History Main / DeathsHourglass

* ''VideoGame/TheSims2'' had the Grim Reaper, who has an hourglass only if your sim died of old age. If a sim dies of old age with a low aspiration meter they try to pull the hourglass out of Death's hands to get more time. If they die of old age with a high aspiration meter they go peacefully, with dancing hula girls accompanying.

* In Creator/FritzLang's 1921 silent film ''Der müde Tod'' (literally "Weary Death", but officially called ''Destiny'' in English), Death has a candle representing each person and when the candle burns out the person dies. Whether this is an example of the fatalistic variety is ambiguous; Death gives the main character - a woman who has lost her lover and asks Death to return him to her - a chance to save three lives whose candles are about to go out, but in every case the protagonist fails, suggesting that perhaps it's impossible to defeat Death or Fate. An interesting aspect of Fritz Lang's movie is that the length of the candle indicates life expectancy, not the the foreordained length of life; people may die before their candle is burned down entirely. In one of the earlier scenes a candle over a yard long suddenly goes out. As it does, a baby (i. e. the soul of the recently deceased baby) materializes in Death's hands.

* Some DVD menus for the first ''Film/FinalDestination'' use this theme, showing a clock ticking by the hours with an eerie, deterministic theme in the background, visualizing the survivors' limited time until Death catches up with them.

May overlap with WhenTheClockStrikesTwelve if the hourglass or bell is also counting down to midnight. Compare with DoomsdayClock, which is the fatalistic version of this on a global scale.

** The Discworld's "lifetimers" aren't just clocks. If a person's hourglass is broken, they immediately die or go catatonic, and Death doesn't normally control the flow of timers. He is merely supposed to help a timer's owner pass on when the sand runs out. (Fiddling with timers is usually a bad idea, as several characters discover the hard way. The only being who can fiddle with these hourglasses without dire consequences is Azrael, the Death of Universes, who only appears in ''Literature/ReaperMan'') Even Death has an hourglass, but it has no sand and cannot be damaged.

* The free horror movie RPG ''[[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/It_Came_From_Somewhere_Else It Came From Somewhere Else!]]'' has this as one of its character stats: Life Expectancy. Each time a character is put in danger from the Monster and fails a Fight, Shoot, Survive, or SCIENCE! check, they must make a Life Expectancy check, or instantly die-and LE is permanently reduced by -1 each time it's tested! This ensures that the characters ''will'' die from the Monster, it's only a matter of ''when'', encouraging them to fight back. However, each player has a goal that incentivizes dying under a specific set of circumstances, rewarding Cool Points. Cool Points pull double-duty as currency and [[ScoringPoints how one "wins" the game]]. Players are encouraged to have a few [[MonsterMunch expendable]] characters.

* The free horror movie RPG ''[[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/It_Came_From_Somewhere_Else It Came From Somewhere Else!]]'' has this as one of its character stats: Life Expectancy. Each time a character is put in danger from the Monster and fails a Fight, Shoot, Survive, or SCIENCE! check, they must make a Life Expectancy check, or instantly die-and LE is permanently reduced by -1 each time it's tested! This ensures that the characters ''will'' die from the Monster, it's only a matter of ''when'', encouraging them to fight back. However, each player has a goal that incentivizes dying under a specific set of circumstances, rewarding Cool Points, which pulls double-duty as currency and [[ScoringPoints how one "wins" the game]]. Players are encouraged to have a few [[MonsterMunch expendable]] characters.

* The free horror movie RPG ''[[https://1d4chan.org/wiki/It_Came_From_Somewhere_Else It Came From Somewhere Else!]]'' has this as one of its character stats: Life Expectancy. Each time a character is put in danger from the Monster, they must make an LE check, or die-and LE is permanently reduced by -1 each time it's tested! This ensures that the characters ''will'' die from the Monster, it's only a matter of ''when'', encouraging them to fight back. However, each player has a goal that incentivizes dying under a specific set of circumstances, rewarding Cool Points, which is how one "wins" the game.

[[Folder:Tabletop Games]]

[[Tabletop Games]]

* Played with in ''Literature/{{Momo}}''. Momo visits the house of Master Hora, whose task is to see that every human gets their allotted span of time -- which may or may not be a euphemism for him being an avatar of Death -- and finds it full of clocks, each different and each displaying a different time. She asks if each clock represents an individual human, and he says no, he just has a hobby of collecting clocks.

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': In the fourth season, Limited Life, every player has a timer on their screen showing how much life-time they have left, which is also ColourCodedForYourConvenience -- green for 16 hours and up, red for under 8 hours, and yellow for the time in-between; regulations on which players can legitimately kill whom depends on what colour grade(s) the parties are on. It is technically of the Fatalistic variety, since it's impossible to ''stop'' the timer, but most if not all players interpret it as a Jump to Action to regain life-time by any means possible so they can ''delay'' the inevitable enough to win the season. Fan interpretation on how the timer manifests in-universe may vary from physical clocks and watches, to an ExplosiveLeash that detonates when the player's life-time runs out, to many other forms.

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': In the fourth season, Limited Life, every player has a timer on their screen showing how much life-time they have left, which is also ColourCodedForYourConvenience -- green for 16 hours and up, red for under 8 hours, and yellow for the time in-between; regulations on which players can legitimately kill whom depends on what colour grade(s) the parties are on. It is technically of the Fatalistic variety, since it's impossible to ''stop'' the timer, but most if not all players interpret it as a Jump to Action to regain life-time by any means possible so they can ''delay'' the inevitable enough to win the season. Fan interpretation on how the timer manifests in the series in-universe may vary from physical clocks and watches, to an ExplosiveLeash that detonates when the player's life-time runs out, to many other forms.

