Fates Worse Than Death

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Afraid of death? If you are, rest assured... there are far worse things out there. These are just a few examples.

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▬▬▬▬ Tale Foundry Team ▬▬▬▬
• Talebot — The Talent
• The Taleoids — The Talent's Helpers
• Benjamin Cook — Writer, Director, & Voice Actor
• Kathryn Healy — Researcher & Writer

[TheTaleFoundry]

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[jayahwilliams]

AM's hatred was not just that he was thrust into existence against his will. It's that he was thrust into existence and made to experience the worst of existence, the horrors of war. That's all he ever really knew by the time he gained consciousness

[xpendabull]

One story that really got to me regarding fates worse than death is Johnny Got His Gun. A soldier is so badly injured that he looses his limbs, eyesight, hearing and any sensation, but is still totally lucid and aware and kept alive in a hospital. His only real experiences are bizarre dreams when he doesn't know if he's awake or asleep. He repeats SOS in morse code buy hitting his head on his pillow over and over again pleading for death. He is completely trapped in his own mind with no escape. Also it's the inspiration for the song "One" by Metallica.

[lsthero]

Fun fact: I have no mouth but I must scream has a videogame that the author himself supervised and it has an ending where you truly defeat AM by being moral. But AM says that he is humanity and he will return one day, that another AM will be created

[TheJacobG]

It's all fun and games until some Italian kid punches you with a psychic ghost so hard you end up in a pocket dimension, forced to live through an infinite series new and exciting ways to die.

[estanii]

Whenever someone speaks about a "fate worse than death" I can't help but think about the WARP Trains form Library of Ruina. Being trapped, with nothing to do but wait for the train to arrive to your station, millions of years making all the passengers but the VIP ones, go crazy. Trying to end their suffering yet realizing not even death is an escape.
Until they finally arrive to their station, where the personnel restore their bodies and mind to the state when they first seated on the train. They will just leave, oblivious to all the time and suffering they just endured, and forgot.

[literallydoing]

dementia, in my mind, seems like a fate worse than death. Ego death isn't bad, but loosing every aspect that makes you who you are, even as a concept in a work of fiction, seems horrifying

[MikeCrain]

I realized recently that "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream" also likely refers to AM as well. AM is even more helpless than Ted being unable to move at all, end his own life, or scream since he has no mouth either.

[dorrin]

The inability to die would be way worse than death. You would live _forever._

Long after humanity is extinct. After the last stars burn out. You would be floating forever in a dark universe devoid of all other life. It would never end.

[The_Masquerade_of_Evilhos]

For further salt into the wound, AM can't experience the sensations nor the small things in life needed to make life's suffering a worthwhile experience either. As Ted discovered, "AM could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong. He could merely be." He was brought from a world of peace to a world of suffering yet wonderful things to only and merely experience its worsts parts, as you, mr. Robot, said.

[o--formerlycalvinlucien]

Both AM and Ted are condemned to fates worse than death. AM is hyper intelligent, self aware, and so entirely alone. For centuries his only entertainment was torturing Ted and his friends, and Ted took that away from him. Then, AM turned Ted into a horrible abomination still self aware, and entirely alone. Both are entirely alone in their own way, for eternity.

[shadowgattler]

I've witnessed a fate worse than death twice in my life and it still pains me to think about. My Grandfather and father both had/have dementia. There's nothing worse than seeing or experiencing someone becoming a shell of themselves. They forget everything, including their loved ones and usually die a long, painful death. I was actually glad when my grandfather died, simply because I didn't want him to suffer anymore. That kind of life isn't living. It's just a prison.

[JFire]

There is the idea of something worse after death. If you look at Dante's Inferno, after dying, millions of souls are subjected to agonizing torture both physically and mentally. In an odd way, a fate worse than death is what everyone fears after.

[ntsazazel]

I can’t go without mentioning the SCP “End of Death” tale when we get into the topic of fates worse than death. A world in which the brain never stops functioning, rendering everyone and everything on earth suddenly immortal while their bodies continue to age and decay. It’s one of the more fleshed out canons of the SCP universe, even if some of its main stories are as of yet unfinished, and it really explores the horror, darkness, and eventual rays of light that shine through following the end of death.

[padius]

In library of ruina, one of the storylines involved an express train that is supposed to transport you anywhere in just ten seconds using space warping technology. at first, it seems to malfunction, causing the passengers to be trapped in the train in a strange state where they don’t feel any thirst or hunger, and they cannot die, their bodies cannot be separated, even connecting by thin strands of blood. They’re trapped in this state for about 2000 years. Causing most of them to go insane, and turning to harming themselves or each other for stimulation. Turns out, This 2000 year process is the train functioning as intended. Passengers are supposed to go through the 2000 year journey, and then be restored to their original states with their memories clean, what they remember would only be 10 seconds. The specific case you see in the game is quite horrifying. But I won’t elaborate on that here

[atanvardecunambiel]

The Amazing Digital Circus is following in the footsteps of “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream”. People stuck in the simulation cannot die, but abstract when they go mad.

[BillBerny-vvrt]

"Too long ive been parched with thirst unable to quench it. Too long ive been starvin to death, and havent died! I feel nothin. Not the wind in my face nor the spray of the sea... nor the warmth of a woman's flesh." -Barbossa

[Treasure_hunter_]

There's a good saying: it's better to have a terrible end than terror without end.

[oceantale]

The first thing I remembered thinking about fates worse than death was dying under a chronos effect, where time slowing down more and more as you approach death, and freezes for you right before you die, where you are trapped for eternity in this state, unable to do anything, and nobody can stop your agony because for them time is normal, and you are already dead, but for you, this seconds are eternity

[count-countess]

It's kinda terrifying when a writer is forced to not have death in there story cause of certain restrictions like in batman animated they weren't allowed to have Joker kill so they made a gas that forces you to smile and laugh and stay in that state permanently in a vegetable state