This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
R Bloom: The Grim Reaper is also a descendent of Kronos/Saturn, the father of Zeus/Jupiter, who castrated his father with sickle and devoured his children. This was through a confusion of Kronos with Chronos (the god of time). Kronos eating his offspring came to symbolize time destroying all, and from the castration came the familiar reaping sickle. It seems the Grim Reaper and Father Time share attributes and are often confused in folklore/mythology.
Just thought I'd share.
Ununnilium: Awesome! You should put that in the entry.
Abby: I changed the header of the Shinigami section to take out the statement that the idea "draw[s] upon Japanese myth and folklore." Despite their popularity in anime, it would seem shinigami are not a native Japanese concept.
[WARNING: PROLONGED GEEKERY AHEAD]
According to the Wikipedia article
on shinigami, it was originally used to translate Western concepts such as the Grim Reaper, and traditional Shinto death gods were not called shinigami. Also, it says that the first use of the word was in a rakugo (comic play) ultimately based on the Grimm fairy tale "Der Gevatter Tod."
After much Googling, I came across this article which supports this. It makes reference to the rakugo, and also says "During the Meiji period, the European image of Death with a black hood concealing a skull and holding a scythe was imported into Japan" and "In China, there are characters similar to the Grim Reaper, called "Somujo" or "Koshinin," whose job was to take spirits to "Meifu (The Land of Death)."" These foreign influences apparently combined to form the shinigami we see in anime today.
A Stranger Hi, I hope this is OK, I want to know if anyone knows what license is attached to that death image, I really love it & would like to use it but I want to make sure the artist is OK with it. I can't make out the signature, can anyone help? Thanks.
Insanity Prelude: Took out this part: If you get saved from Death too many times, Grim may decide you owe him a favor and your female Sim may find herself... in the family way.
- So you can get screwed by life and death?
because I've never heard of that happening. While Olive Specter does have a "Woo Hoo with the Grim Reaper" memory in-game, impregnating your Sims by him is generally a bad idea because his character data is incomplete. Like certain other NP Cs, Grimmy was never meant to be interacted with.
At least, as far as I know. :/
Meta Four: Seeing as we now have the Psychopomps page as the supertrope for The Grim Reaper, I think this page should be restricted to characters who are deliberate references to Grim, that is, they have at least one of the following:
- they look gaunt or skeletal and dress in black
- they carry a scythe
- they refer to themselves as The Grim Reaper
- In Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End, it's revealed part of the duties of the captain of the Flying Dutchman is to escort the souls of those who died at sea to the next world. It's also explained that the reason Davy Jones and his crew look like half-man, half-sea-creature hybrids is because he was neglecting this duty.
- Likewise, Death in Neil Gaiman's The Sandman comics/graphic novels is a Perky Goth girl who seems to have a deep and abiding affection for just about everyone and everything, and might therefore be something of a subversion to the "skeletal, menacing Grim Reaper."
- In his afterword to the Vertigo Comics artists' showcase Death Gallery, Gaiman mentions the inspiration for this portrayal. A Kabbalistic teaching has it that when a person is about to die, the Angel of Death comes to him in the form of a woman so beautiful that his soul leaves his body in ecstasy.
alliterator: I think that would be severely limiting the trope. The Pirates of the Caribbean example, I get, because they are just escorting souls, but Death of the Endless is the Personification of Death itself and should be in this trope. The fact that she isn't "grim" should mean nothing (the Discworld Death isn't particularly grim, even though he looks like he should be).
