinlein's last novel, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, which is the life story of Maureen. In the latter novel, Maureen as narrator tells a somewhat different version of Lazarus' visit to Earth in 1916-8 and provides considerable detail on Lazarus' home timeline, including the fact that Lazarus (as Woodrow "Bill" Smith) was the backup pilot on the first Moon expedition.

Nicolas Flamel

Nicolas Flamel (c. 1330 1417?) was a successful scrivener and manuscript-seller who developed a reputation as an alchemist.

Flamel was the attributed author of an alchemical book, published in Paris in 1612 as Livre des figures hi?roglypiques and in London in 1624 as Exposition of the Hieroglyphicall Figures. It is an exposition of figures purportedly commissioned by Flamel for a tympanum at the Cimeti?re des Innocents in Paris, long disappeared at the time the work was published. In its publisher's introduction Flamel's search for the Philosopher's Stone was described. According to it, Flamel made it his life's work to understand the text of the mysterious twenty-one-page book he had purchased, and that around 1378, he traveled to Spain for assistance with translation. On the way back, he reported that he met a sage, who identified Flamel's book as being a copy of the original Book of Abraham also known as the Codex. With this knowledge, over the next few years Flamel and his wife allegedly decoded enough of the book to successfully replicate its recipe for the Philosopher's Stone, producing first silver in 1382, and then gold.

According to the introduction to his work and the additional details that have accrued since its publication, Flamel would thus have been the most accomplished of the European alchemists, who would have learned his art from a Jewish converso on the road to Santiago de Compostela. "Others thought Flamel was the creation of seventeenth-century editors and publishers desperate to produce modern printed editions of supposedly ancient alchemical treatises then circulating in manuscript for an avid reading public," Deborah Harkness put it succinctly. The modern assertion that many references to him or his writings appear in alchemical texts of the 1500s, however, has not been linked to any particular source. The essence of his reputation is that he succeeded at the two magical goals of alchemy -- that he made the Philosopher's Stone which turns lead into gold, and that he and his wife Perenelle achieved immortality.

An attempt to separate fact from fantasy was made in 1993 by Nigel Wilkins, who attributed his alchemical reputation to his genuine wealth in unstable times. The historical Flamel was born near Paris around 1330. He initially worked as a public scrivener, making copies of documents, and this developed into a career as a bookseller, as he bought and sold manuscripts. In addition, he was a master scribe and calligrapher, finding, producing and reproducing manuscripts under the purview of the University of Paris as a libraire-jur?, a "bonded bookseller". He funded many building projects around Paris, hospices for the poor and repairs to churches, notably Saint-Jacques-la-Boucherie, near which there are a rue Nicolas Flamel, renamed for him in 1851 and a rue Perenelle, named for his wife in 1853 in Paris IVe. A house of 1407 built by him still stands, the oldest stone house in Paris, at 51 rue de Montmorency (IIIe arrondissement); the ground floor, always a tavern, currently houses the Auberge Nicolas Flamel.

Flamel lived into his 80s, and in 1410 designed his own tombstone, which was carved with arcane alchemical signs and symbols. Some believe that he died shortly after the tombstone was created. Later after that a local criminal, who wished to acquire Flamel's reputed gold, went to Flamel's residence. Finding nothing, but undeterred, he was said to have then gone to the gravesite with only a shovel and a lantern, and dug up the grave. Upon opening the coffin, he was disappointed to find an absence of gold, but shocked to find no trace of the corpse of Nicolas Flamel. Some claim that it was just the grave of the wrong person who was not dead at the time, while still others claim that he faked his own death, and they cite as proof the fact that long after 1410, several books were published in his name. The tombstone is preserved at the Mus?e de Cluny in Paris.

Expanded accounts of his life are taken as legendary. In addition to the mysterious book of twenty-one pages filled with encoded alchemical symbols and arcane writing, he may also have studied some texts in Hebrew. Interest in Flamel revived in the nineteenth century: Victor Hugo noted him in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Eric Satie was intrigued by Flamel. Flamel is often referred to in late twentieth-century fictional works such as the Harry Potter books and movies as well as The Da Vinci Code.

Nicolas Flamel's story is alluded to in J. K. Rowling's first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (Sorcerer's Stone in the United States), in which he is an unseen character. He was friends with Albus Dumbledore and said to have lived for hundreds of years until the Philosopher's Stone was destroyed following the events of the book (see Nicolas Flamel in Harry Potter.) Flamel is listed as the 8th "Grand Master of the Priory of Sion" (1398-1418) as part of a 1960s hoax where his name was planted in the French National Library in the "Dossiers Secrets". This resulted in him being mentioned in the 1982 pseudohistory book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, Umberto Eco's 1989 novel Foucault's Pendulum, and in Dan Brown's 2003 novel, The Da Vinci Code. Many of the names of "Grand Masters" were evidently chosen for some sort of connection with alchemy. Nicolas and his wife Perenelle Flamel are central characters in Michael Scott's novel The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (2007). He is the subject of Michael Roberts' poem "Nicholas Flamel", collected in These Our Matins (1930). The concept-album Grand Materia (2005) by the Swedish metal-band Morgana Lefay is about Nicolas Flamel and his life and how he made the Philosopher's Stone.

Tithonus

In Greek mythology, Tithonus or Tithonos was the lover of Eos, Titanid of the dawn. He was a Trojan by birth, the son of King Laomedon of Troy.

Eos kidnapped Ganymede and Tithonus, both from the royal house of Troy, to be her lovers. The mytheme of the goddess's immortal lover is an archaic one; when a role for Zeus was inserted, a bitter new twist appeared: According to the Homeric Hymn, when Eos asked Zeus for Tithonus to be immortal, she forgot to ask for eternal youth. Tithonus indeed lived forever "but when loathsome old age pressed full upon him, and he could not move nor lift his limbs, this seemed to her in her heart the best counsel: she laid him in a room and put to the shining doors. There he babbles endlessly, and no more has strength at all, such as once he had in his supple limbs." (Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite)

In later tellings he eventually turned into a cicada, eternally living, but begging for death to overcome him. In the Olympian system, the "queenly" and "golden-throned" Eos can no longer grant immortality to her lover as Selene had done, but must ask it of Zeus, as a boon.

