I love the way DEATH is portrayed in Discworld. He’s not evil. He’s just there when you die. The Benevolence of DEATH mirrors Sir Terry’s views on death itself. You see, Pratchett was a proponent of assisted dying. A sane person who has a debilitating illness should be able to skip those painful last moments by deciding to die early without risk of legal ramifications. He viewed death as a positive thing for these people. Unfortunately, assisted dying is still illegal in the UK and in most of the US.

On a side note, I wrote a fan fiction years ago about DEATH and young Susan Sto Helit, back when I wasn’t great at character consistency. I’m pretty peeved that we never really get to see DEATH’s interactions with Susan as a kid. I think that would have been a riot.