The Citadel resounded to the voice of CrY4HeLP:
> Read the whole series and still wondering whether Garion is an > immortal like Belgarath is. Can anyone enlighten me on this..... > and...if he is an immortal then what about Ce'Nedra.....or is > Rand just gonna grow old and die. My logic is that since he's > got the Word and the Will...just like the rest of Aldur's > deciples...therefore he should be an immortal just like them. > So what's everyone's take on this?A recent re-read of BtS yielded a fair amount of evidence on this one that can be used as a metaphorical baseball bat. :) It boils down to the following:
1) Not all sorcerers are immortal.
This is not necessarily obvious. However, in BtS, UK pb, Chapter 36, p. 553, Belgarath comments "The fact that he [Chamdar] didn't age over the centuries was an indication of *some* status in Grolim society. He wasn't exactly a disciple, but he was the next thing to it, I suppose." However, a fairly large number of Grolims are sorcerers (Green and Purple grades, IIRC). It's the priest/disciple distinction again, I suppose.
Hence we cannot simply point to the fact that Garion is a sorcerer and say that he must therefore be immortal.
2) Despite the "Bel" prefix, Garion is not necessarily a disciple of any God.
Garath acquired his "Bel" prefix on demonstrating the power of sorcery at the age of about 19, when Aldur accepted him as His pupil. Belgarath first heard Aldur calling him His disciple at the age of 300 or so.
Etc. etc. We've had this debate before. ;)
3) Only the Gods or the Necessities can grant immortality - and it's not automatic even on discipleship.
Fairly obvious. Look at Salmissra - Issa obviously had a shocking memory. (Pol and Salmissra/Arshag does screw things up a bit - but that's another argument ...)
Anyway, the only evidence we're left with of Garion being immortal is therefore Silk's remark at the end of SoK to the effect that Garion has plenty of time to father children, and assorted other random comments about immortality. If you want to look at it from within the story, as it were, this proves nothing because none of the characters really know whether Garion will be immortal. If you take the author's intentions into account, of course, all those remarks were put there for a reason - presumably to suggest that Garion would be immortal, or at least very long-lived.
So, to sum up - Garion probably is going to live for quite some time (presumably for about the same length of time as Cennie, on the happy ending theory), but there's no direct evidence for this.
Written by Kamion