For comics, Marvel has regular Death as just like typical grim reaper guy, but Eternity comics had Lady Death who is a human-turned-lord-of-hell. might be nice to get more ladies in there even though I personally think she shouldn’t count (like I think Dead Like Me shouldn’t count :P)

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There is only one god, and that is death. And what do we say to the god of death? Lots of stuff.

The anthropomorphic personification of Death was a staple in western culture long before he she or it appeared in modern media. And of all of the anthropomorphic personifications of concepts, Death is by far the most common.

But why Death? Seldom see personifications for Birth or the Theory of Relativity, or the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

Few things in life are harder to cope with than death, so an easy fictive way to deal with something is to give it... a face. And a motivation. And lo, the death personification is born.

Though Death's modus operandi gets squirrely from depiction to depiction - some just take the souls and don't make the death happen, like Discworld and Dead Like Me, some do. Some make some death happen but not all death, are fueled by it. Some like it, some don't. Often they don't know what follows.

A major thrust in the death personifications as a narrative device is hubris vs. inevitability. Death as a concept is a hard thing to come to terms with, and in fiction we often see characters trying to find ways to weasel their way out of it by pleading with this personification or trying to strike a deal or just avoid it altogether.

Sometimes death him or herself gets a character arc, but for the most part stories with death the character aren't about death, but about who's confronting them.

So unlike, say, Captain America or Starscream, this concept is extremely broad and the characterization is extremely varied in interpretation.

Personification of Death - means of coping with the mere concept of mortality. Something you can fight, something you can be okay with, sometimes even a friend.

So since this character and this topic is so... broad, instead of doing it chronologically like I usually do I'm going to do it a little different.

...as we take a merry jaunt through some of the many pop culture iterations... of Death.

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Let's talk about the history of the death personification -

OG Death

In Greek mythology, for instance, Hades was the Lord of the Dead but Thanatos was death itself. First we must distinguish Death personification from gods like Hades or Osiris or Hel - death related, but not personifications. They look after the spirits of the dead, they don't make the death happen.

The traditional image of Death nowadays is that of a dude in a large billowing black cloak, and usually with a scythe. Which, ironically, is an agricultural tool, and therefore associated with life, although, like a farmer, he is here to take away. The first attested use of the term "the Grim Reaper" was in 1847, hence the scythe - he reaps souls.

This archetype is the most recognized and therefore the most common in the west. In some ways the archetypal grim reaper is a distillation of centuries and centuries of folklore in the same way the Wicked Witch of the West was for the European witch archetype, but in others, not so much. Which leads us to one of the most important questions we can ask about Death...

so is Death a dude or what?

Greek mythology being so influential on Western culture, Thanatos is male, and though mysterious is not considered evil, and also has his counterpart considered female. and his most well known myth is that of king sisyphus tricking him into getting chained up so no one can die. His eventual punishment was the whole pushing boulder up a hill for eternity thing.

This is the origin for many narratives involving tricking death, outwitting death, etc

(bill & ted: melvin death)

Although keres, who is the spirit of VIOLENT death, is female. And, yes, she's more on the evil.

One of the most influential versions of death is the least defined - this being the Christian version as mentioned in the book of Revelation -

He rides a pale horse, and hell followed with him - well, actually, Hades - remember how the Bible had some translation wonk, which we went over back in the Hades episode? This is that.

Continuity!

Because traditional Death personifications vary a lot from culture to culture, just as much as they do from narrative to narrative.

The Grim reaper is traditionally male, though this is not the norm from culture to culture.

Usually death in the parlance of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, an "anthropomorphic personification," and usually this is in takes the form of a pale dude or a skeleton... dude. Usually. But some Deaths aren't traditionally male, or gendered, and sometimes they haven't even been human.

The most well-known instance of a non-human death embodiment is Cù Sìth of Scotland, which is a black dog one sees right before they die.

In Irish mythology we see the - dullahan, which is more of a species unto itself, kind of like leprechauns - head tucked under his or her arm. Have spinewhips?

In Japan the term is shinigami, though what actually constitutes the shinigami and whether or not a shinigami is actually a death personification varies a lot. We'll come back to that.

