# Depictions of Death in books & film **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [May 2, 2006, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111 "2006-05-02T15:33:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/21 "2006-05-02T20:52:11Z")
_On A Pale Horse_ by Piers Anthony (from the Incarnations of Immortality series) shows death as a human who performs a job function. When ‘in uniform’ death wears a cape, mask and gloves that give him the illusion of being a skeletal figure both in look and feel. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/22 "2006-05-02T21:01:16Z")
I just thought of Final Destination (first movie wasn’t completely bad, but the 2nd sucked really bad and I refuse to see the 3rd one) Death is never actually pictured, it’s just sort of…there causing things to happen. To me that gave it a somewhat creepier feel, that death wasn’t this thing you could see or interact with. That it could be anywhere at any time. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/23 "2006-05-02T22:09:36Z")
> [@Antinor01](#): > > I just thought of Final Destination (first movie wasn’t completely bad, but the 2nd sucked really bad and I refuse to see the 3rd one) Death is never actually pictured, it’s just sort of…there causing things to happen. > > To me that gave it a somewhat creepier feel, that death wasn’t this thing you could see or interact with. That it could be anywhere at any time. Although it is kind of implied that the black dude (the guy from Candyman) might have been Death. ---
**Author:** ![Antinor01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@Antinor01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Antinor01)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2006, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/24 "2006-05-02T22:29:44Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Although it is kind of implied that the black dude (the guy from Candyman) might have been Death. Hmm, I didn’t recall that. But then it’s been a while since I’ve seen it and even at that only the one time. ---
**Author:** ![Humble\_Servant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/47e85d/32.png) [@Humble\_Servant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Humble_Servant)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/25 "2006-05-03T01:18:35Z")
Then there’s Jessica Lange as an Angel of Death (with Ben Vereen as Death’s MC–“Bye-bye my life, good-bye”) in All That Jazz. That was good and very surreal. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/26 "2006-05-03T06:44:39Z")
I kinda liked the _South Park_ death. Your basic skeletal figure in a robe with a scythe, but instead of being a charming, cryptic, or erilie spectral, he was an utter monster—an inarticulate brute who couldn’t even speak, and used his scythe as a crude hatchet to furiously bash down obstacles between him and his target. And he rode a tricycle (hey, think about it. You’re _Death._ By all rights, only things that you _don’t_ ride are silly and wimpy.) I thought it was endearingly unique. That, and the Red Death from _Masque of the Red Death_. (Both the story, and the movie with Vincent Price.) ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 10:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/27 "2006-05-03T10:57:07Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Bother! Let’s try that again: ‘AND HE SPEAKS IN CAPITALS.’ 😃 Exactly. The First Time, You Were Talking Like A Golem. (Which I always envisage as having a slight pause between each word, to the effect that golems don’t talk in sentences.) > [@well he's back](#): > > Sometimes playing chess, Which the Death of the Discworld hates, because he can never remember how the knight moves. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/28 "2006-05-03T16:34:24Z")
I remember watching the sketch in _The Meaning of Life_ where a surly, profane angel comes to collect a food-poisoned dinner party filled with vacuous twits and heaps scornful insults on them in the process. I cracked up a friend of mine by commenting that clearly, Death _needs_ a holiday. [Stephen McHattie](http://www.northernstars.ca/actorsmno/mchattie.html) played a dapper Death in a 1989 episode of _The New Twilight Zone_ and groomed Janet Leigh (in one of her last TV appearances) as his assistant. ---
**Author:** ![well\_he\_s\_back](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/3ab097/32.png) [@well\_he\_s\_back](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/well_he_s_back)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/29 "2006-05-03T20:19:25Z")
Thanks for the responses - Some of the references I’m familiar with; others I’m going to look into. (Gorgon?) It’s time I finally get around to the Discworld, I think. Still fascinates me how we can turn ideas or events such as “Death” into characters. I wonder how its portrayed in non-Western literature. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/30 "2006-05-03T20:25:43Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Hey babe, what’s your sign? Stop sign? or Dead End ? ---
