Post History

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37015
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/37015
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Anthropomorphic personifications of death are quite old, and the older ones focus on the frightening aspects of death. Look, for example, at Oscar Wilde's _The Young King_:

> From the darkness of a cavern Death and Avarice watched them, and Death said, ‘I am weary; give me a third of them and let me go.’ But Avarice shook her head. ‘They are my servants,’ she answered.  
> And Death said to her, ‘What hast thou in thy hand?’  
> ‘I have three grains of corn,’ she answered; ‘what is that to thee?’  
> ‘Give me one of them,’ cried Death, ‘to plant in my garden; only one of them, and I will go away.’  
> ‘I will not give thee anything,’ said Avarice, and she hid her hand in the fold of her raiment.  
> And Death laughed, and took a cup, and dipped it into a pool of water, and out of the cup rose Ague. She passed through the great multitude, and a third of them lay dead. A cold mist followed her, and the water-snakes ran by her side.

Death is one of the four Riders of the Apocalypse. Milton in _Paradise Lost_ describes Death as the son of Sin and Satan, Satan having raped his daughter Sin.

Thus, as you can see, Death Personified can be taken seriously and dramatically. I think Terry Pratchett was actually first to treat Death in a humorous way, moving away from the traditional traits of cruelty and enjoying humanity's suffering to curiosity and love for humanity.

Original score: 5