Discworld's Death is by far my favorite interpretation. Favorite quote: "Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
I can't believe she identified the discworld death as utterly awesome but didn't highlight how amazing he is in Mort where he is first introduced and the nature of his existence as an anthropomorphic personification is really highlighted...
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape. external-preview.redd.it/apr9GPA8O-dxj5LfHhb29I3pZX_-FCbi5lfirNmkp3Q.jpg?auto=webp&s=76de4f9fa9a8110916a87e0f532bfac9c1e2e255
I find great comfort in interpretations of death as a kindly, even human like figure who eases people into the afterlife. Its why i like Terry Pratchett's version so much, even if he is rather blunt at times.
N G and why would death be a snarling cruel spirit? Everything dies; it’s sad. No need to be a prick about something universal. So I love the characterization of a “ kindly death”
I'm kind of in the middle about it. I like to think he treats the deceased differently depending on what type of person they are, if they are a kind but fearful soul re will re-assure them that a better place lies right ahead, but if they are an inconsiderate selfish soul he will openly scold them and assert his dominance to punish them. Like an ambassador from both heaven and hell, he reflects the people he comes to take away, that's my theory on him.
I find Terry Pratchett's death brilliant , he has a brilliant character development and becomes more human and how he even tries to make the actual death nicer, I also like the afterlife that Pratchett created.
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER. Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night. ----------- Yeah ... departing this world as equals.
GNU Terry Pratchett is baked into the source code of parts of the internet's backbone, meaning it is invisibly woven into the underlying code of many, many websites. His name will continue to bounce back and forth across the internet for the foreseeable future. imo it's a near perfect memorial.
Only Sir Terry Pratchett could write a scene where Death makes me cry by NOT taking someone. "And what greater gift is there, than a future?" F#%I*&@% you, HCA, the Little Match Girl LIVES!
In my native language (and culture), Italian, Death is a female persona because the word itself has the female gender: la Morte. And sometimes Morte is represented as a beautiful lady, mostly from poets.
@Madalin Grama Yeah, it always surprise me how I can almost understood romanian, when I hear it by accident XD I'm french by the way, and I found french and romanian are somewhat close ^^
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In Spanish death is also a feminine word but I cannot think of anything outside of Mexico that represents the concept as female.
In portuguese is also Female, Saramago even wrote a book about it. Where, pretty much, Death goes on strike and nobody dies. It's more about how humanity would deal with not dying, than death itself.
You can't give her a sword. It's not safe. ITS A SWORD. ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE. The first time I read that scene took me an hour because I had to keep putting the book down because I was laughing so fucking hard I couldn't read through my tears. He tries so hard. It's so freaking endearing.
Agreed. If you can find them, look for her starring in "Grown Up Wednesday Addams." I'm in love with that character. Don't look at me like that. Lots of people are in love with fictional characters.
How is everybody so slow on the uptake? Yes, these are re-uploads from the League of Supercritics channel so they can now all be in one place on a channel Lindsay actively manages, rather than sitting on an unattended derelict channel where they can all be flagged for copyright one by one.
I always thought that Death was would be a comforting figure. After you die, they greet you and guide you to the afterlife. Imagine how frightening and lonely it would be to make that journey by yourself. I would want to greet Death like a friend.
YOU SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR-VIMES EXPERIENCE. DON’T MIND ME. CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU WERE DOING. I HAVE A BOOK.
Death of the endless is my personal favourite interpretation. She is motherly, kind, and human in a series that everybody seems apathetic at best, borderline sociopathic at worst, which makes her stand out all the more.
Soul Music and Hogfather being 3 hours long doesn't feel wrong, at least to me, because they fall into the British tradition of adapting things into series- (there was a BBC Radio 4 version of Guards Guards- where Death is credited as Himself, which also runs to 3 hours). Hogfather's a different beast being a later Sky adaptation, but Soul Music and the animated version of Wyrd Sisters (made at the same time by the same people, and which Death also turns up in) were broken into 6 half hour episodes, which makes the whole thing feel different- especially when you remember they came out about 20 years ago when we didn't have streaming, so at the time, you got your half hour of Discworld and had to wait a week for your next fix.
I'm so pleased that someone defended Hogfather the miniseries, it's by far one of my favourite adaptations. It has a lot of filler but it's all charming, entertaining filler.
The BBC Radio adaptations of Discworld books are really good. (And so is Nation, btw. I haven't read that book, unlike the Discworld books which I have read all of them, but Nation is amazing as a radio play.) To anyone who haven't heard them, I'd suggest keeping an eye on BBC's web site for when they return for a re-run, which they seem to do now and then. I'm not a great fan of the movie adaptations, with the exception of Going Postal, which I think gets it mostly right and ends up being pretty good. The others are too over the top IMHO. When I read the books, they are incredibly funny (I think I literally laughed out loud repeatedly when reading all of them), but I still find them very grounded. To me, the best thing about Discworld is how human the characters are. And yes, how funny it is, but not at the expense of the characters, except maybe in the first books, but I started with those as a teenager so it didn't bother me so much then. I instantly fell in love with the series.
I live both of these, but 3 hours can sometimes feel a bit long in one sitting if it's not brokenupa certainway. Though I agree it makes a lot of sense since that's a common thing for British television. I wish there was a full series (like 10 episodes or so) of shorter episodes of the Hogfather or other Terry Pratchett works.
The Book Thief (the book, not as much the movie) is super easily my favorite depiction of Death ever :) Gah, I love that book so so much!! And, though the characters and story itself are beautiful and heartbreaking, I really do think it's the brilliant use of Death as a narrator that puts it a cut above most other books for me.
Adding to "not technically wrong" - in Russian books he speaks in all caps letters, because Russian print tradition rarely uses small caps. They are pretty much useless as a subtle emphasis instrument in our language because practically all letters are drawn the same way in upper and lower cases. So reading Death lines in original for the first time was a surprising change of tone - from loud and almost screaming to weighted and calm.
Hm. I disagree about Dead Like Me having a tone problem. I mean, I love that show, so might be biased, but it's primarily a dark comedy. Also, the juxtaposition of the mundane afterlife with the sometimes gruesome deaths is meant to highlight how much death is a part of normal life. And it's funny. And sometimes sad. And sometimes moving. Which is also like real life.
Seems to me she is just making petty jabs. See her comment about 'indentured servitude' and the similar jab she made about Billy and Mandy because, something, something, slavery.
I also disagree about DLM having a tone problem, however it was canceled after two seasons, leaving a lot of loose ends (the movie does not count) and the tone and explicit language might have had to do with the cancelation. It had a very niche audience. I honestly think it would have done better if it had come out post-streaming era of television.
Clearly DLM has a big fan base that it did not reach in time to prevent it's cancelation. I agree that it did not have a tone problem as much as it had a.. marketing problem.
One of my favourite things involving Death is when they brought back Barry Allen from being dead in the comics. It was revealed that he had literally been outrunning Death for however many decades. The Flash didn't die because he literally just outran death. Comics are dumb.
I wish Lindsay had included Death from Supernatural. I seriously enjoyed at least his first appearance and how he was portrayed, and had the legion of reapers aspect as part of his character.
TP's incarnation of DEATH: Fastest harvester of wheat anyone ever thought they saw, and they couldn't help but wonder how he did it when he only ever cut one stem at a time.
There are two versions of death that i really enjoy in the Supernatural show. There are the reapers who are kind but have a job to do, and you see Dean take on the role as a reaper and lets his emotions run him. And you see him make decisions that affect peoples lives in the long run. He is faced with mortality of it all. Then there is Death himself who is a patient well thought out brilliant man. Who finds little to no amusement in the ways of humans because as he says "I'm actually a great deal older then god. And i will be here long after him"
Sacha Jewell I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you. Yeah- Julian Richings is the by far the best Death, and I’m so disappointed Lindsay didn’t include him.
Not to contradict you or anything, and I love Supernatural's Death too, but when does he say that? I remember him answering Dean's question of "I gotta ask. How old are you?" Death: "As old as God. Maybe older. Neither of us can remember anymore."
