In honor of November being dedicated to the holy souls in Purgatory, where we in the Church on earth remember those who have died before us awaiting the Beatific Vision, I wanted to write something that uniquely drew your attention to this reality of the fallen human condition.
Death has been personified since long before Christianity, but takes on some characteristics in the New Testament too, like when St. Paul asks, in 1 Corinthians 15:55, “O death, where is your victory?”
Thinking about the recent revelation (*spoiler alert*) on the Disney+ series Agatha All Along of the character Rio Vidal, aka Lady Death (who is a character from the comics and has a bigger role in their Infinity Saga storyline), it got me thinking of other examples of Death as a character in other recent pop culture properties.
Here are three other interesting examples to think about:
“The Tale of the Three Brothers,” Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 – In this scene, Hermoine reads from a collection of children’s stories about a tale of three brothers who are confronted by Death as they cross a river. For besting him, he offers each of them a gift of their choice, knowing that human nature will likely prove each gift chosen by them to be their comeuppance. Like many great ancient myths, this trick teaches us a lesson on vice and virtue, specifically presumption, despair and humility.
Sandman, graphic novel by Neil Gaiman and Netflix series – Gaiman was heavily influenced by JRR Tolkien and his Catholicism, and one finds some of that influence in Gaiman’s characterization of Death in this series. In the series, Death is the “sister” of the main character, and she shares with him how her vocation, though difficult, is a gift because it brings us from this world to eternity. Seeing death as a gift is language used in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series, and the image of “Sister Death,” was one used by St. Francis of Assisi. Gaiman combines them and gives them his own unique, albeit imperfect, twist.
Puss in Boots: The Last Wish – A surprisingly deep depiction of Death. At first, we think he will just be a foil to our main character (Puss in Boots is a cat, Death is a wolf). Death continually pursues Puss and it is the first adversary Puss cannot overpower, outsmart or outtalk. At the climax of the movie when Puss can fight off Death no more and accepts, he lives, because Puss has learned how to truly live. While we Catholics know that death is not the end, it is an end that we must remember and accept in order to truly live. There is even the recently popularized phrase in Catholic spirituality, though it has its own ancient roots, memento mori (“remember your death”).
Like any depiction in popular culture, none of these are going to represent the fullness of the Catholic teaching. However, finding specific ways where each one shows an aspect of the Church’s understanding of death can help us develop a lens to see God more present in the world. Maybe when a character of “Death” comes up, it can prompt a fruitful conversation and become a moment of evangelization.
