Susan was sensible. It was, she knew, a major character flaw. It did not make you popular, or cheerful, and– this seemed to her to be the most unfair bit – it didn’t even make you right. But it did make you definite. Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
Susan Sto Helit is the granddaughter of Death. She's the child of Mort (Death's apprentice) and Ysabell (Death's adopted daughter), the Duke and Duchess of Sto Helit. Susan's most defining feature is a no-nonsense attitude. Her outlook is logical to the point of chilly. This is mostly because of her parent's conviction she should have as little to do with her supernatural ancestry as possible.
It's one thing that drew me to Susan. She's polite, sensible and civil, but doesn't feel the need to be nice to be liked, or be 'classically' feminine. A rather different female heroine to the ones I grew up and an obvious subversion from the traditional troupes.
The Granddaughter of Death
She was brilliant in the same way that a diamond is brilliant, all edges and chilliness. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
Though Susan doesn't share any genetics with Death, she has inherited many abilities and traits. Susan lives outside of time, meaning she can walk through walls and remember things that haven't happened yet. She's also described as 'a little bit immortal.' Perhaps one of my favourite details around Susan is she is adept at any sport which involves swinging of some sort of stick.
Susan also has a birthmark of sorts - three pale lines on her cheek. Inherited from her father, it's the result of an argument Mort had with Death which caused the skeleton to strike him across the face. Hence the ghostly lines of three fingers. Genetics is a bit of a malleable science on the Discworld.
The Sto Helit family motto is: NON TIMETUS MESSOR. Fear Not The Reaper.
Susan is an interesting conundrum in the Discworld.
The Discworld runs on belief. People believe Death is a seven-foot-tall skeleton in a black robe wielding a scythe - ego, he's a seven-foot-tall skeleton in a black robe wielding a scythe. However, this vastly conflicts with Susan's scientific and rational way of looking at the world. Despite descending from a distinctly supernatural world, she rebels against this 'fluffy thinking.'
“All right," said Susan. "I'm not stupid. You're saying humans need... fantasies to make life bearable." REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE. "Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—" YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES. "So we can believe the big ones?" YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
The Books
The novels Susan appears in are, in many ways, hard to appreciate. Susan is usually there to clean up the messes of the protagonist, rather than acting on her own agency.
In Soul Music, Death suffers from a bout of depression in the wake of her parent's death (and his inability to 'save' them) leading him to hang up his scythe. Susan has to step up to Death's duties. However, the driving narrative centres around Buddy, a musician being possessed by an evil eldritch guitar and introducing 'Music With Rocks In' to the Discworld.
In Hogfather, Susan has to once again run around after Death. The Hogfather (the Discworld's version of Father Christmas) has gone missing. Without their Hogswatch presents, children have stopped believing. Death takes it upon himself to deliver them. And if this sounds uncannily similar to a certain animated movie, just know Pratchett did it first.
And again, Thief of Time (while my favourite of the Susan trilogy) sees our gothic Mary Poppins battling for page time with the Monks of History. However, this is a significant book for Susan in terms of character development. She's accepted her supernatural heritage and meets Lobsang Ludd, the personification of Time. It's implied these two begin a relationship.
Final Thoughts
If you haven't read my post on Death, you should! These two have always struck me as very similar (for obvious reasons). Susan's coldly logical outlook is very similar to Death's, though Death has a deeper understanding of the world, which includes the romantic, messy bits which Susan rebels against.
Next up, we'll be looking at everyone's favourite librarian who is absolutely not a monkey.
'The poet Hoha once dreamed he was a butterfly, and then he awoke and said, “Am I a man who dreamed he was a butterfly or am I a butterfly dreaming he is a man?”‘ said Lobsang, trying to join in. ‘Really?’ said Susan briskly. ‘And which was he?’ ‘What? Well…who knows?’ ‘How did he write his poems?’ said Susan. ‘With a brush, of course.’ ‘He didn’t flap around making information-rich patterns in the air or laying eggs on cabbage leaves?’ ‘No one ever mentioned it.’ ‘Then he was probably a man,’ said Susan. Thief of Time, Terry Pratchett
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