History Headscratchers / DeadLikeMe

** The first episode explicitly states that murders and suicides fall under "external influence." And we do see a couple of murders (Mason with the two crackheads in tow in the pilot; George's rockstar reap in Season 2), and though we're never actually shown a suicide (James the speed dater comes close), the Reapers have discussed them from time to time.

** In "In Escrow", the same episode where Mason reaps the old rockstar guy, at the end, there's a guy who shoots twelve people and himself. Also, Roxy was murdered, and Mason sort of committed suicide. (I'm not far enough in the series to know how Rube died.)

** Their job is to be present for every death, even the ones they don't directly cause. And if their reaction to George as a child is any indication, they're not incapable of discretion or mercy. For a show that makes a dedicated effort not to define the reward and punishment of the afterlife, the ambiguity of gravelings seems like a good way to avoid implying that death is a punishment visited on the living while still implying that some punishment exists. Gravelings exist to make bad things happen because bad things ''need'' to happen, but the reason they're suited to the job is because they're ''assholes''. Based on what we see with Ray-- assuming that it's typical-- it's not just that he was killed by a Reaper without an appointment, it's that he was killed in retaliation for abusive behavior without an appointment. Becoming a graveling makes the most sense for his afterlife, because why the ''fuck'' should someone like him get his Lights? Unlike every other death we see in the show, Ray didn't have an "external influence", there was no graveling to cause his accident, there were no extenuating circumstances or bad luck. Ray died because he was a piece of shit who thought he could treat whoever he wanted, however he wanted, and one day, he decided to mistreat ''death itself''. You can't even say he didn't know what he was doing, the whole reason he confronted Daisy was because he realized she had a connection with the people who died. He didn't know what that connection ''was'', but he took it as a threat and used it against Daisy. He didn't become a graveling because he was secretly a reaper, he became a graveling because he thought he could fight Death and win.

* The most likely answer is that the other Reapers have been doing this for years, and ItGetsEasier. It's probably been a while since Rube had to train a Reaper, and he hoped his ToughLove BecauseISaidSo attitude would be enough. The problem is that he got George, a perpetually disinterested teen who's a LogicalLatecomer who equates "reaping" with "killing". They're not exactly the nicest people, in Rube and Roxie's case, or the most clear-thinking, as it is with Mason. Betty has been doing the job so long that, nice as she is, she doesn't understand George's pain Roxie empathizes but she's not a person that George can befriend easily, and someone like Betty focuses on seeking adventure while following the rules. In fact, that's probably why George was the only person that didn't succumb to temptation in ''Life After Death'' when Rube got his lights; she still holds onto her empathy for the people she has to reap, and sees the consequences of doing her job but still does it anyway.

* When George gets the VIPR (Very Important Person Reap) of the rock star, Mason loses his shit. He goes on and on about how he wants to reap a rock star, but just an episode or two prior, he reaped one of his musical heroes, albeit one who was not at the top of his game any more. If it had been written as Mason just being selfish, it could have been funny, but it comes across too much as CanonDiscontinuity by not recalling previous events. "I want another" instead of "I have never had one" would have worked.

* Were we actually supposed to be impressed with George when she told that guy that a crab wasn't an animal? Her sarcastic "Okay, a warm-blooded, furry crab..." line only made things worse, since that scene's written like it's to show off how much smarter she is than him, but in reality it just shows that she (and the writers) [[YouFailBiologyForever fail biology forever]].

* Speaking of, Piano Woman's soul came out [[BeautyIsNeverTarnished looking pretty spotless]], having been reaped after her death. (It [[JustForFun/{{Pun}} strikes a chord]] that sounds a lot like {{Retcon}}.)
* Why is Rube [[SelectiveEnforcement relatively unfazed]] by Roxy having waited until after death to reap her?

** I'd have thought the others would have pointed out to him that Un-Mason looks older, but maybe, given few opportunities to see Un-Mason, they've never noticed. Alternately, it could be that they've given up on correcting the stupid things Mason says unless they're particularly {{egregious}}.

