Friday, April 24, 2020

How they compare: Death (Pratchett Multiverse)


Death is a cosmic entity in the multiverse of Pratchett's works, in particular Discworld and one of the antagonists in Good Omens. 

Death is the personification of the concept of Death and a underling of the greater conceptual entity Azrael, one of the 8 Old High Ones who collectively create all reality by their belief. Death's role is to take old worn-out souls and recycle them into new lives. 

He is the leader of the four horsemen and when a world is to end he also leads them to end it. Despite this has a fascination with the oddities of humanity and is quite sympathetic to them in general. 

 

Death is the only supernatural entity who is known across the multiverse, appearing in many different universes, though he often takes on different names such as Anubis, Kali, and Locaha. Death's true nature is indeed beyond space and time. He has been described as the dark side of creation, existing beyond reality. He is less human and affected by spacetime as the other Horsemen. He was there at the beginning of time and will be there at the end of time.

Death has numerous casual universal+ feats. He was completely unaffected by Adam Young, the Antichrist's reality-warping which could end the universe; he challenged the Spirit of Rock, the source of the Big Bang, to a rock off which threatend the universe, he tanked the beginning and end of the universe and has shifted his size into extradimensional space viewing the entire Discworld universe as but a multifacted jewel. He is also stated to be the destroyer of worlds which may mean universes. He was able to casually one-shot the New Death that was to be his replacement and scales to the Hogfather who on Hogswatch Night creates a new universe.

Speed is mostly irrelevant to Death as he can appear anywhere in the multiverse he wishes at any time. In fact it said that all living entities possess a little bit of Death within them. Death natually exists in Death's realm, a timeless land from which he projects into the multiverse to reap entities. He does this so quickly that he even kills all possible versions of a person that would have died that moment to fit the quantum interpretation of Schrodinger's Cat. Just within physical space he once traveled with his horse Blinky a space it would take light 300,000,000 years to travel in an instant. Light thinks itself the fastest thing in the universe but it always find that darkness has beaten it there first.


Death has a large and versatile array of abilities. First off he is as mentioned an abstract concept and can move past such things as matter and magic just by being realer then them. Death has many aspects but he can make them seperate and act independent of him if he so chooses such as the Death of Rats which is just the aspect of Death that specifically kills rats. 

Death as a concept can naturally affect concepts which he does when he has to reap them. He has sharpened a scythe so sharp as to cut the STORY ITSELF, which is a metafictional level of sharpness, sharpened beyond "any definition of sharpness". In his rock off with the rock off Death also used the empty chords of silence of the universe as his song which threatened to tear the universe apart. 

Death can casually exist outside spacetime, and can take others there. He can bfr enemies to the Desert of Death, an infinite plane of reality where time moves at a different rate. He can also take people to his domain, where he has maintains the laws of physics. He can casually change his size and shape, and his granddaughter with some of his powers was able to make it so time and gravity did not apply to her. 

Death has many other various abilities, usually not quite as strong as these. When he was substituting for the Hogfather, the Discworld equivalent of Santa, Death read the minds of the children and conjured the presents they most desired showing his mind reading and creation abilities. He also transmuted a metal sword into a wooden sword when the kid's mother complainted it was too dangerous. He can control fire and air causing his blade to catch fire and manipulating air particles. He was able to shape the interior of his domain to give life to species inside, giving them souls and spirit to fit their bodies. He is an acausal entity, immune to time paradoxes. He can shape the minds and memories and senses of people with just his presence causing it hard for most people to percieve and remember him. He can also enter and exit stories at will. It's noted that his touch or just his aura can instantly kill most entities. Indeed according to Terry Pratchett's Twitter, Death came to take the writer at his passing. 

Finally Death is quite intelligent, gained from his immortal timeless existence. He sees across the mists of spacetime allowing clairvoyance and can remember events that have not yet happened. His thoughts are beyond any mortal comprehension. 

Death only has a few weaknesses. Death like all Discworld cosmic entities is powered by the belief of mortals. Also despite being an abstract concept Death is not actually invisible, it's just that most mortals can not will themselves to face Death and so they will themselves to ignore his presence. Magical entities, children, and cats can usually see him. Once he was replacing an actor on stage, and because the people expected to see "Death" they actually could see him, causing him to get very nervous. Speaking of, immortal entities are invisible to Death, and his fascination with humans mean he has allowed humans to get the best of him in games for their life. He also always forgets how the knight in chess moves. 


Name: Death
Origin: Pratchett Multiverse (Primarily Discworld)
Classification: Personification of Death
Powers and Abilities: Abstract Existence, Can exist outside spacetime, teleportation/time travel, acausality, BFR, Immersion Death Aura, Death Manipulation (Can affect on an abstract and metafictional level), Sound Manipulation (can manipulate the silence of the universe as a song), Elemental Manipulation (Fire/Air), Can make aspects of himself independent or absorb them again, telepathy, creation, transmutation, can see beyond spacetime, kills people across spacetime including alternate versions of entities, shapeshifting, Memory/Mind Manipulation, Creation/Reality-Warping (created his own domain with it's own physics and living beings), can not be killed without destroying the universe, clairvoyance, exists in all living beings, resistance to reality-warping
Weaknesses: Powered by mortal belief, Not technically invisible, immortals are invisible to him, fascination with humans and love for cats
Destructive Capacity: Universe Level+
Range: Multiversal
Speed: Essentially irrelevant, MFTL+ at least when traveling through physical spacetime
Durability: At least universal
Stamina: Infinite 
Standard Equipment: Scythe, Sword
Intelligence: Vast knowledge of the multiverse and it's laws of existence



So how would he do in other verses?


