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Psychopomp (view source)

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{{trope}}
[[File:gc-psychopomps-text.jpg|link=Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|frame|Clockwise from top left: Neith, Ankou, Agni, Hermes, and Antimony Carver.]]
 
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.
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Hell Girl (Anime)|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|Magical Girls]]... somewhere, but it's definitely a better state of existence than {{spoiler|becoming a Witch}}. Parallels to [[Valkyries]] are noted.
* Ostensibly, this is what the shinigami (translated as Soul Reapers in this 'verse) are portrayed as in [[Bleach]], rather than [[Grim Reaper|Grim Reapers]] or death gods.
* In the third chapter of ''[[The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service (Manga)|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.
 
 
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== [[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.
* ''[[Soultaker (Film)|Soultaker]]''. The Soultakers.
* ''[[JacobsJacob's Ladder]]''. {{spoiler|The "demons" are actually angels freeing you from your old life. In addition, Gabriel.}}
* [[Liam Neeson]] plays one in ''[[Film/After Life|After Life]]''. {{spoiler|[[I Lied|Ma]][[Alternate Character Interpretation|y]][[Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane|be]]}}.
* In ''[[Ghost (Filmfilm)|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]] ==
* 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 (Literature)|Orphans of Chaos]]'' characters discuss how Orpheus is certain to be the new Psychopomp. Later, in ''Titans of Chaos'', the old one uses it to justify being an [[Omnicidal Maniac]], since he can conduct the souls back after he recreates the universe ''[[Knight Templar|right]]''.
* 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 Thethe Galaxy (Franchise)/The Restaurant At The End of The Universe|The Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy]]''.
* 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 (Literature)|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.
* Neil Gaiman's ''[[American Gods (Literature)|American Gods]]'' references this by name. In this case, it's {{spoiler|[[Egyptian Mythology|Thoth]]/Mr. Ibis leading the main character after his death on the [[World Tree]]}}.
* In [[HPH.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.
 
 
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* ''[[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|Cowboy Cops]] 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|Jim Keats, the [[Big Bad]] of Season 3, is also a [[Psychopomp]], being Hunt's "opposite number", as it were. If you sin in Dead Copper Purgatory, Keats is the one who takes you, and it's pretty clear [[Fire and Brimstone Hell|where]].}}
* ''[[Lost (TV)|Lost]]'': {{spoiler|Once Desmond realizes he's dead in the flash-sideways verse, he becomes one and attempts to get everyone to realize it to so they can move on. Hurley later joins him in this task.}}
** {{spoiler|Then Christian fulfilled the really psychopompic threshold keeping duty.}}
* The main characters of [[Dead Like Me]].
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== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Geist: The Sin Eaters (Tabletop Game)|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.
 
 
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== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court (Webcomic)|Gunnerkrigg Court]]'': Numerous. Muut, a death spirit from Cahuilla Indian folklore, is probably most prominent. Aside from Ketrak, the Guide of insects, all of them are preexisting mythological figures, though some, such as Agni (pictured above) and [[Hell Hound|the Moddey-Dhoo]], were not psychopomps in the original stories. And in at least one instance, a living human served as a psychopomp for a relative after none of the Guides came to help. {{spoiler|This is because the person's soul didn't actually die, but was unintentionally stolen by her daughter, who had to guide her as a final action cementing it.}}.
* ''[[Life and Death (Webcomic)|Life and Death]]'' has Steve, who serves as the psychopomp for the world, and occasionally the one to actually kill people. The catch is that Death is the name of his job, not his nature.
* 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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