As the series progresses, she also begins to take on roles educating children, so that, as Pratchett mentions in The Art of Discworld, she has "ended up, via that unconscious evolution that dogs characters, a kind of Goth Mary Poppins".
At the end of Mort they leave Death's domain and become Duke and Duchess of Sto Helit, taking the motto Non Temetis Messor: "Don't Fear the Reaper.
At first she desires to use her power to help humanity, but as the book progresses she comes to realise that she is powerless to interfere, and discovers the inevitability of death and destiny.
Although its natural state is a frizzy mass reminiscent of a dandelion, it rearranges its style of its own accord depending on Susan's mood; it tends to form a tight bun while she is working.
Susan's hair is an inverted homage to Elsa Lanchester's appearance in Bride of Frankenstein, in which she wore a black beehive wig with white streaks.
Susan has a very striking physical presence, which both Lu-Tze and Lobsang Ludd have remarked upon, and despite her relative youth, she projects a sense of great age.
She possesses a birthmark on her cheek that shows itself only when she blushes; it consists of three finger-like lines that were left on her father when Death slapped him in Mort, and which glow when she is angry.
This speech is indicated, similar to Death's, "by small caps"; however, unlike those of her grandfather, the words which Susan speaks in this voice are often (if not always) enclosed within quotation marks, particularly in Hogfather.
In order to keep her from going insane, her mind represses much of the knowledge provided by this memory, but even so, parts of it occasionally permeate her consciousness, generally manifesting as premonitions or intuitive insights into forthcoming events.
Like Death or experienced witches, Susan can make herself completely unnoticeable to ordinary people if she so chooses, though anyone who "can see what's really there", such as Albert or Mustrum Ridcully, who are used to such things, are still able to see her if they concentrate and she is not actively trying to avoid their specific notice.
She possesses a unique perspective on life, in that she lacks the normal human ability to ignore things which do not fit in with a logical world-view: in Soul Music, she is able to acknowledge the enormous size of the rooms in Death's Domain, whereas most humans can only deal with the incomprehensible vastness by pretending it is not there; Hogfather reveals that she shares the ability of witches, wizards and young children to see things which are invisible to most people, such as the tooth fairy, monsters and bogeymen; in Thief of Time, she is able to identify the historical anomalies created by the History Monks' reconstruction of the shattered timeline.
The latter novel also reveals that Susan possesses a sort of hyperawareness of the world around her, in that she is "aware of every step of the rocks beneath [her] feet and the stars overhead."
On various occasions, unusual circumstances have rendered some or all of Susan's powers useless: In Hogfather, she becomes completely human and finds herself bereft of her inherited gifts upon entering the Tooth Fairy's castle.
Due in part to her education at Quirm College for Young Ladies, Susan possesses various practical skills, some of which contribute to her success as a governess and later a teacher: she is accomplished in the fields of Mathematics and Logic (priding herself on her ability to mentally calculate the square root of 27.4), is multilingual, and has considerable knowledge of Discworld culture.
In Thief of Time, though still resentful of having been born Death's granddaughter and attempting to avoid too much contact with the supernatural world, she appears to have accepted and even embraced her heritage: she admits, albeit grudgingly, that she is not completely human, frequently uses her powers to provide teaching aids, and views herself as an exception to the rules of normal human society, as evidenced by her willingness to investigate the personal papers of her employer, Madame Frout, without her knowledge.
This fixation is not as extreme as that which her mother possessed for the colour pink, and may in fact be a characteristic inherited from Death, who made most of the decorations for his Domain black.
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.
[4] Using her powers as a teaching aid in her career as a schoolteacher, Susan is sufficiently successful as to have parents clamouring in large numbers to have their child included in her class.
Parents generally see the occasional need to clean their children's clothing of dried-in bloodstains or ground-in swamp mud as more than compensated for by the broad education being received.
Susan's role as a caregiver to children, combined with her no-nonsense style and almost magical flair for stick-like weaponry (e.g. her grandfather's scythe, field hockey sticks, a fireplace poker), can be seen as a parody of Mary Poppins.
Though the moment itself was not described, Ludd caught her attention by levitating metallic silver and gold stars and setting them spinning about near the ceiling of the Stationery Cupboard, and dimming the lighting to velvety darkness, both rather romantic gestures.