Death's Domain

For the book see Death's Domain

Death's Domain is a realm outside of space and time. This is where Death lives together with his manservant Albert, his horse Binky and (after the events of Reaper Man) the Death of Rats. Almost everything in Death's Domain is in different shades of black (which is also made up of eight colors, for those who can see them) where it isn't deep purple or shroud-white. Lilies grow in abundance and perfume the air. A later addition are the fields of billowing corn blowing in a non-existent wind, which remind the Reaper Man to take good care of the harvest. There is also a tree in the garden with a swing attached to it, however as the two branches the ropes are tied to are on opposite sides of the tree there is a large section cut out of the centre.

The main house, Mon Repos, (Quirmian for "My Place of Rest"), from the outside appears to be much like any other home though once inside the differences are obvious. As well at the expected black with skull motif, size and scale are out of perspective. The inside is larger than the outside, and, for some people, there are very large gaps of space which others do not see. As an example, Susan sees Albert enter Death's Study and step instantly to the carpet near the desk, as though the intervening hundreds of feet of space does not exist; she realizes that, for him, it doesn't.

In addition to the normal bedroom, kitchen and bathroom Death's house also contains the Library and the Room of Lifetimers, with its extra section for supernatural entities.

Death's library

Death, like most passionate about their job, likes to keep a record. Death's library, which is peculiar in more than one aspect, serves as a kind of record of the Disc's living (and non-living) population.

The library is unique in several respects;

Firstly, its collection consists mainly of biographies. As a on-going record of all living, (and dead, past and present) creatures, the library is huge and old, so huge that inside the library space and time are merely suggestions, not in any kind of way rules or laws... It's so old, that among the earliest works are stone tablets, wood carvings and scrolls made of animal skins. These are kept in The Stack.

Secondly, the books in the 'more recent' wings of the library are constantly writing themselves, describing the lives of their subjects. Some are short, sad little books, some are expanded into multi-volume sets, (or, in the case of Albert, still expanding). Books in the older sections of the library are silent, their subjects being long-dead.

Before Mort came along, the only regular reader was Ysabell, who liked to read tragic-but-romantic stories about princes and princesses. Now once more, the books lie there, quietly scribbling among themselves, plotting out the lives of those that live on the Disc.

Given that it is, as a library, a huge collection of books, Death's Library will be accessible through L-space, but so far, it has not been hinted whenever-or-not the Librarian has used L-space to venture there, or is even aware of it.

The library will work for as long as Death himself works, until great A'tuin reaches the end of his journey, and the Discworld comes to an end.

The largest section is "A," which includes "Anon," for those who were never named. Most of these are very short books.

Annotation

A recurring theme in occult and spiritualist belief is that of the Akashic Records, which are visualized as an immensely vast, though not infinite, library recording the individual life histories of everything that has ever lived, anywhere. Even Christianity, a religion usually keen to twitch its skirts away from anything it regards as occult or ungodly, has an echo of this belief. Note the concept of the Recording Angel, personified as St. Peter who, according to tradition, meets the newly-deceased at the Gates of Heaven, consults the book, and tells you, based on the record of your life, whether you are getting in or not. This is based on the Book of Life in Revelations, which contains the charge-sheet and mitigating circumstances for every human on Earth. Mystics and visionaries such as Swedenborg, Edgar Cayce, Madame Blavatsky, Dion Fortune, even Betty Shine and Doris Stokes, are united in asserting that the Akashic Record exists and can be accessed. Edgar Cayce, a man with full lending rights to this library, literally saw a library with an individual book for each person: it even had its (alas, human) Librarian, who helped him locate the trickier records.

The Library in Death's domain appears to be there for completion's sake, rather than as an aid to Judgement - well, if every other world in the Multiverse has an Akashic Record, why not the Discworld?

Trivia

In both the live-action adaptations of Hogfather and The Colour of Magic, the real-life locations used for the exterior shots of Mon Repos was the same Tudor/Victorian country home, Dorney Court (Dorney, Buckinghamshire).