Sometimes the gender of the nouns (because, unlike English, some languages gender their nouns) plays into how Death is personified. Poland - grim reaper is female as the word for death in Polish is feminine.

Marzanna - Slavic mythology

Death was traditionally female in Lithuania, Spain, France and some Slavic regions up until the 19th & 20th century. Death could be old, young, beautiful, seductive, sometimes dangerous

Lithuania - Giltiné - old, ugly woman with a long blue nose and a poisonous tongue.

In India Yama is the lord of death, but in the Mahabharata - Death created by Brahma to deal with overpopulation and is a... sexy lady with lots of bling.

the queen of the Aztec underworld Mictlan - bear with me... Mictecacihuatl? - Queen of Mictlan, & Mictlantecuhtli - watch over the bones of the dead - eventual marriage to Catholicism & Spanish traditions = Day of the Dead. Some traditions she still presides over contemporary festivals.

A similar related figure is that of Santa Muerte, who, though not recognized by the catholic is the unofficial patron saint of LGbt community. And Mariachi players. Recently Mexico’s second most popular Saint behind Saint Jude. She's seen as a comforting figure, one who guides you into death, welcomes you your eternal home.

Santa Muerte - folk saint - controversial figure - associated with safe delivery to the afterlife - Catholic church (officially) does not like her. She is not canonized. - - and she isn’t even canonized. Devotees = mostly female - she's a comforting figure

Modern Grim Reaper is mostly influenced by England and Germany, where he's called ein Schnitter, not eine Schnitterin - unlike English, where there is no feminine for the word "reaper".

matriarchal societies vs. patriarchal societies - agrarian vs. hunting/warring - can't really draw a consistent parallel

Dances of Death - danse macabre

Breton - Ankou - spirit of the last person who died in the community

Scandinavia - Hel - also a goddess - like Hades, shares a name with her domain

India - Yama - lord of death - rides a black buffalo (remember, in India cows sacred, buffalo not so much) & lassos the living.

Chinese - Yánluó ruled the underworld. Derivative of Yama, like Pluto was from Hades (source?) - wears traditional Chinese judge cap & traditional Chinese robes

Cultures like Scandinavia are still well known in western culture, but not so *embedded*.

Gerhardy Hauptmann - the white savior?

Hebrew bible - Job 5:26, Jer 9:21

Baba Yaga?

In some mythologies, the Grim Reaper actually causes the victim's death by coming to collect them

others - doesn't cause death, but is a guide to the next world,

Conclusion - the cultures that most directly influenced western culture (i.e. Greek, Christian) had death personified as male, therefore male = default.

[death as a thing that can be bargained with]

So Death as a function in narrative - most common is that you can maybe talk death out of doing his job.

It's interesting that Death is very rarely the villain

So, all this is ambling up to one of the most popular modern iterations of death, who comes in the form of a young woman in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series.

In the vein of Santa Muerte she is also a caring, nurturing presence in Dream’s life - he’s the series protagonist -

This Death is a bit more completionist, as she also visits people as they are born.

Appreciates life, appreciates the point of life, is merciful. There's nothing cruel about her, unlike Dream, who's usually an asshole and likes to fuck with your minds.

And contrary to popular belief, she is NOT based on Tori Amos.

Marvel death - another of the rare female versions.

Thanos has a huge death-boner - "I'm going to give you all of the death, and then you'll like me."

Neil Gaiman's version mostly subverts all of the popular character fThe most popular narrative purpose is Death what gets bargained with.

Death off with bribery or tricks, as in the case of Sisyphus, where this trope originates. Obvious this didn't pan out too well for Sisyphus so let's see how it pans out in modern media.

The Seventh Seal

The Seventh Seal, directed by Ingmar Bergman, may be the most well-known and influential works starring death as a main character. It takes place during the black plague after a Swedish soldier gets back from the Crusades.

The chronology for this totally doesn't work. Just go with it.

Antonius, played by Max Von Sydow, meets Death on the beach, and easily talks Death into a game of chess for his life.

Antonius himself says he got the idea from folk stories. According to Bergman, the man playing chess with a skeletal Death was inspired by a medieval church painting from the 1480s in Täby kyrka, Täby, north of Stockholm, painted by Albertus Pictor.

