DEATH's Literary origins

This is a follow-on to my previous posting about DEATH the character.

Basically Terry Pratchett's Death and DEATH are both parodies of other personifications of death and we've both used pop-culture references as a starting point but ended up in different places.

I drew on similar sources to Pratchett, especially Bergman's The Seventh Seal and was aware of Death Takes A Holiday (Although possibly not the same remake as Pratchett used as a basis for Reaper Man) & obviously have read Pratchett. I was definitely influenced by psychopomps like Tarakeshwara & Charon.


In The Colour of Magic, the first Discworld novel, Death followed Rincewind around annoyed that Rincewind had missed their "appointment" DEATH would simply come back later, although he dislikes defibrillators considering them a tease.

While Death mocked the idea of playing chess against the living, DEATH would just have stared at the board in incomprehension as it would never interfere in the process nor have any comprehension why it should. DEATH would never rescue and adopt a baby nor train a human apprentice.

Death seems to identify as male, DEATH has neither sex nor gender identity. I don't know if this makes a difference.

I have no idea if DEATH has an abode, but if it does it won't be a deliberate parody of a horror movie set. I've long considered how H. R. Giger in his airbrush period would have designed a great abode for either DEATH or a more professional Death.

As DEATH says on it's website "DEATH is THE psychopomp for the 21st century. DEATH is your death."