I loved the take on "games against death" in maskerade. In the novel the witch granny weatherwax finds herself being asked to save the lives of two individuals, an innkeepers infant son dying of a sickness, and a valuable cow. Death, however, has come for one. The boy. She arranges for a single hand of poker to decide the outcome, and death, despite having a winning hand, deliberately flunks, taking the cow instead of the baby. "I LOSE. ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES"
You managed to make me cry with this one. Damn you! And thank you - Sir Terry Pratchett was a sore loss for me. Now, if you don't mind, I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
Ah, a good spanish literature that makes death a more unique (ish) character is José Saramago's: "Las Intermitencias de la Muerte" (The intermittences of Death) which portrays death as a female. I don't know if a good english translation exists, since his style of writing is very unique, such as starting dialogue midsentence by just putting a capital letter. So spoilers As a woman, death falls in love with this old man, she chooses to stay with him, and the next day, no one is able to die. They don't get healed, if you get in a car crash, you are contorted and broken, but alive. old age will continue, but you will not die. so it explores death as a political and crime state, were mafias formed to take people accross the border, so they may die. If you don't really care for spoilers, I still recommend giving it a read.
That's the problem when you have a great book and try to make a film of it - one runs up against the ever-decreasing attention span of the unwashed masses, and is forced to condense it until it becomes a barely-recognizable shadow of its former self.
@@ryanahr2267 Basically, the first few books aren't a good example of why Discworld is so amazing. I'd recommend starting with either 'Guards! Guards!' or 'Small Gods'. Hope that helps!
+Rebeca A. Agreed! 100%! I love Death from the Sandman, she's one of my favourite characters of all time and I would have to say that that version of Death is probably the most realistic to what I believe death to truly be in our world.
Love your videos! I was so hoping you would include The Book Thief -- and you did! My other favorite incarnation is Shacath/The Angel of Death from American Horror Story Asylum. It's one of the few incarnations I can think of portrayed as a woman in pop culture. Her Death is calming and nurturing, greeting a lot of the characters as friends or rescuing them for horrible circumstances.
Marvel's Death is an interesting case, as it is no set entity, in the 50s and 60s it went around as man and would commonly be seen as a human in Jim Starlin's stories. Death treats every individual differently depending on how they view it, treat it as a friend like Mar-Vell then it will be kind, view as something you love but you also feel unworthy of receiving love then it will come to you like it did Thanos
I'm a little disappointed Der Tod from Elisabeth Das Musical wasn't featured. He fits roughly into the Death and the Maiden trope, but there's a little bit of a spin in that he wants Sisi (Empress Elisabeth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to leave her husband (Franz Joseph) and mortal life and follow him willingly. She, feeling herself cheated of freedom both by Death's fixation on her, and by her very prescribed existence as a Habsburg matriarch, continues to live largely out of spite. He kills off her loved ones, including her son, in an effort to drive her insane... It's a trip. And all in the form of a musical, which is sometimes performed in drag (depending on the company).
Lindsay Ellis, I thank you so much for your videos. I only discovered this channel a couple weeks ago, and am so glad I did. Such intelligent, well-delivered, entertaining cultural critique is a joy to encounter. So, thank you. Also, praise Sir Terry Pratchett.
minor correction: the red haired reaper in black butler, grelle, is a trans woman. straight from the manga-ka herself. trans rights yall! ps. im surprised you didn't cover death in marvel comics, Deadpool's on again off again love interest
Probably because the ANIME is different (notice how the anime were never human, whilst the manga eventually gives us backstory for how they came to be reapers) and also the anime doesn’t seem to care about the distinction or anything.
@@phastinemoon If you're saying that Grelle's gender is different in the anime... She pretty explicitly calls herself a woman multiple times throughout the anime so I'm not really sure what point you're making here.
This video immediately sent me to Hulu to watch the last five minutes of Robert Redford as Death. It makes me winsome smile every time. I'm already a huge Pratchett nerd so you saving his Death for last makes me super happy. Reaper Man is one of my favorite books. Thanks for this video, Lindsay.
I still wish there had been room in this for Animaniacs' "Meatballs or Consequences," which is heavily influenced by "The Seventh Seal." Yakko and Dot play Death (checkers, as Yakko can't play chess) for Wakko's life, or at least the ability to tag along so they can stay together. The Sibs cheat, so Death claims them as well, but then all three drive Death crazy so he lets them all live.
This is my favorite Loose Canon episode so far! I just love the scope of it, and how many historical and literary aspects of Death as a character (abstract, anthropomorphic or otherwise!) Lindsay manages to cover in this. Her technical skill in putting videos like this together has been pretty rock-solid for quite a long time (she HAS been doing this for a living for about a decade now), but what I REALLY love about this show in general is the topic format of covering a character or concept and its uses and appearances throughout history, which I hadn't previously seen anyone do - at least, not in the way SHE'S been doing it. It does seem overall pretty unique, as shows of this type go, which is awesome - YT NEEDS more content creators who think outside the box like this :D Also... *ahem*, I gotta add, Lindsay makes one wicked sexy Goth... I've had a lil crush on Lindsay since her Channel Awesome days as the Nostalgia Chick, so I've always found her really pretty, but goddamn, does she look amazing here! Freakin' HOT. :)
So.... no Marvel Comics' Mistress Death? I mean, you did go over the whole gender of Death thing. I would think you might touch on the cool and disinterested feminine Death who serves as the object of obsessive desire for Marvel's most notorious villain. I mean, there's also the ridiculously oversexualized Lady Death elsewhere in comics, but I think Marvel's possibly-hallucinatory personification deserves a pretty strong mention.
I know it's old vid. But one interpretation of "death" that i really, REALLY loved was Anubis on the American Gods! He has such a serene and warm presence. On the series, the episode that starts with his "coming to america" was.. Well, i may had shed a tear.
I only made it through season one of the show but it was solid. I wish the book hadn't been written like a dry, soulless medical journal. A coworker I had at the time essentially forced me to read it because she was so hyped for the show that wasn't out yet and it was an absolute slog for me. I've only read one other book of his, a collection of short stories, and I literally only bought that for A Study in Emerald. That short story remains the only thing by Gaiman that I've enjoyed.
Death's character needs no arc. It's form is dictated by the response to itself. I think that Twilight Zone episode does a good job at representing this idea. Great video.
Actually the Grim Reapers from Black Butler were [SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS] originally humans who committed suicide. The whole thing's Christian mythos, and killing oneself is a sin, right? This is the punishment! Eternity working an apparently kind of shitty job.
Cool Arthur Kirkland icon Kelsey, and I was just stating information. Black Butler is clearly based around Christian mythos for the most part, so going by that standard to make the connect. I just wish she'd done a touch more research before making the reference, or going with something she wanted to do more research into. And Black Butler is set when Queen Victoria of England is still ruling the country, not to mention the rules of that age seem to be a lot more Old Testament type in general rather than "Jesus loves everyone". Hardline hellfire and everyone being consistently fucked no matter what.
"When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting. When the last living things dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave."
I LOVE Terry Pratchet's death. He's one of my favorites. that particular incarnation had his own story, daughter, and beloved pony lol. I also really love the rappers from Dead Like Me.
There are so many depictions of death in media that covering them all would take forever. Secondly, Lindsay isn't a huge anime fan. She doesn't really cover most things in anime.
This video is about the Grim Reaper, about Death, as the western Anglo/Germanic depiction. .. So why would she talk about shinigami, spirits from Japanese religion/culture?
TheMrVengeance Because Shinigami are cultural imports from Europe. Shinigami didn't exist in Japanese mythology until Japan had more exposure to western culture and beliefs, and the idea of death as a being was borrowed and made to work within the context of Japanese mythology. Not to mention that shinigami are highly inconsistent throughout every depiction, in both mythology and pop culture, and in a lot of cases the word "shinigami" is simply used as the Japanese word for "grim reaper", such as in the case of Soul Eater or Black Butler, and many other manga and anime. Death Note just happens to be one of the more interesting depictions, in which the Shinigami are shown to live in a perpetual state of boredom and listlessness, where one gets mocked for even doing their job. Plus the three main Shinigami are fascinating depictions of Death in their own right, and Rem in particular fits into the depiction of Death falling in love with a woman that Lindsay talked about in this video. Not to mention Ryuk sharing that theme of Ennui with Terry Pratchett's depiction of Death.