But why is Antonius so eager to cheat death?

“Life is a preposterous horror. No man can live faced with Death, knowing everything’s nothingness.” - ding ding ding

Antonius was never too keen on the whole religion thing, but faced with Death, he is not willing to go down without knowing, you know, what’s it all about.

Death waffles back and forth between darkly comic and gruesome and heavily existential. There's one point where hr shows up to collect some other guy, and he tries to talk Death out of it. Casually, though. Like he's asking for an extension for filing his taxes.

In the end he loses the game, and Death comes for not only him later, but his whole entourage. All of whom react differently to meeting death. Antonius at long last prays, Lisa & husband are nervous but placating, Jons is catty and snippy, and this girl, whose life has been pretty awful, is downright happy to see him.

3:45 “I am Death”

20:46 - “I want god to unconver his face and speak to me.”

22:30 - chess tactics

31:50 - “I saved you from death so you owe me”

1:08 - guy in tree tries to ask for, like, a tax exemption

1:17:30 - “our fears and hers are the same”

1:23 - nothing escapes me

1:32 - reactions to death

Jof sees danse macabre - 1:35

Last Action Hero

This version of death shows again up in Last Action Hero, the entire conceit of which is film characters coming to life. Someone’s watching seventh seal and then whoop, there he is, now played by Ian McKellen and oh my GOD he so Ian McKellen. He seems to just be there to fuck with our heroes. Though he does give the kid some helpful advice.

“he’s not on any of my lists”

Adventure Time

The influence of Seventh Seal reaches far… we see playing against death again in... Adventure Time - which carries also flavors of the myth of Orpheus where our heroes venture into the underworld to bring back his wife. I mean a plant that Finn was tasked with babysitting. And immediately killed.

So like the Seventh Seal, Finn loses and all hope seems lost, but unlike Seventh Seal Finn manages to talk his way out of dying because he and Death happen to have a mutual friend.

When it comes to pop culture adaptations, it’s rare that you see seventh seal-like endings.

Another obvious example is Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, the second entry to the Bill & Ted saga.

- "how's it hangin' death?"

Bill & Ted spend over half of this movie dead owing to robot clones from the future going back in time to kill them.

- "I can't believe we just melvin'd death"

Bill and Ted spend fair chunk of movie meandering through the afterlife before actually getting around to playing him for their lives.

First, battleship. and then Clue because death is a sore loser and then electronic football, and finally, twister

- How much did you pay for this high profile product placement, Milton Bradley?

- "You got a lot to learn about sportsmanship"

Death is obligated to sneak Bill & Ted into heaven to talk god into giving them their lives back.

- "Sorry... they melvin'd me"

- death looks like brain guy more than any other incarnation of death

- is this a first for Death?

- death is extremely beleaguered when he loses.

- why are they dragging death around? he's not helping, he just tags along for some reason

- cigarette smoking guy "see you real soon"-

Curiously they don't lose Death after he does his job, but he... and some alien engineers, tag along to help Bill and Ted save their girlfriends and win the battle of the bands. So this is one of the more complete character arcs we see for Death.

And at first death he’s all insecure because he life, but then he finds meaning in joining the band as a bassist AND melvining the bad guy.

- death is so shocked at "We're gonna kill your girlfriends!"

- "Reaper Rap new planetary craze"

- serial killer: "sooner or later you dance with the reaper"

This line would become famous in the way Helter Skelter did. In that it was later the last words of convicted murderer Robert Alton Harris

?????

Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy

Another in the vein of playing against death and winning we have the Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, in which the two leads challenge the Grim Reaper to a game when he comes to claim their hamster. When Death loses the game, he must become their "best friend forever", though "slave" is a more accurate description, (pause) which is kind of awkward as Billy and Mandy appear to be white americans and Grim has a Jamaican accent.

When the grim reaper appeared to take their hamster's soul, Billy and Mandy made a bet with the ghoul and won. Now, Grim is forced to be their best friend -- a punishment filled with humiliation for the once-omnipotent entity.

The entire series is basically Billy and Mandy forcing Grim to do their bidding while Grim bemoans his horrible lot in life.

