Celestial Bureaucracy: Difference between revisions

Line 41:

* ''Wristcutters: A love Story''

* In the film ''Liliom'' (and the Hungarian play it's based on), the eponymous character discover's after his suicide that Heaven is exactly like the police station he was in earlier in the film, from his treatment by the man at the desk to the sign on the wall that says "No Spitting".

* In the 1946 [[Abbott and Costello]] ghost comedy, ''The Time of Their Lives'', after the curse that prevents [[The American Revolution|Patriot]] Horatio Prim (Lou Costello) from ascending to Heaven is lifted, he is still ~~excluded -- because~~ Heaven is "Closed for [[George Washington|Washington's]] Birthday."

* In the 1946 [[Abbott and Costello]] ghost comedy, ''The Time of Their Lives'', after the curse that prevents [[The American Revolution|Patriot]] Horatio Prim (Lou Costello) from ascending to Heaven is lifted, he is still excluded—because Heaven is "Closed for [[George Washington|Washington's]] Birthday."

* ''[[The Tooth Fairy]]'': Not afterlife, but still (usually) invisible to humans.

* ''A Life Less Ordinary'' saw heaven as this, complete with archangels as harassed middle-managers.

Line 72:

== Live-Action TV ==

* The afterlife in ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' and ''[[Xena: Warrior Princess]]'' can sometimes work like this.

* ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' features a character who gets turned into a grim reaper and joins the bureaucratic mess of being a psychopomp. One episode (the cut scene episode) explicitly [[~~Lampshade|lampshades~~]] this.

* ''[[Dead Like Me]]'' features a character who gets turned into a grim reaper and joins the bureaucratic mess of being a psychopomp. One episode (the cut scene episode) explicitly [[lampshade]]s this.

* The Underworld as depicted in ''[[The Middleman]]'' is a giant office building with files in the back room and a [[Deadpan Snarker]] at the desk position.

* In an episode of ''[[Are You Afraid of the Dark?]]'', The Tale of Station 109.1, the main character is mistaken for a dead person at their local Celestial Bureaucracy. The clerk there, played by [[Special Guest]] [[Gilbert Gottfried]], tells him "I don't ''make'' mistakes! When I was alive, I worked at the ''Department of Motor Vehicles''!"

Line 82:

== Music ==

* Part of the [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|hard]] [[Viewers Are Geniuses|to]] [[Divine Comedy|follow]] plotline of Jethro Tull's 1973 [[Concept Album]], "A Passion Play", concerns something of a [[Celestial Bureaucracy]] involving one "G. Oddie And Son" running Heaven as bureaucratic office managers. This theme would have been carried over into the next year's proposed film project which became the "WarChild" album.

* Part of the [[True Art Is Incomprehensible|hard]] [[Viewers Are Geniuses|to]] [[Divine Comedy|follow]] plotline of Jethro Tull's 1973 [[Concept Album]], "A Passion Play", concerns something of a Celestial Bureaucracy involving one "G. Oddie And Son" running Heaven as bureaucratic office managers. This theme would have been carried over into the next year's proposed film project which became the "WarChild" album.

== Mythology ==

* In China it's a common custom to burn offerings known as [[wikipedia:Hell Bank Notes|Hell Bank Notes]]. They're meant for the deceased to [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|spend in the afterlife.]]

** Archie McPhee, of all companies, will sell you Hell ~~Money -- as~~ well as spiffy [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6290.html men's] and [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6289.html women's] clothing and accessories, [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6284.html jewelry,] and [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6286.html food.]

** Archie McPhee, of all companies, will sell you Hell Money—as well as spiffy [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6290.html men's] and [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6289.html women's] clothing and accessories, [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6284.html jewelry,] and [http://www.mcphee.com/items/M6286.html food.]

** It's also amusing to note that a number of Chinese and Indian near-death experiences report being informed by clerks that there has been a "clerical error" and "someone else with your name was supposed to die today."

*** Sometimes, if somebody'd forgotten to preserve the subject's original body beforehand, they were sent back in another recently-dead body.

*** That's the rest of the plot to ''Here Comes Mr. Jordan'', and its numerous spinoffs...

* In ''The Aeneid'' Aeneas travels through the underworld to Elysium, where he finds his father, ~~Anchises -- who~~ is numbering souls on a tablet. So he's pretty much got a clipboard and is taking the names of everyone in Heaven.

* In ''The Aeneid'' Aeneas travels through the underworld to Elysium, where he finds his father, Anchises—who is numbering souls on a tablet. So he's pretty much got a clipboard and is taking the names of everyone in Heaven.

Line 116:

== Tabletop Games ==

* ''[[Exalted]]'' includes a [[Celestial Bureaucracy]], and player characters may be part of it. However, it differs from most examples of the Trope in that, while it runs Creation (the mortal world), it has little to do with the afterlife of mortals beyond filing the requisite paperwork to ensures the process of their [[Reincarnation]] goes smoothly (assuming that mortals don't [[Ghostly Goals|have some strong attachment to their former lives]], since actual lingering ghosts [[Our Ghosts Are Different|don't fall under the Celestial Bureaucracy's jurisdiction]], which turns out to be a pretty significant crack to fall through).

* ''[[Exalted]]'' includes a Celestial Bureaucracy, and player characters may be part of it. However, it differs from most examples of the Trope in that, while it runs Creation (the mortal world), it has little to do with the afterlife of mortals beyond filing the requisite paperwork to ensures the process of their [[Reincarnation]] goes smoothly (assuming that mortals don't [[Ghostly Goals|have some strong attachment to their former lives]], since actual lingering ghosts [[Our Ghosts Are Different|don't fall under the Celestial Bureaucracy's jurisdiction]], which turns out to be a pretty significant crack to fall through).

** The Celestial Order, as it's called, also has a bit of a problem with unemployment. This is partly a holdover from a time when Heaven believed Creation to have been destroyed in a series of cataclysms, and thus shut their doors to prevent the massive influx of gods whose jobs and homes in the mortal world had been destroyed. When it turned out Creation had survived after all, Heaven was also left with the difficult task of working with and around the [[Weird Trade Union|Spirit Courts]], local unions formed by [[Jerkass Gods|gods]] and [[Elemental Embodiment|elementals]] who realised that they had been written off by the higher ups.

* ''[[In Nomine]]'' features a form of bureaucracy for both Heaven and Hell. Heaven is ruled by the Seraphim Council, and also has Dominic's angels running around checking for heresy. Hell has Asmodeus's demons enforcing the rules of "The Game", but cheating is often encouraged.

Line 129:

== Video Games ==

* ''[[Jade Empire]]'', being set in a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|fantastic equivalent]] of [[Imperial China]], has its own [[Celestial Bureaucracy]] which is played for comic effect. In one instance, a minor god assigned by the bureaucracy to tabulate the karmic effects of the player's actions appears to him/her, in order to complain about all the work you've caused him to have to do.

* ''[[Jade Empire]]'', being set in a [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture|fantastic equivalent]] of [[Imperial China]], has its own Celestial Bureaucracy which is played for comic effect. In one instance, a minor god assigned by the bureaucracy to tabulate the karmic effects of the player's actions appears to him/her, in order to complain about all the work you've caused him to have to do.

** In fact he was overwhelmed and demoted to finance, where he now tries to show his superiors how efficient he is by acting as your private store.

** He's not the only member of the Celestial Bureaucracy helping you out. Far from it. {{spoiler|Turns out [[Mad Scientist]] Kang the Mad is the minor inventor's deity Lord Lao who was slumming it on earth with a case of amnesia.}}