This is like how older sitcoms always worked in a day-at-the-beach episode. Excellent essay as always, but Lindsay dressed appropriately to talk about Death is edifying for the eyes as well. 😍
Discworld actually changed my outlook on death, in such a good way. Changed my outlook on a lot of things, really. ....read Discworld, if you haven't, it's good
Only thing I can think of that you missed is Death from Supernatural. He's a pretty interesting character and his entrance into the show is super cool. They killed him a few seasons ago because that's apparently a thing.
Every time I see a scythe I am reminded of either: A) The Grim Reaper, or B) Sailor Saturn from "Sailor Moon," since she has one at the top of her staff (fitting since she is the soldier of Death and Rebirth, as well as the fact that in Roman/Greek mythology, Saturn was the god of the harvest and agriculture)
hmm, I find you glissed on the whole "gender of death" problem a little too easily. The fact that the word "death" is grammatically female in lots of languages with a lot of mothertongue speakers means that a large portion of humanity visualize death as a woman; also, the skeleton-with-scythe representation is not necessarily sexualized, so it is normally perceived as woman in those countries. My point is, if you go beyond anglocentric culture, you're bound to finde lots of woman-deaths. This is not to say the video isn't interesting.
I don't think grammatical gender really has much to do with a cultural perception of masculinity or femininity. French speakers don't think of a house as a girl, it just happens that “la maison” sounds better than “le maison”, and “la” is also the article used for female people and animals. This is a simplification, but you get the idea. You could still be right about cultures seeing death as a woman, but I wouldn’t conclude that just on the linguistic point.
Yes I find this interpretation about why this or that word is feminine or masculine to be redundant because almost it ultimately doesn't actually mean anything.
However there is not that much correlation between these languages and these perceptions, in Spanish, death is also a feminine word but most Spanish speakers have been fully accustomed to the skeleton scythe archetype
@@fellinuxvi3541 Err, I think you mean "most Europaen Spanish speakers". In Mexiko, La Muerte is a very popular figure (I kinda wished The Book of Life had come out earlier so Lindsay could have covered it).
Gender for things in neo-latin languages is quite weird. Whilst I agree most spaniards don't think in Death as female just because the pronoun is femenine, there is this one case I always found fascinating with the word for "sea," "mar." It usually uses the male pronoun "el mar," yet sailors tended to personalize it as a lover of sorts and changed it to "la mar," with a female pronoun instead. So you find yourself in this strange situation in which "el mar" doesn't really have any gendered implications besides sounding better to our ears, yet "la mar" is very much intentionally gendered as a representation of those men's relationship with the sea.
There are soooo many versions it would be insane to expect you to have talked about them all (Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Incarnations of Immortality). Thank you for another excellent romp through the genres. You do good work.
Not touched upon in this episode but perhaps you could do a loose canon on Empress Elizabeth (from Austria). There is a musical about Elizabeth where Death has a major role in it. It's a play on perhaps her darkest hours where she might have wished to be dead. Though we can never know for certain. It's kind of this wanting death but not wanting it at the same time. There are scenes where Death is seducing Elizabeth to come with him but she refuses him. And later on when Elizabeth wants Death to take her he refuses her. I found the musical really interesting and it is amongst one of my favorites.
I know this episode is over two years old but it is still my favorite. Watched it over a dozen times. It sits at the top of my watch later list. Well done.
Gotta say I was waiting the whole time for you to talk about the Book Thief. I was worried for a second you weren't going to and then it was only in there for like 10 seconds 😓 still a great discourse tho!
I’m thinking of getting a tattoo of Death from The Sandman. I’ve loved those books since I was a kid and have always gravitated towards her. I find this interpretation very comforting, that death is just this kind, honest woman who loves you and is ready to take you where you have to go when your time comes. It’s impossible to fear or hate her, and that’s how I want to feel about dying.
My favorite version of Death outside of Discworld is Thanatos from Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality, especially the first book, On A Pale Horse.
I both loved and hated that guy, it was very cool conceptually but I did find Zane's hyper-moralizing to be grating in the extreme. That series is extremely hit and miss, all around it presents brilliant ideas and some incredible characters (like Satan in "For Love of Evil"), but it also had some weak entries in the series as well...Under a Velvet Cloak, for example, was a complete debacle, it could have been INCREDIBLE, a whole book on Nyx one of the most enigmatic characters in the series that seems older than God himself (or...herself...at least after "...And Eternity"), and she turns into the semi-soft-core porn story. I thought I was uncomfortable with the whole 16-year-old banging the 53-year-old and it being treated as all good in And Eternity, but nope...the final book was WAY, WAY worse...sad too, because that series, as a whole, is brilliant...and I don't even like Piers Anthony in general outside it.
Yeah, I get where you are coming from. Piers Anthony is definitely not for everyone, and I agree Under a Velvet Cloak could have been so much better, instead it comes off as an afterthought not really leaving much of an impact other than to make an already complicated family tree even more so. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarnations_of_Immortality#Family_tree
I only ever read the Incarnations books because a friend recommended For Love of Evil in grade...7 or 8 I think? I saw it was part of a series and then proceeded to rip through the whole thing in about 2 weeks. Became one of my favourite series at the time, but when I picked up his other books like the Xanth novels and so on I could NEVER get into them. Guy kind of had this one golden series I fell in love with and nothing else I've read by him really touched them... Consequently, the deaths in "Dead Like Me" were loosely based on "On A Pale Horse"...obviously there's no magic and the characters are all different, but I've read the creator was initially inspired by that book.
Surprisingly, I read that The Santa Clause was as well. Did you try reading Bio of a Space Tyrant? That's another one of his that I enjoy despite some misgivings I have about it.
I didn't try that one...I tend to find his stuff a bit, misogynistic I guess for lack of a better word? Like in "...and Eternity" he has a scene with one of the women, Orlene I think, is turned into a man by Nox and tries to rape Jolie and paints it as being acceptable, that men have these raging, uncontrollable libido's and the only reason we aren't all ravening rapists is because we've had a lifetime to develop the control to keep it under wraps, but women (having, as he paints it, a far lower sex drive), if they were turned into men and lacking that control, would all be raping women like mad. It's that scene he draws on later to make the sex between that 15 or so year old girl and the 50-some-odd-year-old judge all good, that "hey, he's a guy and don't you remember the sex drive us guys have to handle all the time? Surely since she was a child prostitute and had experience with sex and wanted to and he was a ravening sex-crazed man it was all good and not weird in the least. Then on the other end characters had this surreal hyper-moralism, guys would treat women as though they were porcelain dolls like Zane or the guy who became Chronos. The series as a whole is brilliant for the universe it sets up mixing science and magic and the rules thereof, and the philosophical questions it asks and some of the books cross into great literature territory (particularly For Love of Evil which paints Satan as a Milton-esque figure aiming to actually do the greatest good even though he's misunderstood)...but his weakness seems to be in his CHARACTERS more than the story, they're often bizarrely unrealistic and hard to connect with...
Oh, very interesting pick for the series! o: I'm not the least bit surprised Death from Family Guy made an appearance or that Grim from Billy and Mandy did considering that they're probably two of the most famous animated representations of the character. Considering the designs of the shinigami in Death Note are more interesting, I'm honestly surprised you picked Black Butler for the anime representation, but am glad you picked something anime-related regarding death regardless. Anyway, this is probably my favorite of your series and if you continue it, I would love to see any of the following as poll options: -Dracula: If the Wicked Witch of the West and the Queen of Hearts are two of the most iconic female literary villains/monsters, Dracula is right up there with Frankenstein. Also, like the aforementioned two, Dracula has seen TONS of adaptations...and one of them just so happens to be a semi-famous anime (Hellsing Ultimate.) -Eris: Considering your fascination with Greek mythology and how often the Greek goddess of chaos gets used (or has a character who is heavily based on her in personality and powers,) I think you'd have fun with this one. There are movie versions of her, animated versions of her, and many more. -Cleopatra: Along with Marie Antoinette, her story has been told quite a bit in several different formats and I'm interested to see you cover another female historical figure like you did with Queen Elizabeth I.
