Ankh-Morpork Assassins' Guild Forum Personifications of Death

When you think of death you probably don't think of someone in a black robe with a scythe. Or maybe you do. Different writers have portrayed the personification of Death in many different ways, especially nowadays. Hope this isn't too morbid for you.

Here are some ways writers have portrayed Death;

Terry Pratchett ('Discworld')--Death is a 'Grim Reaper', a tall skeleton in a suit with a scythe, who used to ride a skeletal horse but since it kept falling apart switched to a flaming horse--however, this one kept setting his cloak and his barn on fire so he eventually switched to a perfectly normal stallion named Binky. Death in Discworld is decidedly human-like; he adopted a daughter and eventually has grandchildren.

Neil Gaiman ('Sandman' graphic novels)--Gaiman's Death is a teenage gothic girl, eternally young, who wears mostly black and has dark hair. She wears an ankh and has a mark similar to the eye of Horus over her eye. She is actually a nurturing character to the Sandman in the series.

Have any of the author's that you read shown Death? If so, how?

In The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (I think) death is the narrator. It's a really sad, depressing book, and I would never recommend it cause I hated it. I thought it was very odd that death was the narrator, so whenever anyone did it had to carry their souls and there is a huge description of what it's like. He tells you the end of the book like in the middle which is extremely aggravating, I kept praying it wasn't true.

I only know about Neil Gaiman's Death. She's my favorite. I'm trying to think of others and there was this one story where Death was a god, but then he got deposed because a lot of the other lesser death gods were maneuvering to unseat him behind his back. Anyway, while he was gone and all his traitorous minions were squabbling behind on who got to sit on his thrown, some magician on earth started sacking cities because he discovered it from the stars that since Death was gone, only the religious deity deaths were left. The people with religions died, the magician realized the loophole, and he started collecting all the mercenary atheists he could find and started  raiding villages and cities.

I just can't remember the author, but the Death here seemed like a regular guy. He even had a housekeeper, got annoyed, and when he got fired from being Death, he walked around farms trying to find job as a farmer since he had a scythe.

ROFL thank you, lordportico...that made my day. 

lol. You're welcome. Hehe...it's feel awesome when I make people happy even though I don't know how I did it.

Well, it's just really gratifying when people talk about my work. A great feeling.

I had to really think about this one.  Well, in Japanese mythology there's a story of Izanami who, I suppose, could be considered a bringer of Death.  Um, to make a long story short Izanami was married to a man named Izanagi.  Izanami, unfortunately, died during childbirth and Izanagi desperately wanted to bring his wife back so he ventured to the underworld in order to find her.  As I understand it, in the process of bringing her back he glanced over his shoulder and saw that his wife wasn't as he remembered her--instead she was hideous as disfigured.  Offended by his reaction, Izanami chased after Izanagi and attempted to murder him but she failed.  Due to her failure she proclaimed that she would kill 1,000 of his people daily. 

You can read a little about it here:

In contemporary Japan, death is often referred to as shinigami or, "god of death".  He appears in many types of literature, which includes manga.  Offhand, manga that references shinigami would be Gundam Wing (in which the character Duo Maxwell was also known as the god of death because of his relentless fighting style) and Death Note. :)

It could also be said that Voldemort from Harry Potter was considered a "Death" of sorts, especially since his followers were called Death Eaters.  To further expand on that statement, because the dementors were also followers of Voldemort it could also be assumed that they are a type of "Death" as well, especially because they suck the joy out of the people they are around and if they so please they could also literally cause death by utilizing their "kiss".

im writing one right now <3

Oh very cool! Tell us when you're done, eh?