What Discworld’s Death Can Teach Us About Empathy
What can the harvest hope for, if not for the care of the reaper man?
There has long been this notion that Death — that is, the anthropomorphic personification of the natural process — is a cruel, unjust villain. He appears at your door one night in his dark robe holding a scythe and takes your soul off to the Great Beyond.
What a jerk.
Sir Terry Pratchett had a different interpretation of Death, however. What if Death was just simply a civil servant, carrying out the duties of his job to a highly effective degree? And, like many other workers, what if he was a bit jaded with the job?
A Bit of Background
For those unfamiliar with the works of Sir Terry Pratchett, who passed away in March of 2015, he is the author of over 40 novels in the Discworld series. He also co-wrote Good Omens with Neil Gaiman, which was turned into an Amazon Prime original series last year (and it was fantastic).
Terry Pratchett was also an advocate for a person’s right to choose death. Faced with a rare form of Alzheimer’s that pulled…
