Is Death in Discworld?
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Death is a fictional character in Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series and a parody of several other personifications of death. Like most Grim Reapers, he is a black-robed skeleton usually carrying a scythe. His jurisdiction is specifically the Discworld itself; he is only a part, or minion, of Azrael, the universal Death. He has been generally used by Pratchett to explore the problems of human existence, and has become more sympathetic throughout the series.
Death (Discworld)
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Death has appeared in every Discworld novel, with the exception of "The Wee Free Men" and "Snuff", and had a possible cameo at the end of "Johnny and the Dead" (the character was not identified, but spoke in unquoted small caps). The Discworld books with Death as a leading character, starting with "Mort" in 1987, are:
Death (Discworld)
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In many ways, he epitomizes the bleakness of human existence. In "Reaper Man", in which he is rendered temporarily mortal (or at least the imagination of being mortal, since his state of being "it/death" is, as mentioned in Discworld Noir, constant), he becomes frustrated and infuriated with the unfair inevitability of death, a theme that continues through later books. In "Soul Music" he expresses misery at the fact that he is capable of preventing deaths but is forbidden to do so; during his time as the Hogfather, he uses his new dual role to save a little match girl from dying of the cold by giving her the 'gift' of a future, thus allowing him to avoid the usual complications that arise from him breaking the rules. Despite his general lack of emotion, the Auditors of Reality are one of the few things actually capable of angering him. He also gets angry upon hearing of Rincewind: In "Eric", for example, his eyes turn red at the mention of Rincewind. 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).
Death (Discworld)
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Death's Domain is the home of one of the series' principal characters, Death. It is shaped by human expectation and Death's own attempts to have (for a lack of a better word) a life beyond his allotted task. "Death's Domain" () is also a Discworld Mapp, drawn by Paul Kidby, with additional material by Pratchett and Stephen Briggs. In the live-action adaptations of "Hogfather" and "The Colour of Magic", the same Victorian country home was used for exterior shots of Death's house.
List of dimensions of the Discworld
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Death's hollow, peculiar voice is represented in the books by unquoted ; since he is a skeleton, he has no vocal cords to speak with, and therefore the words enter the head with no involvement from the ears. His "voice" is often described using a morbid metaphor, such as two slabs of granite being rubbed together, or the slamming of coffin lids; these descriptions have become less frequent in later novels. In the first Discworld novel, "The Colour of Magic", as well as in "Eric", all pronouns referring to Death are capitalized; thus, for example, "he" is written as "He". This is usually reserved for the Discworld gods and is not featured in any of the other novels.
Death (Discworld)
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Characters that often appear with Death include his butler Albert; his granddaughter Susan Sto Helit; the Death of Rats, the part of Death in charge of gathering the souls of rodents; Quoth, a talking raven (a parody of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven", although it flat-out refuses to say "Nevermore"); and the Auditors of Reality, personifications of the orderly physical laws and the closest thing Death has to a nemesis. Death or Susan appear as the main characters in five Discworld novels. He also appears in the short stories "Death and What Comes Next", "Theatre of Cruelty" and "Turntables of the Night".
Discworld
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The initial books did not pronounce themselves about the sex of Death, although Ysabell called him 'Daddy', using the pronoun "it". In "Mort" Death's pronoun is given as "he" and "his" without the special capital as in the earlier books. In "Reaper Man", Death is unambiguously identified as a male, and in "Soul Music" and "Hogfather" Susan calls him her grandfather or "Granddad". When asked to describe Death, in the second Discworld computer game, the protagonist Rincewind hazards a guess, "Well, I suppose he's a man. You have to look at the pelvis, don't you?" In the comic strip adaptation of "Mort", Death is seen in mirrors as a black-bearded human wearing a black cloak, a look he takes when he needs to be seen by the living.
Death (Discworld)
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Azrael, also known as the Great Attractor and the Death of Universes, is apparently not a worshipped god on the Discworld, but he exists nonetheless, and is an entity of enormously unthinkable scope and size. While in the "Discworld" novels there are many 'Deaths' for different worlds (themselves divided into Deaths for different creatures), Azrael is their ruler. All other Deaths are aspects of him (a similar relationship to that between the Discworld Death and the Death of Rats).
Discworld gods
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Albert (originally known as Alberto Malich) is Death's manservant, butler, and cook. Once a wizard and founder of the Unseen University, he attempted to gain immortality by reciting the Rite of AshkEnte (a ritual to summon Death) backwards, believing this would force Death to stay away from him. Instead it brought him directly to Death's Domain. Since time in Death's Domain does not flow in the same way as it does on the Discworld, Albert succeeded, in a way, at gaining immortality. Before returning to the world during "Mort", "Albert" had 91 days, three hours and five minutes of Time left on the Disc, most of which he spent shopping and using the soap and baths at the ""Young Men's Reformed Cultist of the Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth's Association"" (Death is not very good at making plumbing). As of "Hogfather", he has only a few seconds left, and can no longer leave Death's side. Albert is a highly idiosyncratic cook, believing everything needs to be fried to get rid of the germs, including porridge.
Death (Discworld)
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The Death of Rats has appeared in the animated "Soul Music" and in the radio play of "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents", but has not been given a voice credit for either. In the "Hogfather" TV series the voice was credited to Dorckey Hellmice (an anagram of Michelle Dockery who played Susan Sto Helit in the same TV series), while in the "Discworld 2" game, the voice is credited as Katherine the Crocodile. The Death of Rats also appears in Discworld Noir.
Death (Discworld)