All The Tropes

Afterlife Antechamber: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Afterlife Antechamber (view source)

Revision as of 17:05, 8 April 2014

250 bytes removed ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (Mass update links)
Line 14:
== Anime & Manga ==
* In ''[[Naruto]]'', everyone in Konoha ends up there because of Pain's onslaught.We actually see Kakashi there, and his dad's there, too, due to his regrets. Pain's revival ability is able to bring back everyone in this antechamber, but he can't revive Jiraiya because he already passed through.
* The Afterlife in ''[[Angel Beats (Anime)|Angel Beats]]'' is in fact an antechamber created for the souls of children who died feeling unfulfilled so that they can leave behind their regrets and fears and move on. People who do so disappear, and it's never made quite clear where they go, but it wouldn't be at all unreasonable to assume that they are going to the "true" afterlife, whatever that may be.
* The Hazama ("Great Between") in the Manga incarnation of ''[[Black Rock Shooter (Mangamanga)]]''. The job of the eponymous character is making sure troublesome souls move to afterlife proper, because if they don't, they will nag other souls into their false afterlife. Such false afterlife is usually horrifying, as expected from the troublesome souls.
 
 
Line 23:
 
== Film ==
* ''[[Heaven Can Wait (Filmfilm)|Heaven Can Wait]]''. When Joe Pendleton dies he ends up in a place that looks like a [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]] but isn't: it's an intermediate stop on the way to Heaven. He eventually gets sent back because it wasn't his time to die.
* ''[[Poltergeist]]''. When some people die they get lost or otherwise fail to [[Go Into the Light]] and end up haunting the living.
* The Albert Brooks film ''Defending Your Life''. You go to Judgement City, where you hang around until it's your turn to look at scenes from your life in front of a biunal and defend what you did. If you pass you [[Ascend to Aa Higher Plane of Existence]]; if you fail you [[Reincarnation|go back and try again in a new life]].
* ''[[Casper (Filmfilm)|Casper]]''. Being a ghost means that you have unfinished business on Earth; once that's cleared up you go on to the next stage.
* ''[[Beetlejuice (Film)|Beetlejuice]]''. The afterlife, being part of the [[Celestial Bureaucracy]], has a waiting room where the dead are processed and the waiting time helps them realize that they really are dead.
* In ''[[A Matter of Life and Death]]'', airmen shot down in combat find themselves in a huge building lit with heavenly light where they are greeted and allowed to sign in. American flyers are thrilled that there's a Coke machine. There is a hugely poignant moment when there's this exchange:
{{quote| '''Flyer:''' Home was never like this.<br />
Line 34:
== Literature ==
* In the [[Discworld]] series, people who die generally (and particularly if their death is being [[Played for Drama]]) find themselves on an empty plain, with the [[Grim Reaper]] standing by to explain that if they keep walking thataway they'll get to the afterlife proper. What's at the far end of the plain has never been depicted, and the [[Grim Reaper]] refuses to give any hints to people who ask, telling them that the only way to find out is to go and see for oneself.
** In ''[[Discworld (Literature)/Small Gods|Small Gods]]'', Death tells Vorbis "At the end of the desert you will be judged." When Brutha dies, he hears the same thing and asks Death "At which end?" In reply, Death smiles.
* In the [[Old Kingdom]] series, death is like a river running through a series of caves, the last of which opens out under what looks like, but isn't, a sky full of stars. That's as far as any character goes; anybody who goes on from there never comes back. Undead raised by necromancers are always souls from within the caves, either because they died recently and hadn't finished the journey or because they deliberately lingered in one of the caves in hope of finding a way back to the land of the living.
* In ''Remember Me'' by [[Christopher Pike]], the newly-dead hang around invisibly in the land of the living until they're ready to move on. The narrator of the book is dictating her story to a living person just before she moves on herself, so she has not yet learned, and thus can't reveal, what happens next.
* ''The Great Divorce'' by [[CSC. LewisS. (Creator)Lewis|CS Lewis]] has the gray town, implied to be Purgatory (if not hell), and the protagonist makes a trip into what is revealed to be Heaven's front door, more or less.
* In, ''The Night Angel Trilogy'' after Kylar dies for the first time (and every other time) he wakes up in an antechamber, with only The Wolf for company.
* In ''[[Animorphs (Literature)|Animorphs]]'', when Rachel dies, she ends up there, and talks to the [[Sufficiently Advanced Alien|Ellimist]] about the events of her life. When she asks what happens next, she is cut off, and the perspective switches to someone else.
* In ''[[Harry Potter (Franchise)/Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows|Harry Potter]]'', when Harry dies he ends up in a cleaner, emptier version of King's Cross Station. It's more or less stated that [[A Form You Are Comfortable With|this is only how it appears to him]], as {{spoiler|Dumbledore}} is surprised when he mentions it aloud. His options are to return or to go "on". "On" is not described. There's also the ghosts, who did not cross over either because they had unfinished business or (in {{spoiler|Nearly-Headless Nick's}} case), they were too afraid of what might be waiting on the other side, and are now stuck on Earth for some unspecified amount of time.
* In ''[[Ghost Story]]'', Harry Dresden has just saved the day as a ghost and gets to see his friends before he goes on. Somewhat averted, in that we see what happens after he moves on as well: {{spoiler|he gets resurrected by his very ticked-off boss, who isn't going to let a little thing like a messy assassination keep her from getting her money's worth}}.
Line 45:
 
