10 Characters Who Feel No Pain

Pain may be annoying, but it’s a natural aspect of life. When you get hurt, you refrain from whatever caused the sensation. Your body essentially sends a cautionary message, thus ensuring your safety. Without pain, your existence would be empty and prone to danger. Fiction occasionally explores that emptiness in an uncanny fashion.

Certain characters feel no pain whatsoever. Oftentimes, its absence means they’re impervious to physical harm. That concept sounds enticing, and some get a kick out of it. In the grand scheme, however, the lack of pain is a pathway to misery. The process usually numbs all the senses, including the positive ones. Characters can have the most pleasurable experiences imaginable yet walk away feeling hollow. The response depends on the person, but it’s hard to imagine this painless power leading to anything but misfortune.

Related: 10 Game Characters That Look Dangerous but Are Nearly Harmless

10 Hector Barbossa

Any pirate worth his salt dreams of treasure. Hector Barbossa certainly does. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl revolves around a chest of Aztec gold. After leading a mutiny against his captain, Barbossa leads his crew of miscreants to Isla de Muerta, where the treasure resides. The plunderers are now rich, but it’s too good to be true.

The treasure holds a horrible curse. Upon taking it from the chest, the robbers become trapped between living and dead. Their flesh fades in the moonlight, and their bodies are stripped of all sensation. Barbossa laments his fate to Elizabeth Swann. Drinks can’t quench his thirst; food can’t satisfy his hunger. Sure, the curse protects him from physical harm, but he can’t derive any satisfaction from that. This pirate becomes a lot happier when he can actually die.^[1]

9 Metallo

Common crooks are no match for Superman. John Corben learns that the hard way. This lowly thug fails to make an impression in the Metropolis underbelly, but that changes when an accident leaves him at death’s door. His body then becomes a subject for sinister experiments. Some iterations make Professor Vale responsible; others trace the scheme to Lex Luthor. Regardless of the perpetrator, the result remains the same.

Corben becomes a supervillain named Metallo. This cyborg adversary sports a metal endoskeleton with human flesh. His power source is a battery made of kryptonite—the very element that weakens Superman. This upgrade makes Metallo uniquely suited to fight the Man of Steel, but it has a drawback. The transformation robs Corben of any sensory stimulation. Simply put, he can’t feel anything. The villain obviously wants to reverse the procedure, but the damage is done. He might as well take it out on Superman.^[2]

8 Baldur

Parents naturally strive to protect their children. Freya takes that mindset to the extreme in the 2018 God of War reboot. The Norse goddess receives a prediction that her son, Baldur, will meet an untimely death. Unwilling to sit back and let her child die, Freya casts a spell on the kid, rendering him immune to all injury. However, this blessing turns out to be a curse.

Baldur can’t feel a thing. He resents Freya for inflicting this fate on him and spends every waking moment trying to undo it. This goal prompts him to seek out dangerous foes like Kratos, the titular God of War, in the hope that their strength might actually hurt him. Crushing pain is better than nothing, but failure only brings him more disappointment and sends him further down the path of madness. A mother’s love can go too far.^[3]

7 Metro Man

It figures a Superman spoof would be sturdy. Metro Man is the do-gooder enemy of Megamind. The supervillain concocts various death machines to destroy his rival, but the hero’s alien physiology protects him from every evil scheme. This advantage mirrors the Man of Steel. While Superman is weak to kryptonite, Metro Man has no such Achilles heel.

The film initially says otherwise, but it’s nothing more than misdirection. Metro Man claims he can’t escape Megamind’s latest trap, stating that copper drains his powers. Of course, this silly excuse is just a ploy. The hero grows disillusioned with the daily grind, so he uses this cheap façade to fake his death. When he shows up later, he’s as invincible as ever. No matter how many objects the characters smash on his head, Metro Man doesn’t budge from his new career path. He may not have any physical weakness, but he’s apparently prone to a midlife crisis.^[4]

6 Nathan Caine

This extraordinary resistance doesn’t always come from convoluted science or magic. Sometimes, it’s a simple accident of birth. Such is the case with Nathan Caine. The protagonist of Novocaine suffers from congenital insensitivity to pain. This neurological disorder effectively cancels the brain’s awareness of pain. Other senses function normally; it’s only pain that’s absent. This disorder’s dangers speak for themselves, as afflicted people are far more susceptible to harm. That philosophy definitely applies here.

