This is something I thought of listening to the Angel's Command....are Ben and Ned immortal? Its true that they don't age, but Mr. Jacques writes this as if they needed to eat and drink as often as a mortal being to survive. I would have thought they were immortal, but there's certainly conflicting evidence to suggest they can die by means other than old age.
Thoughts?
They're immortal in the sense that theylive eternally and cannot age . However, they are mortal in the sense that if they don't feed themselves, or a are shot, stabbed or thrown off a cliff, they could be killed.
That was a confusing topic for me to. I ended up coming to the conclusion that their life span is unlimited as long as they take care of themselves as far as food, water, poison and wounds go. Did that make sense? I don't usually make sense this late.
it does make sense thats what it hought and one last problem that i thought of is when ned fell of the cliff at the end of the third book why didnt he die was it a way he landed
well i think that it might have been that he landed on one of them or cause he is a dog and for some reason the fall did not impact him very much but yeah i have wondered why he did not die ??? ???
Talk about gray areas in the book. ;) There's no real consistency on which things should kill Ben/Ned, and do not.
true and i guess Brian J. would of had to live forever to finish the series :'( :'(
i just dunno
Ned got lucky when it came to the fall. If it was impossible for them to die, then Ben and Ned wouldn't have to worry about being shot at in books 2 and 3. Of course people would wonder why they weren't dying from blood loss, but its not really as big a deal since Ben and Ned never hang around long enough anyway.
Remember in Voyage of Slaves, Ben and Ned were severely dehydrated and hungry in the beginning, and if Ben hadn't been kidnapped they probably would have died.
Also at the end of Voyage of Slaves, Ben nearly died at the end.
The pair of them are lucky and certainly has Heaven looking out for them, but that's not the same as being immortal, but rather Eternal.
They aren't invisible, they just don't age. Other than that, they're as mortal as you and me
I personally think that they are immortal, though some may disagree
I think Castaways explained it pretty well.
Yea, that's true.
Immortal!
I think they cannot die. However, when a villain is going to hurt them, their friends are around, around so they don't do something that could have bad results. They can feel pain probably, but I don't think it would kill them.
I think they can live forever, but if someone killed them they would die.
I don't really know. They can't age - But they quite possibly COULD starve, if memory serves in The Voyage Of Slaves.
The way I always understood it was that they are immortal, they cannot age, but they can change. This is their true benefit over the crew of the Flying Dutchman- they still need to care for their bodies, otherwise they could be malnourished (which the crew of the Dutchman certainly is after 100 years of not stocking with provisions), and they can be injured, or ill, which would result in a long recuperation period. But no, they were told that they had to roam the earth forever, so it seems they cannot die.
On a sort-of related note, I always wanted Brian Jacques to write a story in this series that took place during Dunkirk/the Battle of Britain/the rest of WWII. That would be pretty cool.