In the 90’s and early 2000’s there was a popular trend of child characters getting the better of authority figures, most successful being animaniacs, only instead of like… michaelangelo or the security guard or dr. scratchnsniff it’s… death.

3:20 - I’m just doing my job 10:32 - covers his junk, “I feel so violated”

animaniacs -

this show is impossible to like as an adult because you’re going to relate to grim

2A - :35 “I hate playing with the two of you” 3:20 - “I play with them til my eyes bleed” “let’s go torture the grim reaper”

he doesn’t know how the video game controller works

s3e1 - 2:52 - tortured s3e2 15:00 - “how I despise my rotten lot in life”

youth-oriented media and comedies, for whom the idea of Death is kind of distant, when there’s a game or a competition against death, our heroes are going to win.

Family Guy

“death is a bitch” - “I’m callista flockheart, who do you think I am, I’m death”

Death pops up in Family Guy a few times - in the first episode by Norm McDonald, then in all other appearances by Adam Carolla. First time he shows up is in an episode where peter fakes his death, which in turn makes death decide it's time to come collect him, but when he sprains his ankle, Peter has to fill in for him.

Peter gets out of it, and Death shows up on occasion to answer existential questions… and of course make seth macfarlane jokes.

Death has a mother?

“peter it’s okay, it’s just death” - death of dogs shows up

The Sims

When one of your sims dies, Death shows up

You can bargain with Death to revive the Sim.

You can also romance Death, and with some cheats even have sex with Death.

If you aren’t playing a game with death or making some kind of deal, maybe you’re just straight up trying to escape him.

Twilight Zone

A famous episode of the Twilight Zone features an old lady named Wanda who has started noticing death in crowds, and has spent god knows how many years holed up in her house, refusing to go outside or let anyone in.

But one day she finally does and, yep. “I know who you are.” Yep, sorry wanda, but he’s baaaaaaby Robert Redford how could you resist? He’s like… blue-steeling her.

Wanda isn’t so much bargaining death as fanatically trying to avoid him

so obsessed with avoiding death she stops going outside altogether

“I’d rather live in the dark than not live at all”

death states the obvious - “what you’re afraid of is the unknown”

winky sexy death - “give me your hand”

he’s like blue-steeling at her

“no shock, no engulfment, no tearing asunder.”

Death is such a cinnamon roll! What a great guy to transition people out of this life and into the next.

Masque of the Red Death

1964's Masque of the Red Death, based on the Edgar Allen Poe story of the same name, features another group of people holing up to avoid death, only this death is not such a cinnamon roll.

This is just any death, but a very specific plague. In fact, new to this version, there appear to be a whole rainbow of deaths! Black death, yellow death, green death - it's a death Rainbow Brigade. This movie stars the deliciously hammy Vincent Price both as the evil, heartless ... Satanist? Prince Prospero, and also, eventually, as the red death himself.

The original story takes place during a horrible plague wherein a bunch of rich folks hide in their castle while a the red death ravages the peasantry.

But whereas the Prince and his fellow rich folk in the original story just ignore the suffering, Vincent Price’s Prospero takes it a giant leap further and is a satanist and a sadist. A satandist. A Sadtist

Less a case of trying to bargain with death and more mistaken identity - since Prospero thinks Death is Satan he assumes he’s there to do him a favor rather than kill everyone, which is of course not the case.

Moral of the movie, like the original story, is don’t bother, death conquers all. But with a weird Satanist angle also. For… reasons.

1:21 there appear to be many deaths - black death, yellow death, red death

52:57 - he pops back up again

1:12 - talks to vincent price

vincent price thinks he’s satan and he’s like yaaaay

1:17:04 - death is ruled by no one

ohhhhhh it’s vincent price

1:20:20 - “Why should you be afraid to die? Your soul has been dead for a long time”

1:22:21 -

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Death is a major backstory player in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, where he pops up in Hermione's telling of how our macguffins came into existence.

Here Death feels cheated when three wizard brothers evade a dangerous river that usually killed people - so he told them he’d grant them some wishes in a sort of deal with the devil setup.

numbers one and two die because of their arrogance, but brother three evades death, you know, for a while, but of course not forever since valar morghulis.

