Circles of Hell: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

It's not bad enough to have just one plane of eternal torment. Many times, [[Hell]] has multiple layers, with those layers being tailored toward punishing certain kinds of evil, and the ones further down holding even more horrible punishments than the upper layers. [[Fire and Brimstone Hell]] is usually just one of the lesser levels; sometimes they ''really'' get [[Cool and Unusual Punishment|creative]].

Often, Heaven will have a number of layers as well, corresponding to varying degrees of holiness and/or purity.

 

 

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

** Wait, don't you mean the [[Censorship Bureau|Home For Infinite Losers?]]

** It wouldn't matter anyway, in Death Note all humans cease to exist after death, according to the Shinigami themselves. Despite its appearance, the Shinigami Realm is not actually Hell.

 

 

* ''[[Spawn]]'' features ten spheres of hell. They're distinguished from one another more by their native fauna than by their prisoners.

* DC's crossover ''Underworld Unleashed'' used this model for Neron's hell.

 

 

* [[Older Than Print]]: Dante's ''[[Divine Comedy|Inferno]]'' isn't the [[Trope Maker]], as it's based on some apocryphical scriptures, merely the [[Trope Codifier]] for the West. (It's often not mentioned that Dante's Heaven and Purgatory are built in a similar way.)

* Midkemia in ''[[The Riftwar Cycle]]'' is sandwiched between seven hells and seven heavens, though it is pointed out that whether a plane is heaven or hell is subjective to the individual (i.e. Midkemia would be considered the First Heaven to someone from what they consider the First Hell, and vice versa). Also, it may go further up ''and'' down; it's merely that once you reach the seventh layer either direction, human minds are no longer capable of comprehending what's going on.

* In Jodi Picoult's ''The Tenth Circle'', Daniel, one of the main characters, creates a comic book about traveling through the circles of hell to rescue his daughter. It reflects off the struggles he's having at home.

* In the ''[[Incarnations of Immortality]]'' series, both Heaven and Hell possess different circles/regions. Where you end up depends on what kind of person you were in life. In Heaven you go to different circles if you were a philosopher or a military leader. In Hell people who litter ([[Knight Templar|yes]]) are forced to pick up litter in the freezing cold without any clothes until they've picked up as much litter as they contributed to, directly or indirectly, in life.

 

== Live-Action TV ==

 

 

 

== Tabletop Games ==

** In DnD they had multiple layers for pretty much every afterlife, from the Seven Heavens of Celestia to the Nine Hells of Baator.

** The Planescape setting expands a bit on the nature of the Hells. ''In addition to eternal torment'' (because, what, that's not bad enough?), it's possible for someone to ''sell their soul'' to either demons or devils, which then results in being cannon fodder in the unending Blood War when you die. And as if that's not bad enough, you're pretty much ''regenerating cannon fodder'', doomed to a cycle of existence that involves dying again and again and again...''after you're already dead''. It pretty much ''sucks''.

 

== Videogames ==

* The [[Civilization IV]] mod ''[[Fall From Heaven]]'' has six circles of hell, one for each evil God/Goddess (except one, who was [[Face Heel Turn|originally good]]). Interestingly, hell in that universe isn't so much a prison for the wicked as it is a factory for the creation of demons to eventually wage war back on the outside world of Erebus. Each circle represents some aspect of evil to be cultivated in the inhabitants to turn them more and more demonic. There's even a circle of hell that [[Lotus Eater Machine|mimics Erebus]], designed to trick would-be-escapees of hell into giving up and returning to the other levels.

 

 

== Webcomics ==

* In" [http://www.jtillustration.com/hell Hell Lost]" Dante is revealed as being mistaken: they are not circles, in fact, but ledges that step down to the Frozen Plain described by Milton, where both a frozen lake and one of fire can be found.

 

 

== Web Originals ==

** Niven and Pournelle just stuck those types in Malebolgia with the rest of the flatterers (wallowing in shit).

*** They also added a second anus to them, which eternally flows with shit. It's right below their tongue (Spouting shit).

== Western Animation ==

* ''[[Futurama]]'' and all the levels of Robot Hell.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Death Tropes]]

[[Category:Religion Tropes]]

[[Category:Metaphysical Place]]

[[Category:Afterlife Tropes]]