exxemplary-archive:

professionalspears:

I keep thinking about what constitutes as forgiveness for the reapers. Being a grim reaper is supposed to be a punishment. They took their lives, and they didn’t see the value in life, so now they are forced to witness death every day.

This makes me think that this punishment can’t be about the time they spend as grim reapers or how much they rise in the organization. If there is a way out, a salvation, it has to be related to whether or not they learn that lesson; the value of life.

We see a glimpse of this in “The Story of Will the Grim Reaper” when William gets attacked by Thomas’ memories. William may regret his choice to kill himself for all we know, but until that moment we don’t see him really understand what it means to have this ‘will to survive’.

Maybe it’s supposed to happen gradually, they are supposed to see the value of life in the memories of the mortals they reap but maybe feeling those memories might be another way towards their salvation as well.

Certainly William is afraid. Even after he spends possibly years in the field, he keeps repeating to himself that he shouldn’t feel, that succumbing to emotions isn’t a part of a grim reaper’s job. But maybe he does so, because he isn’t ready to face the truth, because he isn’t ready to face what he felt with Thomas’ memories.

And I really love that the musical “The Most Beautiful Death” makes a similar point. Alan catches “The Thorns of Death” which happens when a soul destined to die becomes vengeful and fights against the reaper (sounds familiar?) 

The disease affects Alan’s heart, the thorns suffocating him, and it will eventually end his life as a reaper. Of course we don’t actually see Alan’s death by this disease, but we know how others see him: weak, faint hearted. Alan comes of as soft, thoughtful, full of compassion and filled with love.

“When collecting souls, when I face the dead…I have always been thinking…’If only I could share their pain.” But it was only when I became like this that I understood that sharing the pain of the death is nothing but slander!”

Hence, catching “The Thorns of Death” makes the perfect anology for the end of a reapers’ punishment. The moment they allow themselves to feel, to understand the will to survive, the value in a mortal’s life, they can finally and truly die, relieved of their duties.

@professionalspears – I’ve had a theory quite like this since chapter 105 came out! I was going to make my own post, but then I saw yours and decided that I would instead add my thoughts here! So:

The Thorns of Death is a manner of redemption. By contracting it, a reaper has proven that they are empathetic, caring, that they know the pain of dying and know the importance of living. But, the reaper population does not know this. To them, the Thorns is merely a horrifically painful terminal illness, contracted by being, as you say, too “soft.”

Now, where my thoughts had gone was to the supposed cure. Why is collecting one thousand pure souls a “cure” for the Thorns of Death? How would that help? But if we view the Thorns as what redemption from the life of a reaper is, it makes sense!

If one gets the Thorns from understanding death, then slaughtering pure, happy people would be the opposite. They don’t understand life and death; thus, they are cured of the disease.

Their chance at moving on is taken away again, for they were improperly marked for redemption – and that mark of redemption is the Thorns of Death.

If all this theorizing is true, then it would make the story of Eric and Alan even more tragic than it already is, would it not?