The Role of Death in Supernatural
In the earlier seasons of Supernatural (1 through 5), it appeared that when a human dies as a result of physical circumstances, their soul leaves their body and a reaper is there to convince them to come with them. If they go with the reaper, fine. If not, they become ghosts. And there are many reapers who collect the souls of dying people all around the world.
However, come to season 6, in the episode "Appointment in Samarra", Death tells Dean to do his job by wearing his ring and the job is to touch people who are supposed to die (as determined by destiny) and what kills people is the touch of Death. As one dies, one's soul leaves the body and the reapers can collect it.
However, this raises the question: if Death is needed for every death, can Death be at multiple places at the same time? Because clearly, the story has multiple reapers to collect souls all around the world. So, one would imagine that they all need Death to be present with them.
There are also other related questions. For example, the soul of the dead person could see Dean when Dean worked as Death. But when Dean died in season 2 (the episode wherein they first introduced Tessa, the reaper), he didn't see Death. Why the discrepancy?
Best Answer
Many people die every second, statistically speaking. If Death needs to touch each one of them, then he can't be staying in one place for very long at all. I don't know that there's any source of proof for the idea that he can be in multiple places at the same time, but logically it would be pretty essential. Either that, or he teleports a lot. Like a lot.
Actually, upon reflection, the fact that Death was able to sit down and talk to Sam & Dean the way he did in earlier seasons sort of proves he can be in multiple places at once, since people were presumably still dying on schedule for the length of that meeting.
Souls could see Death, in theory, but in practice he would have been gone before the soul was out of the body and self-aware enough to notice anything. The reaper stays behind to clean up, as it were. Souls could see Dean because he was, in essence, slacking off by hanging around long enough to be seen.
It's been a while, but IIRC, there were some news stories in the background about the remarkable lack of people dying after Dean took over, too. Supporting the idea that he's not exactly meeting quotas.
Pictures about "The Role of Death in Supernatural"
Is Death a villain in Supernatural?
Death to Sam Winchester. Death is a recurring character appearing on the television series Supernatural. Death is not an outright villain, as he does not actively seek the end of the world or to spread unnecessary death, although he does harbor a strong indifference to humanity.Why does Death help Dean?
Given how Death helps Dean when he doesn't have to and seems to be more tolerant of Dean's attitude than other humans, he may actually like Dean to some extent as he only ever threatens him, even when he steps out of line, but never actually harms Dean. However, to protect Sam Winchester, Dean ultimately kills Death.Why was Death locked up in Supernatural?
Death is a Primordial Horseman that exists in the Apocalypse World that Jack opened. He was locked away by Michael and his angel army in their efforts to enslave the Reapers.Who created Death in Supernatural?
So in season 13 or 14, Michael said that he locked up the Death from HIS world.Death's Intro... Supernatural S5E21
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