That is I like Phillipa Grave, scientifically speaking.

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It always annoyed me that you spend all your life learning stuff; how to load the dishwasher, why the knives shouldn't point up, how to stop the bleeding, etc.

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Then you die and all that wonderful knowledge is lost. But science tells us that information isn't lost, so I put it into Phillipa. That way I know where it is.

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I first learnt about Death from reading Mort by Terry Pratchett's. I wanted my Death to be more relatable and better dressed.

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In Phillipa I wanted to explore the difference between knowledge and wisdom. As I know a lot of very clever dumb folk, I thought it would be fun. I also wanted to explore the serious consequences of death, that is why Phillipa has her personal loneliness, even when with friends.

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I wanted her to reflect the strange ethereal relationship that a person has with the deceased. In that they are always with and a part of you, hence the introduction of Corvus.

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I am happy to say, that in my life time I have had three best friends, not counting my wife, as that would be taxonomy. Two are deceased. The first, I lost, when we were both  just twenty and the second when I was in my fifties. They are both remembered and my wish is that Phillipa will gain this insight of the difference between remembered and recorded, eventually.

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History's influence:

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I suspect, if there is a heaven, that stipends don't count. (paying the church to pray for you after death.) I prefer Dienekes way of being remembered.

 

The Dienekes method:

 

During the battle of  Thermopylae 480 B.C, Dienekes (now deceased) was considered to be the bravest of soldiers. Not that that is ever remembered.

 

When Xerxes, King of Persia, said that he had enough bow men that their arrows would block out the sun; Dienekes replied, "excellent! it is much better to fight in the shade." (paraphrased). He and his humour will be remembered.

I like to think of him sitting in the Spartan heaven, still laughing with Leonidas.

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​The noble way:

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Alfred Nobel had the fortune to read his own obituary as he was mistakenly thought to have died. It wasn't very pleasant, his inventions of dynamite, blasting caps, gelatin etc where all used for less than peaceful pursuits. So, he did something about it and used his fortune for the Nobel prizes which he is rightly remembered for.

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The brave way:

 

Anne Boleyn: "Good Christian people, I have not come here to preach a sermon; I have come here to die. For according to the law and by the law I am judged to die, and therefore I will speak nothing against it. I am come hither to accuse no man… I pray God save the King and send him long to reign over you, for a gentler nor a more merciful prince was there never."

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Enough said