*** "Counter" was a poor choice of words on the part of the previous troper. What s/he intended to say is that if gravelings are specialized, Reapers are in the same way and probably because of it.

*** It's also worth pointing out that she stuck him back in his body before he started building the shrine.
*** Exactly. As far as it can be seen, he changed like that because he had an out-of-body experience, not because he was soulpopped. Remember, all it took was a GroinAttack to bring him back to his old, {{Jerkass}} self. Usually the reapers just disconnect the soul but leave it in the body, she actually pulled his soul out before putting it back, which would surely cause ''some'' epiphany or trauma.
*** Soul-popping "dislodges" the soul from the body and makes it so the person's death is painless and doesn't leave soul-scars. Once the soul is popped, it's preserved in that form forever. A person who walks around with a popped soul wouldn't be able to feel pain, or grow, or change in any significant spiritual way.

*** Pretty much hit the nail on the head. Jump off a building? You'd just land in such a way that doesn't kill you. Try to shoot yourself in the head? Gun jams. The show seems to imply that a lot of people just escape death.

*** This. Don't forget that the CelestialBureaucracy (and, by extension, Rube) knows about all the scheduled deaths in advance, so if there would ever come such a day during which no "External Influences" deaths would happen (either by coincidence or [[EpilepticTrees direct influence]]), it would only make sense that the Reapers would get a day off.

*** The first episode explicitly states that murders and suicides fall under "external influence." And we do see a couple of murders (Mason with the two crackheads in tow in the pilot; George's rockstar reap in Season 2), and though we're never actually shown a suicide (James the speed dater comes close), the Reapers have discussed them from time to time.
*** don't forget the gay couple in Season 1 also.
*** As well as the guy who [[strike:jumped]] slipped off the roof of the speed-dating place. And what about that poor mistress who got murdered? Accidents may be the most common, but there's been no shortage of murders and suicides. And it's explicitly stated that the Club takes care of those. So unless Gravelings do just have to be around when someone dies, my point stands. (The coincidence thing makes no sense. People are shown to be surviving fatal accidents on the Gravelings' day off. Not to mention that, again, those accidents still should've been fatal even if the Gravelings didn't cause them.)
*** In "In Escrow", the same episode where Mason reaps the old rockstar guy, at the end, there's a guy who shoots twelve people and himself. Also, Roxy was murdered, and Mason sort of committed suicide. (I'm not far enough in the series to know how Rube died.)

*** I thought maybe the above, plus they're similar enough that someone who sees them one way would describe them in the same general terms as someone who sees them the other way. You have to ignore the fact that Millie and un-Mason's hair colours are different from George and Mason's for that to work, but whatever. And in the event that two people who see a reaper differently have to paint them or describe them to a police sketch artist, well yeah...magic.

*** He gets his lights when he reaps enough animals.
*** Maybe Charlie used to be an animal, but was given human form when he became a reaper?

*** All of the animals reaped in the show were pets. The bunny in the vet clinic where Murray went, the komodo dragon at the school, and of course JD. These animals were loved by their owners, so it may be that love itself imbues an entity with a soul and therefore deserving of a peaceful transition to the afterlife. The bear was a wild animal on display as a roadside attraction, not a beloved pet, hence no reap.

*** It's possible that Gravelings are what happens to souls that rot in their bodies. Rube says in the pilot, after George tells him the little girl could have another eighty years, that those are eighty years she doesn't want. Souls go bad when they're trapped inside a body-- maybe Gravelings are people who ''don't'' get an appointment? Ray was always going to be a Graveling, Mason just happened to be the one to free him from the meat bag.

