At the dinner party, Otho states that people who commit suicide end up as “civil servants” in the afterlife. This is actually expanded on in the film: the civil servant ghosts Adam and Barbara meet are people who appear to have ended their own lives. The receptionist says she committed suicide, there is a man who hanged himself, and the crushed messenger is implied to have done it to himself. Juno looks normal, but there are scars on her neck that indicate she cut her own throat. Betelgeuse is said to have been a civil servant and Juno’s assistant; it was going to be explained in the film that he hanged himself (incompetently and very painfully), due to heartbreak. While this was cut out of the film for running time purposes, it is hinted when Betelgeuse is surprised at Lydia wishing to die.
I think Burton may have got the idea from Orphee; I can’t recall if Cocteau’s script actually states all the emissaries of the Otherworld are suicides, but Heurtebise certainly is (he almost admits it to Eurydice when he gets triggered by the smell of the gas oven in her kitchen). I don’t know about the Princess.
Mooncustafer 