Huh. Are the loose canons being moved from another channel? I have trouble remembering where everything is as of late. Either way, this is my favorite Loose Canon. Death is the best.
The protagonist of the game Grim Fandango immediately came to mind when you mentioned the "bureaucratic" depiction of Death. The film noir antihero and death archetype, Manny, tries to be honorable but is constantly sucked in by the allure of success in the afterlife. It's a hilarious but compelling portrayal, definitely noteworthy in the canon of Death adaptations.
Soul eater's death isnt really a personification of death itself, which is what this video focused on. He is simply a powerful character in that universe. He doesnt personally collect the souls of all who die.
Soul Eater's Death is a particularly interesting case in my opinion as he's a rare example of Death being depicted as a full-on hero with little to no sinister or gloomy qualities. He's been compared to _Dumbledore_ of all people!
A fascinating piece, thanks! On Discworlds Death, I think he does feel emotions, but am unsure he understands or contextualizes them the way humans do, and it also may have been a learning process, hence his daughters less charitable view of him, he was still leaning how to actually feel rather than just deduce how someone might feel, in comparison to Susan who's met a more well rounded Death who even then she doesn't always see eye to eye socket with. Gosh those books and movies were amazing.
As with most things Terry Pratchett, the Discworld DEATH is by far my favorite. It is such a likeable and endearing character and is such a perfect example of the ethos and pathos in those books. Also, Terry's last tweets right after he died being voiced by DEATH were so heartbreakingly and profoundly perfect. That series of tweets still has the power to move me to tears several years later.
Discworld's Death is by far my favorite interpretation. Favorite quote: "Human beings make life so interesting. Do you know that in a universe so full of wonders they have managed to invent boredom? Quite astonishing..."
The one from Sandman is also good.
I can't believe she identified the discworld death as utterly awesome but didn't highlight how amazing he is in Mort where he is first introduced and the nature of his existence as an anthropomorphic personification is really highlighted...
Hell ya! He's awesome and hilarious.
Humans need fantasy to be human. To be the place where the falling angel meets the rising ape.
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@@bensanders769 I guess because the topic is about depictions of death in movies.
I find great comfort in interpretations of death as a kindly, even human like figure who eases people into the afterlife. Its why i like Terry Pratchett's version so much, even if he is rather blunt at times.
Me too:)
N G and why would death be a snarling cruel spirit? Everything dies; it’s sad. No need to be a prick about something universal. So I love the characterization of a “ kindly death”
Piers Anthony's "Incarnations Of Immortality" series interprets Death this way.
I'm kind of in the middle about it. I like to think he treats the deceased differently depending on what type of person they are, if they are a kind but fearful soul re will re-assure them that a better place lies right ahead, but if they are an inconsiderate selfish soul he will openly scold them and assert his dominance to punish them. Like an ambassador from both heaven and hell, he reflects the people he comes to take away, that's my theory on him.
I find Terry Pratchett's death brilliant , he has a brilliant character development and becomes more human and how he even tries to make the actual death nicer, I also like the afterlife that Pratchett created.
when terry pratchett died fans sent a request to death to give him back, i found that a great touch
The "embuggerance" was sad.
AT LAST, SIR TERRY, WE MUST WALK TOGETHER.
Terry took Death's arm and followed him through the doors and on to the black desert under the endless night.
-----------
Yeah ... departing this world as equals.
GNU Terry Pratchett is baked into the source code of parts of the internet's backbone, meaning it is invisibly woven into the underlying code of many, many websites. His name will continue to bounce back and forth across the internet for the foreseeable future. imo it's a near perfect memorial.
@@SapientPearwood Of course, a man is not dead while his name is still spoken.
is it ok that i spend all my money on hookers? im going to die anyway.
Only Sir Terry Pratchett could write a scene where Death makes me cry by NOT taking someone. "And what greater gift is there, than a future?" F#%I*&@% you, HCA, the Little Match Girl LIVES!
I cry every fucking time man
"THERE'S NO BETTER PRESENT THAN A FUTURE"
Sir Terry's Death really tries to understand humans. I love the relationship he has with Susan.
*THE HOGFATHER GIVES PRESENTS.*
*THERE'S NO BETTER PRESENT THAN A FUTURE*
Pratchett's death is the best.
In my native language (and culture), Italian, Death is a female persona because the word itself has the female gender: la Morte. And sometimes Morte is represented as a beautiful lady, mostly from poets.
@Madalin Grama Yeah, it always surprise me how I can almost understood romanian, when I hear it by accident XD
I'm french by the way, and I found french and romanian are somewhat close ^^
In Spanish death is also a feminine word but I cannot think of anything outside of Mexico that represents the concept as female.
I think I remember hearing that most of the paintings depicting Death during the Renaissance were based on the female skeleton. Just throwing that in
In portuguese is also Female, Saramago even wrote a book about it. Where, pretty much, Death goes on strike and nobody dies. It's more about how humanity would deal with not dying, than death itself.
I replied to your 2 year old comment just so you would waste your time reading this comment
Five damn years and Terry Pratchett talking about death still makes me cry. GNU.
Every damn time.
Me, too. Goddammit.
“And be good; this is part of the arrangement” amuses me so much.
"the we have a contract" really adds to it
It's a *fantastic* book! I can't speak for the movie, as I haven't seen it
@@EcceJack It's on TH-cam, hurry before they take it down.
"It's the expression on their little faces I like."..."...not knowing whether to laugh or cry or wet their pants?"
You can't give her a sword. It's not safe.
ITS A SWORD. ITS NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SAFE.
The first time I read that scene took me an hour because I had to keep putting the book down because I was laughing so fucking hard I couldn't read through my tears. He tries so hard. It's so freaking endearing.
Goth Lindsay is best Lindsay
At the beginning of the video i went like "HOLY SMOKES".. sorry not sorry
@@MrTheJo92 the first thing I said when I saw her was "oh mama", the thirst is real.
@@ilyaaaaaaaaaaaas same tbh
Agreed. If you can find them, look for her starring in "Grown Up Wednesday Addams." I'm in love with that character. Don't look at me like that. Lots of people are in love with fictional characters.
This is a true fact of life.
How is everybody so slow on the uptake? Yes, these are re-uploads from the League of Supercritics channel so they can now all be in one place on a channel Lindsay actively manages, rather than sitting on an unattended derelict channel where they can all be flagged for copyright one by one.
What happened to the League Of Super Critics anyhow?
Short version- too many copyright flags. It was easier for people to move to separate channels.
"What a shame."
Clicked this video to find the answer to my question. Found it as the most-upvoted answer. Thanks!
Would have made more sense to stagger their release so that viewers who didn't come from the previous channel could actually watch them all.
It would be interesting if this video was made today, to hear Lindsay's thoughts talking about Death in Puss in Boots: A Simple Wish.
I always thought that Death was would be a comforting figure. After you die, they greet you and guide you to the afterlife.
Imagine how frightening and lonely it would be to make that journey by yourself.
I would want to greet Death like a friend.
Reminds me of the Sandman death
I shall defend Billy and Mandy, forever.
Billy and Mandy was the shit!
Exactly, don't even think of throwing shade on that show.
You have my sword...
Lasted seven seasons? You mean the gods saw it fit that we basked in its glory for 7 years
Taylor And My Axe!!
YOU SEE, YOU ARE HAVING A NEAR-DEATH EXPERIENCE, WHICH INESCAPABLY MEANS THAT I MUST UNDERGO A NEAR-VIMES EXPERIENCE. DON’T MIND ME. CARRY ON WITH WHATEVER YOU WERE DOING. I HAVE A BOOK.