*** ''Un''-Mason. You know, what he looks like to mortals. Plain old ordinary Mason, of course, appears to be in his twenties. However, when we were shown what he looks like to mortals, that person had greyish hair. As it's certainly not a casting call for the purposes of Reaper advertisements made with special Reaper cameras that would show what Reapers look like to Reapers, and thus should-still-get-carded ordinary Mason as played by Callum Blue, but rather a mortal advertisement for someone who will look like a twentysomething to mortals, why the hell does Mason think he's qualified for that when he looks grey-haired and middle-aged to mortals?... oh, all right, my eyes are playing tricks on me, [[http://www.stripedwall.com/gallery.php?image=/television/DLM/DLMS1/DLM1x01/dlm1x01_533.jpg&mode=fullsize here's a screencap]]. ''Series/{{House}}'' much? Anyway, not so much with the grey hair, but he does appear to be in his thirties, and distinctly older than normal Mason. But it definitely makes it more of a case of Mason being a bit of a dingbat than flat-out TooDumbToLive and forgetting his own MrExposition spiel.
*** Someone told me that the person doing it in the second season didn't like the "Un"-characters, and so they dropped them. Not sure how reliable it is, but that could explain it.
*** That would explain why the guy helping Rube find his family's records said that the sketch of Rube on the Wanted poster looked just like him. They had to have either dropped the idea or forgotten about it.
*** To Mason, Mason looks like himself. It can be difficult to remember that you don't look like you. To me it would only be a problem if Mason actually GOT the modeling job.
*** I'd have thought the others would have pointed out to him that Un-Mason looks older, but maybe, given few opportunities to see Un-Mason, they've never noticed. Alternately, it could be that they've given up on correcting the stupid things Mason says unless they're particularly {{egregious}}.

*** I thought that losing her memories was part of being a grim reaper, since (in the series) the first thing Rube asks Georgia when she tells him about that is if she lost any memories. Personally, I think TheMovie just drops that thing from the canon so the movie can happen.
*** I took that as a metaphor on Rube's part, not an actual part of the mythology.
*** My interpretation was that, yes, trying to share a memory with a surviving friend or relative meant you lost the memory. The more you try, the more you lose. Cruel, but effective.
*** How do you have a different interpretation to something specifically said in the show?

*** Whether or not it is an automatic transfer, it is most definitely a transfer. Charlie claims he was killed in a car accident, which would normally peg him as an External Influences reaper. It would be similar to Penny, the nurse reaper who works Natural Causes but originally worked with Rube in External Influences.
*** But ''IS'' it a transfer? The boy works with post-its, most clearly a Rube thing, so he seems to be one of Rube's people, although clearly he doesn't get to meet with the others in the cafe so it must be a different team. Also, all the pets he reaps arguably fall into the External Incidents category (JD is hit by a car, The Komodo Dragon is crushed by the janitor, and the rabbit "had nothing wrong with him" so he either dies in an accident later on or had an undetectable poison)

*** Decent-sized company has, what, a thousand-odd people working for it? Knowing a few hours ahead of time if someone in a reasonably important position is going to die can allow the person to short the stock, or sell the information to competing companies (e.g. the person is a middle-manager in charge of branding a new product: them dying will delay the product a bit). Or you can go to the person and warn them, giving them a chance to sort out their affairs beforehand, say goodbye, and the like, for a reward. Or various other ways. Gets even easier if he's working with reapers from other areas/divisions, as they can share information.

** This troper's initial theory was that gravelings were demoted reapers. Screw up enough times and you lose your reaper stripes. If they're already screw-ups or they don't follow orders or whatever, and ''then'' you turn them into ugly little gremlins, they're gonna be pretty pissed off. Of course, you'd still have to keep them doing their jobs, so maybe they'd have to threaten them with a further demotion cleaning toilets in hell or something. Obviously Ray doesn't fit into that theory, unless he was [[KarmicTwistEnding secretly a reaper...?]]

*** I think this is exactly what happens. When "The Kid" asks Daisy if he's dead, she says "No, but you're down for the count." Since she popped his soul, the killing blow forced his soul out of his body, even though his body may not have been fully dead (although there would probably be no higher brain function).

*** Netflix's subtitles say it was "Kid Mason." Just throwing it out there.

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