Death (mythology)
Information concerning the Death fromDeathworld, even if his main page is to be put atDeath (horseman), it still should get some kind of reference
These omissions are so great that the article's factual accuracy has been compromised. Check out thediscussion page andrevision history for further clues about what needs to be updated in this article.
Death
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Memorable moment
- You may wish to consult
Death (disambiguation)for other, similarly-named pages.
Death was anEternal and aMenti Celesti, one of thegoddesses ofGallifrey, embodyingdeath itself.
Death sometimes took on both male and female forms; as one of theMenti Celesti Death was a female goddess, which was also the gender it presented as in her dealings with theSeventh Doctor. However, someEarth myths depicted Death as male. When faced with Death,Torchwood Three ended up primarily referring to the entity as an "it".
According toSuzie Costello, when one died and entered the afterlife, Death would stalk them in the darkness. (TV:They Keep Killing Suzie[+]Loading...["They Keep Killing Suzie (TV story)"])
Biography[[edit] |[edit source]]
Origins[[edit] |[edit source]]
Death was younger than her sisterPain but older thanTime. (PROSE:Set Piece[+]Loading...["Set Piece (novel)"])
According to a Gallifreyan fairy tale, Death was born while the gods were drunk, and they accidentally gave her name to someone else. Since nobody remembered her name or who it had been given to, Death lamented, "Everything and everyone has a name, except for me." As a result, Death began to take away the names of mortal beings. (PROSE:Return of the Living Dad[+]Loading...["Return of the Living Dad (novel)"]) She herself once claimed that her kind were "the dreams of Time Lords", and that they "leak out across the universe", only occasionally being given physical form by entities such as the Timewyrm. (PROSE:Human Nature[+]Loading...["Human Nature (novel)"])
Unbeknownst to most, the particular incarnation of Death known to theSeventh Doctor came into being as the child ofJasmine Surprise Hutchings andRicky McIlveen, in a union foreseen and planned by Jasmine Surprise's mother Ishtar, who was the Timewyrm herself. (PROSE:Happy Endings[+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"])
Influence on Gallifrey[[edit] |[edit source]]
During theOld Time onGallifrey, Death sent amessenger toSlothe. The Messenger killed the inhabitants of Slothe, until one dayPresus rose up and fought the creature, killing it. (PROSE:Blind Fury[+]Loading...["Blind Fury (short story)"])
Duringthe Doctor's youth, he killedTorvic. Rather than becomingDeath's Champion, the Doctor made a deal with Death so she would choose anotherTime Lord, later known asthe Master. The Doctor would later forget about this encounter, (AUDIO:Master[+]Loading...["Master (audio story)"]) although he remembered seeing Death on a Gallifreyan hillside. (PROSE:Set Piece[+]Loading...["Set Piece (novel)"])
Activities on Earth[[edit] |[edit source]]
Torchwood Three discovered that in1479, after a priest in the parish that would becomeCardiff had used aresurrection gauntlet to save a girl namedFaith from the plague, Death began manifesting in the world of the living. It needed to reap the souls of thirteen dying people to permanently anchor itself to the physical world. Death killed twelve people, but Faith managed to stop it before it could collect a thirteenth victim, which would have enabled it to enter theuniverse permanently. (TV:Dead Man Walking[+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"])
However, afairy tale related by theBrothers Grimm gave an account of more benevolent dealings between Death (depicted in the tale as male) and humanity. The story, entitledGodfather Death, told of a man who could not afford to keep his thirteenth child and gave them to Death to raise. Death raised the child to become aphysician before the child defied him to save the life of aprincess. Furious, Death brought the child to a cave where everyone's life was represented by acandle, marking a short one as the child's and ending their life. (PROSE:The Knight, The Fool and The Dead[+]Loading...["The Knight, The Fool and The Dead (novel)"])
Dealings with the Seventh Doctor[[edit] |[edit source]]
TheSeventh Doctor met Death for the first time onthe Moon, when she was summoned by theTimewyrm as a robed skeleton. (PROSE:Timewyrm: Revelation[+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"])
Death briefly spoke to theTravellers inPuterspace stating that three quarters of them would die, but would not state which of them. (PROSE:Prelude Love and War[+]Loading...["Prelude Love and War (short story)"]) The Doctor made another deal with Death to saveAce and offered himself in her place. (PROSE:Love and War[+]Loading...["Love and War (novel)"]) Death later took the life of DoctorJohn Smith. (PROSE:Human Nature[+]Loading...["Human Nature (novel)"])
On several occasions, the Doctor said he was "friends" with Death. (AUDIO:The Death Collectors[+]Loading...["The Death Collectors (audio story)"],Spider's Shadow[+]Loading...["Spider's Shadow (audio story)"]) He once won a bet with Death. (PROSE:SLEEPY[+]Loading...["SLEEPY (novel)"])
Death pickedMortimus to beher champion as a means of revenge upon the Doctor. Mortimus did not fully grasp the cosmic significance of the deal he had bartered. (PROSE:No Future[+]Loading...["No Future (novel)"])
When the Doctor suffered a one-sided heart attack atRoz Forrester's funeral, he had a vision of Death taunting him about taking the life of one of his companions, and that some day soon, she will take him, when he is alone and friendless, without warning and without meaning. (PROSE:So Vile a Sin[+]Loading...["So Vile a Sin (novel)"])
Death, along with Time and Pain, attendedBernice Summerfield andJason Kane'swedding inCheldon Bonniface on24 April2010. (PROSE:Happy Endings[+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"])
At some point, the Doctor made a deal with Death to give the Master a new start in life as a good and honest man for ten years, feeling guilty for how he turned out. However, after the ten years, it was agreed he would have to kill the Master.
