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{{trope}}
[[File:gc-psychopomps-text.jpg|link=Gunnerkrigg Court
Death is a fact of life, fascinating, frightening, and ultimately mysterious. It's not so surprising, then, that almost every mythology in existence deals extensively with dying and the prospect of a world to
▲Death is a fact of life, fascinating, frightening, and ultimately mysterious. It's not so surprising, then, that almost every mythology in existence deals extensively with dying and the prospect of a world to come -- a process often described in terms of a journey between this life and the next.
Greek for ''conveyors of the soul'', psychopomps are this journey's guides, and they are ''everywhere'' in mythology. Most cultures, ancient or modern, include at least one figure with this function; several have many. They are not necessarily personifications of death or judges of the dead, although many are; they may or may not choose the slain, but all escort their charges to the next world. Often they act as [[Threshold Guardians|threshold guardian]] figures either to dead souls or to living heroes descending into the underworld. In many cases, it's common for burial rites to include an offering to the guardian of the gates of death.
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'''Subtropes:'''
* [[Afterlife Express]]: When the psychopomp travels in or actually takes the form of a vehicle, usually a train.
* [[The Grim Reaper]]: a psychopomp, and usually a bringer of death as well.
* [[Shinigami]]: essentially the Japanese version of the Grim Reaper, these usually act as psychopomps as well.
* [[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.
{{deathtrope}}
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[
* 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
* Ostensibly, this is what the shinigami (translated as Soul Reapers in this 'verse) are portrayed as in ''[[Bleach]]'', rather than [[Grim Reaper
* In the third chapter of ''[[
* In ''[[Kannagi]]'', it's stated that Nagi is present at the birth and death of each of her worshipers and their descendants, guiding their souls to and from their lives. In the anime, we only see her act as a psychopomp.
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* ''[[
** It is extremely important to note that none of her siblings call her "Death", only mortals do. Her actual function is to escort everyone into life and then escort them out. Her siblings simply call her "our elder Sister",
** 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 (
* Veitch and Edwards ''[[The Question]]'' miniseries featured a hitman named "Psychopomp", who specialized in not only killing his victims, but sending their souls to a specially-constructed personal hell.
== [[Fan Works]] ==
* In the [[The Teraverse|Teraverse]] story [http://www.tthfanfic.org/Story-30963/BobSchroeck+Ye+Shall+Not+Die+Alone.htm ''Ye Shall Not Die Alone''], a group of a dozen young women, including an Abrahamic angel and the leader of the [[Valkyries]], usher a fallen superhero into the afterlife.
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[Pirates of the Caribbean]]: At World's End'', it's revealed part of the duties of the captain of the Flying Dutchman is to escort the souls of those who died at sea to the next world. It's also explained that the reason Davy Jones and his crew look like [[Biological Mashup|half-man, half-sea-creature hybrids]] is because he was neglecting this duty.
* ''[[
* ''[[
* [[Liam Neeson]] [[Alternate Character Interpretation|possibly]] plays one in ''[[
* In ''[[Ghost (
== [[Literature]] ==
▲* Charlie and Minty Fresh in [[Christopher Moore]]'s ''[[A Dirty Job (Literature)|A Dirty Job]]''
* In the ''[[His Dark Materials]]'' series by [[Philip Pullman]], every person has their own Death, an aspect of their being that guides them through the World of the Dead. In some universes, as with Daemons, people can see their Death and talk to them throughout their entire life.
* In [[John C. Wright]]'s ''[[Chronicles of Chaos
* In [[Dorothy L. Sayers]]'s ''The Devil To Pay'', an angel and a devil both show up to claim Faustus's soul. (This is in fact a common Christian trope, so they can duke it out to establish where the soul ends up.)
* Gargravarr, guardian of the Total Perspective Vortex in ''[[The Hitchhiker's Guide to
* 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 ''[[
* Neil Gaiman's ''[[
* In [[
== [[Live
* ''[[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
** {{spoiler|Jim Keats, the [[Big Bad]] of Season 3, is also a
* ''[[
** {{spoiler|Then Christian fulfilled the really psychopompic threshold keeping duty.}}
* The main characters of [[Dead Like Me]].
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== 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 got a Celestial Ferryman (there were several, all divine) to ferry them
** 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.
* Islam: Azrael
* [[Norse Mythology|Norse]]: Odin, Baldr, all
* 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.
* Dogs are frequently linked with death in mythology. In European folklore, a dog howling at night was said to mean someone was about to die, the hounds of Annwn brought a person to paradise, and the Egyptian Anubis had a jackal's head.
* [[Aztec Mythology|Aztec]]: Xolotl, a spiritual companion/avatar of Quetzalcoatl
* [[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
** The ''Cyhyraeth'' fulfilled a similar role in Welsh mythology.
* [[Irish Mythology|Celtic/Irish]]: The [[Headless Horseman|Dullahan]], though actually a member of [[The Fair Folk|the Unseelie court]], hurls blood in the face of those mortals he encounters as a sign that death will claim them soon. Sometimes he is said to come driving a hearse (a black coach with candles mounted in skulls for light, human thigh bones for spokes and a human spine to hold up the worm-eaten pall) drawn by six headless horses, with or without a banshee at his side.
* 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]] ==
* ''[[
== [[Video Games]] ==
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* [[Guild Wars]] Factions has a rogue Psychopomp as it's [[Big Bad]].
* ''[[Jade Empire]]'': The Spirit Monks serve the Water Dragon, who is the Shepherd of the Dead. The monks have the duty to deal with restless ghosts, and can bind spirits in order to escort particularily troublesome specimens to Dirge, the gateway to the Underworld. They can also temporarily disperse spirits through [[Everybody Was Kung-Fu Fighting|applied force]].
* The world of Haephnes in ''[[Soul Nomad and The World Eaters]]'' has a being known as a Master of Death, a god who serves as a psychopomp to gods and humans alike and controls the flow of souls to the afterlife. Souls there go through a cycle of reincarnation, and without a Master of Death the cycle stagnates as souls are unable to flow freely between life and afterlife. That's their job in theory, at least. Gig [[Omnicidal Maniac|certainly made the souls flow, but it was a purely one-way ticket]].
** ''[[Soul Nomad]]'' also has an inversion known as a Master of Life, the counterpart of the Master of Death. Its job is to see that souls that flow into the world from the afterlife are born properly.
** {{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...]]}}
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== [[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.}}
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[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]
[[Category:Afterlife Tropes]]
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