![]() ![]() The bible also mentions the four horsemen of the apocalypse. More in an "incomprehensible terrifying blinding power and unusual number of body parts" way. The typical reaction in the bible when someone sees one is to fall to the floor and beg for mercy, but they're not scary in the grim reaper kind of way. Essentially, the world is ending and everyone's being judged, so they're collecting people's souls for judgement.īiblical angels are scary. Jesus and two different angels have sickles, and the metaphor is that they're coming for "the harvest". There isn't a singular reaper in this depiction. "And another angel came out of the temple, calling with a loud voice to Him who was sitting upon the cloud, “Put in Your sickle and reap, for the hour to reap has arrived, because the earth’s harvest is fully ripened.” The metaphor of the grim reaper holding a sickle (not a scythe yet) is used 6 times in the book of Revelations, all in chapter 14. This is the part where we start to get into the grim reaper aesthetic, just a little bit. "Take this and make it bigger" isn't that novel of a concept. 110 AD), while scythes were definitely invented by 1490, and likely a lot sooner. You can find a depiction of a sickle in Trajan's Column (ca. I don't know exactly when either was invented, but sickles likely came first. You harvest your wheat field with a scythe, you cut off a few lavender flowers off a bush with a sickle. Sickles are typically used for smaller jobs or for plants that are to be replanted right away, while scythes are for big jobs and big harvests. It's a cutting tool with a blunt outer edge and a sharp inner edge, used for cutting plants with stalks. Scythes are functionally a larger version of a sickle, and both serve a similar purpose. There will be sources, I'm a teacher and it's summer and I have crap all to do. I'm going to go way into detail on the history of where the heck scythes come from as a tool and as a weapon associated with the grim reaper, and actual viability in a story. ![]() I remember when Soul Eater came out and scythes were cool, then RWBY happened, and again, scythes were cool. Images reminded everyone that death was coming for us all, and the thing that bound us together against it was empathy.Scythes are cool looking. At the same time, artists like Marcantonio Raimondi were creating works that focused not just on the suffering of the individual, but on those people who risked their own lives to help their fellow men, women, and children. Even as the Black Death returned to Europe, the images of Death and the Danse Macabre remained a popular visual warning that death could be waiting around the next proverbial corner - for everyone. The BBC says that's a shift that became more pronounced throughout the 16th century. When the same skeletons came for the poor, though, they offered a release from back-breaking labor, starvation, and a life of servitude. In his depictions of the Danse Macabre, skeletons and death coming for the rich and powerful were feared, because those were the people who lived a life of luxury, and had everything to lose. Atlas Obscura says that he wasn't just an artist, but he was an outspoken opponent of the economics of his era, which were the 1520s (give or take). That's most noticeable, perhaps, in the works of Hans Holbein the Younger. So, when did Death become the traditionally male figure he is today? (With, of course, some notable exceptions like Neil Gaiman's female Death from "The Sandman.") By the mid-15th century, the figure of Death had become associated with this passage from Revelations: "And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him." Standing amid piles of the dead is a lone woman, holding the arrows that delivered the plague to victims chosen with terrifying randomness. His wasn't the only female Death: Cherwell speaks to an image on the walls of France's Priory of St. Buffalmacco definitely could have read it, as it featured him in some of the stories. Interestingly, it's believed to be characters from Giovanni Boccaccio's "Decameron," a story about a group of rich friends who decide to wait out the plague by leaving the city and heading to the countryside. With flowing robes and long, white hair, this early figure of Death was depicted as looking to the next set of souls she's going to take with her. ![]()
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