Death And After

The Merman's Children, VI.

Merfolk do not age but will eventually succumb to either accident or violence and lack souls, therefore have no hereafter, whereas Christians, of course, age and die but then expect either Heaven or Hell. However, Aegir and Ran also exist so do they welcome drowned sailors into there hall? Do hereafters change along with pantheons? This gets complicated.

Fantasy writers could adopt a fictional premise shared by the authors of several interconnected DC Comics comic book series: 

human and other intelligent beings have souls that will go somewhere after death; 

however, all particular deities and hereafters are projections based on cultural expectations;

thus, people who wind up in "Hell" go there because that is what they expect and think that they deserve.

This does partly overlap with the beliefs of some Christians. Thus, CS Lewis thought that those who went to Hell did so because, having made a series of wrong moral choices, they refused to learn and amend those choices. Their exclusion from grace and light was of their own choosing.

Ingeborg tells the merman, Tauno:

"'You may live a long while, but when you die you'll be done, a blown-out candle flame.'" (p. 35)

Where does the candle-flame go? Up? Down? North? South? No. It goes out. That is what materialists expect at death and what Buddhists expect at the end of rebirth if I understand Buddhist teaching. I am a materialist who thinks that Zen meditation is beneficial here and now.

(A flame passed from candle to candle before burning down or being blown out is an appropriate image of the Buddhist anatta, "no soul," teaching.)