Eos bore Tithonus two sons, Memnon and Emathion. Memnon later became King of the East, until he was killed by Achilles. Some mythographers say that Tithonus also had a mortal wife, named Cissia (otherwise unknown).

A newly-found poem on Tithonus is the fourth extant complete poem by ancient Greek lyrical poetess Sappho. The poem was published for the first time by Martin West in the Times Literary Supplement, 21 or 24 June 2005.

"Tithonus" by Alfred Tennyson was originally written as "Tithon" in 1833 and completed in 1859.

The poem is a dramatic monologue in blank verse from the point-of-view of Tithonus. Unlike the original myth, it is Tithonus who asks for immortality, and it is Aurora, not Zeus, who grants this imperfect gift. As narrator, Tithonus laments his unnatural longevity, which separates him from the mortal world as well as from the immortal but beautiful Aurora. "Tithonus" by Paul Muldoon was originally published in The New Yorker and included in the book Horse Latitudes (2006).

Aldous Huxley's novel, "After Many a Summer Dies the Swan" was titled after a verse from the Lord Tennyson poem "Tithonus."

An episode of the television show The X-Files was titled "Tithonus." It concerned a man who cheated Death, but eventually came to see his immortality as a curse rather than a gift.

Dorian Gray

Dorian Gray is the orphaned grandson of Lord Kelso and son of Margaret Devereux, a great society beauty who died in childbirth shortly after the death of Dorian's father during a duel. Lord Kelso may have paid a Belgian duelist to incite the fight.

The novel begins with Dorian as a young man. After Kelso's death, Dorian inherits much of the Devereux fortune. He becomes the prot?g? of Lady Agatha, Lord Henry Wotton's aunt; together, they entertain and raise money for the Whitechapel poor.

Initially he is na?ve of his own good looks and personality. His innocence is unspoiled and his knowledge of the world resembles that of a child. To his friend, the artist Basil Hallward, Dorian is inspiration, a privately worshipped icon in the painter's idealistic world. Dorian is described as "wonderfully handsome, with his finely-curved scarlet lips, his frank blue eyes and his crisp gold hair. . . . All the candour of youth was there, as well as all of youth's passionate purity."

One afternoon, while sitting for a portrait in Basil's studio, Dorian meets Lord Henry Wotton. Wotton's low musical voice enchants the lad as he stands upon a dais in the afternoon sunlight. Dorian is convinced by him that his looks are in fact his most important virtue.

The constant flick and dash of the artist's brush melt away, as Lord Henry's doctrine of self-development wakens Dorian to mad hungers. "The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it . . ." murmurs Lord Henry. "Resist it and the soul grows sick with longing."

Dorian is transfixed by this philosophy. Flooded with feelings he cannot comprehend, he leaves the studio and goes out into the garden. Lord Henry joins him and under the shade of a laurel tree the boy listens to a second panegyric on youth: "The Laburnum will be as yellow next June as it is now. . . . But we never get back our youth. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. . . . Youth, youth, there is absolutely nothing in the world but youth."

When they return to the studio, Dorian is shown his finished portrait. On seeing it, the sense of his own beauty falls on him like a revelation. The full reality of Lord Henry's warning of the brevity of youth and life's aim of unbridled hedonism, cuts through Dorian's boyhood innocence. In a flash he cries: I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For thatfor thatI would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!

In the heat of the moment Hallward, astonished at Dorian's impassioned plea, attempts to destroy the canvas. But before the steel palette knife can do its work Dorian shouts, "No Basil, no . . . it would be murder!"

Under the guidance of Lord Henry, Dorian becomes increasingly self-absorbed and heartless. Yet he discovers and falls in love with Sibyl Vane, a pretty actress. On the night of his introducing Basil and Lord Henry to her, the actress plays poorly; she is no longer able to act out the false love of Shakespeare's heroines whilst filled with a true love for Dorian. Disappointed and bitterly embarrassed for his friends, Dorian ends their relationship.

When the lad returns home at dawn, he notices a subtle change in the painting; there is a touch of cruelty in the mouth. As he looks curiously upon his image, he is unaware that that same night, with her engagement in ruins, Sibyl has committed suicide.

With the passage of time, the portrait ages and spoils. The hair thins, the cheeks grow sallow. It is clear the image is aging instead of Dorian. Incredibly, the portrait also bears burden of his shame.

Under Lord Henry's influence, Dorian continues to live a hedonistic lifestyle, with strong hints of homosexual behaviour. The face of his portrait grows uglier with each moral transgression. Basil comes to warn Dorian of the scandalous rumours that are sweeping London about him. Wholly indifferent, Dorian smiles to himself, and decides to show Basil the painted "diary of his life". Hallward is perplexed as Dorian explains to him that not only God can see one's soul, "for tonight, with your own eyes, you will see my soul."

Together they go up to the old nursery at the top of the house, and as the purple pall is torn from Hallward's painting, the artist falls to his knees and begs Dorian to pray for forgiveness. The loathsome image is sickening. Every vile act, every hideous sign of age oozes from the canvas. Dorian picks up a discarded knife and in a fit of rage, murders his old friend. Blood immediately appears on the picture, staining the bloated hands of its subject. Turning from the scene, pressing his forehead to the cool glass of the window, with Hallward's blood still dripping on the carpet, Dorian determines to hide forever this monstrous mirror.

Towards the end of the novel, Dorian realizes he was wrong to have followed Lord Henry's doctrines. He decides to change, to make amends and to rise above his mentor's cynical epigrams that cut the beauty of life to pieces. But his attempts at reform are shallow and superficial -- and in turn the painting gains a cunning and hypocritical look.

At last Dorian plans to rid himself of his terrible sins by destroying the portrait. Realizing that only a full confession will absolve him, yet fearing the consequences, he decides to kill the last vestiges of his conscience --for it is conscience that has brought him to where he stands now. He stabs the canvas. The servants hear a terrible scream and rush to the nursery, but: When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was.

Highlander

Immortals are a group of fictional characters seen in the movies and series of the Highlander franchise. They can live forever and they only die when they are beheaded.

