Psychopomp: Difference between revisions

* [[Valkyries]]: A [[Norse Mythology]] counterpart, who specifically chose those who died an honorable death in combat, picking the warrior from the battlefield and taking him to Valhalla, the warrior's paradise.

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* ''[[Hell Girl]]'': Among other duties, Enma Ai ferries damned souls to eternal torment.

* What {{spoiler|the eponymous character}} becomes in ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'', after she becomes a Goddess of some sort. Her job is to take the souls of dead [[Magical Girl]]s... somewhere, but it's definitely a better state of existence than {{spoiler|becoming a Witch}}. Parallels to [[Valkyries]] are noted.

* In the third chapter of ''[[The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service]]'', both the titular group's symbol (''kurosagi'', the black heron that takes souls to the land of the dead) and the white stork that bring souls into the world of the living are referenced.

 

== [[Comic Books]] ==

* ''[[The Sandman]]'': Several, most prominently Death of the Endless. She's portrayed as a [[Perky Goth]] girl who seems to have a [[The Messiah|deep and abiding affection for just about everyone and everything]].

** In his afterword to the [[Vertigo Comics]] artists' showcase ''Death Gallery'', [[Neil Gaiman]] mentions the inspiration for this portrayal. A Kabbalistic teaching has it that when a person is about to die, the Angel of Death comes to him in the form of a woman so beautiful that his [[Even the Girls Want Her|or her]] soul leaves their body in ecstasy.

** In the spin-off comic ''[[Lucifer (comics)|Lucifer]]'' the titular character declares himself as a Psychopomp while persuading a demon to allow herself to be killed by him, so that she can come back as his servant. It works, since she has a huge bone to pick with her current masters.

 

 

== [[Film]] ==

* ''[[Soultaker]]''. The Soultakers.

* ''[[Jacob's Ladder]]''. {{spoiler|The "demons" are actually angels freeing you from your old life. In addition, Gabriel.}}

* In ''[[Ghost (film)|Ghost]]'', there are shadowy spirits that will drag you off to hell after you die if you've been an evil person in this life.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* The sparrows in [[Stephen King]]'s novel [[The Dark Half]] are considered by the main character to be psychopomps. This turns out to be true in the ending, where {{spoiler|the sparrows carry George Stark off to the afterlife}}

* Two of these appear in ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' novel ''Ghost Story''. The first is {{spoiler|Carmichael}}, who appears to guide {{spoiler|Harry Dresden}} to his superiors, who are a sort of "between worlds police" who specialize in safeguarding free will as agents of the Archangel Uriel. The second appears much later, in the form of a literal "angel of death" who is standing over {{spoiler|Father Forthill's body}} as he lays dying. When Harry questions her purpose, she tells him that her job is to safeguard the souls of the righteous who [[Satan|the Enemy]] would seek to waylay on their way to the afterlife, and that she is standing by for the moment when {{spoiler|Forthill}} dies.

* In [[H.P. Lovecraft]]'s "The Dunwich Horror" it was whippoorwills. They would gather near someone who was dying and if they got the soul would hoot and sing for the rest of the night. If the person died and the birds quieted down, then you knew they missed it.

 

* ''[[The Twilight Zone]]'' was rife with characters whose duty it was to show the protagonist that he/she was dead in reality, and to guide him/her to the afterlife.

* ''[[Life On Mars]]'' and ''[[Ashes to Ashes]]'': {{spoiler|Gene Hunt takes on this role in response to being killed as a young policeman. Out of what is essentially Purgatory, he creates an entire world in which he's an amalgamation of [[Cowboy Cop]]s and [[Judge, Jury, and Executioner|"the Sheriff"]], and uses it to help fellow coppers who die in tortured circumstances through their issues. The thing is, he doesn't remember any of this himself until the [[Grand Finale]].}}

** {{spoiler|Then Christian fulfilled the really psychopompic threshold keeping duty.}}

* The main characters of [[Dead Like Me]].

 

== Mythology, Folklore and Religion ==

* [[Egyptian Mythology|Egyptian]]: Though they wouldn't actually take you to the Afterlife, Anubis, Horus, and Nephtys would be present at your final judgement. To get to the afterlife there were a few methods:

** Kings could also climb a spiritual ladder into the sky and join the sun god in his solar boat.

* Zoroasterian: Daena for the Righteous, Vizaresh for the wicked.

* Popular Christianity: It varies, but most commonly St. Peter and various angels.

* Various: [[The Wild Hunt]] acts in a similar role in some versions of the legend (in others, it's a hunting party either for demons, [[The Fair Folk]], or the Old Gods. The French region of Bretagne has Ankou (or l'Ankou, ie the Ankou), which is similar to the Grim Reaper in many aspects but differs as his scythe is fit together wrongly ("emmanchée à l'envers") and that in some versions of the tale the last dead of the year fills the role for the following year, other versions have it that he is a suicide. Related: the washers at the ford wash the clothes of people about to die.

* [[Irish Mythology|Celtic/Irish]]: In the original mythology, hearing the cry of a Banshee meant that someone who heard it was going to die. It wasn't until [[Dungeons & Dragons]] was made that the idea of the cry being anything more then a sign of approaching death took off.

** The ''Cyhyraeth'' fulfilled a similar role in Welsh mythology.

* Celtic/Brittany: The Ankou, who is often described as a skeletal figure in a [[Nice Hat|large-brimmed hat]] and a cloak, collecting the souls of the dead in a horse-drawn carriage.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

* ''[[Geist: The Sin Eaters]]'': You play as one of the Bound, who has partially fused with a type of ghost, and go around doing to work of the dead, or just doing the shit your Geist wants. One of the [[Splat|Archetypes]], the Advocates, is pretty much devoted to helping ghost resolve their [[Unfinished Business]] and allowing them to pass on.

 

== [[Video Games]] ==

** {{spoiler|The truth behind it all is slightly more complex: The afterlife is another world in itself, called Drazil. Drazil has its own Master of Death and Master of Life, who are minions of the [[Big Bad]]. The [[Big Bad]] sought to stop the balance of souls in order to make Drazil flourish at the cost of Haephnes. Thus, he makes Drazil's Master of Death stop the souls of Drazil's dead from returning to Haephnes, and arranges for Haephnes' Master of Death to be assassinated so he can't stop souls from flowing from Haephnes to Drazil. Needless to say, [[Depopulation Bomb|this ends up messing up things royally for Haephnes]] -- [[It Got Worse|and then Gig comes along...]]}}

* In ''[[Solatorobo]]'', the Anjalists believe that birds guide souls to an afterlife above the sky. Naturally, they tend forests for the birds to live in (when they're not [[Crystal Dragon Jesus|acting like]] [[Christianity Is Catholic|Catholics]], that is).

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

* In ''[[Rhapsodies]]'', Deidre is a psychopomp working at one of the local hospitals. When asked she says she "handles malpractice." (Most people think this means she's a [http://rhapsodies.wpmorse.com/?p=1645 lawyer.])

* ''[[The Phoenix Requiem]]'' : Spirits, who used to take humans' souls to afterlife before their imprisonment. {{spoiler|Not really. Mehdiea or Hellions as they're known were responsible for sending souls to afterlife.}}

 

== Web Original ==