In DC Comics, Death would be similar in nature to a being from the Sphere of the Gods. While in raw power he would likely not be able to equal to them, for a universe is like a jewel to him whereas universal sized tech is nanotechnology to the DC Gods, his abilities would mean he could fight a New God's or any being from the Sphere of the Gods true form fairly evenly. 

He would be relative to the Lords of Order and Lords of Chaos whose metaphysical war on the spiritual plane rests the fate of the multiverse in terms of power. He would be able to fight evenly with Mordru and Dr. Fate despite their incredible power, versatility and speed due to his spacetime manipulation and conceptual to metafictional manipulation. 



In Marvel Comics, Death would be above the Cosmic Cubes and the various dimension lords like Mephisto who can casually warp the reality of their own universe sized realms. Death would be relative to the Celestials and the Universal M-Bodies of the Cosmic Abstracts like Eternity and Infinity who exist in "outerverse".  Against these Death would likely win one and on given his metafictional abilities and versatility though he would not be able to beat the Multiversal Abstracts.

In any of the main universes, Death would be nigh unbeatable unless one of the great cosmics gets involved. 



In the Supernatural verse, Death would be comparable to the God Tiers of the verse including God who regularly creates universes, his sister the Darkness who ends those universes in a cosmic cycle and...ironically...Death who can kill both of them.

While they are still weaker then the casual universal feats of Pratchett Death that said in an ironic reversal they actually have a comparble to better hax given their plot manipulation and similar to superior forms of matter, mind, reality etc. manipulation. Given Pratchett Death's ability to duplicate and multiversal scale he would still be an immense threat to the Supernatural multiverse and would need to be stopped almost immediatly or would cause immense destruction if not completely destroying the verse completely. 



In the Cthulhu Mythos, Death would be approximately equal to the Elder Gods and the basic Archetypes, who can survive the voice of the ENTITY which was like universes colliding. He would likely beat most of the slave races like the Nightgaunts and Hunting Horrors who can survive universes ending and being born around them due to much more casual feats and better hax though he would have no chance at beating any of the Outer Gods who are formless entities from beyond reality like him but on a much higher level. 

Within spacetime he would be one of the strongest beings but he would lose if he tried to go beyond spacetime much like Hypnos did. The Outer Gods are beings stronger then Azrael, Death is not going to do anything against them. Technically the Great Old Ones will also outlast death however that is unlikely to apply to Discworld Death as the Great Old Ones are only going to by feats outlast the death of the universe they are in whereas he exists at the beginning and end of all spacetime and all universes.



In the Dark Tower verse, Death would be approximately around the level of power of the 12 Guardians who protect the beams of the Tower including Maturin the Turtle who can create a universe and catch it on his shell saving it as well as Mir the Bear who contains all the world in his eyes. This would also be the level of their opponents the Demon Elementals like the Deadlights, Pennywise's true form.

Death would very likely be able to beat most of them due to his more extensive abilities those the incredibly strong regen factor of the Deadlights must prove troublesome. Overall he'd be an immense threat to this ring of the Tower and the beings surrounding it but would not be able to climb much higher in it. 

3 comments:

  1. DAMN is this guy strong. Like Wow do Not mess with Discworld! this guy actually reminded me somewhat of Eris cause he had alot of aspects that she had, conceptual existence, BFR, Metafictional Manipulation etc. But WOW he does turn it up just by having alot MORE impressive sounding feats than Billy and Mandy characters, not that they are better more than hes got like 3 dozen of them! JEEZ.

    I liked all these comparisons, he was matched against some REALLY powerful verses and came out WAY higher than i thought most characters could in every senario!!! taking on DC and Marvel cosmics and Even the 12 from Dark Tower was Completely Jaw Dropping, GREAT Work

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  2. Ah, Discworld! Only read a bit of it, but it seems like a hilarious and well written series. And Death carries over into TP's other works too? Cool! That along with his name tells me this is going to be a character on the stronger side of things and boy is he ever! Stats, hax, his abilities both offensive and defensive heck, his very existence is making me say "that's OP". And this isn't even a guide on how to be OP!

    Perhaps even more surprising though was that he was not stomping the other verses you put him into quite as hard as I thought. In fact, it seems like you found characters in every one of them that could stop Death! Very cool. Speaking of very cool, I really liked the series you chose for this blog. Supernatural, Cthulu Mythos and The Dark Tower are all very fitting for this character! I especially liked the inclusion of Supernatural and was impressed by your Death vs Death comparison there.

    Cool blog on a cool character, this might be one of my most favorite versions of Death in fiction. Your use of Pratchett quotes to add humor to this blog was excellent, I love when I can get a laugh out of reading something. Great job Imp, thanks for the blog!

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  3. What’s with people and making Death so overpowered :P? Great blog Imp. I’m not at all familiar with Discworld but it was interesting to see how Death fared in all these verses. Conceptual beings seem like they were made for these types of blogs with all the crazy powers they tend to get. Considering the OP abilities of DC comics and Cthulhu Mythos, Death’s placement in those verses seems well grounded. Verses like Supernatural and Dark Tower were cool to see, not only because they seem thematically fitting at a glance, but also because I didn’t realize how powerful those verses got.

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