Noooo, don't put caps around it! Absolutely barbaric ;-)
TH-cam can't get the font Death uses tho
You made me very mushy. Fuck I miss Sir Pratchett.
Johannes Schuh I removed the quotation marks, they really did not work, thanks for bringing it to my attention
Papyrus?
Death of the endless is my personal favourite interpretation. She is motherly, kind, and human in a series that everybody seems apathetic at best, borderline sociopathic at worst, which makes her stand out all the more.
"SQUEAK", said the Death of Rats.
Onin I would love to cosplay Death of Rats
I have, though I need to rebuild my scythe
But but the speech marks! Take away the speech marks. Death doesn't need speech marks!
You mean the grim squeaker?
I bought a plastic skeleton mouse during Halloween and made death of rats by sewing him a little cloak and pendant with a mini scythe
Soul Music and Hogfather being 3 hours long doesn't feel wrong, at least to me, because they fall into the British tradition of adapting things into series- (there was a BBC Radio 4 version of Guards Guards- where Death is credited as Himself, which also runs to 3 hours). Hogfather's a different beast being a later Sky adaptation, but Soul Music and the animated version of Wyrd Sisters (made at the same time by the same people, and which Death also turns up in) were broken into 6 half hour episodes, which makes the whole thing feel different- especially when you remember they came out about 20 years ago when we didn't have streaming, so at the time, you got your half hour of Discworld and had to wait a week for your next fix.
I'm so pleased that someone defended Hogfather the miniseries, it's by far one of my favourite adaptations. It has a lot of filler but it's all charming, entertaining filler.
The BBC Radio adaptations of Discworld books are really good. (And so is Nation, btw. I haven't read that book, unlike the Discworld books which I have read all of them, but Nation is amazing as a radio play.) To anyone who haven't heard them, I'd suggest keeping an eye on BBC's web site for when they return for a re-run, which they seem to do now and then.
I'm not a great fan of the movie adaptations, with the exception of Going Postal, which I think gets it mostly right and ends up being pretty good. The others are too over the top IMHO. When I read the books, they are incredibly funny (I think I literally laughed out loud repeatedly when reading all of them), but I still find them very grounded. To me, the best thing about Discworld is how human the characters are. And yes, how funny it is, but not at the expense of the characters, except maybe in the first books, but I started with those as a teenager so it didn't bother me so much then. I instantly fell in love with the series.
I live both of these, but 3 hours can sometimes feel a bit long in one sitting if it's not brokenupa certainway. Though I agree it makes a lot of sense since that's a common thing for British television. I wish there was a full series (like 10 episodes or so) of shorter episodes of the Hogfather or other Terry Pratchett works.
The Book Thief (the book, not as much the movie) is super easily my favorite depiction of Death ever :) Gah, I love that book so so much!! And, though the characters and story itself are beautiful and heartbreaking, I really do think it's the brilliant use of Death as a narrator that puts it a cut above most other books for me.
Me too. I clicked on the video mostly to see if that version of death was included
Discworld Death is best Death.
I also enjoy the fact that Death simply is. Death isn't evil, nor is he really that much of a hero, he's a person who is.
There's also Binky.
how have I not heard of discworld until now???
@@firetarrasque4667 "Onwards Binky to the Hogfather's castle of bones" -Death, the Hogfather
Take it back. Neil Gaimon’s version of Death is the best.
@@ldbboosha DISCWORLD
Death is my favourite character ever. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE SOMEONE WHO SPEAKS LIKE THIS?
Well, Terry Pratchett Death is my favourite at least ;)
Actually, he sᴘᴇᴀᴋs ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜɪs. Small caps, not large.
Adding to "not technically wrong" - in Russian books he speaks in all caps letters, because Russian print tradition rarely uses small caps. They are pretty much useless as a subtle emphasis instrument in our language because practically all letters are drawn the same way in upper and lower cases. So reading Death lines in original for the first time was a surprising change of tone - from loud and almost screaming to weighted and calm.
@Sappho good omens death is a completely different character though
Hm. I disagree about Dead Like Me having a tone problem. I mean, I love that show, so might be biased, but it's primarily a dark comedy. Also, the juxtaposition of the mundane afterlife with the sometimes gruesome deaths is meant to highlight how much death is a part of normal life. And it's funny. And sometimes sad. And sometimes moving. Which is also like real life.
Agreed Its a shame there wasn't a season 3 they made a spin off movie to end the series but i didn't care for it
Seems to me she is just making petty jabs. See her comment about 'indentured servitude' and the similar jab she made about Billy and Mandy because, something, something, slavery.
I also disagree about DLM having a tone problem, however it was canceled after two seasons, leaving a lot of loose ends (the movie does not count) and the tone and explicit language might have had to do with the cancelation. It had a very niche audience. I honestly think it would have done better if it had come out post-streaming era of television.
Clearly DLM has a big fan base that it did not reach in time to prevent it's cancelation. I agree that it did not have a tone problem as much as it had a.. marketing problem.
I love DLM but concede it has serious inconsistency problems. It also has some of the best laughs ever with Dolores Herbig
One of my favourite things involving Death is when they brought back Barry Allen from being dead in the comics. It was revealed that he had literally been outrunning Death for however many decades. The Flash didn't die because he literally just outran death. Comics are dumb.
Mike Cunningham What is it with comic books and their inability to embrace mortality?
@@tatehildyard5332 Sales, and kids who loved a character growing up to write about them.
Me: What could be so special about Discworld Death?
(Two minutes later)
Me: ...I love him?
Read the 41 books and report back. Honestly, you'll never regret it.
Yeah, what @@nixhixx said
@@nixhixx 41?!?!!??
@@shaunandthebugs There are a lot of Discworld books. He is only the lead in about 5.
I wish Lindsay had included Death from Supernatural. I seriously enjoyed at least his first appearance and how he was portrayed, and had the legion of reapers aspect as part of his character.
Dean: Death is our bitch.
I was coming here to say just that. I was always happy to see him.
Oh, how could I forget, probably my second favorite representation.
Now I'm curious. Who's the first?
Death was my favorite character introduction in the whole show, although Cas's is a close second.
TP's incarnation of DEATH: Fastest harvester of wheat anyone ever thought they saw, and they couldn't help but wonder how he did it when he only ever cut one stem at a time.
There are two versions of death that i really enjoy in the Supernatural show. There are the reapers who are kind but have a job to do, and you see Dean take on the role as a reaper and lets his emotions run him. And you see him make decisions that affect peoples lives in the long run. He is faced with mortality of it all. Then there is Death himself who is a patient well thought out brilliant man. Who finds little to no amusement in the ways of humans because as he says "I'm actually a great deal older then god. And i will be here long after him"
Sacha Jewell I invite you to contemplate how insignificant I find you.
Yeah- Julian Richings is the by far the best Death, and I’m so disappointed Lindsay didn’t include him.
Not to contradict you or anything, and I love Supernatural's Death too, but when does he say that? I remember him answering Dean's question of "I gotta ask. How old are you?"
Death: "As old as God. Maybe older. Neither of us can remember anymore."
@@circecitrus97 I love how logically it makes sense seeing how God can be killed which means death came into existence as God did.
"Annoying little protozoa, aren't they?"
I loved the take on "games against death" in maskerade. In the novel the witch granny weatherwax finds herself being asked to save the lives of two individuals, an innkeepers infant son dying of a sickness, and a valuable cow. Death, however, has come for one. The boy. She arranges for a single hand of poker to decide the outcome, and death, despite having a winning hand, deliberately flunks, taking the cow instead of the baby.
"I LOSE. ALL I HAVE IS FOUR ONES"
A day with Lindsay uploads is a good day.
"Grim Reapers on a payroll" and no mention of 'Grim Fandango'?!?
You managed to make me cry with this one. Damn you! And thank you - Sir Terry Pratchett was a sore loss for me.
Now, if you don't mind, I COULD MURDER A CURRY.