The Immortals were first introduced in Highlander in 1986. They were created by Script Writer Gregory Widen who, according to Bill Panzer, producer of the Highlander franchise, "was a student at film school, and he wrote this as his writing class project. (...) He was apparently travelling through Scotland on his summer vacation and he was standing in front of a suit of armor, and he wondered, "What would it be like if that guy was alive today?" And that's where everything fell into place - the idea that there are Immortals and they were in conflict with each other, leading secret lives that the rest of us are unaware of."

In the Highlander universe, the origin of the Immortals is unknown. Panzer states, "We don't know where they come from. Maybe they come from the Source." It is not known yet what the Source actually is. An attempt to explain the origin of the Immortals was made in the theatrical version of Highlander II: The Quickening (1991), which revealed that Immortals are aliens from the planet Zeist. Yet this was edited out of the director's cut of the film made in 1995, Highlander II: The Renegade Version, in which the Immortals are from Earth, but from a distant past. Neither of the two versions is referred to in later movies or television series.

Except in either versions of Highlander II, Immortals themselves do not know where they come from or for what purpose they exist. In Highlander, the Immortal mentor Ram?rez, when asked by new Immortal Connor MacLeod about their origins, answers, "Why does the sun come up? Or are the stars just pinholes in the curtain of night, who knows?" In Highlander: Endgame, protagonist Connor MacLeod says, "We are the seeds of legend, but our true origins are unknown. We simply are." In the Highlander: The Series episode "Mountain Men", protagonist Duncan MacLeod expresses the same ignorance when he tells Caleb Cole, a fellow Immortal, "Whatever gods made you and me... made us different," and his next line, deleted from the episode, has him say, "They're just having a little fun."

Wherever they come from, the Highlander franchise assumes that there have always been Immortals on Earth, well before the beginning of civilization. In Highlander, Ram?rez's narrative starts, "From the dawn of time we came; moving silently down through the centuries, living many secret lives..." and in Highlander: Endgame, Connor's narrative says, "In the days before memory, there were the Immortals. We were with you then, and we are with you now."

The Immortals do not live as a united people on a territory of their own, but are scattered around the world and across history. The only bond between them are oral traditions called the Rules transmitted from teacher to student. The creator of the Rules is unknown. The Rules are never enumerated, like a body of laws, but they are quoted according to the circumstances. They are taught to newborn Immortals by Immortal mentors called First Teachers (see below). The main Rules are : Never fight on Holy Ground. If your head comes away from your shoulders, it's over. In the end, there can be only one.

The Rules dictate that all Immortals are to fight and behead each other until only one of them remains. As Ram?rez reminds Connor MacLeod, "If your head comes away from your neck, it's over!" This is called the Game and is summarized in the signature Highlander motto, "There can be only one." As a result, Immortals usually develop strong fighting skills, usually transmitted from teacher to student, as Ram?rez did with Connor in Highlander. Most Immortals can fight with all sorts of weapons (axe, sickle, machete, mace, etc.), but the most common is the sword. Consequently, Immortals are usually very fond of their weapons and almost always have them handy. The script of the Highlander: The Series pilot episode "The Gathering" says about Duncan MacLeod: "Seemingly out of nowhere MacLeod lifts a beautiful Samurai sword. We can see that it is as familiar to him as a .38 Police Special would be to a cop." When he gives her sword to Immortal Felicia Martins, Duncan tells her, "Take good care of it. Make it a part of you. It may be the only friend you have."

The Rules also dictate that when one challenges another to combat, the two Immortals are supposed to duel one-on-one. For example, in "The Gathering", Slan Quince challenges Duncan MacLeod then gets challenged by Connor MacLeod at the same time. He protests to them both, "Not two on one!", Connor MacLeod answers, "Thanks, Slan. I know the rules. You and me. Now!" This does not always happen and battles may be unfair. Examples of cheating include the group of Immortals who served under Immortal Jacob Kell in Highlander: Endgame, Slan Quince's modified sword which fires a dagger from its hilt, and Zachary Blaine keeping a gun to slow down his adversaries. If the Rules are interpreted strictly, once two Immortals begin dueling, no outside interference is permitted, even to save a friend or innocent. For example, Duncan warns Richie that if he engages the vengeful Annie Devlin or the relentless Mako in a duel, Duncan will not permit himself to intervene.

The Immortals play the Game in accordance with their personalities. Some, like Slan Quince, go head hunting full time; some others only fight when they are challenged, to defend their head. Immortals are free to play the Game or not and some chose to "retire" for various reasons. Duncan MacLeod temporarily retires in 1872 because he is tired of death after his wife and adopted son are murdered. Some Immortals, like the pacifistic Darius and the epicurean John Durgan, even attempt to retire from the game completely. Darius, who was a great general in Late Antiquity, retires permanently because he turned his back on war. Some retired Immortals chose to get on with their life without carrying a sword, like Grace Chandel, but they are in particular danger of losing their heads. A safe option for Immortals who wish to retire from the Game is to live on Holy Ground. However, this leaves them vulnerable to the Hunters.

Holy Ground

The Rules forbid the Immortals to fight on Holy Ground. Holy Ground is defined as any land or building held sacred by any people in the world. Examples of Holy Ground include Christian cathedrals, churches, chapels and cemeteries, Buddhist monasteries, and Native-American sacred land. The interpretation of this rule changed as the series progressed. Highlander states that the Holy Ground rule was a tradition. Highlander II: The Quickening calls it the "Golden Rule". In the Highlander: The Series episode "The Hunters", Duncan MacLeod says, "Even the most evil of us wouldn't desecrate Holy Ground." In the episode "Little Tin God", Watcher Joe Dawson mentions that this rule was broken in 79 AD, resulting in the destruction of Pompeii. In Highlander III: The Sorcerer, during a fight in a Buddhist shrine between Connor MacLeod and antagonist Kane, Connor's blade shatters and the power of the shrine is revealed to Kane. In Highlander: The Search for Vengeance, Colin MacLeod is struck by lightning for refusing to put down his sword inside Stonehenge. Mortals are not bound by the Rules and are allowed to behead Immortals on Holy Ground; the Hunters (see below) do this to Darius in Highlander: The Series. A practical result of this rule is that Immortals use Holy Ground as a neutral territory on which they can meet each other without risking losing their heads. In Highlander, The Kurgan taunts Connor MacLeod in a church. When MacLeod becomes aggressive with the Kurgan, he says, "Holy Ground, Highlander! Remember what Ramirez taught you!" Immortals wishing to retire from the Game often chose to live on Holy Ground.

