Hell: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

[[File:dore-circle3.jpg|link=Divine Comedy|frame|[[No Exit|Hell is other people]]. ''Lots'' of other people.]]

 

{{quote|''"Once upon a time, there was a place that wasn't a place. It had many names: Avernus, Gehenna, Tartarus, Hades, Abaddon, Sheol... it was an inferno of pain and flame and ice, where every nightmare had come true long since. We'll call it Hell."''|[[Neil Gaiman]]}}

 

See also [[Heaven]] and [[Fluffy Cloud Heaven]].

{{examples}}

== Anime and Manga ==

* The [[Never Say "Die"|Shadow Realm]] in the English dub of ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', because death is too much for children to deal with, but an eternity of being [[Mind Rape]]d in [[Another Dimension]] of torment is totally kid-friendly.

** Hell is vaguely hinted at in the Season 1 episode "No Questions, Please", when Vademon tells Izzy that his curiosity makes him greedy and will have him sent to Hell ("A very unpleasant place", he says).

* In ''[[Rurouni Kenshin]]'', Shishio, his girlfriend, and one of their cronies end up in hell, which is depicted as a dark place full of skulls...which he aims to take over from Lord Enma himself.

 

== Comic Books ==

* ''[[Spawn]]'' centers around Hell and its secret war with Heaven in the modern world. This version of Hell's definitely the [[Fire and Brimstone Hell|fire and brimstone]] variety, with each level ruled by a different demon lord.

* "[http://www.jtillustration.com/hell Hell Lost]" tells the story of the inevitable Counter Revolution in Hell, as the fallen angels inevitably realize they not only got a raw deal, but that Hell, quite simply, sucks balls.

 

== Film ==

* ''[[Hellbound Hellraiser II]]'' depicts a gothic-looking, otherworldly area of Hell (or, at least, a very Hell-like dimension [[From a Certain Point of View|that promises unimaginable sensations]]) called the Labyrinth, where the people who [[Schmuck Bait|solve a cursed puzzle box]] end up. [[Like a Badass Out of Hell|Escape is possible]], and the first two movies focus more on human villains who've returned to the real world and [[Our Vampires Are Different|need blood]] [[Self-Constructed Being|to restore their bodies]] than on [[The Legions of Hell|the cenobites themselves]].

* In ''[[Event Horizon]]'', the ships first attempt at [[Faster-Than-Light Travel]] [[Gone Horribly Wrong|goes horribly wrong]], and apparently [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|hyperspace really]] ''[[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|is]]'' [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place|a scary place]], because the original crew killed one another in really [[Squick|gruesome]] ways. According to a later character, whose sanity has [[Sanity Slippage|slipped]] a little thanks to the [[Genius Loci]] of the ship, where it went was ''[[Up to Eleven|worse]]'' than hell and that "hell is just a word."

 

== Literature ==

* [[The Bible]], of course, is the [[Trope Codifier]] for the Western concept of Hell as the wicked's everlasting punishment, but it's surprisingly short on details. Revelation describes a lake of fire that those who aren't listed in the Book of Life are cast, which may or may not be the same thing as Hell, while Jesus describes "the outer darkness" as a place for the wicked. The main words used in the New Testament for describing it are Hades, Tartarus and Gehenna, the first two coming from Greek mythology while the latter's a Hebrew reference to the burning of garbage and the bodies of condemned criminals.

* Norse mythology brings us the word Hell from "Hel", the goddess of the dead, though it doesn't exactly have a matching concept; Niflheim, the cold abode of the dead that she ruled, was [[The Nothing After Death]] for everyone except the greatest warriors.

* Buddhist texts call Hell [[wikipedia:Naraka (Buddhism)|Naraka]], which can be divided into two categories: the icy Hell and the fiery Hell. The cold one has no demons, but the victims must spend an extremely long time there, alone and naked. The worst of these Hells, Mahapadma, is so cold that the victim's body cracks into pieces. The fiery Hells are much more ''active'', with Yama's attendants torturing victims to death in various ways. The victims quickly revive, only to suffer the same fate again and again, for a very long (though not endless) time. The worst of the fiery Hells (and the lowest of all the hells), Avici, is reserved for those who commit one or more of the Five Grave Offenses (murder of one's father, murder of one's mother, murder of a Arhat or enlightened being, shedding the blood of a Buddha, and causing a schism within the Sangha, the community of Buddhist monks and nuns), and life and suffering in this Naraka lasts the longest out of all the hells put together.

