Befriend The Reaper
Imaginary Worlds28 Sep 2022

Befriend The Reaper

One of the most common tropes in fantasy genres is personifying Death – turning this abstract and often terrifying concept into a character that people can interact with. Sometimes Death is portrayed as a Grim Reaper, but Death doesn’t have to be grim. Death can be compassionate, and even funny. And more often in recent years, Death has been depicted as someone with deeply ambivalent feelings about their job. I talk with listeners about their favorite portrayals of Death from Discworld to Sandman to Dead Like Me, and why imagining Death as a character changed the way they felt about death and grief. Our ad partner is Multitude. If you’re interested in advertising on Imaginary Worlds, you can contact them here. List of media mentioned in this episode: The Sandman comics and Netflix series Dead Like Me Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett Death With Interruptions by Jose Saramago On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Critical Role podcast The Seventh Seal Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey Monty Python and The Meaning of Life Personification of Death academic study from 2019 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Episoder(303)

Reimagining the Gods

Reimagining the Gods

Madeline Miller received critical acclaim for her novels The Song of Achilles and Circe – which reimagine The Iliad and The Odyssey told from the perspective of minor characters in the original texts ...

10 Jan 201932min

A Visit by Three Ghosts

A Visit by Three Ghosts

In a special stocking stuffer of an episode, Stephanie Billman and I discuss why A Christmas Carol set the template for SF stories to come -- from Back to the Future to X=Men. Plus, we have a special ...

24 Des 201826min

Board Games Go Indie

Board Games Go Indie

We all grow up playing board games and card games, and now those games are growing up as well. I check out BostonFIG (festival of independent games), where a new generation of indie board game designe...

13 Des 201829min

How I Won the Larp

How I Won the Larp

In my 2017 episode Winning the Larp, I looked at the history of larps (live action role plays) and how the larping experience is deeply personal for each of the players. But I hadn’t done any larps my...

29 Nov 201842min

Alternate Movie Posters

Alternate Movie Posters

Long ago, before we found out about new movies from tweets about teaser trailers that advertised full-length trailers – the first glimpse of a new movie would be the poster. Movie posters used to be h...

15 Nov 201830min

Faith in Fantasy

Faith in Fantasy

Science fiction has not always been compatible with religion -- in fact many futuristic settings imagine no religion at all. But sci-fi and fantasy have long fascinated people of different faiths beca...

1 Nov 201833min

Don't Mess with the Fairies

Don't Mess with the Fairies

Forget Tinkerbell or those Victorian paintings of spritely pixies with wings. Traditional fairy folklore is much darker and weirder. Irish storytellers Philip Byrne, Helena Byrne, Eddie Lenihan, and p...

18 Okt 201831min

Movies for the Mind

Movies for the Mind

There has been a renaissance of audio drama podcasts over the last several years, so picking up where I left off in the previous episode, I bring the history of audio dramas up to date with the help o...

4 Okt 201832min

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