Submitted 2 days ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Because he is reaping the souls.
The scythe as an artistic symbol of death has deliberate agricultural associations since the medieval period due to the importance of farming and seasons. The tool symbolizes the removal of human souls from their bodies in huge numbers, with the analogy being to a farmer (reaper) cutting through large swaths of grain crops during harvest.
Linking the agricultural cycle of planting, growing, harvest with the human lifecycle is a very common metaphor.
We see this in the myth of persephone, where going into the underworld and returning (ie death and rebirth) is a metaphor for the harvest cycle. Greek mystery cults were all over this too and it's likely a pre-greek remnant from the Early European Farmers who inhabited the area before steppe-descended greek speakers began moving in.
So the association of death and harvesting probably starts fairly early.
Isn’t “reap” an agricultural term to begin with? “You reap what you sow”?
We are the wheat.
We are the children. 🎶
We are DEVO
We are the ones who make a writer gay
When scythes were invented, they were a very hot, new, efficient tool. Previously they only had some curved had knifes and had to harvest every few bits of wheat individually, but with a scythe you could take those wide swings and get lots of wheat at once.
Think of it as going from a handgun revolver to a machine gun, except in a way that a medieval peasant would understand.
even better: Mowing with a scythe lets you easily deposit the grain neatly in a row (windrow), which means you can just have one person hauling ass on the scythe and another behind them bundling up the straws.
It’s honestly pretty insane how close to ideal scythe harvesting is.
Also scythes are stupidly sharp, could have been a lot of lethal accidents at the time giving them an association with death?
To add to this, the image of the grim reaper carrying a scythe first started showing up during the bubonic plague in Europe, where people were dying en masse.
It separates grass from ground, and heads from bodies. Wooosh!
As ye have sown so shall ye reap!
grim reaper, Death also has the touch of death, they can instantly simply by touching or imagining it. also other things, could be controlling the forces of nature
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 days ago
Scythes reap grain.
The grim reaper uses it to reap souls.
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
That’s grim.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 days ago
At least the E is after the A and not the P.
saltesc@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Well, they also cut down overgrown flora and grasses. In there lies a metaphor about humans being a pestilence to every other thing in proximity trying to survive.
Zonetrooper@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“What can the harvest hope for, if not the care of the reaper man?”
DebatableRaccoon@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
Can’t beat Pratchett when it comes to wise words.
tektite@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
[It’s a Mr. Death or something; he’s come about the reaping??
I don’t think we need any at the moment…](m.youtube.com/watch?v=0frHw-7J4Mk)
sixty@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
KOLANAKI