“Death Rainbow Brigade” sounds like an awesome queer rock band
Re-watching these great episodes to give Lindsay that sweet youtube money! ;D
She'll enjoy that literal half a cent!
my favorite comic book character is neil gaiman's death
idem
She's also hot.
Ah, a good spanish literature that makes death a more unique (ish) character is José Saramago's: "Las Intermitencias de la Muerte" (The intermittences of Death) which portrays death as a female. I don't know if a good english translation exists, since his style of writing is very unique, such as starting dialogue midsentence by just putting a capital letter. So spoilers
As a woman, death falls in love with this old man, she chooses to stay with him, and the next day, no one is able to die. They don't get healed, if you get in a car crash, you are contorted and broken, but alive. old age will continue, but you will not die. so it explores death as a political and crime state, were mafias formed to take people accross the border, so they may die. If you don't really care for spoilers, I still recommend giving it a read.
For Discworld you say 3 hours is a problem, I say the problem is that it's not longer.
That's the problem when you have a great book and try to make a film of it - one runs up against the ever-decreasing attention span of the unwashed masses, and is forced to condense it until it becomes a barely-recognizable shadow of its former self.
Same. It's why I'll gladly marathon the extended editions of LotR any time. I really need to read and watch Discworld, incidentally.
@@ryanahr2267 I highly recommend that you do; it's awesome. Just don't start with the first book in the series.
@@jaydee4697 Um...why? And what book should I start with, in that case?
@@ryanahr2267 Basically, the first few books aren't a good example of why Discworld is so amazing. I'd recommend starting with either 'Guards! Guards!' or 'Small Gods'. Hope that helps!
Tara FitzGerald I loveeee Death as a teenage girl. Best personification.
+Rebeca A. Agreed! 100%! I love Death from the Sandman, she's one of my favourite characters of all time and I would have to say that that version of Death is probably the most realistic to what I believe death to truly be in our world.
What if the daughter of Terry Pratchett's Death eventually takes over and becomes Sandman's Death?
Mind = Blown! Illuminati confirmed. You heard it here first folks!
+Zack Kelley I mean, that isn't out of the realm of possibility. Pratchett and Gaiman have written together before.
Love your videos! I was so hoping you would include The Book Thief -- and you did! My other favorite incarnation is Shacath/The Angel of Death from American Horror Story Asylum. It's one of the few incarnations I can think of portrayed as a woman in pop culture. Her Death is calming and nurturing, greeting a lot of the characters as friends or rescuing them for horrible circumstances.
also nice macabre goth look for this video
I watched this one immediately after the Captain America video, with Lindsay in 40s mode. Is there any look that she can't rock?
Mark Chapman eh, I get annoyed by her nostalgia chick pigtails
I'm not a huge Marvel fan, but isn't there a death character there as well? Has some sort of relationship with Deadpool?
Yes, she's in a triangle with Deadpool and Thanos, but she favors Deadpool.
yes.
@@bigguy1164 That is, if Thanos isn't an out-right simp
Marvel's Death is an interesting case, as it is no set entity, in the 50s and 60s it went around as man and would commonly be seen as a human in Jim Starlin's stories. Death treats every individual differently depending on how they view it, treat it as a friend like Mar-Vell then it will be kind, view as something you love but you also feel unworthy of receiving love then it will come to you like it did Thanos
I'm a little disappointed Der Tod from Elisabeth Das Musical wasn't featured. He fits roughly into the Death and the Maiden trope, but there's a little bit of a spin in that he wants Sisi (Empress Elisabeth of the Austro-Hungarian Empire) to leave her husband (Franz Joseph) and mortal life and follow him willingly. She, feeling herself cheated of freedom both by Death's fixation on her, and by her very prescribed existence as a Habsburg matriarch, continues to live largely out of spite. He kills off her loved ones, including her son, in an effort to drive her insane... It's a trip. And all in the form of a musical, which is sometimes performed in drag (depending on the company).
Lindsay Ellis, I thank you so much for your videos. I only discovered this channel a couple weeks ago, and am so glad I did. Such intelligent, well-delivered, entertaining cultural critique is a joy to encounter. So, thank you. Also, praise Sir Terry Pratchett.
Yeah it latest seven seasons because Billy and Mandy was freaking hilarious. Managed to get a young me interested in tabletop RPGs and Lovecraft.
Sick Jacket Man I mainly liked it for all the 4th wall breaks it pulled.
Tate Hildyard Also Richard Horvitz
The Christmas special is a classic
minor correction: the red haired reaper in black butler, grelle, is a trans woman. straight from the manga-ka herself. trans rights yall!
ps. im surprised you didn't cover death in marvel comics, Deadpool's on again off again love interest
Bri Angel and Thanos’
hmm, nice
And Soul Eater
Probably because the ANIME is different (notice how the anime were never human, whilst the manga eventually gives us backstory for how they came to be reapers) and also the anime doesn’t seem to care about the distinction or anything.
@@phastinemoon If you're saying that Grelle's gender is different in the anime... She pretty explicitly calls herself a woman multiple times throughout the anime so I'm not really sure what point you're making here.
Why are you surprised about Billy and mandy it was great
This video immediately sent me to Hulu to watch the last five minutes of Robert Redford as Death. It makes me winsome smile every time. I'm already a huge Pratchett nerd so you saving his Death for last makes me super happy. Reaper Man is one of my favorite books. Thanks for this video, Lindsay.
I still wish there had been room in this for Animaniacs' "Meatballs or Consequences," which is heavily influenced by "The Seventh Seal." Yakko and Dot play Death (checkers, as Yakko can't play chess) for Wakko's life, or at least the ability to tag along so they can stay together. The Sibs cheat, so Death claims them as well, but then all three drive Death crazy so he lets them all live.
Yes! A sad omission.
This is my favorite Loose Canon episode so far! I just love the scope of it, and how many historical and literary aspects of Death as a character (abstract, anthropomorphic or otherwise!) Lindsay manages to cover in this. Her technical skill in putting videos like this together has been pretty rock-solid for quite a long time (she HAS been doing this for a living for about a decade now), but what I REALLY love about this show in general is the topic format of covering a character or concept and its uses and appearances throughout history, which I hadn't previously seen anyone do - at least, not in the way SHE'S been doing it. It does seem overall pretty unique, as shows of this type go, which is awesome - YT NEEDS more content creators who think outside the box like this :D
Also... *ahem*, I gotta add, Lindsay makes one wicked sexy Goth...
I've had a lil crush on Lindsay since her Channel Awesome days as the Nostalgia Chick, so I've always found her really pretty, but goddamn, does she look amazing here! Freakin' HOT. :)
I really hoped Der Todd in the musical "Elisabeth" would've gotten brought up, especially in the "Death and the Maiden" section.
Death being a friend is beautiful and sad. We are so consumed by the idea that when the end comes it almost like seeing an old friend
Yay everythings back up! Now i can watch everything and support you!
Not everything. There's still a few Nostalgia Chick episodes that have yet to be reuploaded here.
What happened to her channel?
This is the first video I’ve seen of you with such noticeable makeup and damn girl STUNNING!
As soon as you said "office-style grim reapers" I was waiting for Black Butler. Love it
So.... no Marvel Comics' Mistress Death? I mean, you did go over the whole gender of Death thing. I would think you might touch on the cool and disinterested feminine Death who serves as the object of obsessive desire for Marvel's most notorious villain. I mean, there's also the ridiculously oversexualized Lady Death elsewhere in comics, but I think Marvel's possibly-hallucinatory personification deserves a pretty strong mention.
Thank you. I came to the comments just to be sure this was mentioned.
Yes Marvel’s most notorious villain. Deadpool.
Can you imagine if they’d done the real infinity wars ha
Just snaps so easily
“Why are you still not impressed with me? Argh! Women!”
Death in Supernatural is my favorite version of this character. The Book Thief was good too though.
Rosie Pindar yeah how can you not love a death that likes PIZZA
I know it's old vid. But one interpretation of "death" that i really, REALLY loved was Anubis on the American Gods!
He has such a serene and warm presence.