Caine is practically a magnet for gore. The villains cut, punch, kick, and stab him countless times. Despite this treatment, he keeps going as if nothing is wrong. The strange phenomenon makes Nathan nervous, but it turns out to be a boon. When his girlfriend is kidnapped by a band of robbers, the unlikely hero soldiers through perils aplenty without batting an eye. The crooks, meanwhile, don’t know what to make of him. Can they really kill a guy they even can’t hurt?^[5]

5 Emily the Corpse Bride

It goes without saying that dead people don’t feel pain. Spiritual implications aside, The Corpse Bride takes that simple fact at face value. The twisted flick begins with Victor the Victorian merchant botching his wedding rehearsal. Practicing his vows in a graveyard, he inadvertently awakens a woman named Emily. This decaying dame announces her spontaneous matrimony to Victor. As creepy as it sounds, marrying a corpse comes with certain perks.

Emily is immune to pain. Being dead, she can handle an exorbitant amount of punishment. It’s not like she can die again, so trivial things like blood loss or dismemberment don’t faze her. While she doesn’t actively seek out danger, this invulnerable trait aids in protecting her beloved. Viewers see that devotion in action when she takes a sword for Victor. It seems Emily’s body is as indomitable as her spirit.^[6]

4 Ajax

Here’s another case of being born without pain, albeit of a supervillain variety. Francis Freeman/Ajax is an antagonist of the X-Men spin-off Deadpool. Like many figures in this universe, he possesses a latent mutant gene, granting him superpowers. The film version experiments on himself to awaken these powers, but the endgame is the same.

Ajax’s gift eliminates his nerve endings. As a result, he can’t feel pain or any other sensation. Deadpool sticks a sword through him without getting the slightest reaction. Francis doesn’t wallow in misery like other examples, though. Instead, he compensates for his deficiency by inflicting pain on his victims. Ajax takes pleasure from his torturous experiments, and his lack of feeling only motivates him to greater heights of sadism. At least he has an outlet for his anger.^[7]

3 Mr. Masochist

The Yakuza series houses countless oddballs. One of the more memorable freaks is a man named Sota Makinohara, better known as Mr. Masochist. As his nickname suggests, he’s a huge fan of pain. The sensation brings him immense happiness and sexually stimulates him, but he’s apparently had too much of a good thing.

When the heroes find him, he’s banging his head against a tree. Overindulgence has dulled his pain, so he can no longer feel it when people hit him. He even invites the protagonists to try; all their strongest attacks leave him totally unaffected. While this tolerance makes him a killer combatant, it means he can’t get his fix. Oddly enough, his salvation comes in the form of a shy convenience store clerk. She moonlights as a dominatrix, so she’s able to reignite his passion for pain. Truly, they’re a match made in kink heaven.^[8]

2 The Black Knight

Pain is a potent ingredient for slapstick, but the lack of it can be just as funny. Enter the Black Knight. This nameless combatant challenges the heroes of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, intending to halt their quest for the divine relic. While the film never states his abilities outright, viewers can make a good guess from his meager screen time.

The Black Knight is a glutton for punishment. His pitiful sword skills are no match for King Arthur, who literally disarms him. Rather than react, though, the Knight keeps coming. This continued assault forces Arthur to lop off his other arm and both of his legs. The armored adversary is soon nothing more than a hopping torso. Blood gushes from his wounds, but it doesn’t bother him in the slightest. On the contrary, he keeps coming back for more. Refusal to quit is admirable, but this guy needs to throw in the towel.^[9]

1 Everyone

At a certain point, the miracles of modern medicine rob the body of any agency. Crimes of the Future explores that possibility. Advancements in biotech alter humanity in unsettling ways, namely in how computers connect directly to people’s bodily systems. Such pioneering techniques cause rapid, uncanny evolution in natural biology. Examples include growing extra organs and the ability to digest plastic. While the effects vary from person to person, one constant seems to be discomfort or lack thereof.

Basically, human beings no longer register pain. Their resilience obviously stems from their excess of medical operations. Of course, they don’t cut back on these procedures; they go under the knife once again. Granted, this reckless behavior is about excitement over necessity. Slicing flesh is now the most effective means of pleasure. In the movie’s own words, “Surgery is the new sex.”^[10]