When in a conversation, one of the last things some would want to speak about is the inevitability of death. 

The fear, called thanatophobia, is named after a Greek god of death. While some forms of media like the Family Guy show an actual representation of death, others show a more indirect take, with a character telling the protagonist they have a limited time to live.

One of the most popular examples of this is in Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad. In the pilot, a doctor tells Walter White that due to cancer, he has only two years left to live. 

WJPS teacher Ms. Papazoglou stated, “In various films or television series that have portrayed death, I feel that the producers all take a different spin on the topic. For example, The Walking Dead gives a fictional perspective of what might happen if the dead were to be revived.”

“The subject of death in media is portrayed in many different ways depending on the film. In some cases, those who die feel fulfilled and have a nice peaceful death, but other times, they show those who died moving on gruesomely, which seems horrid,” said WJPS senior, Nick Zuvich.

“Death” by Martin Hesketh is licensed under CC BY 2.0.