On the series, the episode that starts with his "coming to america" was.. Well, i may had shed a tear.
I only made it through season one of the show but it was solid. I wish the book hadn't been written like a dry, soulless medical journal. A coworker I had at the time essentially forced me to read it because she was so hyped for the show that wasn't out yet and it was an absolute slog for me. I've only read one other book of his, a collection of short stories, and I literally only bought that for A Study in Emerald. That short story remains the only thing by Gaiman that I've enjoyed.
I REEEEEEALLY should be more concerned with how much I'm in love with Neil Gaiman's Death.
Death's character needs no arc. It's form is dictated by the response to itself. I think that Twilight Zone episode does a good job at representing this idea. Great video.
the canon is indeed loose today, what a nice surprise
I know that we should always focus on the content of a video.... but WOW, goth-esque Lindsay makes me FEEL things.
Actually the Grim Reapers from Black Butler were [SPOILERSSPOILERSSPOILERS]
originally humans who committed suicide. The whole thing's Christian mythos, and killing oneself is a sin, right? This is the punishment! Eternity working an apparently kind of shitty job.
yep but Lindsay doesn't talk about anime much so when she does she usually gets some false information
also in Japanese culture they are ikiyro,yokai,akuma,tenshi etc.
Cool Arthur Kirkland icon Kelsey, and I was just stating information. Black Butler is clearly based around Christian mythos for the most part, so going by that standard to make the connect. I just wish she'd done a touch more research before making the reference, or going with something she wanted to do more research into.
And Black Butler is set when Queen Victoria of England is still ruling the country, not to mention the rules of that age seem to be a lot more Old Testament type in general rather than "Jesus loves everyone". Hardline hellfire and everyone being consistently fucked no matter what.
+Rachel Brazeale I don't know what's up with Catholicism but in protestant belief it's considered as trying to be God.
erd249 i was about to comment this lol
"When the first living thing existed, I was there waiting. When the last living things dies, my job will be finished. I'll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave."
I LOVE Terry Pratchet's death. He's one of my favorites. that particular incarnation had his own story, daughter, and beloved pony lol. I also really love the rappers from Dead Like Me.
I beheld a pale horse, and its rider's name was Death, and the horse's name was Binky.
You mean Death with a capital D.
14:15 The PC game Grim Fandango also utilized that concept.
I'm disappointed that you didn't talk about the Shinigami of Death Note😢
There are so many depictions of death in media that covering them all would take forever. Secondly, Lindsay isn't a huge anime fan. She doesn't really cover most things in anime.
This video is about the Grim Reaper, about Death, as the western Anglo/Germanic depiction. .. So why would she talk about shinigami, spirits from Japanese religion/culture?
TheMrVengeance Because Shinigami are cultural imports from Europe. Shinigami didn't exist in Japanese mythology until Japan had more exposure to western culture and beliefs, and the idea of death as a being was borrowed and made to work within the context of Japanese mythology. Not to mention that shinigami are highly inconsistent throughout every depiction, in both mythology and pop culture, and in a lot of cases the word "shinigami" is simply used as the Japanese word for "grim reaper", such as in the case of Soul Eater or Black Butler, and many other manga and anime. Death Note just happens to be one of the more interesting depictions, in which the Shinigami are shown to live in a perpetual state of boredom and listlessness, where one gets mocked for even doing their job. Plus the three main Shinigami are fascinating depictions of Death in their own right, and Rem in particular fits into the depiction of Death falling in love with a woman that Lindsay talked about in this video. Not to mention Ryuk sharing that theme of Ennui with Terry Pratchett's depiction of Death.
+The Red Right Hand Productions - [Citation Needed]
@@GirtheAlienGoldfish she touched on black butler. a note to death as a bored immortal prankster wouldn;t have been amiss.
This is like how older sitcoms always worked in a day-at-the-beach episode. Excellent essay as always, but Lindsay dressed appropriately to talk about Death is edifying for the eyes as well. 😍
Sailor Saturn is my favourite version of death ever. She's so freaking cool.
Discworld actually changed my outlook on death, in such a good way.
Changed my outlook on a lot of things, really.
....read Discworld, if you haven't, it's good
Only thing I can think of that you missed is Death from Supernatural. He's a pretty interesting character and his entrance into the show is super cool.
They killed him a few seasons ago because that's apparently a thing.
And there's me worrying you weren't going to mention 'Dead Like Me'. I loved that show.
Every time I see a scythe I am reminded of either: A) The Grim Reaper, or B) Sailor Saturn from "Sailor Moon," since she has one at the top of her staff (fitting since she is the soldier of Death and Rebirth, as well as the fact that in Roman/Greek mythology, Saturn was the god of the harvest and agriculture)
hmm, I find you glissed on the whole "gender of death" problem a little too easily. The fact that the word "death" is grammatically female in lots of languages with a lot of mothertongue speakers means that a large portion of humanity visualize death as a woman; also, the skeleton-with-scythe representation is not necessarily sexualized, so it is normally perceived as woman in those countries. My point is, if you go beyond anglocentric culture, you're bound to finde lots of woman-deaths.
This is not to say the video isn't interesting.
I don't think grammatical gender really has much to do with a cultural perception of masculinity or femininity. French speakers don't think of a house as a girl, it just happens that “la maison” sounds better than “le maison”, and “la” is also the article used for female people and animals. This is a simplification, but you get the idea. You could still be right about cultures seeing death as a woman, but I wouldn’t conclude that just on the linguistic point.
Yes I find this interpretation about why this or that word is feminine or masculine to be redundant because almost it ultimately doesn't actually mean anything.
However there is not that much correlation between these languages and these perceptions, in Spanish, death is also a feminine word but most Spanish speakers have been fully accustomed to the skeleton scythe archetype
@@fellinuxvi3541 Err, I think you mean "most Europaen Spanish speakers". In Mexiko, La Muerte is a very popular figure (I kinda wished The Book of Life had come out earlier so Lindsay could have covered it).
Gender for things in neo-latin languages is quite weird. Whilst I agree most spaniards don't think in Death as female just because the pronoun is femenine, there is this one case I always found fascinating with the word for "sea," "mar." It usually uses the male pronoun "el mar," yet sailors tended to personalize it as a lover of sorts and changed it to "la mar," with a female pronoun instead. So you find yourself in this strange situation in which "el mar" doesn't really have any gendered implications besides sounding better to our ears, yet "la mar" is very much intentionally gendered as a representation of those men's relationship with the sea.
that was a fantastic overview of death in cinema! Kaitlin from Ask A Mortician would love it!!
Higgins2001 Love Ask A Mortician!
Shoutout to my two favorite Deaths not featured in this video, der Tod from Elisabeth das Musical, and Kravitz from The Adventure Zone Balance
Please do a loose canon on fictional US Presidents!
Neil Gaiman's death isn't based on Tori Amos, but Delirium (mostly) is ;)
I came here to say that, but I'm glad that you beat me to it!
Love this look on you. Love goth. In fact my favorite band is Type O Negative. That says it all.
There are soooo many versions it would be insane to expect you to have talked about them all (Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Incarnations of Immortality). Thank you for another excellent romp through the genres. You do good work.
So Lindsay is moving all her league of super critics stuff over to her main channel? Yeah, super critics is dead.
15:58 this was one of my favorite books in high school and I just squealed because I'm so happy you included it!
One version I'd like to hear her thoughts on is the interpretation , story arch, and portrayal of the character death in the tv show Supernatural.
Love and respect from Canada! You are truly insightful and your research is well done! Thanks to you and your team!
You talk like Billy & Mandy was a mistake.
A5H233 My thoughts exactly
billy and mandy is honestly such a good show 🙏
Seems to me she is just making petty jabs. She made a similar one about dead like me.
Bring me some brains
FREDFREDBURGERFREDFREDBURGERFREDFREDBURGERFREDFREDBURGER!
