Eh, happened to the Cumaean Sibyl, too. Asked for a year of life for every grain of sand she held, but Apollo allowed her body to wither away until she lived in a bottle. A human body just ain’t designed to last a thousand years.
“For once I saw with my own eyes the Cumean Sibyl hanging in a jar, and when the boys asked the Sibyl, ‘what do you want?’ she answered ‘I want to die’.”
Vandal Savage, the Immortal Man and the Resurrection Man in DC Comics, and Mister Immortal in Marvel Comics. Also in Marvel, I think there’s some group of 12 mutants who will never die, but I don’t recall the specifics, though I think one was Cannonball.
That tiger didn’t go crazy. That tiger went tiger!
Nah. Ganymede & Herakles & Psyche made the transition all right. Zeus & his boy were just treating humans as wanton boys treat flies.
Spoilers for the Malazan Book of the Fallen(through Toll the Hounds)
Emperor Kellanved of the Malazan Empire ascended and became Shadowthrone, Ruler of High House Shadow
Dancer, Kellanved’s closest advisor, ascended and became Cotillion, Assassin of High House Shadow and Patron of Assassins
Dassem Ultor, former Mortal Sword of the Empire, ascended and became Dessembrae, Lord of Tears
Ganoes Paran ascended and became the Master of the Deck of Dragons
There’s probably some that I forgot. Many of the characters in the Malazan series are gods. I may have missed the mark a bit, though, as gods in the series are not immortal.
Imhotep was born a mortal man. He became the architect for the Pharoah Djoser. He invented the pyramid. After he died, he was worshipped as a god by the Egyptians.
There were a lot in Taoist legend, most famously the Monkey King.
In Norse mythology, Bragi, the god of poetry, was wedded to Idunn, keeper of the Apples of Youth. In some versions of the tale, he may have been born mortal.
Why, yes, I want to live forever. Why do you ask?
From pop culture there’s the obvious answer of Connor MacLeod, from “Highlander”.
From Mythology the best known immortal characters I can think of are the Wandering Jew (Dude taunts Jesus while he’s on the cross, gets cursed to walk the Earth till the end of days) and the Flying Dutchman.
The villains in the Demi Moore movie The Seventh Sign, and the Heath Ledger TV series Roar, were both mortal men cursed with immortality. And both were pretty blatant ripoffs of Casca Longinius (who, admittedly was himself a ripoff of the Wandering Jew).
Depending on your definition of “immortal”, the major characters in Roger Zelazny’s novel Lord of Light might count.
There have been a couple of movies titled The Fountain, about people who discovered the Fountain of Youth.
There is a minor recurring character from Neil Gaiman’s Sandman comic, Hob Gadling, who was noticed by Death and Dream during one of their nights out and about.
He was offered the opportunity to live until he got tired of living. And every 100 years Dream goes and meets him, ostensibly to see if he still wants to keep living.
Brad Pitt’s character in Interview with the Vampire.
I’m not sure I would count a vampire. But at least four characters in Ramses the Damned would certainly count
In Tanith Lee’s Death’s Master there’s a city of people who are immortal due to drinking stolen water from the god’s fountain of life, and another who is immortal due to a magical fire that “burned away” all his human weaknesses, including most of his emotions and capacity for pain and pleasure.
In The Apocalypse Troll, Ludmilla the time traveller and immortal Thuselah mixes her blood with her dying mortal lover, in a desperate attempt to infect him with the symbiont that makes her immortal. This is an act of pure desperation, because in all but less than 1% of the cases of this being tried it kills the normal human - but this once, it works.
In the Wild Cards stories, Golden Boy’s wild card appears to have made him immortal.
In Loise Cooper’s Time Master trilogy, Tarod’s mortal love interest is first raised from the dead and offered the chance to live forever transformed into a being of the realm of chaos with her immortal lover; she accepts. In the sequel trilogy, she is raised to the status of a Goddess of Chaos to replace the Chaos Lord killed by the Lord of Order.
In The Misenchanted Sword, the protagonist’s sword is enchanted in such a way as to make him immortal. Not invulnerable, immune to age or disease or mutilation - just immortal. It’s called the misenchanted sword for a reason. Fortunately by the end of the novel he acquires a wizard girlfriend who can give him eternal youth as well ( according to her immortality is the hard part anyway ).
There are a few different versions as to how Romulus died, but the most popular version is that he ascended to the heavens during a storm. The Romans worshiped him as Quirinus.
I don’t know if you’re looking for real people who became gods in various national mythologies, but Julius Caesar, Augustus, Livia, Claudius, Vespasian, and Titus all managed to become deified, and Vespasian even managed to get off a witty quip about it in his last words as a mortal.
I may be mistaken, but Grant Morrison in All-Star Superman seems to have allowed Superman to become immortal.
Daniel in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman becomes one of the Endless.
Dorian Grey in Oscar Wilde’s classic was functionally immortal, if not for those meddling kids.
Different Lazarus. Luke 16:19-31.
Paedur the Bard in Michael Scott’s Tales of the Bard series.
The Nameless One (the main/your characer) in Planescape: Torment was immortal, however it was the result of a hex (if I recall correctly) and the entire object of the game near the end is to undo said immortality, so it may not count because he actually goes from mortal, to immortal, and then back to mortal again (in various ways, i.e. destroying your soul which split off from you to become an antagonist or by willing yourself out of existence).
Demophon. Oh, no, wait! - Didn’t make it.
Damn.
Close, though.
How about Dave Bowman from 2001?
If i am not mistaken, Durnik the blacksmith(David Eddings Belgariad) was raised to godhood to perform some task that i can not remember now.