* One of the [[Wing Commander (novel)|Kilrathi]] hells is called Nagrast, a name given to an ice world orbiting a brown dwarf where survivors from a battle at the end of the war have gathered in an [[Enemy Mine]] situation, in ''False Colors''

* Played interestingly in the ''[[Riftwar Cycle]]''. The cosmology of that series is layered, with at least fifteen "circles"- seven heavens, the mortal plane, and seven hells (there may be more, but anything above the highest heaven or below the lowest hell is completely incomprehensible to human minds). The catch is that which parts are "heaven" or "hell" are subjective, since everyone sees their own circle as the default, so to angels the mortal plane is actually part of Hell, while to the demons its part of Heaven. Each circle down is progressively nastier- the circle just below the mortal plane is very similar to it, albeit far more brutal, while the fifth circle down is the most classic [[Fire and Brimstone Hell|hell]], and is home to [[The Legions of Hell]]. The sixth and seventh hells are little mentioned, but are said to be the home of [[Eldritch Abomination]]s, while the third and fourth {{spoiler|were consumed by those same abominations, who are currently working on the third and influencing the second- and we're next on the menu}}.

 

* ''[[Star Trek: Voyager]]'' shows us the Klingon idea of Hell in the episode ''Barge of the Dead''. At first appearing as a barge sailing through a sea of blood, when it arrives at the gates of Hell, B'lanna finds that it's actually an [[Ironic Hell]], as her version is Voyager itself, lit dim and red, with the crew at their most callous and mocking, on a journey that will never end. But the episode's ending leaves open the possibility that it was [[All Just a Dream]].

* ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' occasionally featured the Underworld in its stories, and it usually doesn't appear as anything more than an expansive, misty cavern, or the windowless palace of Hades. Hercules does, however, get to visit his dead family in the [[Heaven|Elysian Fields]].

** And in a late Season 6 episode, we see what's happened to Hell ever since {{spoiler|Crowley}} became the new King - he turned it into an endless waiting line. And when you finally reach the end, it ''just starts over''.

{{quote|''' {{spoiler|Crowley}}''': "The problem with the old way was, a lot of the people who came here were masochists anyway. A lot of 'thank you sir, may I have some more?' But ''this'' is torture."}}

 

== Radio ==

 

== Tabletop Games ==

* In [[Kult]], we have Inferno as classic hell. Nowadays, most souls end up in [[Ironic Hell|Purgatory]] instead. {{spoiler|Catch is, [[Satan|Astaroth]] no longer gives a damn about the place and lets his subordinates manage Inferno as they please, so you can get punished for a sin you never committed at all. And with less souls coming to Inferno, they will give you some extra [[For the Lulz]].}}

 

* The ''[[Doom]]'' games all involve teleportation experiments in a future space setting that have accidentally opened portals to Hell. Something of a [[Hyperspace Is a Scary Place]] plot, except the games make it clear that what the scientists call hyperspace actually is Hell, which is mostly portrayed with [[Fire and Brimstone Hell|seas of lava, brimstone mountains and a burning red sky]].

* The ''[[Diablo]]'' games use Hell and an attempt to stop a [[The Legions of Hell|demonic invasion]] in their stories: the first game features caverns being warped into a Hellish landscape, while the sequel involves a journey straight into Hell itself, a landscape of burnt, smoldering plains of ash. The [[Diablo III|third game]] ups the ante by {{spoiler|having you stave off an assault by Diablo's demons upon the High Heavens by journeying to Hell and destroying the gates Diablo is using to invade before battling your way to the Crystal Arch to stop Diablo from destroying it and plunging everything into darkness forever}}.

** And they do establish a devil in Majora's Mask, whom Sharp sells his soul to.

* [[Guild Wars]] has the "Realm of torment", home to a god who revolted, and his followers, who play a major role in the Nightfall campaign. This version is a collection of creepy realms, but not fire and brimstone.

 

== Web Comics ==

* ''[[Pictures for Sad Children]]'' has paul who is a ghost going to hell, which is a latinamerican hotel (possibly mexican, since John Campbell lived in México for a while) where he meets jeremy, the main's character roommate who died and is speding his time in hell doing exactly the same thing he did while he was alive.

 

 

== Western Animation ==

*** [[wikipedia:Hell, Arizona|several places with the word "Hell" in their names in Arizona]]

*** [[wikipedia:Hell for Certain, Kentucky|How about Hell for Certain, Kentucky]] [[False Reassurance|I wonder?]]

 

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[[Category:You Would Not Want to Live In Dex]]

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[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]

[[Category:Infernal Settings]]