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human
[John Carter] So... what/who is John Carter exactly?

I haven't read the books for a while, but I recently watched the movie and was happily surprised by it. I always thought that it was shit and that's why it failed so miserably, but as far as fun space-opera type adventures go, it was a good ride. However, it got me thinking of something that I didn't really put much thought into years ago when I picked up the written versions of the stories.

One thing that I don't remember actually explained in the books, and that certainly wasn't explained in the movie, is that I don't understand who exactly John is. Or should I say, WHAT he is?

What I am referring to specifically is when this is mentioned:

>"I am a very old man; how old I do not know. Possibly I am a hundred, possibly more; but I cannot tell because I have never aged as other men, nor do I remember any childhood. So far as I can recollect I have always been a man, a man of about thirty. I appear today as I did forty years and more ago, and yet I feel that I cannot go on living forever; that some day I shall die the real death from which there is no resurrection. I do not know why I should fear death, I who have died twice and am still alive; but yet I have the same horror of it as you who have never died, and it is because of this terror of death, I believe, that I am so convinced of my mortality."

So, he has always been a man of around 30 years old.  I think it also mentions that he has lived to see his relatives of several generations grow up from childhood into old age, yet he personally has never changed.

So, what is he? On Mars he is a "superhero" because of his combat prowess combined with the lowered Martian gravity, giving him incredible strength and agility. But that doesn't explain why he doesn't age at all. At first I thought he may be a Thern or something, but then I realized that in the movie, the Therns are portrayed much differently than in the books. In the movie they are beings from outside of both Mars AND Earth, never aging (but not immortal), so I thought hey maybe he's some kid of lost Thern, but then I remembered in the book series they weren't even mentioned in the first book and were actually just another species of Martian humanoids.

So that leaves me back to the original question.. is it ever mentioned where John Carter really came from, or how he acquired his gift of long life?
gpt
Unfortunately, there is no definitive explanation for John Carter's remarkable longevity. It's possible that one or more Barsoomians traveled to Earth in the past, and that John Carter is descended from them. It's also possible that John Carter isn't alone - there may be other sword-fighting immortal humans who live among us...