Death — Keres and the Order of Death

Spoilers for Grimm Fairy Tales: Death and Grimm Tales of Terror Annual: Goddess of Death. I wanted to talk a little more about Death in Grimm Fairy Tales, because there's quite a bit behind Keres that you don't get just from seeing her show up with a scythe. Before Keres and the other Reapers, there was Madam Morana. She had power over life and death, and she became the Omega. Over time, she started using that power however she wanted. The suffering across the realms got bad enough that the Keepers stepped in and destroyed her physical form. But they couldn't destroy the power itself. So they divided it among beings chosen from the different realms and created the Order of Death. Keres became the Reaper of the Nexus, our world. Abaddon had Myst, Thanatos had Neverland, Ankou had Oz, and Pesta had Wonderland. The Judge was there to guide them and settle disputes. That matters because Keres didn't start out as the only Death in this universe. She had a place in an order, and she was supposed to follow its rules. Their job was to take souls when their time came. Keres started deciding that certain people didn't deserve to wait that long. You can understand why she hates the people she goes after. They're hurting children, abusing people, and ruining lives. But she's also enjoying what she does to them. She decides she's right, and that becomes all the permission she needs. That's why the other Reapers put her on trial in the tenth anniversary story. She's been killing people before their allotted time and interfering with the balance she's supposed to protect. Her punishment is to experience human lives and deaths herself. She goes through old age, drowning, murder, and a whole series of other deaths. Eventually she becomes Tara, a mother trying to protect her daughter Lisa from an abusive man. That's where it gets personal for her. She loves Lisa, she wants to stay with her, and then she's killed while trying to protect her. When Keres gets back, all she wants is to go back and save that little girl. Abaddon helps her do it. They break the rule against changing the past, and Tara and Lisa get a different ending. The other Reapers eventually agree to try a different approach too. Keres has pushed them toward taking a more active role in what happens to the people they're watching. Then Goddess of Death takes that relationship with Abaddon and puts it through something much worse. The Kings of Hell decide they want out. The Order of Death stands in their way, so they use the Hellfire Club and demonic magic to start going after the Reapers. Thanatos is attacked, tricked into coming to Hell, and killed. His blood is part of the ritual that brings Morana back. Abaddon warns Keres that when one of them dies, the others lose strength. He tells her to hide while he tries to find out what's happening. But their enemies use the connection between Keres and Abaddon against them. Keres is told he's been dragged to Hell, and she goes after him. Morana is waiting there. Keres and Abaddon fight her together, but then the other prisoners are brought out. Ankou, Pesta, and the Judge are killed in front of them. Their power keeps fading. Morana kills Abaddon and leaves Keres dying too. Abaddon's last act is to give Keres what life he has left. He brings her into a place made from their memories, the cliff where they stood after her trial. He knows he isn't coming back with her. When she wakes, the spirits of the others come to her. Some of their power has gone back to Morana, but they also carry power from the realms themselves. They give Keres a choice: they can get her home, or she can take them into herself and keep fighting. She chooses to fight. For that moment, she becomes the Omega, carrying the power of the others with her. She doesn't finish this by simply cutting Morana down. She uses the power of the realms to seal Hell shut, trapping Morana and the Kings inside. And doing that costs her the power the others gave her. By the end, Keres is alone. She tries to feel Abaddon's strength again, even just to remember him, but it's gone. She spends time piecing together what happened to the others, and she knows Morana will eventually try to return. That's a lot of history for a character you could easily write off as just the woman who turns up to punish somebody in a horror story. She learns what it feels like to care about a human life, changes the way the Reapers work, and then loses the people who went through that change with her. By the end of this story, she has a very personal reason to want Morana back in front of her.