By far the best and funniest introduction to an immortal character I’ve ever read was in Warbreaker, where Vasher is consistently presented for the first 400 pages as a grumpy, disheveled, ambiguously moral vigilante, who is competent enough at everything that it’s clear he’s an experienced guy, but has no social graces and barely any reputation except among a few people. He wears rags and ties his pants up with a piece of rope and his closest personal relationship is being a dad slash cleanup crew for a very cursed talking sword with memory issues.
Then, more than 2/3 of the way through the book, he finally has a conversation with another one of the main characters, who asks him about how the magic works. He proceeds to spend the next four pages giving a highly technical explanation of how all of the previously mentioned elements of the magic system function and fit together into a larger whole, explaining what is not known about the magic and detailing numerous edge cases and theoretical situations. His audience is understandably confused about where and when and *why* he got a PhD??
Later he explains how he is also three other apparently unrelated historical figures and a zombie. Of course he has a PhD, he’s old enough to be five different people.
