Deaths
These creatures are only featured near the middle of The Amber Spyglass. Much like a dæmon, they accompany a person throughout his or her life, serving to gently alert the person of their time to go to the underworld. Deaths are described as humanlike in appearance, yet unnaturally quiet and able to blend into the background with uncanny ease. However, as most people do not wish to see their death, the deaths are described as courteous enough to hide from their humans. Deaths are presented as caring yet stern creatures, showing no pity for a person's dæmon which must vanish upon death. Deaths are present in a physical form in some worlds, much as dæmons can be seen in Lyra's. It is not clear what becomes of a person's death when that person reaches the underworld.
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Famous quotes containing the word deaths:
“Death is too much for men to bear, whereas women, who are practiced in bearing the deaths of men before their own and who are also practiced in bearing life, take death almost in stride. They go to meet death—that is, they attempt suicide—twice as often as men, though men are more “successful” because they use surer weapons, like guns.”
—Roger Rosenblatt (b. 1940)
“On almost the incendiary eve
Of deaths and entrances ...”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“As deaths have accumulated I have begun to think of life and death as a set of balance scales. When one is young, the scale is heavily tipped toward the living. With the first death, the first consciousness of death, the counter scale begins to fall. Death by death, the scales shift weight until what was unthinkable becomes merely a matter of gravity and the fall into death becomes an easy step.”
—Alison Hawthorne Deming (b. 1946)