Grim (Billy and Mandy)
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| Grim | |
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| First appearance | Meet the Reaper |
| Information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Age | Millions of Years |
| Year of birth | 98 B.C. |
| Occupation | The Grim Reaper |
| Family | Miriam Reaper,mother, Earl Reaper,father |
| Relatives | Granny Grim, "granmother"; Kali, aunt (Miriam's younger sister and Granny Grim's other daughter) |
| Portrayed by | Greg Eagles |
| Created by | Maxwell Atoms |
Grim is a fictional character from the television series The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. He is the Grim Reaper, the personification of Death, here portrayed as a scythe-wielding skeleton in a black hooded robe. His accent and use of patois suggest that he is Jamaican.
He is thousands of years old, as he was a child at the time of the Neanderthals. He often brings up traumatic experiences from his youth, as well as the lessons he had learned from them, such as losing a crucial baseball game (The Bad News Ghouls), being bullied (Billy and the Bully, Bully Boogie), and failing to live up to his parents' expectations (A Grim Prophecy). When he grew up he became the king of the Underworld. But on one fatal day, by losing a bet to the two children, Billy and Mandy, he is fated to be their "best friend" (effectively, their slave), a task he suffers with no small amount of disdain and mockery from other supernatural creatures. He now lives with Billy and Mandy in their hometown of Endsville, hoping that he will break free from the servitude.
Grim likes all kinds of chaos, despair, and torture (except his own), martial arts activities (he attends a children's karate class), playing rock and roll, and many other dark things. He especially enjoys Billy's torture, as Billy often annoys him. He expresses his enjoyment of other people's pain by laughing, from a deep evil laugh to screaming like a girl, and he often can start laughing in the most inappropriate situations. But besides his very morbid sense of humour and odd dark antics, he can behave like any other normal man. Reaping is only a job, and he says that it's a hard one. In several episodes Grim was "working" (reaping), but Billy and/or Mandy always appear and distract him right before he is about to reap.
He needed some time to adapt to a new life, but now he watches television, films, can use the internet (The Secret Snake Club) and play video games, eat fast food and ice cream, and do many other "normal" things. On rare occasions, Grim can even behave effeminately, wearing a dress in pink, sniffing and picking flowers. He was a big fan of "My Troubled Pony", a cross between soap operas and My Little Pony, and wanted to become a supermodel (Look Alive!).
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[edit] Relationship with Billy and Mandy
Grim hates the servitude he has been placed in, constantly hoping that Billy and Mandy will die during one of their many adventures (or at least get hopelessly maimed). Grim's "reputation" in the underworld has diminished greatly since he met Billy and Mandy. There are many incidents where Billy and Mandy mock him; for example, in the episode Recipe for Disaster, Grim was dressed up as a girl scout and was selling cookies from door to door. They publicly humiliated him on his own talk show (The Grim Show), he was beaten up by Billy's mom (Grim Vs. Mom), and is doomed to do meaningless and unnecessary chores nearly every day. He often must fix disasters they have made or use his powers in the most ridiculous situations and purposes (for example, making a burrito talk or turning Billy into a spring-green squeaking yogurt-shooting superhero), just to make them stop bothering him.
He hates Mandy because she treats him like a tool and doesn't care about him very much (if at all) - she calls him "bonehead", forces him to do her chores, and enjoys reminding him that she "owns him" (For example, in The Secret Snake Club, she rented out him and his powers for 20 dollars per hour). Grim hates Billy too, as his stupidity and ability to create disasters always leads to trouble (he sold Grim's Scythe for a "crummy smashed amusement park penny," for example), although Billy treats him far better than Mandy does; the only exception to this is in The Nerve when Billy steals Mandy's Nerve and becomes evil but still stupid (Grim would rather be with someone who was evil and sane than someone who is evil and stupid). His liking for them varies - he sometimes likes to be with Billy, as they can have fun when Grim is in a good mood (Just the Two of Pus), or they can unite against Mandy bossing them (Sickly Sweet), but in most cases he isn't in a mood to deal with him and he would rather be with Mandy, as she is closer to his usual, dark attitude, and she tends to be more sane.
Despite the loss of his once wide and feared popularity, and his subsequent humiliation, it seems that his mood changes slightly each episode, as he is adapting to a new life. It's almost safe to say that Grim developed a love-hate relationship with the children that mock and torment him. In several situations he could have gotten rid of them forever, but he eventually saved them instead. In Fiend Is Like Friend Without "R", Nergal kidnapped Billy and Mandy because he was lonely in the center of the Earth. Grim's first thought, logically, was to leave them behind, but he found himself coming back to rescue them. In Scythe 2.0., Grim's "modernized" scythe was tired of doing chores and wanted to reap Billy and Mandy, but Grim came with his old scythe (and "doom-buggy"), and saved them again. Grim excuses this as a matter of principle: he can't very well have a rogue scythe doing his job for him, and that if anyone will be responsible for reaping Billy and Mandy, it's going to be him. In Hurter Monkey, Grim was about to leave Billy and Mandy because he thinks they don't need him anymore because they have the monkey, Dickie Galoot. Grim tried to leave them but his scythe keep sending him back to Mandy's house. Grim's lawyer tells Grim he can't leave Billy and Mandy because he would break their bet and friendship and if Grim does, he would be sent to Underworld Jail. So Grim went to challenge Dickie Galoot to a cleaning contest and Grim wins and sends Dickie back to the television. So Grim is stuck with Billy and Mandy forever.
[edit] Grim's Supernatural Items
[edit] Scythe
Grim's powers derives from his Scythe, the traditional implement of the Grim Reaper. It is somewhere between a prop and a character. Grim occasionally addresses the scythe as "Jody" and treats it as something of a pet, although it rarely displays any self-directed activity. He uses it for reaping, but it also serves as a combination magic wand and "Swiss Army Chainsaw." Grim sometimes uses spell books to create specific magical effects, but the scythe is always involved in his magic and he usually simply points it and wills whatever he wants to happen, which produces a blast from the Scythe and the desired result. The Scythe is an extremely powerful item, but there are other artifacts in the GA universe which, while it's hard to compare directly, are at least as powerful (Eris's Golden Apple of Discord and Chaos), or even more powerful (the tooth fairy's Gold Star Scepter). It is usually stolen from him, something he now does not pay any attention to (He once said "Mon, I stopped carin' like five episodes ago!")
[edit] Others
Grim has many other supernatural items, and they are kept in his trunk. Grim usually reveals specific supernatural item when the plot needs it. Also, Billy often digs into Grim's trunk, revealing many item that Grim keeps for no determined reason. Billy has found many of them, like Merlin's underwear, a Voo-Doo doll, shrunken head, Monkey's Paw, Eye of Vecna, Scroll of magic missile, Medusa's head, and others. Billy and Mandy (mostly Billy) often misuse Grim's supernatural items, which almost always ends with a disaster. For example, in Brown Evil, Billy thought that Grim's "Evil Powder" is salt and used it to make brownies. Brownies Billy made attracted zombies from all over the world, and soon Billy's house was under a siege. In the Billy & Mandy video game Billy finds chaos causing Mojo Balls in his trunk.
[edit] Trivia
- Grim's Mother is named Miriam[1]; the name "Miriam" means "bitter" in hebrew.
[edit] Reference
1. Season 6 episode 10 Dad Day Afternoon