Weird that he'd "greet death as a friend" since death gamed the system like that. Maybe he thought his two brothers were dicks, too.

Final Destination Series

The death feels cheated motif is more central to the plot in the Final Destination series - death gets cheated out of Devon Sawa and some classmates of his due to a premonition. Here death falls on the less human end, more of a devious translucent swoosh than a legit personification, but Death is an antagonist that schemes and has a presence so I'm counting... it. So the entirety of the final destinations is the cast dying in spectacularly silly ways. (RGH getting slammed with a car). Throughout the series some of the characters manage to contrive some ways to escape death's plan, but for the most part the theme is that you can't cheat death.

Of course there are times when people don’t even bother.

Monty Python’s Meaning of Life

Monty Python’s Meaning of Life follows in the Douglas Adamsian tradition of exploring human existence through absurdism. The joke being about people’s inability to face uncomfortable truths.

This is a common theme in comedy from the UK.

“darling, you didn’t use canned salmon, did you?” “I’m so dreadfully embarrassed”

But this is not to say that Death doesn’t have opinions.

“You always talk, you americans”

“englishmen you’re all so fucking pompous, none of you have got any balls”

Anyway, on to the afterlife.

Another popular concept in recent years is that of there being a bunch of reapers on a payroll and death being this big bureaucratic enterprise.

Death the Bureaucracy

Dead Like Me

In Dead Like Me, the dead sometimes become grim reapers and it’s treated like a mind-numbing nine to five, playing what amounts to indentured servitude as a bad temp agency.

Reapers don’t appear to have much in the way of powers, they just take the souls. Things called gravelings appear to do the work of killing.

It has... aspirations of cleverness.

*facepalm*

Yeah I know a lot of you guys love this show I just… … ??

black butler

We see a similar style organization in the anime Black Butler, this one much more explicitly bureaucratic with an almost men-in-blacky way of going about things.

story of will the reaper - "IT'S ONly a job - there is no place for joy in a job"

These reapers were never human, and when people die, the reapers collect the souls and the souls come out like celluloid - this being all their memories.

They each get a scythe, often anachronistic, like the celluloid so just roll with it.

Also this guy is the most popular of the reaper characters by a lot.

Sebastian, like Pratchett death, also has a cat thing

wench 19:19 "I'm the very queen of fruits! the ripest of reapers, yes!"

Oh, Japan. And no this isn’t just coding, this guy has a huge crush on the titular butler. Moving on!

Deal with Death - Death has a motivation other than his job - Death learns about life via love - Death wanting to understand life

Death sometimes has motivations other than his or her job - we often see Death wanting to learn about a thing or understand a thing…

The Book Thief

In the book thief, Death wants to contextualize a life, that of Liesl, who was a German schoolgirl during WW2 and who he saw a lot in that time, since she was in Germany during WW2.

First person narrative by a character who’s not the main character, like the great gatsby or heart of darkness… and who isn’t really in the story so it’s not much like those at all

Obviously since it’s a POV thing in a story in which death is not a character AT ALL… like he doesn’t show up to give her helpful advice or make her a dress to wear to the ball or something, this works way better in the book

like seriously movie why even bother including that element

but usually death wanting to learn a thing ends up with Death... getting a girlfriend.

The Death and the Maiden motif dates back to the mid eighteenth century, and was a popular art motif.

German poet Ludwig Gleim wrote a poem called “to Death”, the basic thrust being that Gleim is mad that death is trying to steal his girls because his love interests kept dying young, so clearly it was because death had a hardon for them. He’s like brah you don't even have lips bruh, why you taking my girl.

So death and the maiden is like a distant cousin to the beauty and the beast motif, that of death as a lover. Usually the maiden isn’t afraid of him.

