Regarding Death Wolf...
Hear me out (NO, it's not the kind you are thinking)
We know Death has a job, right? To collect souls and most likely release them to the afterlife.
And for this job, he has to be there when somebody is about to die, as demostrated with him being there moments before Puss' eight death.
Supposing he is THE Death and he has been doing this since the beginning of time (or at least when there were enough stories of the Grim Reaper to adquire a physical form) that means he has seen a lot, A LOT of awful things.
Murders, suicides, massacres, death of infants, people who didn't deserve to die alone, animal cruelty, some other heavy stuff I won't mention here, etc etc etc.
And we thought "man, how is he able to cope with all of that? That job has to be utter torture for someone."
Probably many of you could think that he is able to do that because he is Death, and he was "born" with that purpose and only him can reap souls perfectly.
But while he is a force of nature, he also WAS a force of nature. Let me explain it well: He adquired a personality enough to be angry, excited, frustrated, amazed, happy, among other emotions.
While he has supernatural power and is most likely the most powerful being in the Shrek Franchise (or in Dreamworks as many say) he is also a PERSON.
Someone with a code of honor, morals, opinions, beliefs, etc.
Returning to the question "How can he bear all of that?" taking into account he is no longer an inevitable force, but a character of his own.
The answer is something you may relate to, and that is: Creativity and escapism.
To be the embodiment of Death, the guy is a very creative fella.
First of all, his design. I heard many people saying here and in Twitter that his design is something they would come up in their edgy, teen years of drawing their first fursona.
Guess what? They are right, the wolf form is someone's fursona. It's DEATH'S fursona. He clearly came up with this badass, piercing canine form to blend with the Fairy Tale Land assuming the form of the "Big Bad Wolf". He most likely had other forms he designed over the centuries and was able to present as them like if he were on a role play game in the living world.
His sickles? The weapon of choice with the little crossed cats on it to have a bigger effect of terror for Puss? Those who can become knuckles and join to create a scythe? Those are his creation, probably after thinking it for a while and writing all of those functions on a paper.
The way he presents himself? In the bar? The coins in his eyes as a "watching you" sign while being a cool reference to the Ferryman of souls? He transforming Perrito's forest into the background of a skull? The chilling reveal at the Cave of Lost Souls? The fire ring? It was all him.
As for the escapism part...
When the world becomes too heavy to deal with as real life issues tend to make us feel bad, depressed, angry... we tend to escape it somewhere. And in our time the common place would be the internet as in webpages or comics, stories, etc.
But what has to do with Death Wolf you may ask?
Well, while he would NEVER be able to escape his job entirely, he can have moments where he can enjoy a good hunt of people who don't appreciate life, like the whole plot of the Puss in Boots sequel could demostrate.
He managed to have a little time outside his eternal routine to chase an arrogant cat who took life for granted. He enjoyed it, it was thrilling, it was exciting.
It was a way to escape a monotonous, grim "life", if just for a short moment.
So, when the chase ended as his prey no longer feared him and now was ready to fight for his last life, the wolf retreats, happy for Puss' character development but resigned because he once again had to return to "The Eternal Duty"
And that's not even counting all the times Jack "I'm dead inside" Horner had to interrupt Lobo's hunt and remind him of his job even in his "spare time"
Death knew the chase had to end eventually, but he didn't want it to end.
He didn't want to return to his own world
And if we look at Death like that, then he is probably one of the most relatable characters Dreamworks has ever make.
In the Shrek Franchise:
Monsters can be loved
Princesses don't have to fit the perfect standards of beauty
Handsome guys can be possesive jerks
Love at first sight doesn't work like one would think
Happily ever afters had to be built and not just obtain them with magic
And Death is the most creative and "full of life" being in the world
Because he would absolutely go crazy with his life/work if he wasn't.
Because in a world of Kings, Poets and Soldiers, he's the Supreme King
And he's also a perky goth but none of you are ready for that conversation.
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Death (as a living being)
I’m actually surprised no one has talked about this before but I’d just like to share my thoughts about this because I thought this was a little interesting
So at this part and during the cave scene with Puss, Death emphasizes on the fact that he’s fond of the scent that is fear.
He mocks Puss almost the entire film, making these elaborate ‘illusions’ in Puss’s head. If he simply wanted Puss dead, he could have just killed him, but as he admitted it himself, he decided to ‘play with his food.’
He gets annoyed when Puss mentions the phrase, “I laugh in the face of death” and quotes him in the cave, saying Puss had never even noticed him because he laughs in the face of death. Puss laughs in his face, quite literally.
And obviously, he was annoyed by this. So what better way to get back at him than to quote him to his death? Death clearly wanted Puss to know the exact reasons he was cutting his life short and he made sure Puss knew it well; he struck him with his blade, immediately deeming the statement ‘never been touched by a blade’ as false and continued to haunt him when he tried to get more lives back in hopes of shaking Death off of him.
Death exerts an extra amount of effort into playing the role of ‘the big bad wolf’, raising his sickles and using them as hand gestures instead of his actual hands.
But no one has questioned his sudden shift in personality when he finds that Puss does in fact value his life and now sees Death as an equal rather than a concept that is below him.
Death looks VERY different from how he did the entire movie. But what else was different in this scene was his intentions. The moment his intentions changed, his creepy/scary complexion had completely faded away into something more gentle. Even his voice had grown soft towards the end of his sentence when he says, “Right?”
What am I getting at? Well, basically, judging from his last scene, I strongly believe that a lot of what we were able to infer about Death’s ‘personality’ from the entire movie was barely even half of how he truly is. The things he says like “I just love the smell of fear”, “go ahead, run, makes it more fun for me,” and “this is gonna be fun”, had mostly been the side of him that he showed to mortals who didn’t know their place in life. In fact, I believe in the cave of lost souls he almost oversells the idea of Death being Puss’s worst fear as he constantly repeats Puss’s quote and tells him, “but you’re not laughing now,” like that wasn’t something Puss already knew.
And regarding his rage when he yells, “why the hell did I play with my food” in spanish, it kinda just confirms that Death was playing a role and this may or may not be how he views fear or mortals in general.
The last scene was a sliver of what or how Death truly was; a softspoken creature who just wishes to be respected by mortals.
But that is just my interpretation of the movie. I very well may be completely wrong about this, but I just thought I’d share my views on this film and how Death was written.
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