reapers

Reapers are entities or devices associated with harvesting. The term derives from reaping, the act of cutting and gathering mature crops. In agriculture, a reaper can be a worker who harvests by hand or a machine designed to cut grain. The mechanical reaper emerged in the early 19th century; Cyrus McCormick's improvements in the 1830s helped popularize automation in grain cutting, later evolving into the combine harvester that reaps, threshes, and winnows in a single pass and transformed global agriculture by increasing productivity and reducing labor requirements.

In folklore and popular culture, the Grim Reaper is a personification of death in Western tradition. Typically portrayed as a cloaked, skeletal figure wielding a scythe, the Grim Reaper is a symbol of mortality and is used in literature, art, and media to represent the moment of dying or the passage between life and death. Variants appear in other cultures with different appearances and names, but the core idea remains: an entity associated with harvesting or guiding souls.

In modern media, the term reaper is used for fictional beings, machines, or roles that harvest or collect something, from souls to data. The concept appears across genres, often as an antagonist or enigmatic force, and as a metaphor for unavoidable consequence.