Susan Sto Helit
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Characters from Terry Pratchett's Discworld series | |
| |
| Character details | |
| Full name: | Susan Sto Helit |
| Description: | Death's granddaughter; a stern schoolteacher, has pure white hair with a single black streak through it |
| Associations: | Death, Mort, Ysabell |
| Location: | Quirm College, Sto Helit, Ankh-Morpork |
| Story appearances | |
| First seen: | Soul Music |
| Also in: | Hogfather, Thief of Time |
| Other details | |
| Notes: | Wields a fireplace poker against monsters |
Susan Sto Helit, sometimes called Susan Death, is a fictional character who features in three of Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - Soul Music, Hogfather, and Thief of Time.
She is the daughter of Mort and Ysabell. Ysabell was the adopted daughter of Death and Mort was, briefly, Death's apprentice. They leave Death's domain and become Duke and Duchess of Sto Helit. Susan is their only child.
Despite her lack of a genetic link with Death, she has inherited certain of his abilities: she can "walk through walls and live outside time and be a little bit immortal."
Her most obvious character trait is being sensible, an attribute carefully cultivated by her parents as a counterbalance to the influence of her grandfather. Initially, this manifested itself as a refusal to admit the supernatural side of the world (beyond basic magic) even existed. Latterly, however, she accepts she is part of the same world as the Hogfather and the Tooth fairy. She just wishes she wasn't. She can be relied upon to keep her head in a crisis, something she tends to view as a character flaw.
She is first introduced as a sixteen year old pupil at the "Quirm College for Young Ladies" in Soul Music, shortly after the death of her parents (who, unfortunately, Death couldn't spare; his offer to let them live out eternity in his Domain was refused). After graduating -- and despite being technically the current Duchess of Sto Helit -- she begins a teaching career, first as a governess (in Hogfather) and then as a school teacher (in Thief of Time). She proves to be quite good at handling small children, a skill that is attributed to her sensible and practical nature.
This could also be due to her approach to children's problems. When a child complains about a monster in the cupboard or under the bed, most parents would go to great lengths to carefully explain to the child that there is no monster. Susan, on the other hand, simply hands the child a suitable weapon (such as an axe or broadsword) with which to assault the monster, or goes and does it herself. Monsters from a wide area have come to dread the fireplace poker she uses for this task, although as word of Susan has quickly spread among the city's resident monsters, she lately has only needed to deal with newcomers.
Her approach in other areas is also unusual. For example, in her role as a governess she has found that her charges' reading progress has been greatly enhanced by using interesting books which are slightly too difficult for them, and which therefore present something of a challenge. Parents may, however, have reservations about her choice of General Tacticus' Campaigns as a reader, since it may be argued that the ability to spell 'disembowelled' is not necessarily needed by children under ten.
As a schoolteacher she is sufficiently successful to have parents clamouring to have their child included in her class. Her approach to history and geography, often subjects which children find rather dull, has particularly captured her class's attention. The occasional need to remove from their children's clothing dried-in bloodstains or ground-in swamp mud is generally seen by parents as more than compensated for by the broad education being received - a child's description of one of the classic battles from Ankh-Morpork's long history, for example, might be sufficiently vivid and detailed to make the parent think that the description could not have been improved upon if the child had actually seen the battle at first hand.
Though Susan was previously in love with rocker Imp Y Celyn ("Soul Music"), as of Thief of Time, Susan is rumoured to be in a relationship with Lobsang Ludd, the new anthropomorphic personification of Time.
In the Cosgrove Hall animation of Soul Music, Susan is voiced by Debra Gillet. In the upcoming Sky One adaptation of Hogfather she will be played by Michelle Dockery.