When the ten years expired, Death sent the Doctor toPerfugium, where "John Smith" was living. Taking on the identity of John Smith's maid, Jade, Death tormented the Doctor, John Smith and his friends. This led to one of his friends,Victor Schaeffer, killing his own wife, and John's love,Jacqueline. When the Doctor couldn't go through with killing John, he realised his significance in creating the Master, and how he had turned him into Death's Champion, by making his original deal with Death.
He constructed a new deal with Death, so that he wouldn't have to kill John, but would instead have to kill an innocent person in the place of an assassin (who was just a disguise of Death again), but couldn't go through with that deal either. Death also made a deal with John Smith that to remain as John Smith, he had to decide whether he would make the Doctor Death's Champion, or if he would kill Victor so that Jacqueline would be reborn, but become the Master again. It is still unknown what his decision was. (AUDIO:Master[+]Loading...["Master (audio story)"])
Death stalked the Seventh Doctor for some time. The Doctor ended up making a deal with Death so that he could save the life ofa tramp, unaware that his death would have had repercussions in theWeb of Time. (PROSE:The Tramp's Story[+]Loading...["The Tramp's Story (short story)"])
At one point, Death took the name "LaMort" and moved toSydney in the19th century, interested in the novelty of colonialAustralia. Two hundred years later, she had become bored with all the ways and places that death took place. She intended to commitsuicide by overdosing onpills. However, the Doctor,Benny, andAce visited her, and the Doctor made Benny describe all theplanets that humans had brought death to in her time. With the promise of all these new virgin worlds, Death resolved not to commit suicide, and she dropped her pills; they transformed into souls and melted away. (PROSE:Virgin Lands[+]Loading...["Virgin Lands (short story)"])
Later activities[[edit] |[edit source]]
In a junkyard onHa'olam, a blackPersian cat and two other strays attackedSam Jones'cat, who wasLife, for invading their territory. (PROSE:Seeing I[+]Loading...["Seeing I (novel)"])
Though Death's sistersLife,Time, andFate fled theSpiral Politic at first foresight of theWar in Heaven, Death stayed behind and watched them leave. (PROSE:Hark! The Herald Angels Sing[+]Loading...["Hark! The Herald Angels Sing (short story)"]) In thepost-War universe,Sabbath followed theEighth Doctor on a trip into Death's abode. Despite her history with the Doctor prior to the War, she did not recognise him. (PROSE:Camera Obscura[+]Loading...["Camera Obscura (novel)"])
Encounter with Torchwood[[edit] |[edit source]]
WhenOwen Harper was resurrected with the same gauntlet, Death used him as a gateway into the universe, and possessed him repeatedly. While doing so, it repeated "I shall walk the earth and my hunger will know no bounds" in a strange language.
Eventually, the energy from Death that was keeping Owen animate fully transformed Owen's cell structure, allowing Death to cross through into the universe. It briefly possessed Owen again before escaping his body as a thin gray vapour, and then began to materialise in the form of a ghostly skeleton shrouded in smoke, growing more and more solid the stronger its link to the universe became. It travelled toSt Helen's Hospital and began killing and collecting thesouls of the staff and patients that Torchwood failed to evacuate from the hospital in time.
