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{{trope}}
[[File:John_Martin_PaintingSmallCropped_8957John Martin - Sodom and Gomorrah.jpg|framethumb|500px|[[Bolt of Divine Retribution|God]] doing some urban renewal.]]
 
 
A city or civilization that is destroyed after growing so [[We Have Become Complacent|complacent]], hubris-laden, and/or [[Wretched Hive|corrupt]] that it is [[It Is Beyond Saving|beyond redemption]]. Usually the agent of destruction is [[Bolt of Divine Retribution|divine retribution]] or [[The Scourge of God|a scourge of God]] but also can be the result of [[Call It Karma|Karmic justice]], [[Gaia's Vengeance|nature's revenge]], [[Knight Templar|Knights Templar]], or even [[Hanlon's Razor|human]] [[Finagle's Law|error]].
 
Often, the Soiled City was once a [[Shining City]] or [[Utopia]] but, [[Humans Are Bastardsthe Real Monsters|humans being who they are]], it fell victim to arrogance and [[Seven Deadly Sins|moral degeneration]]. In fact, before destruction, the Soiled City can still look like a [[Shining City]] even though by then [[Crap Saccharine World|it's really nothing more than a whited sepulcher with a shiny gleaming exterior concealing the rot and vileness within]].
 
Almost always a [[Wretched Hive]]. Can also be a [[City Noir]]. The opposite or (as mentioned previously) the corrupted version of the [[Shining City]]. This trope often overlaps with [[And Man Grew Proud]] and is used as [[An Aesop]]. The [[Shadowland]] of [[Arcadia]] and the [[Ghibli Hills]]; many a [[Farm Boy]] who went expecting the Shining City was lucky to escape with his life, if at all.
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The name refers to [[wikipedia:City on a hill|the City on a Hill]], an early symbol of American [[Utopia]].
 
Compare with [[After the End]], [[Cataclysm Backstory]], [[Look on My Works Ye Mighty and Despair]], and [[GotterdammerungGötterdämmerung]].
{{examples}}▼
 
▲{{examples}}
== [[Film]] ==
* In ''[[Batman Begins]]'', there's [[Knight Templar|the League of Shadows]] which is a secret ancient organization that takes upon itself to destroy societies and cities that, according to their standards, have become too corrupt and decadent. ("The League of Shadows has been a check against human corruption for thousands of years. We sacked Rome. Loaded trade ships with plague rats. Burned London to the ground. Every time a civilization reaches the pinnacle of its decadence, we return to restore the balance.") Next on their list: Gotham City.
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== [[Literature]] ==
* [[wikipedia:Numenor#History|Numenor]] in [[J. R. R. Tolkien|JRR Tolkien]]'s ''[[The Silmarillion]]''. After Sauron is taken captive by the Numenoreans, he converts them to Melkor worship and tricks them into sailing to Valinor and violating the Ban on setting foot there. As a result, the Valar call upon Eru Iluvatar and he destroys Numenor with a giant wave, sinking it beneath the sea.
* [[Andre Norton]]'s "Operation Time Search". In our real world, Atlantis fell under the control of evil rulers and was destroyed.destroyed—also Thetaking actionsdown its Pacific-based opposition, the benign empire of Mu. After the hero preventis this,accidentally andsent asback ain time from our own, {{spoiler|his actions resultchange history isso changedAtlantis and AtlantisMu survivessurvive to the present day}}.
* The city of Brussels, Belgium, appears this way in retrospect to Marlow in ''[[Heart of Darkness]]''.
* The Emerald City in ''[[Wicked (novel)|Wicked]]''.
* The Thran Empire, particularly the city of Halcyon, that served as [[Precursors]] to the main setting for [[Magic: The Gathering]] is shown to be one of these in its titular novel, ''The Thran.'' Even before Yawgmoth started pulling their strings, they practiced [[Fantastic Racism]] against the goblins and other species, were much more concerned with aesthetic beauty than people's safety or comfort, created a massive undercity of caves where all the undesirables (both criminals and people who merely disagreed with the way of doing things) and had a superstitious understanding of disease (which they believed was caused by evil spirits....granted that was sometimes true in Dominaria, just not most of the time. [[The End of the World as We Know It|After Yawgmoth...]]
* Charn from ''[[The MagiciansMagician's Nephew]]'', the [[Prequel]] to ''[[The Chronicles of Narnia]]''. The civilization (and ''the entire universe in which it existed'') was destroyed by the Empress Jadis, who killed every single living organism just because she couldn't be queen. She kept herself preserved as [[Sealed Evil in a Can]] until two kids from another universe freed her from her slumber (they had been tempted by the [[Schmuck Bait]]-laden mechanism used to awaken her). Then she hitched a ride with the kids back to their universe, and eventually to Narnia, where she became known as {{spoiler|the White Witch.}}
 
== [[Religion And Mythology]] ==
* In [[The Bible]], there's, of course, Sodom and Gomorrah. The destruction of these cities is the subject of the 1852 painting by John Martin that's the image for this page.
** The world before [[The Great Flood]] qualifies.
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* [[wikipedia:Ys|The sunken city of Ys]] in French folklore and [[Celtic Mythology]]. It was built below sea level and surrounded by a dike with a gate that was opened to allow access for ships during low tide. Ys was destroyed by being sunk under the waves as punishment for the [[Everything's Better with Princesses|Princess]] [[Royal Brat|Dahut's]] and the other inhabitants' debauchery. (Although, in one version of the legend, Ys sank as a result of the Princess Dahut [[Alcohol-Induced Idiocy|getting drunk]] [[What an Idiot!|and opening the gate at high tide during a storm]].)
* The medieval city of [[wikipedia:Vineta|Vineta]] was, according to legend, a rich and powerful port on the Baltic Sea located near the present-day border of Germany and Poland. The sinfulness of its inhabitants led [[Bolt of Divine Retribution|God to destroy it with thunderbolts]] and sink it underneath a storm tide.
* In [[The Book of Mormon (novelliterature)|The Book of Mormon]], the city Ammonihah is destroyed be an army of the Lamanites after they rejected the words of the prophet and killed those that did believe. They were pretty sure God couldn't destroy their great city in a day as prophecied if they didn't repent.
** More broadly, the Nephite and Jaredite nations near the end of them. They did pretty deplorable things at the end.
 