== Live Action TV ==
* ''[[The Twilight Zone (TV)|The Twilight Zone]]''
** "The Hunt". A man dies and ends up on the Eternity Road. He's told about the two possible destinations, Heaven and Hell, but we never actually see them.
** "The Passersby". A long column of dead soldiers walk past a mansion on the way to their final destination.
* ''[[M*A*S*H (TV)|Mash]]'' episode "Follies of the Living - Concerns of the Dead". The ghost of a dead soldier wanders the camp and eventually finds a group of other ghosts traveling along the road to the afterlife. Almost certainly <s>a ripoff of</s> based on "The Passersby".
* ''[[Being Human (TV)|Being Human]]'': First you go through a door, then there's a hallway (which is apparently horrible), beyond that there's a few waiting rooms, and then...?
* ''[[The Crow]]: Stairway to Heaven'' had one in the form of a bridge where Shelly waited for Eric. When you crossed it you moved on to the afterlife.
* In the final season of ''[[Lost]]'', the ending revealed that the flash-sideways alternate universe was actually this.
Line 70:
 
== Webcomics ==
* In ''[[The Order of the Stick (Webcomic)|The Order of the Stick]]'', the dead Eugene Greenhilt is pissed because the Blood Oath he swore leaves him stuck waiting in the antechamber. What we see of the other side applies to some extent as well: the Lawful Good afterlife takes the form of a mountain, arranged by altitude in layers of increasingly abstract pleasures. Souls are expected to go to the level they wish, then climb higher as they get bored and seek greater enlightenment. The lower levels are relatively mundane, and are all we get to see.
* ''[[The Adventures of Dr. McNinja (Webcomic)|The Adventures of Dr. McNinja]]'' has purgatory, which is a restaurant where everyone eats all their sins. There is one waiter. Service is terrible.
* In ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]'', Kili the shaman describes the afterlife as being a place that cannot be accurately described whatsoever by the living, since it is not a paradise for the living, but a paradise for the soul. We see the [[Spirit World]] many times but never someone's final resting place.
* Near the end of ''[[Walkyverse|It's Walky]]!'', characters killed by the Martians reunite, along with Ruth and Dina, in a bizarre void that Ruth insists is Purgatory, and more rational characters a shared sink of severed consciousness before it's claimed by entropy. The technology exists to retrieve the minds of people in this state, but they remember none of it.
Line 77:
 
== Western Animation ==
* ''[[Batman: theThe Brave And The Bold (Animation)|Batman the Brave And The Bold]]'', episode "Dawn of the Dead Man!": When you die, you hang around the world of the living, invisible and inaudible, until you are called to [[Go Into the Light]]. What's beyond the Light is not shown, and it's stated that once you go into the Light, there's no returning.
* In the ''[[Thundercats 2011 (Western Animation)|Thundercats 2011]]'' arc "Trials of Lion-O," When young hero Lion-O dies suddenly, his [[Amulet of Concentrated Awesome]], the Spirit Stone, activates to force him to go on [[Adventures in Coma Land]]. He wakes up in a metaphysical waystation where [[Spirit Advisor]] Jaga awaits to provide exposition about Lion-O's impending [[Vision Quest]] and open the gateway to his [[Mental World]]. Once Lion-O is finished there, he travels back to the antechamber for another talk with Jaga.
 
{{reflist}}
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/901983"