The Gathering

In Highlander, Ram?rez describes the Gathering to Connor MacLeod in this way: "When only a few of us are left, we will feel an irresistible pull towards a far away land, to fight for the Prize." The Gathering is the reunion of the last few Immortals left on Earth who then fight each other until only one is left; this last one wins the Prize. The time of the Gathering is not consistent throughout the movies and series most likely due to the fact that the first Highlander movie was scripted to end the story without sequels in mind. In Highlander, the Gathering happens in 1985, the "far away land" is New York City and Connor wins the Prize. In Highlander: The Series, set in 1992-1998, the Gathering is supposed to happen during the first season for continuity with the first film. In all subsequent Highlander: The Series seasons and Highlander movies and series, the Gathering has not happened yet and the Game continues. In Highlander: Endgame, the Gathering is said to be set in "a far off time" and it is not mentioned at all in Highlander: The Search for Vengeance.

The Prize

The very last Immortal still alive at the end of the Gathering wins the Prize. The nature of the Prize is "ultimate power and knowledge", according to the Season 1 promotional booklet of Highlander: The Series. In Highlander, when Connor MacLeod wins the Prize, he screams out, "I know everything! I am everything!" He later tells Brenda Wyatt, "I can love and have children. Live and grow old." Ram?rez tells him, "You are generations being born and dying. You are at one with all living things. Each man's thoughts and dreams are yours to know. You have power beyond imagination." In which way the last Immortal uses the Prize depends on his personality. David Abramovitz, Creative Consultant on Highlander: The Series, explains: "Because there can be only one, at the end there will be only one. If that one is good, the world will see a golden age. If evil, the world will fall into anarchy." In Highlander II: The Quickening, Connor MacLeod has become mortal after the Gathering and uses his vast knowledge to help mankind to solve its environmental problems. Conversely, in the Highlander: The Series episode "The Gathering", at a time when the Gathering has not happened yet, Connor describes what would happen should an evil Immortal win the Prize : "The last one will have the power of all the Immortals who ever lived. Enough power to rule this planet forever. If someone like Slan [Quince] [an evil Immortal] is that last one, mankind will suffer an eternity of darkness, from which it will never recover." This makes the Game, as Producer Barry Rosen puts it, an "ultimate battle of good and evil".

When an Immortal is beheaded, there is a powerful energy release from their body which is called a Quickening. Lead Highlander: The Series actor Adrian Paul explains, "The Quickening is the receiving of all the power and knowledge another immortal has obtained throughout his/her life. It is like the receiving of a sacrament or a massive orgasm." The producers describe it so : "The power of the Quickening is the equivalent to a major electrical storm hitting -- windows explode, lights short circuit, it is almost as if the victorious Immortal is in the center of a lightning storm."

This energy is absorbed by the Immortal who did the beheading. Panzer explains that if "an Immortal is decapitated by something other than the sword of the Immortal he was fighting, (...) what we thought was, as long as an Immortal is present, he gets the Quickening." If an Immortal is beheaded and there is no Immortal nearby to receive the Quickening, for example if the beheader is a mortal, then the Quickening dissipates in the sky. Panzer says, "If there is no Immortal present, then the Quickening just goes to the Source." It is not known yet what the Source exactly is.

When a good Immortal beheads an evil one, it rarely happens that the evil Quickening completely overwhelms the personality of the good Immortal, making him evil. This is a Dark Quickening. The contrary can also happen; Darius is the only known example of a Light Quickening.

An Immortal knows that a Quickening thrusts nearby and he knows which Immortal is dead, as demonstrated by Duncan MacLeod in Highlander: The Series. He falls on his knees when his friend Lucas Desiree is beheaded by Howard Crowley, and he knows it is Lucas who died.

In Highlander: The Series, the producers had to make the beheadings less violent and acceptable to television standards. Panzer explains, "In the movies, you know, we had a lot more licence. But this being television in the early 1990s, we couldn't have a lot of body parts flying around. So, we tried to use something that created the idea that somebody got their head cut off, but that it was more like a jolt of light came out of the head, and the lightning flew around them. This, I suppose, was less violent than the movie version."

Consequently, the Quickening scene in the pilot episode "The Gathering" is described in the script as follows : "We will call this shot for want of a better term, the Quickening Thrust. This will be one of our signature shots of the show. Perhaps it is a strobed, slow-motion shot. Perhaps there is particular glint to the sword as it slashes towards us on a POV shot, representing the coup de gr?ce which is about to be delivered. In any event what we will NOT see, is a decapitation. No head leaves the body, indeed no sword strikes the neck. Instead, we cut to : The Quickening is a blinding flash of blue light emanating from what was the bad guy and filling the screen and arcing into anything electrical nearby. Thus, street lamps, car headlights, windows, etc. are blown out."

Immortals can be "found" in any time era and in any place around the world. They can be of any race, ethnicity, or gender. For example, Amanda is a Norman female, Xavier St. Cloud is African, Carl Robinson is African-American, and May-Ling Shen and Kiem Sun are Chinese. There are comparatively few female Immortals. Abramovitz explains, "You have to be realistic. Women survive in a warrior's game by being different kinds of warriors. (...) You can't expect a woman who is 5'4" and 130 pounds to survive in the same way. (...) So it's hard for me to understand, no matter how good she is with a blade, that a woman could take on a great athlete and survive.". In the first three films, all Immortals depicted were male. Female Immortals were introduced in 1992 in the fifth episode of Highlander: The Series, "Free Fall."

