Trope Talk: Personifying Death
Happy spooky season! In celebration, let’s take the day to unpack how crushing grief can spice up YOUR storytelling!
MUSIC: “Passing Time” Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
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“Despite rumor, Death isn’t cruel–merely terribly, terribly good at his job.”
My favourite interpretation.
Yessss
One of the best movies to do this was “Meet Joe Black” with Brad Pitt. He’s death, he’s cool, he’s tragic, and he’s just doing a job he has to do. Why is never explained, he hints at an afterlife but refuses to say anything about it, and hints that evil spirits are real and then explains he’s not evil. The scrip has some minor problems but overall, I found it interesting and strangely hopeful. The message of the film is that you are going to die, but that’s not a bad thing. Kind of like Tolkien, death is not a curse or an evil thing. It’s a gift from God.
You mean “her” job. Jk 😀 Or am I?
“Pistols at dawn and I don’t need any backup.”
I imagine Terry’s Death standing to the side waiting for any takers like “she really doesn’t. Sorry.”
*SHE REALLY DOESN’T. SORRY.
SQUEAK.
She got this
@Peter YangOf course Death of Rats is there.
@SewardWriter obviously he has to be
a rat is about to die after all
“Oh cool, new trope talk! What whacky fun will we have today?”
16 minutes and 22 seconds later I’m staring at my computer screen half-tearing-up at this video. Wonderfully done Red, thank you.
all they way tearing up
Honest to goodness crying.
Only half?
@Darwin Candidate Okay maybe a bit more.
Quietly weeping. A level of catharsis I needed.
Sir Terry’s Death announcement on twitter gets me every time I read them. Three tweets:
“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.”
“The End.”
And now I’m crying.
Aaaaand that’s me in tears.
Gnu sir Terry
GNU Sir Terry
Ugly-crying over the Youtube comment wasn’t on my list today, but here we are…
I love how the two notable authors for making death a main character are also the two authors notable for bringing us good omens.
Well part of it all was just that Gaiman was a big Pterry fan, which lead to that collaboration and aspects of how Death of the Endless was characterised.
My mom is in the ER right now, and this was really reassuring. I don’t know if you guys will see this comment, but there was at least one person who really needed to see this video today.
Hope things go as well as they can; but if they don’t that you take care of yourself x
I wish her and her family all the best
Good luck
I wish the best for you and her, failing that I wish for peace for the both of you. I’ve been through that twice, and I know how bad it hurts. No one should have to sit in an ICU listening to doctors calmly explaining that it’s over. Fewer people than that should have to do it twice.
(HUG) Refuah shleimah.
“We don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time we remember that it’s turning” is such a raw line.
And the lack of a closing song… beautiful, and I’m crying now.
by “the wheel” does she mean a traditional or literary way to face our mortality or what? too deep bars trying 2 undersand
@SpyCzech “The wheel keeps on turning” is an expression for talking about cycles that keep on going, no matter what. Most often, it refers to the cycle of life (think circle of life philosophy from The Lion King)
But also, “reinventing the wheel” is used in critique to refer to authors re-treading old ground, trying to create from scratch what already exists. Usually, authors tend to do this because they don’t expect the audience to understand, and much of the time, they’re wrong.
This has big Alexis Kennedy energy
“catharsis is not the same thing as happiness” That line cuts me deeply. I have just gone through a personal crisis and finally understood what it actually feels like to write because you need to put a visual to what you’re seeing, and I couldn’t understand why writing out that horrible story didn’t make me feel good, despite it making me feel better. I think that single line explains it… thank you for being the gift to the world that you are red.
“Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?”
I’m sitting here ugly crying, and smiling while I do. Thank you.
Funnily enough, I remember that one of the parts of what we’d call someone’s Soul in Egyptian mythology was their name, making remembering someone’s name important. If someone was particularly hated, as many records of their name as possible were destroyed after they died.
GNU Terry Pratchett (someone had to do it)
Learning that terminally ill people hope they meet Terry Pratchett’s Death is so damn sad, oh god. I hope he met his Death
If his final tweets are any indication, he did
It’s sad to think that they have to confront that idea, but I think it’s comforting to know that his art gave them something hopeful to think about.
In the words he chose for his family crest when knighted, he didn’t fear the reaper. Methinks that’s all it takes to meet the Death pterry imagined.
GNU Terry Pratchett
Out of context that last sentence reads VERY differently