Death the lover - Gottfried August Buerger's ballad Lenore (1773)

Death and the Maiden - Matthias Claudius (1824) - he's friendly here (or at least consensual)

Terrifying seducer - Baldung Grien,

Munch - "The maiden and death" - he's welcomed

"Death and the young woman" - Ferdinand Barth

Gleim's poem "To Death" (Anden Tod) -

I suspect the appeal of death the lover is the same as the appeal of king kong and ann darrow

death the bride - contrast to death/maiden - corpse bride

Mother Earth/Father Time - father time often portrayed with a sickler

cocteau's play orphée 1927 - death = madame - made into film in 1949

Death Takes a Holiday - Death & the Maiden

Some wealthy idiots have a near death experience, and Death decides to stick around because he wants to know why mortals fear him, and so makes a deal with this Duke to stay with his place and eat his stuff and just jerk off for a bit. Duke is pretty chill about it.

20:45 - “can you conceive how weary I am of being misunderstood?”

“can you conceive how lonely I am?” Death starts a livejournal.

his main love interest is grazia, who seems to see marriage as a form of death - “I’m not ready”

See, all the other girls fear him, but not Grazia. So when at the end Death straight up says, no, you have to die to come with me, she’s like. No, it’s cool. I get it and I’m down.

AND SHE DOES. And it’s honestly kind of awesome. You go Death.

9:45 - grazia likes living on the edge - duke wants her to “be a good little daughter in law”

11:30 - “life will tame her first”

36:40 - he’s so happy he’s not killing the flower

Death seems pretty blase about the shirking of his duties

1:05 - Duke explains who he is in the most melodramatic way possible

1:15 - Grazia gets it, such as it were - she doesn’t fear death

1:17 - “when I call, come bravely through that shadow”

“then there is a love that casts out fear”

Death takes a holiday was agonizingly remade into...

Meet Joe Black

IT. IS. TWICE. AS. LONG. KILL ME.

In this version Anthony Hopkins successfully lobbies Death for some more time. the irony of this movie is how much it makes you long for death. (Brad Pitt - car)

This works so much better in the original because the characters are all dancing on the weird formalities of european aristocracy, so everyone’s weird, stilted behavior makes more sense.

Here it’s just…

The Monty Python scene was more realistic.

Also Death is a taunting prick.

22:05 - how was this meant to be anything but hilarious. also he was crossing for like a full 90 seconds without a walk sign. Darwin award.

43:35 - peanut butter scene

right off this would be a lot better if anthony hopkins had been the love interest, because he’s the one that goes with Death at the end, because it’s his time.

The maiden does NOT follow death into the great beyond. So on top of being agonizingly long and boring this one is less awesome.

I saved the best for last, as I think few would argue that Terry Pratchett’s Death ... the Death of… … there is no good way to phrase that.

THE BELOVED CHARACTER created by Terry Pratchett in his Discworld series, not only the most fleshed out, so to speak, but a combination of all of the above.

Death has appeared in every Discworld novel, though he was a main character only in five of them. He does the occasional “play games with you for your life” thing, was originally a more sinister presence but by the time he was a lead character, he had a more sympathetic and humorous personality.

Horse is named Binky because it’s a “nice name.”

Has an adopted daughter?? Ysabell said that "He didn't feel sorry for me, he never feels anything... He probably thought sorry for me."

This is in no way supported in the narrative as Death feels LOTS of stuff. he plot of Soul Music is put into motion by Death’s ennui.

His "voice" is often described using a morbid metaphor, such as two concrete blocks being rubbed together, or the slamming of coffin lids;

Maskerade - Granny Weatherwax successfully plays against death for a child’s life, granny has four queens, death concedes with four ones (aces).

Death’s jurisdiction is over Discworld - part (or minion) of Azrael, universal death

Death of rats, Grim Squeaker -created during reaper man, Death kept him around for company

death of fleas

Discworld books with Death as a leading character, starting with Mort in 1987, are:

Mort - 1987

Reaper Man - 1991

Soul Music - 1994

Hogfather - 1996

Thief of Time - 2001

As such, translations of early novels sometimes refer to Death as a woman. This is generally changed, by the time of Reaper Man. Also, the personification of Death varies from country to country leading to further confusion, for example the Russian personification is that of an old woman, the Czech version uses a (normally non-existent) male variant of the usually female word for death for his name. Explanations are given in footnotes, often with a pun.[7]

Terry Pratchett even says in The Art of Discworld that he has received a number of letters from terminally ill fans in which they hope that Death will resemble the Discworld incarnation (he also says that those particular letters usually cause him to spend some time staring at the wall).