== Theater[[Theatre]] ==
* The eponymous city of [[Kurt Weill]]'s and [[Bertolt Brecht]]'s opera, ''[[The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny]]''.
 
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* The Kingdom of Zeal in ''[[Chrono Trigger]]''.
* Kirkwall from [[Dragon Age II]], best summed up by Varric;
{{quote| '''Varric''': Kirkwall, "The City of Chains". Long ago it was part of [[The Empire|the Imperium]], slaves coming from far and wide to work the quarries. Now it's a Free City... but I use the word ''loosely''}}
 
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* Ba Sing Se, capital of the Earth Kingdom, was once the greatest city in the ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]'' world. But over time, thanks to [[Evil Chancellor]] Long Feng and his [[Secret Police]], it has degenerated into an Orwellian dystopia where [[Brainwashing]] abounds, poor people are kept in segregated neighborhoods, and people are forbidden to even mention the war that's been raging outside the city for a hundred years. And just when Long Feng was arrested and things were starting to look up, {{spoiler|Princess Azula of the Fire Nation infiltrated Ba Sing Se, got the [[Secret Police]] on her side, and finally captured the city and the entire Earth Kingdom.}} <br />Unusually for this trope, though, {{spoiler|Ba Sing Se was never actually destroyed. At the end of the series, it was retaken by the Earth Kingdom, and the [[Secret Police]] were presumably disbanded. The final scene in the series has [[Heartwarming Moments|the heroes relaxing in Iroh's tea shop in the city, while Aang and Katara kiss outside]].}}
* [[The Empire]] of Thundera in ''[[Thundercats (2011 series)|ThunderCats''Thundercats'' (2011)]]'. The [[Catfolk|Cats]] of Thundera are a [[Proud Warrior Race]] who believe themselves a [[Superior Species]], and practice [[Urban Segregation]], [[Fantastic Racism]] and enslavement of species like [[Lizard Folk|Lizards]] and [[Dogfaces|Dogs]]. They employ a [[Fantastic Caste System]], where tailed Cats and Specific minorities live in a [[Fantastic Ghetto]] that exists below the upper level's [[Shining City]], [[Bright Castle]] and gardens of the nobility. The city is [[Easily-Conquered World|conquered]] overnight by Mumm-Ra and his [[Les Collaborateurs|collaborators]] the Lizard army and [[Loot|lootedloot]]ed of all its valuables while surviving Cats hide in the wilderness or are taken as slaves.
 
== [[Real Life]] ==
* On the Arabian Peninsula, there was [[wikipedia:Iram of the Pillars|Iram of the Pillars]]--the—the "Atlantis of the Sands". In Islamic legend, Iram of the Pillars (also known as Ubar) was a city of untold riches that was buried under the desert sands as punishment for defying God. Long thought to be a myth, satellite photos and recent archeological excavations have indicated such a city probably existed until around 300 AD.
* [[wikipedia:Rungholt|Rungholt]] was a thriving German merchant city on the North Sea coast until it was destroyed by a storm tide in 1362. Legend attributed its destruction to the rampant greed of its citizens and acts of sacrilege against God.
* The low-lying Dutch city of [[wikipedia:Saeftinghe|Saeftinghe]] was a prosperous trading center from the 14th to the 16th century until much of its surrounding land was lost to a disasterous flood in 1570. The city itself was abandoned in 1584 when, during the Dutch War for Independence, Dutch soldiers were forced to destroy the dike that protected Saeftinghe resulting in its sinking into the marshy bogs of the Schelde River. In [[wikipedia:Saeftinghe legend|Dutch folklore]], Saeftinghe was an ornately rich but avaricious city that ultimately paid for its [[greed]] by [[Death by Materialism|sinking into the salty marshlands]] after being cursed by [[Our Mermaids Are Different|a merman for refusing to set his captured mermaid wife free.]]
* Port Royal was an open haven for pirates and smugglers during the 17th century with economy largely based around boozing, whoring, and stealing. Like Sodom and Gomorrah, it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1692 that caused it to sink into the sea.
* [[Imperial Russia]] as a whole. Contrary to popular opinion, it fell not because of Commies but because of too much income inequality and injustice. The Commies were merely the most successfull of the many shards of the empire.
** [[The New Russia]] is approaching the late-Imperial level of decadence and injustice amazingly fast. [[It's Quiet... Too Quiet]]... until 2014, when it started moving again.
 
{{reflist}}
[[Category:You Would Not Want to Live In Dex{{PAGENAME}}]]
[[Category:Settings]]
[[Category:The City]]
[[Category:Older Than Feudalism]]
[[Category:Soiled City on a HillSettings]]
[[Category:You Would Not Want to Live In Dex]]
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