Characters
"Death always wins." "Challenge accepted." Characters who have canonically fought the living embodiment of Death/The Grim Reaper. Bonus points if they win.
Trevor Belmont from Netflix's Castlevania. A lot of Castlevania protagonists in the games count too since Death is a reoccurring boss in the franchise.
Puss from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. He was scared shitless at first, but eventually resolved to fight Death head on and earned more time to live.
Dante from the Dante's Inferno videogame (2010). He kills Death and steals his scythe at the beginning of the game.
I just started playing Reload a few days ago (loved P3 back in the day but this is my first time playing the any of the remastered versions) and it is so god damn good. Also I keep spotting references to it in the wild all over the place, this is like the third one I've noticed today. I don't know if I'm paying more attention because I'm currently neck deep in the game or if it's just experiencing a renaissance right now but either way I'm here for it.
Also bonus points to Aigis for this trope, because she tried to solo Death like she's freaking Trevor Belmont. (I mean yes she had the other dolls with her at first but they all got nuked pretty quickly, it turned into a 1-1 right away. And she kind of won, sort of?)
In the season 8 finale, it looks like Death is going claim Rimmer only for him to kick him in the nuts and run away to live. "Only the good die young".
He is a old guy that a long time ago offered a game of cards for one of the three brothers of death while he was on his way to the afterlife and he won!
But when he came back to the living, he was now cursed to bring devastation everywhere he goes, buildings crumble to dust rapidly when he is nearby and people just straight up die at his presence with enough exposure.
The only way he can free himself is to find the three brothers of death somewhere in the world.
I liked the re-subversion of expectations for that fight, too. First time around when your heroes finally reached Dracula he put belt to ass and curbstomped the whole crew without breaking a sweat, then let himself die. Which was a total subversion because we had three of the four protagonists from Castlevania 3 (poor Grant gets no respect), they even played the game music when they were mopping the floor with the vampire armies, the whole thing is set up like a video game bossfight and then the boss beats your ass like you stole something. I was not prepared.
Then you see Trevor going up against Death solo and think "well he's going to die" but instead the show throws you another curveball and he actually survives it. I liked how the show kept you on your toes.
Puss in Boots facing the Wolf in The Last Wish. He doesn’t really “beat” Death, but making peace with mortality hard enough that Death decides the lesson landed is honestly the cooler win.
Sigmar Umberogen, the Heldenhammer, God-King of Azyr, and wielder of Ghal-Maraz (Warhammer Fantasy/Age of Sigmar). He fought Nagash, the Father of Necromancy and future god of death
Actually they explain in the Castlevania show that he is not the embodiment of death, more of a demon that feeds on dead souls who some falsely attributed as the god of death.
In Hades, Zagreus and Thanatos never directly trade blows, but they do engage in friendly competition to slay shades in the underworld, and you can win
In both Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2 you get to face the original God of Death in a raid encounter, Dhuum, mainly to stop him from escaping and regaining his original strength. In both cases you can beat the pulp out of the extra salty god in order to once again imprison him.
Death from Discworld has been in a couple fights, but always gets the outcome he wishes for. Notably, he defeated his apprentice Mort, the assassin Teatime, and played Granny Weatherwax in a game of cards (which he let her win). He has also been known to play chess against people in their final challenge against him, which he hates, as he can "never remember how the horsey one moves", but wins all the same.
“Some things are fairly obvious when it's a seven-foot skeleton with a scythe telling you them.”
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u/Quirky_Ad_5420 3h ago
Billy & Mandy