Many of them are foundlings, like Duncan MacLeod and Richie Ryan, but it is not known if all of them are. Connor MacLeod, for example, is never said to be one; in Highlander: Endgame, he is seen protecting his aged mother from being burned as a witch. The matter is not settled in the movies or series, but in the Highlander novels it is assumed that all Immortals are foundlings. For example, in White Silence Duncan MacLeod tells Danny O'Donal, "We're all foundlings." Baby Immortals are never shown on screen but there are accounts of them in Highlander: The Series. In "Family Tree", Ian MacLeod, Duncan's foster father, tells him, "When the midwife looked into your eyes, for it was you the peasant brought in, she cringed back in fear... and said you were a changeling... left by the forest demons... and we should cast you out for the dogs!" In "Avenging Angel", Alfred Cahill says of his stepfather, "he knew I was different the first time he set eyes on me."

Immortals are raised in the societies to which they were born or adopted into and often retain their personality, customs and habits most of their life. Abramovitz explains, "Even if you are an Immortal, who you are as a child in many ways is who you become." Immortals grow up and age exactly like mortals, except that they do not have children. The wounds they get heal normally; Colin MacLeod, for example, carries a permanent diagonal scar on his face as a result of his head having been cleaved in two, causing his First Death. They do not feel the Buzz but they trigger a very faint Buzz in full-grown Immortals. Full-grown Immortals know what pre-Immortals really are when they encounter them, but they never tell them.

Grail Knight

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas and starring Harrison Ford in the title role. It also stars Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Julian Glover, Alison Doody, River Phoenix, and John Rhys-Davies.

When Dr. Henry Jones Sr. (played by Connery) vanishes while pursuing a life-long search for the Holy Grail, Indiana must retrace his father's steps in the hopes of rescuing him and the Grail from the clutches of the Nazi military machine. Worldwide, the film was the highest grossing movie of 1989.

After the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Spielberg returned to previously possible concepts of the Monkey King and a haunted castle, before Lucas suggested the Holy Grail. Spielberg had previously rejected it as too ethereal, but then came up with telling a father-son story. He thought, "The Grail that everybody seeks could be a metaphor for a son seeking reconciliation with a father and a father seeking reconciliation with a son." Further exploring Indiana as a character, something Harrison Ford wanted to do, Lucas came up with a flashback of Indiana as a teenager to begin the film. Menno Meyjes, who worked on The Color Purple and Empire of the Sun with Spielberg, co-wrote the story with Lucas while Jeffrey Boam wrote the script's final draft.

Filming began on May 16, 1988 with a budget of $36 million, shooting in Venice, Almeria, Jordan, Austria, Germany, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Texas. Almeria was used for the plane chase and the tank fight. Originally scripted for two days, Spielberg expanded the tank fight with storyboards and had two tanks built, one for close-ups. When shooting the scene where Henry Jones uses seagulls to take down a plane, the seagulls did not fly, so Spielberg had doves used instead. Shooting in Venice took place in August, when the crew took over the Grand Canal. The Church of San Barnaba known as San Barnaba di Venezia in Campo San Barnaba served as the exterior for the fictional Venetian church-turned-library. The fight near the propeller was shot at a tank in Elstree Studios, while the catacombs sequence had 2000 rats specially bred, to keep out disease. River Phoenix shot his scenes in September, three weeks after main filming wrapped. After viewing a rough cut, Spielberg added the motorbike chase which was shot at Lucas Valley.

Continuing their tradition of incorporating "creepy crawlers" after using snakes and bugs in the first two films, Spielberg and Lucas decided to go for rats this time in the underground tomb sequence. This was punctuated by Ford's line of "Oh rats!" when he encounters them.

In 1912, boy scout Indiana Jones steals the Cross of Coronado, an ornamental cross belonging to Francisco V?squez de Coronado, from grave robbers, believing it should be in a museum instead of a private collection, in the process using a whip, scarring his chin, and gaining his fear of snakes. Although he rescues the cross, the robbers tell the police that Indiana was the thief, and he is forced to return it, while his oblivious father, Henry Jones, is working on his research. One of the robbers, dressed very similarly to the future Indiana, gives him a fedora. In 1938, an adult Indiana is on the robbers' ship, the Coronado, off the Portuguese coast, finally retrieving the Cross and donating it to Marcus Brody's museum.

Indiana meets the wealthy Walter Donovan, who informs him that his father vanished while searching for a clue to the location of the Holy Grail, using an incomplete stone tablet as his guide. Indiana and Marcus travel to Venice to meet Dr. Elsa Schneider to retrace his father's footsteps, starting at the library where he was last seen. Indiana finds an "X" (inlaid in the floor) literally marking the spot, then smashes through the floor to ancient catacombs underneath, filled with oil several feet deep. Inside is the tomb of Sir Richard, a knight of the First Crusade, whose shield holds a complete version of the information on the tablet. The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secretive and fanatical religious cult that protects the Holy Grail, set fire to the oil in the catacombs to kill Indiana and Elsa. Indiana overturns Richard's sarcophagus so that he and Elsa can take refuge inside from the flames, and emerge from a sewer grate in Venice outside the library. Indiana and Elsa commandeer a motorboat to escape, managing to fight off all but the cult's leader, Kazim, during the ensuing chase. Jones convinces Kazim that he is looking for his father, not the Grail, and Kazim reveals that his father is being held in Castle Brunwald near the Austrian-German border.

Indiana finds his father, but they are betrayed by Schneider and Donovan, who worked with the Nazis to stage Henry's kidnapping, so that Indiana would solve the mystery of the Grail for them. Indiana and Henry escape together and travel to Berlin to retrieve Henry's diary, which contains all he has learned of the Grail, including clues to evade three booby traps. They arrive at a pro-Nazi book-burning rally, where a disguised Indiana corners Elsa and convinces her to return the diary to him, in the process bumping into Adolf Hitler, who gives him his autograph. Indiana and Henry travel on an LZ-138 Zeppelin, which begins to turn around, letting Indiana realize the Nazis know they are on board. They escape the ship by taking an attached fighter plane, evading Nazi dogfighters. Henry accidentally shoots out the tailfin, and they crash land. They steal a car, causing one Nazi plane to be destroyed when it follows them through a tunnel. On a beach, Henry uses his umbrella to stir up a flock of seagulls. The seagulls cause numerous bird strikes on the second plane, crashing it. The Joneses meet up with Sallah and confront the Nazis, who have captured Brody. The Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword also appears, attacking the Nazi caravan, but are defeated. Henry attempts to rescue Brody from the tank wherein he is being held, but is himself captured. Indiana jumps onto the tank and rescues the captives before it drives off a cliff, killing Donovan's aide, Colonel Vogel.

