Personification of Death

Before I get to work on the third draft of my currently unnamed novel, I need to get a quick question answered - I need to know how most people would imagine death if death was a person. I'd appreciate if you explained why you picked the choice that you did, but it's honestly up to you! I just want to get a general idea of what I should use in my novel.

Thank you so much in advance!

I kind of like Supernatural's version of Death. XD

Spoiler

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I really like the idea of a somewhat unassuming looking old man being the personification of death. It just really appeals to me for some reason. ^^

I've always imagined death as being well dressed, businesslike, and generically handsome. Not someone divine or evil, sort of just a person doing his (I usually imagine death as a he) job.

Personally, in a literary sense, I would imagine death as the Grim Repear, or a dark shadow looming over someone's head until it's time for him to collect their souls and retreat into his shadowy dwelling. Realistically, I imagine that death looks different to everybody based on religious beliefs, opinions about death, life situation, past experiences, etc.

I think death reminds me of nothingness, because they(person who dies) can't really do anything. (In afterlife) Maybe they can still see everyone else's life, but they can't effect it. And they don't truly be nothing unless they stop effecting other's life.
Even till a few days after death, they technically are still effecting someone, someone who is upset about their death. But eventually, everyone has to let go, so yeah, I chose nothingness.

Death reminds me of nothingness tbh but also kind of a Boltzmann brain .
The one, highly improbable Boltzmann brain ever formed in the Universe's lifetime.
The highly improbable nature of its formation allowing it to reduce to nothingness that which tries to create order from chaos (i.e. low entropy systems), i.e. life.
It feels like life (and sentient life) might end up making more of it, more of those with the power to mock physics. But it doesn't end all life at once because it would have
no self-imposed purpose anymore?
idk if this makes the teensiest sense
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boltzmann_brain

I'm sending you a link to the image that is my favorite personification of death to date because it is so not PG-13, but it is gorgeous.

And I suppose it falls under Other.

Rhysand. High Lord of the Night Court. Night Triumphant. Death Incarnate. Need I say anything more? XD

LOL but he is a handsome male so I find it hard to choooose

Norse mythology has death personified as Hela, which I think both Rick Riordan and Thor: Ragnarok did an excellent job of depicting. Thor: Ragnarok is a good source if you're looking for something visual.

Thanks for the responses, @ScarlettFire, @Feltrix, @MJTucker, @TheWeirdoFromBeyond, @Traves, @Kale and @erilea! I really appreciate it. I probably should have explained the purpose of the poll earlier, but I wanted to see how people replied to it without having any context first.

There's a certain magical item in my novel that, when worn, makes the wearer appear like the viewer's version of death. In previous drafts, I had three characters all see death the same way, and I wanted to see if that was realistic based on the responses I got with this poll.

I picked handsome man -- but personally speaking, anything mildly "different" to the grip reaper would definitely intrigue me as it'd be totally different to what I'd imagine normally anyway

Oh! I deal with the personification of Death in the novel that I'm currently writing!

Right now, in my current draft, I have Death primarily presenting as feminine, but how she tends to present varies from situation to situation. When dealing with my protagonist (a teenage girl), she'll shift her form to resemble a teenage girl. When dealing with less favorable types, she increases the scare factor and shifts her form into something more eldritch and skeletal.

Primarily, she's just a woman of nebulous age? She's not necessarily beautiful, just practical. She has a job that she needs to get done.

I thought about responding to this earlier but couldn't think of a response. Now that I see you're questioning how to portray Death - how cool!

My perspective on death is probably quite different to a lot of people (Purely because I see disease and dying on a regular basis). To me, death is a truly peaceful ending to a chaotic and often painful life on earth. I don't mean that in a negative way, because life is beautiful. But I think that at the end, for instance, of a long illness which has caused you pain and suffering, which is true for most people these days who die, death is a welcome and lovely thing.

As such, I see it as an almost maternal body, friendly, warm, welcoming you home to rest. Or maybe paternal. But comforting.