Death claimed twelve of the thirteen souls it needed to fully enter the universe, but before it could claim a thirteenth victim, Owen trapped himself in one of the rooms of the hospital with Death. Death realised too late that as Owen was already dead, it could do nothing to him and could not use him to fuel itself. With Owen literally fighting Death to keep it busy until its time ran out, it ultimately ran out of energy and its physical form dissipated as it returned to theAfterlife. (TV:Dead Man Walking[+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"])
Legacy[[edit] |[edit source]]
A version of Death appeared in "theSandman comics", with whichSam Jones was familiar. At a goth bar inSan Francisco, Sam and theEighth Doctor noticed that the bartender was dressed as this version of Death. (PROSE:Vampire Science[+]Loading...["Vampire Science (novel)"])
Appearance[[edit] |[edit source]]
As an intelligent concept, Death was only occasionally given physical forms. Her avatars included a blackPersian cat, (PROSE:Seeing I[+]Loading...["Seeing I (novel)"]) a hoodedskeleton, (PROSE:Timewyrm: Revelation[+]Loading...["Timewyrm: Revelation (novel)"]) whose image was known inEarth's culture as theGrim Reaper, (TV:Dead Man Walking[+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"],The Visitation[+]Loading...["The Visitation (TV story)"]) a beautiful woman with flowing fair hair, (PROSE:Prelude Love and War[+]Loading...["Prelude Love and War (short story)"]) and "a girl, about fourteen, dressed in black, with dark hair cascading down her pale features". (PROSE:Happy Endings[+]Loading...["Happy Endings (novel)"]) After manifesting in the universe through Owen, Death had the physical form of a human skeleton shrouded in grey vapour. (TV:Dead Man Walking[+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"])
Abilities[[edit] |[edit source]]
When gaining a physical form in the world of the living, Death had the ability to bring forward the death of any mortal. It favoured the dying or nearly dead, but could do the same to healthy individuals if necessary — although it could not permanently kill the immortalJack Harkness, and had no power over undead beings likeOwen. With a touch, Death could also sap away a mortal's life as he did toMartha Jones, bringing them to extreme old age without actually killing them; however, this effect would reverse itself once Death ceased manifesting in the mortal plane. (TV:Dead Man Walking[+]Loading...["Dead Man Walking (TV story)"])
References[[edit] |[edit source]]
At some point, "someone" sent whatDoom, the self-proclaimed "universe's greatest assassin", believed to be "literal Death" after her. Doom found herself circled by a mysterious shadow wherever she went, and believed that she would only be able to evade the entity for twenty-four hours unless she couldfindthe Doctor first. (WC:Meet Doom - the Universe's Greatest Assassin![+]Loading...["Meet Doom - the Universe's Greatest Assassin! (webcast)"]) However, theFirst Doctor revealed the figure was not actually Death, but simply aGatherer interested in consuming theparadox at play. (PROSE:Out of Time[+]Loading...["Out of Time (short story)"])
Behind the scenes[[edit] |[edit source]]
InHappy Endings[[edit] |[edit source]]
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The Eternals Death,Time, andPain explicitly attendBernice Summerfield and Jason Kane's wedding inHappy Endings. Death is described as wearing a cape.
Later in the novel, Bernice talks with an unnamed teenage girl who has similarities to Death as depicted inNeil Gaiman'sThe Sandman comics. The teenage girl has pale features, dark hair, and is dressed in black. She also says it will be her job "to turn off the lights onceeverybody's gone". Death makes a similar statement in Gaiman'sThe Books of Magic #4.
Gaiman's Death was depicted as one of "the Endless," a line-up of cosmic embodiments of concepts. Gaiman's Endless, who debuted in1989, had notable similarity to theMenti Celesti, down to the words "Endless" and "Eternal" being synonymous, thus facilitating the identification. The original run ofSandman comics was almost exactly contemporary with theVirgin New Adventures, making the crossover allusion doubly significant. However, the canonical line-up of siblings inThe Sandman differs from the one used in DWU media: there is no Endless of Time, a maleDestiny instead of the femaleFate, and a maleDestruction instead ofPain. Additionally, Destiny is described as the oldest of the Endless, whereas Pain is the oldest of the Menti Celesti.
Although according toPaul Scoones,Paul Cornell himself confirmed the allusion toThe Sandman in Death's description inHappy Endings[1]Neil Penswick (to whom the section ofHappy Endings in which she appears is attributed) disputed this notion in the fanzineBroadsword. Though acknowledging that she "had appeared in other works", he denied that this was in fact Gaiman's Death.[2]
InTorchwood[[edit] |[edit source]]
The untranslated form of Death's dialogue inTV:Dead Man Walking ("Melenkurion abatha duroc minas mill khabaal!"/"I shall walk theEarth, and my hunger will know no bounds!") is a quotation from Stephen R. Donaldson's dark fantasy seriesThe Chronicles of Thomas Covenant. Within the series's setting, the Land, it is part of a powerful incantation known as the Seven Words. "Melenkurion" means bastion or source; "abatha" means endurance, or the need for it; "duroc" means Earthpower, a type of natural energy found within the Land; "minas" also means Earthpower, but used as a foundation rather than as theurgy; and "khabaal" has numerous meanings. The sixth word, "harad", which signifies a commitment not to use Earthpower for dark purposes, is omitted here; it had not been revealed until the then-recent eighth volume, so it is unclear whether its omission from the episode is significant or intentional. When a fan described the scene to Donaldson, he replied that he had never heard ofTorchwood, but that "if it isn't a) an "homage" or b) an in-joke, then it's just stupid. I suggest that we all simply enjoy it for whatever we think it is. Unless the makers of "Torchwood" know something I don't? <muffled gasp>"[3] However, Donaldson was impressed when an anonymous fan subsequently told him that Davies was a huge fan of theCovenant books and re-read them once a year.[4]
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