The Joneses, Sallah, and Brody reach the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, in Hatay near ?skenderun, the site of the temple housing the Grail. The Nazis capture them in the temple and shoot Henry, forcing Indiana to retrieve the Grail, so as to heal his father's fatal wounds. Guided by the diary, Indiana circumvents the deadly booby traps, reaching a room where a knight of the First Crusade, kept alive by the power of the Grail, has hidden it amongst many false cups, while Donovan and Elsa follow. The knight informs them that, if they wish for the Grail, they must choose wisely for it, for while drinking from the true Grail will bring them everlasting life, a false Grail will take it from them. Schneider identifies a golden, bejeweled cup as the Grail, and Donovan impatiently drinks from it. Realizing the Grail is false, Donovan dies in a gruesome manner, aging rapidly into dust.

Indiana picks out the true Grail, a plain cup with a gold interior, worthy of a humble carpenter (Jesus), and drinks from it without harm. Indiana fills the Grail with water and uses it to heal Henry. Despite a warning from the knight not to let the Grail go past the Great Seal in accordance with the Law of God, Elsa tries to leave with the Grail and the interior starts to collapse. She loses her balance at the edge of a newly-formed crevasse; despite Indiana's attempts to lift her, she greedily reaches for the Grail and falls into the abyss. Indiana loses his footing and finds himself in the same situation, with his father keeping him from following the same fate as Elsa. He also tries to get the Grail, until Henry says simply, "Indiana...Indiana...let it go." Realizing that this is the first time his father has properly referred to him by name (rather than condescedingly call him "Junior"), Indiana reluctantly obeys. The Grail and the old knight are left in the ruins as the Joneses, Brody, and Sallah escape the crumbling temple. Afterward, Henry reveals that "Indiana" was the family dog's name, much to Sallah's amusement, and that Indiana's real name is Henry Jones, Jr. All four then ride off into the sunset.

Methuselah

Methuselah or Metush?lach (Hebrew: / , Standard M?tula? / M?tula? Tiberian Mla? / Mla? ; "Man of the dart", or alternatively "when he dies/died, it will be sent/has been sent") is the oldest person whose age is mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. According to the Bible, he reached the age of 969 years. Genesis 5:27 states, "And all the days of Methuselah were nine hundred sixty and nine years: and he died" (American Standard Version). Genesis 5:5 states, "So all the days that Adam lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died." (American Standard Version). Assuming Adam's life began at the time of creation, Adam was alive when Methuselah was born. This makes Methuselah the human link between Adam and Noah (Assuming Methuselah died at the time of the flood, or at least after Noah's birth). The name Methuselah has become a general synonym for any living creature of great age.

Methuselah is mentioned in Genesis as the son of Enoch and the father of Lamech (father of Noah), whom he fathered at the age of 187. A close reading of the dates in the Old Testament reveals that Methuselah is said to have died in the year of the Great Flood, but the Bible does not indicate if the cause of his death was by drowning. Some have interpreted his name as a prophecy: when he dies, the Flood will come. In that case, the long life has an allegorical dimension, showing that God withheld judgment on humans for a very long time.

However, in the ancient texts from which the English Bible was translated, there are variations of the ages of the patriarchs in different versions. The Samaritan Pentateuch gives his lifespan as 720 years. Other versions of the Septuagint give dates which would have him surviving the Flood. Some Bible scholars have suggested that the age has been adjusted in order to exactly match the flood.

Methuselah is also mentioned in the apocryphal Book of Enoch as being the son of Enoch and as having brothers. The writer tells Methuselah of the coming Deluge and of a future Messianic kingdom.

Modern science puts the natural limit on current human longevity below 130 years. This would support the Biblical reference in Genesis 6:3, where God placed a limit of 120 years on man's lifespan. This being the case, Methuselah's lifespan has been a source of much speculation. Some resolve the issue by suggesting that Methuselah's long lifespan is not meant to be taken literally, while others attribute it to translation errors inflating a shorter lifespan. Biblical literalists, on the other hand, have proposed several reasons that might explain a drastic decrease in the human lifespan after the Noachian deluge. The most compelling, however, is the fact that Gen. 6:3 says, "And the Lord said, 'My spirit shall not strive with man forever, for he is indeed flesh; yet his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.'" In other words, man's lifespan would be gradually shortened over time, as punishment for sin. Even the idea of death came from sin (i.e. the Fall) at the Garden of Eden, before which man could potentially have lived forever (according to Genesis chapter 2).

One solution involving translation error is proposed by Robert Best, who suggests that inaccurate conversion between various ancient Sumerian numerical systems produced the ages of Methuselah, Noah, and kin out of Sumerian king lists; Best calculates that Methuselah's actual age would have been 85, and that he would have had his first son at age 17 (as opposed to after age 100). Another theory suggests lunar cycles were mistaken for the solar ones; if this is the case, each lifespan from Genesis would be shortened by a factor of 12.37; this calculation also gives ages for Methuselah and his contemporaries that resemble those of modern humans. Objections to such life-shortening calculations, however, may be raised on the grounds that, if reductions by these factors are carried out, several biblical fathers would have had children while they themselves were approximately five years old.

Many Creationists, meanwhile, accept the ages recorded in the Bible, and have speculated on reasons for the dramatic decrease in lifespans following the Great Flood of Noah's time. One reason claimed is that conditions before the flood caused much less ultraviolet light from the sun to impact the earth, and that this allowed for longer life spans. The Institute for Creation Research has posited that a vapor canopy surrounded the earth before the Flood, and that it was the source of the floodwaters. Such a canopy would also have protected humankind from the aging effects of the sun's ultraviolet rays. After the dissipation of the canopy during the Flood, according to this theory, lifespans dropped rapidly to what they are today. Mainstream scientists have rejected the vapor canopy theory, asserting that it does not stand up to scientific analysis.