**Author:** ![Logan\_5](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/fbc32d/32.png) [@Logan\_5](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Logan_5)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2006, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/31 "2006-05-03T20:50:45Z")
My favorite embodiment of death has to be from Jean Cocteau’s **Orpheus** played by Maria Casares as The Princess. She is stark and beautiful. Also Death as the dark cloud from Ten Commandments. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/32 "2006-05-04T08:46:18Z")
> [@well he's back](#): > > Thanks for the responses - Some of the references I’m familiar with; others I’m going to look into. (Gorgon?) It’s time I finally get around to the Discworld, I think. Assuredly. You should note that while Death’s speech is represented LIKE THIS, it’s given some more description early in the serious: his tone of voice sounds rather like leaden coffin lids slamming shut in a vast echoing crypt, or some such. And undoubtedly the funniest thing he ever says to an elderly wizard who has noticed Death looking at him in a funny way during a magical ceremony, and has forestalled an untimely visit by shutting himself in a magically sealed coffin with a time-locked lid inside a locked room, with any number of sorcerous wards to keep the Grim Reaper at bay, but has forgotten the importance of airholes in a plan like this, is “DARK IN HERE, ISN’T IT?”. ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2006, 8:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/33 "2006-05-04T08:47:28Z")
“serious” is an antique alternative spelling of “series”, obviously. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Rilchiam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/2bfe46/32.png) [@Rilchiam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rilchiam)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/34 "2006-05-05T12:32:39Z")
“Come, Lady Death” by Peter S. Beagle: > [@](#): > > She could not have been more than nineteen. Her hair was yellow, and she wore it long. It fell thickly upon her bare shoulders that gleamed warmly through it, two limestone islands rising out of a dark golden sea. Her face was wide at the forehead and cheekbones, and narrow at the chin, and her skin was so clear that many of the ladies touched their own faces wonderingly, and instantly drew their hands away as though their own skin had rasped their fingers. Her mouth was pale, where the mouths of the other women were red and orange and even purple. Her eyebrows, thicker and straighter than was fashionable, met over dark, calm eyes that were set so deep in her young face and were so black, so uncompromisingly black, that the middle-aged wife of a middle-aged lord murmured, “Touch of the gypsy there, I think.” First read that as a high school sophomore, and was immediately inspired to try to achieve that level of clarity and smoothness in my own skin. I think staying out of the sun has helped to some extent. ---
**Author:** ![Millit\_the\_Frail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@Millit\_the\_Frail](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Millit_the_Frail)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/35 "2006-05-05T14:29:03Z")
My favorite film representation of Death wears long black robes and sucks at board games. Yes, I adore the Grim Reaper from _Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey_. “Best three out of five!” ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/36 "2006-05-05T16:39:46Z")
> [@gigi](#): > > Stop sign? > or Dead End ? “Bridge Out” ---
**Author:** ![Rocketeer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocketeer/32/4437_2.png) [@Rocketeer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rocketeer)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/37 "2006-05-05T16:43:40Z")
> [@Millit the Frail](#): > > My favorite film representation of Death wears long black robes and sucks at board games. Yes, I adore the Grim Reaper from _Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey_. “Best three out of five!” Let’s see: 1. Electric football 2. Twister I think there were four games, but I’m blanking here; what were the others? ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/38 "2006-05-05T18:34:21Z")
There was also a _Twilight Zone_ episode with Ed Wynn as a traveling salesman who delays Death (a brisk young junior-executive type in a suit and tie, with a briefcase) long enough to let an ailing little girl live. Death takes Ed Wynn instead, and he’s glad to go. Last night, I saw the ad for Kelsey Grammer appearing on _Medium_ as the Angel of Death. That’s gotta be one of the signs of the Apocalypse, right there… ---
**Author:** ![Hal\_Briston](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a9a28c/32.png) [@Hal\_Briston](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hal_Briston)\ **Post date:** [May 5, 2006, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111/39 "2006-05-05T19:46:35Z")
> [@Rocketeer](#): > > Let’s see: > > 1. Electric football > 2. Twister > > I think there were four games, but I’m blanking here; what were the others? _Clue_ and _Battleship_. To the OP, you can find a nice list of what you’re looking for [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_(personification)). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/depictions-of-death-in-books-film/355111.md?page=1)