You made me worry that you'd miss Discworld XD Can't talk about Death without Discworld
Not touched upon in this episode but perhaps you could do a loose canon on Empress Elizabeth (from Austria). There is a musical about Elizabeth where Death has a major role in it. It's a play on perhaps her darkest hours where she might have wished to be dead. Though we can never know for certain. It's kind of this wanting death but not wanting it at the same time. There are scenes where Death is seducing Elizabeth to come with him but she refuses him. And later on when Elizabeth wants Death to take her he refuses her. I found the musical really interesting and it is amongst one of my favorites.
Bridney1widney Yes!! I was just going to mention that! So glad someone else is familiar with that show.
Him seducing her son is even better :-)
Thank you so much for including Dead Like Me, it's one of my favourite shows of all time.
Look at all these re-uploads! Lindsay really is in Beast Mode! :P
I know this episode is over two years old but it is still my favorite. Watched it over a dozen times. It sits at the top of my watch later list. Well done.
Gotta say I was waiting the whole time for you to talk about the Book Thief. I was worried for a second you weren't going to and then it was only in there for like 10 seconds 😓 still a great discourse tho!
I’m thinking of getting a tattoo of Death from The Sandman. I’ve loved those books since I was a kid and have always gravitated towards her. I find this interpretation very comforting, that death is just this kind, honest woman who loves you and is ready to take you where you have to go when your time comes. It’s impossible to fear or hate her, and that’s how I want to feel about dying.
My favorite version of Death outside of Discworld is Thanatos from Piers Anthony's Incarnations of Immortality, especially the first book, On A Pale Horse.
I both loved and hated that guy, it was very cool conceptually but I did find Zane's hyper-moralizing to be grating in the extreme. That series is extremely hit and miss, all around it presents brilliant ideas and some incredible characters (like Satan in "For Love of Evil"), but it also had some weak entries in the series as well...Under a Velvet Cloak, for example, was a complete debacle, it could have been INCREDIBLE, a whole book on Nyx one of the most enigmatic characters in the series that seems older than God himself (or...herself...at least after "...And Eternity"), and she turns into the semi-soft-core porn story. I thought I was uncomfortable with the whole 16-year-old banging the 53-year-old and it being treated as all good in And Eternity, but nope...the final book was WAY, WAY worse...sad too, because that series, as a whole, is brilliant...and I don't even like Piers Anthony in general outside it.
Yeah, I get where you are coming from. Piers Anthony is definitely not for everyone, and I agree Under a Velvet Cloak could have been so much better, instead it comes off as an afterthought not really leaving much of an impact other than to make an already complicated family tree even more so. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarnations_of_Immortality#Family_tree
I only ever read the Incarnations books because a friend recommended For Love of Evil in grade...7 or 8 I think? I saw it was part of a series and then proceeded to rip through the whole thing in about 2 weeks. Became one of my favourite series at the time, but when I picked up his other books like the Xanth novels and so on I could NEVER get into them. Guy kind of had this one golden series I fell in love with and nothing else I've read by him really touched them...
Consequently, the deaths in "Dead Like Me" were loosely based on "On A Pale Horse"...obviously there's no magic and the characters are all different, but I've read the creator was initially inspired by that book.
Surprisingly, I read that The Santa Clause was as well.
Did you try reading Bio of a Space Tyrant? That's another one of his that I enjoy despite some misgivings I have about it.
I didn't try that one...I tend to find his stuff a bit, misogynistic I guess for lack of a better word? Like in "...and Eternity" he has a scene with one of the women, Orlene I think, is turned into a man by Nox and tries to rape Jolie and paints it as being acceptable, that men have these raging, uncontrollable libido's and the only reason we aren't all ravening rapists is because we've had a lifetime to develop the control to keep it under wraps, but women (having, as he paints it, a far lower sex drive), if they were turned into men and lacking that control, would all be raping women like mad. It's that scene he draws on later to make the sex between that 15 or so year old girl and the 50-some-odd-year-old judge all good, that "hey, he's a guy and don't you remember the sex drive us guys have to handle all the time? Surely since she was a child prostitute and had experience with sex and wanted to and he was a ravening sex-crazed man it was all good and not weird in the least.
Then on the other end characters had this surreal hyper-moralism, guys would treat women as though they were porcelain dolls like Zane or the guy who became Chronos. The series as a whole is brilliant for the universe it sets up mixing science and magic and the rules thereof, and the philosophical questions it asks and some of the books cross into great literature territory (particularly For Love of Evil which paints Satan as a Milton-esque figure aiming to actually do the greatest good even though he's misunderstood)...but his weakness seems to be in his CHARACTERS more than the story, they're often bizarrely unrealistic and hard to connect with...
I sigh with delight at your content, Ms. Ellis.
Dam Lindsay RAWKED this goth look
Oh, very interesting pick for the series! o: I'm not the least bit surprised Death from Family Guy made an appearance or that Grim from Billy and Mandy did considering that they're probably two of the most famous animated representations of the character. Considering the designs of the shinigami in Death Note are more interesting, I'm honestly surprised you picked Black Butler for the anime representation, but am glad you picked something anime-related regarding death regardless.
Anyway, this is probably my favorite of your series and if you continue it, I would love to see any of the following as poll options:
-Dracula: If the Wicked Witch of the West and the Queen of Hearts are two of the most iconic female literary villains/monsters, Dracula is right up there with Frankenstein. Also, like the aforementioned two, Dracula has seen TONS of adaptations...and one of them just so happens to be a semi-famous anime (Hellsing Ultimate.)
-Eris: Considering your fascination with Greek mythology and how often the Greek goddess of chaos gets used (or has a character who is heavily based on her in personality and powers,) I think you'd have fun with this one. There are movie versions of her, animated versions of her, and many more.
-Cleopatra: Along with Marie Antoinette, her story has been told quite a bit in several different formats and I'm interested to see you cover another female historical figure like you did with Queen Elizabeth I.
Huh. Are the loose canons being moved from another channel? I have trouble remembering where everything is as of late.
Either way, this is my favorite Loose Canon. Death is the best.
Rebeca A. It's from League of Super Critics. Try to check that corpse. U'll see that Lindsay's playlist is no more
I am just so happy you spoke of The Seventh Seal, one of my two favorite filims!
Der Tod Und Das Mädchen is the most beautiful Schubert song with a woman coming to terms with her own death
Lindsay’s killer outfits are a larger reason as to why I love these videos than I’d like to admit.
My favorite is incarnation my boy Kravitz from The Adventure Zone
The protagonist of the game Grim Fandango immediately came to mind when you mentioned the "bureaucratic" depiction of Death. The film noir antihero and death archetype, Manny, tries to be honorable but is constantly sucked in by the allure of success in the afterlife. It's a hilarious but compelling portrayal, definitely noteworthy in the canon of Death adaptations.
Aww, no Shinigami (Death) from Soul Eater? :(
Good video though.
I was expecting that too and I've only seen 2 episodes
Could have done Death Note then too
culwin I was hoping she'd mention Death Note as those Shinigami are by far one of the more interesting depictions of Death.
Soul eater's death isnt really a personification of death itself, which is what this video focused on. He is simply a powerful character in that universe. He doesnt personally collect the souls of all who die.
Soul Eater's Death is a particularly interesting case in my opinion as he's a rare example of Death being depicted as a full-on hero with little to no sinister or gloomy qualities. He's been compared to _Dumbledore_ of all people!
A fascinating piece, thanks!
On Discworlds Death, I think he does feel emotions, but am unsure he understands or contextualizes them the way humans do, and it also may have been a learning process, hence his daughters less charitable view of him, he was still leaning how to actually feel rather than just deduce how someone might feel, in comparison to Susan who's met a more well rounded Death who even then she doesn't always see eye to eye socket with.
Gosh those books and movies were amazing.
Twilight Zone Death is how I'm trying to go out.
As with most things Terry Pratchett, the Discworld DEATH is by far my favorite. It is such a likeable and endearing character and is such a perfect example of the ethos and pathos in those books. Also, Terry's last tweets right after he died being voiced by DEATH were so heartbreakingly and profoundly perfect. That series of tweets still has the power to move me to tears several years later.