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': In the fourth season, Limited Life, every player has a timer on their screen showing how much life-time they have left, which is also ColourCodedForYourConvenience -- green for 16 hours and up, red for under 8 hours, and yellow for the time in-between; regulations on which players can legitimately kill whom depends on what colour grade(s) the parties are on. It is technically of the Fatalistic variety, since it's impossible to ''stop'' the timer, but most if not all players interpret it as a Jump to Action to regain life-time by any means possible so they can ''delay'' the inevitable enough to win the season. Fan interpretation on how this manifests in the series in-universe may vary from physical clocks and watches, to an ExplosiveLeash that detonates when the player's life-time runs out, to many other forms.

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': In the fourth season, Limited Life, every player has a timer on their screen showing how much life-time they have left, which is also ColourCodedForYourConvenience -- green for 16 hours and up, red for under 8 hours, and yellow for the time in-between; regulations on which players can legitimately kill whom depends on what colour grade(s) the parties are on. It is technically of the Fatalistic variety, but most if not all players interpret it as a Jump to Action to regain life-time by any means possible so they can win the season. Fan interpretation on how this manifests in the series in-universe may vary from physical clocks and watches, to an ExplosiveLeash that detonates when the player's life-time runs out, to many other forms.

[[folder:Web Original]]

* ''LetsPlay/LifeSMP'': In the fourth season, Limited Life, every player has a timer on their screen showing how much life-time they have left, which is also ColourCodedForYourConvenience -- green for 16 hours and up, red for under 8 hours, and yellow for the time in-between; regulations on which players can legitimately kill whom depends on what colour grade(s) the parties are on. It is technically of the Fatalistic variety, but most if not all players interpret it as a Jump to Action to regain life-time by any means possible so they can win the season. Fan interpretation on how this manifests in the series in-universe may vary from physical clocks and watches, to an ExplosiveLeash that detonates when the player's life-time runs out, to many other forms.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* In the ''Literature/LeftBehind'' book ''Kingdom Come'': While lacking the actual timepiece, citizens of the Millennial Kingdom know that "naturals" who stay unbelievers by the time they reach 100 will instantly die and go to Hell. The only way for "naturals" to avoid this fate is to [[ReligionIsRight accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior.]] [[LaResistance The Other Light faction]] sees GodIsEvil because of this and has prepared for that contingency by having their teachings passed down to the next generation of its converts so that the generation that [[FinalBattle gets to confront God and Jesus by the end of the Millennium]] will be "assured victory" when [[SealedEvilInACan Satan is released]]. [[CurbStompBattle Unfortunately for them,]] [[YouCantFightFate it didn't go as they hoped.]]

** Everyone has a time at which they are destined to die. It's only visible to those with a Shinigami's eyes... and even in that case, such a person ''cannot'' see their own numbers. [[note]] [[TheseAreThingsManWasNotMeantToKnow This is one reason why]] in the companion novel ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'' Beyond Birthday is so fucked up. [[/note]] However, using a death note allows you to kill people before their time and indirectly extend lives.

* ''LightNovel/FateZero'':

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoNSS4E17E18TheEndOfTime "The End of Time"]]: "He will knock four times." (Carmen the psychic lady), "I think your song is ending." (Ood Sigma). The prophecies from previous episodes marking the ticking of the Doctor's Doomsday Clock are finally fulfilled.

** One story has Shampoo slowly [[InvoluntaryTransformation being turned into a cat]] while a bell slowly tolls. She must get Ranma to kiss her before it finishes or she'll be [[ModeLock stuck as a cat forever]].

* Music/{{Nickelback}}'s video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQiEs32SqQ "Savin' Me"]] is a mixed example. The protagonist is saved from stepping in front of a bus and gets a weird form of StatOVision, seeing timers counting down over the heads of people around him. At one point, he sees an old woman being wheeled into an ambulance; when the number reaches 0, she dies. There is also a timer above a pregnant woman and her unborn child. At the end, he spots a woman whose timer is dwindling much faster that it should, dropping from the millions to the single digits in a matter of seconds. He saves her from a falling statue in a crate; he walks away, task completed, while she experiences the StatOVision instead, just like the second man when the first person saved him earlier in the video.

* Music/{{Nickelback}}'s video for [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JQiEs32SqQ "Savin' Me"]] is a mixed example. The protagonist is saved from stepping in front of a bus and gets a weird form of StatOVision, seeing timers counting down over the heads of people around him. At one point, he sees the numbers go to 0 above an old woman being wheeled into an ambulance. At the end, he spots a woman whose timer is about to run out and saves her from an accident; he walks away, task completed, while she experiences the StatOVision instead.

* Music/{{Nickelback}}'s video for "Savin' Me" is a mixed example. The protagonist is saved from stepping in front of a bus and gets a weird form of StatOVision, seeing timers counting down over the heads of people around him. At one point, he sees the numbers go to 0 above an old woman being wheeled into an ambulance. At the end, he spots a woman whose timer is about to run out and saves her from an accident; he walks away, task completed, while she experiences the StatOVision instead.

Modern objects that can fill this function are clocks and watches. Classic, more poetically symbolic designs are [[DyingCandle a burning candle]], a withering flower, and a running hourglass. The latter frequently appears as an attribute of {{the Grim Reaper}}, the personification of Death as a scythe-wielding skeleton.

* ''ComicStrip/ThePerryBibleFellowship'' provides the [[http://www.pbfcomics.com/32/ page image.]]

* The GrimReaper is usually shown with an hourglass for everyone that shows how long they live.