Young Earth creationist Carl Wieland alternatively speculates that the decline in lifespan is because of the drastic reduction in population due to the Flood, causing a genetic bottleneck in which the genes that coded for longevity were lost. This speculation, however, also does not withstand scientific scrutiny since a genetic bottleneck would only affect genes which are not highly useful (i.e. not selected for). It is obvious that longer lived people would produce more offspring and therefore longevity would only be lost if the individuals who survived the flood did not have the longevity gene.

For some Bible believers, the cause of the decrease in human longevity is that God sets a specific lifespan for human beings, as in Genesis 6:3: "Then the Lord said, 'My Spirit will not contend with [or "remain in"] man forever, for he is mortal [or "corrupt" (NIV)] ; his days will be a hundred and twenty years.'" Witness Lee's "Four Falls of Man" hypothesis holds that man's life span was shortened four times, due to sin: from everlasting to 1,000 (first fall--the fall of Adam;) from 1,000 to 500 (second fall...the Earth around the time of Noah), from 500 to 250 (third fall) and finally from 250 to 120 (fourth fall brings in the law with Moses). Notably, in the times of King David, when actual ages were recorded, the ages of the kings generally were in the range of 40-70 years old..

Arwen

Arwen Und?miel is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. She appears in his best-known novel, The Lord of the Rings, usually published in three volumes. Arwen is one of the Half-elven who lived during the Third Age.

In Sindarin Arwen's name signifies noble woman (S. 'ar'=noble, 'wen'=maiden). Her second name or epess?, Und?miel means Evenstar (Evening star) (Q. 'und?m?'=dusk, '?l'=star) Therefore she is also called Arwen Evenstar.

Arwen was the youngest child of Elrond and Celebr?an; her elder brothers were the twins Elladan and Elrohir. Through her father, she was the granddaughter of E?rendil the Mariner (the second of the Half-elven), great-granddaughter of Tuor of Gondolin, and therefore a direct descendant of the ancient House of Hador. Arwen was also a descendant of King Turgon of the Noldor through her great-grandmother, Idril. Through her mother, she was the granddaughter of Lady Galadriel and the great-granddaughter of Finarfin. ?omer of Rohan said that the Lady Arwen was more fair than the Lady Galadriel of L?rien, but Gimli son of Gl?in thought differently. Through both of her parents Arwen was a direct descendant of the ancient Elven House of Finw?. Furthermore, Arwen was a descendant of Beren and L?thien Tin?viel, whose story resembled hers. Indeed, Arwen was held to be the reappearance in likeness of her ancestress L?thien, fairest of all the Elves, who was called Nightingale (Tin?viel).

Arwen was a very distant relative of her husband Aragorn (a 1st cousin, albeit 61 times removed). Aragorn's ancestor, Elros Tar-Minyatur, the first King of N?menor, was her father Elrond's brother, who chose to live as a Man rather than one of the Eldar. Elros died in S.A. 442, some 3,240 years before Arwen was born.

Arwen eventually became Queen of the Reunited Kingdom of Arnor and Gondor when she married Aragorn, who was of the line of the Kings of Arnor. After 120 years of royal marriage, Arwen died of a broken heart a year after the death of Aragorn.

After the War of the Ring ended, Arwen and Aragorn produced the future heir of the throne, Eldarion.

By Arwen and Aragorn's marriage, the long-sundered lines of the Half-elven were joined. Their union also served to unite and preserve the bloodlines of the Three Kings of the High Elves (Ingw?, Finw?, and the brothers Olw? and Elw?) as well as the only line with Maiarin blood through Arwen's great-great-great grandmother, Melian, Queen of Doriath, and also on Aragorn's side, through the line of kings of Arnor and N?menor to Elros, Elrond's brother, whose great-great-grandmother was also Melian.

As told in "The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen", found in Appendix A to The Lord of the Rings (after the third volume, The Return of the King), during Aragorn's twentieth year he met Arwen for the first time in Rivendell, where he lived under Elrond's protection. Arwen, then over 2700 years old, had recently returned to her father's home after living for a while with her grandmother Galadriel in L?rien. Aragorn fell in love with Arwen at first sight. About thirty years later, the two were reunited in L?rien; at that time, Arwen reciprocated Aragorn's love; then they "plighted their troth" on the mound of Cerin Amroth.

Arwen's first appearance in The Lord of the Rings proper was at Rivendell, when the Hobbits arrived there, and Aragorn was seen with her the first hint of their relationship. Later, when the Fellowship of the Ring came to Lothl?rien, Aragorn remembered their earlier meeting and paused in reverence on Cerin Amroth.

Arwen entered the story again when, before taking the Paths of the Dead, Aragorn was met by a group consisting of D?nedain (his people, from the North), and Arwen's brothers, Elladan and Elrohir. They brought to him a banner of black cloth: a gift made by Arwen, and a sign that encouraged him to take the difficult path. When the banner was unfurled at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields to reveal the emblem of Elendil in mithril, gems, and gold, it was the first triumphant announcement of the King's return.

Finally, Arwen arrived at Minas Tirith after Aragorn had become king of Gondor and Arnor, and they were married.

The four passages described above are Arwen's only appearances in the story as it stands, not counting The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. Judging only by visibility, Arwen is mostly a minor character in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings proper, but she nevertheless appears in detail in its Appendices. Also, she plays a role in the plot which is disproportionate to the number of scenes in which she appears. When ?owyn fell in love with Aragorn it was his fidelity to Arwen that prevented him from reciprocating. This motivated ?owyn's subsequent heroism during the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, which had major repercussions for the defence of Middle-earth. Arwen served as inspiration and motivation for Aragorn, who had to become King before he could wed her.

Arwen gave up her life in 121 of the Fourth Age, at Cerin Amroth in L?rien, one year after the death of Aragorn. At the time, she was 2,901 years old. The story of Arwen's death is told in Appendix A (v), "Here Follows Part of the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen." In this tale, Arwen told Aragorn, on his deathbed, that the last ship that could have borne her over the sea had already sailed. After Aragorn died, she went to L?rien and died on Cerin Amroth, where she was buried.

Arwen does not appear in Ralph Bakshi's 1978 adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, nor in the 1980 Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Return of the King.

In Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, Arwen is played by Liv Tyler. Many additional scenes pertaining to Arwen are inserted, practically all of which deviate from the novel and some of which seem inspired by the Tale. Contrary to the novel in which Arwen is relegated to the sidelines, she is much more visible in Jackson's films.

In the first film, Arwen sneaks up to find Aragorn and single-handedly rescues Frodo Baggins from the Black Riders at Bruinen, thwarting them with a sudden flood, summoned by an incantation. In the book, it was Glorfindel who put Frodo on horseback and sent him alone to flee the Nazg?l, and Elrond and Gandalf who arranged the flood. In the book, Frodo makes his own stand against the Ringwraiths; in the movie Arwen defends him. During this flight, Arwen wields the sword Hadhafang, stated to have once been wielded by her father in film merchandise. This sword is actually the sword of Idril Celebrindal, Arwen's great-grandmother. This sword, however, does not appear in the books at all; in fact, in the books, Arwen is never mentioned as armed (but she could have armed and defended herself at need; see below).

Following the aforementioned scenes, the deviations include a scene in which Aragorn is injured and has a dream about Arwen (who kisses him), a scene where Arwen has a fight with her father about leaving for Valinor, and a scene where she (with Figwit) actually departs for Valinor and then suddenly returns when has a vision of her future son, Eldarion. (Surprising to her, not because a union with Aragorn could produce a child, but rather that her father had only prophesied death in her future.)

Throughout the War of the Ring, Elrond begs her to accompany her kin to the Undying Lands because he does not wish to see another of his family die, but after she initially embarks for the Grey Havens to sail away, she returns to Rivendell and thereafter refuses to leave Middle-earth because of the love she bore for Aragorn.

Also,in the film version of The Return of the King Arwen rides back from the road to the Grey Havens. Elrond takes the reforged Narsil, now And?ril, to Aragorn at Dunharrow, and tells him that her fate has become bound with the One Ring, and that she is dying. The movies also portray that through her love to Aragorn, she became human, an important factor also within the book, in which Arwen echoes the choice and fate of her ancestor L?thien to become a mortal woman.

Reaction

Arwen had a very small role in the books outside of the Appendix (Tolkien conceived the character late in the writing; Aragorn was originally supposed to marry ?owyn, as related in The History of Middle-earth). In addition to making Arwen a more visible character, the change employs the principle of "economy of characters". Characters like Glorfindel (the Elf who, in the book, helps Frodo by lending him his horse and later aiding his companions in driving the Nazg?l into the water), who appear once and perform only a few tasks, are often excised from film interpretations. Since Arwen's character has a much more important role within the entire plot, in that she provides inspiration and motivation for Aragorn's heroism, it was thus decided to give her the role of rescuing Frodo from the Ring Wraiths. Indeed although she appears in fleeting scenes, her powerful love for Aragorn (to the extent that she chose to give up her immortality and "cleave" herself to him as a mortal woman) and impact on his life pervades the Lord of the Rings, expressed perhaps in the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen and his incapability to return ?owyn's love for him, since he was already engaged to Arwen and hoped to marry her some day, if he could return the true Monarchy to Gondor and become its King.

In earlier copies of the script (when the movies were supposed to be filmed in two parts under a different production company), Arwen actually fought in the Battle of Helm's Deep and personally brought the sword And?ril to Aragorn. However, both Liv Tyler and the writers felt that the character's involvement in Helm's Deep was inappropriate, and left her out of the sequence.

These changes have met with mixed reactions. Many fans were upset because they seemed to pander to the lowest common denominatorthat in order to make Arwen a "worthwhile" or "strong" character, she had to be a warriorwhile in the books, her strength stems from her brave choice to forsake immortality and live a mortal life with Aragorn, which did not involve martial skill. Furthermore, there is already a skilled female warrior present in the storynamely ?owyn, but she first appears in the second part of the film trilogy. Some fans felt it odd to make it a point to insert a female warrior into a story which already had a prominent one, because this detracts from ?owyn's bravery in riding to battle. However, in the second and third films in which ?owyn appears, Arwen's martial abilities are toned down and her role is shaped somewhat to be as it is presented in the book and the Tale, to make way for ?owyn and her slaying of the Witch-king.

Some criticize The Lord of the Rings for including few named female characters and thus accuse Tolkien of sexism. However, in the essay Laws and Customs among the Eldar, which appears in Morgoth's Ring, Tolkien writes that male and female Elves are in fact viewed in Elven society as equals, save for the fact that only the females are capable of childbearing and are thus viewed as literally holding the future of their people in their hands. It is for this reason that they traditionally refrain from going to war (although they are still trained in all the aspects of combat taught to male Elves), usually occupying themselves during wartime as healers. As the text itself states: In all such things, not concerned with the bringing forth of children, the neri and nissi (that is, the men and women) of the Eldar are equalunless it be in this (as they themselves say) that for the nissi the making of things new is for the most part shown in the forming of their children, so that invention and change is otherwise mostly brought about by the neri. There are, however, no matters which among the Eldar only a n?r can think or do, or others with which only a n?s is concerned. There are indeed some differences between the natural inclinations of neri and nissi, and other differences that have been established by custom (varying in place and in time, and in the several races of the Eldar). For instance, the arts of healing, and all that touches on the care of the body, are among the Eldar most practised by the nissi; whereas it was the elven-men who bore arms at need. And the Eldar deemed that the dealing of death, even when lawful or under necessity, diminished the power of healing, and that the virtue of the nissi in this matter was due rather to their abstaining from hunting or war than to any special power that went with their womanhood. Indeed in dire straits or desperate defence, the nissi fought valiantly, and there was less difference in strength or speed between elven-men and elven-women that had not borne child than is seen among mortals. On the other hand many elven-men were great healers and skilled in the lore of living bodies, though such men abstained from hunting, and went not to war until the last need.(Morgoth's Ring, "The Second Phase", Laws and Customs Among the Eldar).

However, this does not negate Tolkien's heavier emphasis on male characters and their actions in the particular work being adapted; thus, Arwen's greater visibility in the films is seen by some fans as an attempt to create gender balance for modern viewers.