Tear Jerker / Mort

• When Death sends off the souls of those kittens. Him stopping a conversation to go fetch the dead kittens while commenting on how angered he was by it was punch one. Death petting the souls of the dead kittens was punch two.
• This is the first book where we see just how very alone Death is; he is the only one of his kind and will outlive all life on the disk, and perhaps, even beyond that.
  • Death has to ask Albert what the way he's feeling is called (sadness). Not because he doesn't normally feel sad, but because he doesn't have a name for how he always feels.
• Death is dueling with Mort, and we can see that Death is clearly unstoppable. Mort may be able to go toe-to-toe with him for a few minutes, but Death's victory is inevitable... until Death lets himself get distracted twice, and even tells Mort to kill him. He's clearly tired of being Death.
  • Death smacking Mort. This is one of the few times that we see Death abuse his authority, and the mark stays with Mort and his children.
• Ysabell and Death's relationship is a combination of tearjerker and heartwarming. Death rescues her from an accident that drowned her parents - she was the very first person he ever interfered in history for. Despite being utterly unrelatable, Death makes an effort to care for her and they consider each other family. Then, at the end of the book, you realize that Death leaves his daughter and his apprentice forever... until their deaths, which means he's consigning himself to only see them one last time.^note And Soul Music shows they did visit... a few times... and lost touch in order to raise Susan 'normally'.
• Ysabel also mentions the problem of having a father like Death: he can't create, and thus everything in his realm is a shallow imitation of what's supposed to be there. She hasn't aged beyond sixteen for about thirty years, but Death won't allow her to leave for the real world, since once she does, she won't have the eternity that he can provide. While Ysabel loves her dad, ultimately he can't provide what she actually wants: to live. Yet Death attempts to create.