This includes: Thanatos, Charon and Hermes/Mercury from Greco-Roman mythology, Santa Muerda from Latin-American folklore, the Angel of Death and apocalyptic Horseman of Death from Abrahamic faiths, Hel/ Hela from Norse myth, and Marena/Marzena/Mara from Slavic mythology. The pop-culture depiction of the Grim Reaper is also highly influenced by death personifications and psychopomps throughout world cultures. These portrayals showed Death using a scythe to reap mortals as if they were reap, an allegory for human life growing like plants only to be cut short by demise. Due to the high death rates, depictions of death as a common figure in art escalated to visually portray the conditions of the event. The Grim Reaper originates from Europe in the middle ages during the time of the Black Plague when one third of Europe was killed by the Bubonic plague.

In Darkwing Duck the Reaper appears again with a face shrouded in darkness, their cloak, however, a faded grey and their hands a skeletal white. His appearance however in shading alters in American Dragon as the dark silvery hands protruding and the rest of his skeletal features lighten to a ghostly white in certain sequences. The Grim Reaper's appearance changes with his various different appearances, in their first appearance in The Haunted House their face is obscured in darkness, they don a ragged grey cloak and their hands are outlined in thick, black shadow.Īs Marty in American Dragon: Jake Long he bears a light silver skull face with ominous, glowing dark red eyes, has a jet black cloak, light silvery skeletal hands, and a bone banner at the center of the top end of his cloak bearing two dark silvery hands hanging down. The character's depictions are frequently based on the folklore's Grim Reaper with skeletal hands, wearing a grey cloak, and their face is covered in darkness. After all, death is only natural and neither cruel nor kind merely being a condition of life and the natural order which every living thing must face. In The Haunted House, the Reaper possesses an ominous, hostile malice to his behavior however as demonstrated in their antagonistic relationship with Mickey Mouse who wanders into its abode during a fretful storm to escape the rain.ĭespite their antagonistic personality in the Reaper's first appearance, later appearances have depicted them as a less self-serving malevolent entity. Ultimately, the Grim Reaper is neither good nor evil, they only care about collecting the souls of the deceased, and bringing them to the afterlife. The Grim Reaper is a dark, gothic character with a mysterious presence. They are often portrayed as a psychopomp, a deity-like being which brings souls to the afterlife. The Grim Reaper is the embodiment of death itself. 2.1.1 Darby O'Gill and the Little People.

Scary grim reaper cartoon