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Madame Tracy
Death is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. He’s the tallest of the Four and is never seen without his biker’s helmet, which entirely obscures his face. In the novel, Death speaks in all capital letters with no quotation marks, intended to convey that he’s communicating telepathically with other characters. The most mysterious of the Horsemen, Death is, according to War, “not exactly one of the lads.” While the other Horsemen delight in being evil and destroying the world, Death acts as though he’s simply doing his job—one that will always be necessary. Indeed, the novel insists that even if the mortal world eventually rids itself of war, pollution, and famine, death will always remain. Death is the only Horseman who isn’t destroyed when faced with Adam and the Them. Instead, he transforms into Azrael, the Angel of Death, salutes Adam, and resumes his work.
Death Quotes in Good Omens
The Good Omens quotes below are all either spoken by Death or refer to Death. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Saturday Quotes
And then it was Pigbog’s turn.
“I, uh...I think I’ll be them answer phones. They’re pretty bad,” he said.
“You can’t be ansaphones. What kind of a Biker of the Repocalypse is ansaphones? That’s stupid, that is.”
“S’not!” said Pigbog, nettled. “It’s like War, and Famine, and that. It’s a problem of life, isn’t it? Answer phones. I hate bloody answer phones.”
“I hate ansaphones, too,” said Cruelty to Animals.
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I DO NOT UNDERSTAND, he said. SURELY YOUR VERY EXISTENCE REQUIRES THE ENDING OF THE WORLD. IT IS WRITTEN.
“I dunt see why anyone has to go an’ write things like that,” said Adam calmly. “The world is full of all sorts of brilliant stuff and I haven’t found out all about it yet, so I don’t want anyone messing it about or endin’ it before I’ve had a chance to find out about it. So you can all just go away.”
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Get the entire Good Omens LitChart as a printable PDF.
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Death Character Timeline in Good Omens
The timeline below shows where the character Death appears in Good Omens. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Saturday
...chapter of Hell’s Angels the four belong to. Pigbog’s skin turns ashy when the tall biker—Death—shows his face and answers with, “REVELATIONS, CHAPTER SIX.” Pigbog understands that they’re in trouble, but...
(full context)
...and tells the cameras what’s going to happen, according to Revelation. War, Pestilence, Famine, and Death will ride out and bring about nuclear destruction, and then the Rapture will come. When...
(full context)
...that he can’t be Ansaphones, even if ansaphones are problems of modern life. They follow Death, Famine, War, and Pollution toward Tadfield.
(full context)
...scolds him for this, but Pollution says that he wishes everyone would litter. Moments after Death leads his fellows away, the Them pass Tyler and stop when he shouts. Tyler insists...
(full context)
...people react logically to what seems like a terrorist attack, the whole Plan will collapse. Death says that they’ll go in, do the job, and let human nature take its course....
(full context)
...possible that no one saw them—people are good at not seeing War, Famine, Pollution, and Death when they don’t want to be seen. The alarms in the base, however, are trigged....
(full context)
Inside, War looks around. She, Pollution, and Famine know what computers are, but Death doesn’t. She thinks that there might one day be an end to War, Famine, and...
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...flows where it shouldn’t as cities go dark. In the building on the air base, Death straightens up and says that he’s here. War, Pollution, and Famine now seem to have...
(full context)
...Adam says this means it’s not real. The Four stop a few yards away, and Death tells the Them that it’s done. Adam replies that he doesn’t want it to be...
(full context)
Wensleydale asks where War, Pollution, and Famine went, and Death says that they’ve gone where they belong—back into people’s minds. With a tearing noise, Death’s...
(full context)
Sunday (The first day of the rest of their lives.)
...supposed to understand. Crowley can’t come up with why, and the tall figure by the pond—Death—says that it’s just ineffable.
(full context)
