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A Hell of a Time
"Go to Heaven for the climate, Hell for the company."
(or the ) has finally perished and gone to the afterlife. Of course, his
denies him entry to , so he finds himself tumbling to that . But the strange thing is, it doesn't seem to be that horrible. Sure, there's fire everywhere, the paintwork's flaking, and the occasional moans of the damned ruin the ambience a tad, but overall, it's a place you could get used to.
Often combined with the
(if a particularly
character dies, then Hell for them may well involve being showered with love and ), or Lord
to screw things up for them. Sometimes, it can be that Hell is only a nice place to the evil — the merely "not quite good" still suffer for all eternity. Of course, if , all bets are off — Hell may even be a nicer place than Heaven.
Also often combined with
and . Joining the fun may be the motivation for the .
is the inverse, when Heaven isn't all it's cracked up to be. Usually a form of . See also
&&&&open/close all folders&
&&&& Anime and Manga&
has Yuuma going to Hell after being involved in a romance with a ghost. However, after finding out she'll be doing stuff like stacking stones for eternity, she thinks she might as well get used to it and enjoy herself. As a result, she gets
into Heaven. She finds Heaven boring, though, so she's sent back to Japan.
: No madman in his right mind is going to mistake where Shishio ended up for a holiday resort but he doesn't seem to mind terribly. In fact, if his words are anything to go by, he plans to have the trope name by overthrowing the Devil...
Hell in Kenshin also seems to lack any sort of torments, demons, it's just a big mountain of skulls and bones, with Satan/Enma's castle off in the distance. Shishio and his lackies seem to be free to do as they please. Also it seems to be located inside a pocket-watch....
is... Different. Namely it's guarded by ogres (oni) instead of demons, and everyone's soul (that isn't special - i.e. plot relevant) is just a little fluff cloud, but it's mostly a pretty decent place and you see things like a couple of souls having a romantic boat ride (in Blood Lake), a group of souls organizing a field trip (up Needle Mountain) and just generally a kind of do-as-you-please attitude. Well except that one time Janemba broke reality...
in , in which, upon Freeza taunting Goku by claiming that Vegeta went to Hell, Goku says he's , and it wasn't really all that bad. Freeza is nonplussed.
Subverted in . Frieza is shown in his own personal : a
fairy land where angels, fairies, and living stuffed animals happily sing, dance, and play around him, while he's strung from a cocoon in a tree and .
&&&&Comedy&
A Russian (Soviet Union era) joke goes something along the lines of: A Russian and an American are sentenced to Hell. The Devil summons them and says: "Guys, you have 2 options: an American or Russian hell. In the American one you can do what you want, but you'll have to eat a bucket of shit every morning. The Russian one is the same, but it's 2 buckets." The Yankee quickly makes up his mind and goes to American Hell, while the Russian eventually chooses the Russian one. In a week or so they meet. The Russian asks: "So, what's it like out there?"/ "Exactly what the devil said, the Hell itself is OK, but eating a bucket of shit is killing me. And you?" / "Ah, it feels like home - either the shit was not delivered or there aren't enough buckets for everyone!"
There's a similar Brazilian joke, except change any Russian with Brazilian and it's a shallow plate in the American and a bucket for the Brazilian, also, the Brazilian chooses his hell right away. When they meet a week after and the American asks, the Brazilian answers: "It's a great place. The demons are always lazing off the torture, the bureaucrats make it impossible for the buckets to be delivered, other sections of hell just ignore it exists so the administration just don't care and the damned party all the time."
The exact same joke is heard in Italy, too - and with reason.
There is a Daily Breeze review of the ' 1997 "Filthy Lucre" tour stop in Los Angeles, written in the voice of Sid Vicious. Vicious mentions how he's glad to be in Hell, where they get all the good music.
Comedian Bill Hicks said that if , at least we'd have great music to listen to for all eternity, as opposed to lame
A man goes to Hell and it's an immense night-club where everybody has a great time for all eternity. While exploring around he stumbles upon an inconspicuous door with the more "conventional" hellscape behind it: . He asks a passing-by demon about it. The demon says: "Oh, it's for the religious folk - they prefer it that way for some reason."
A man goes to Heaven and finds it nice but not exactly amusing. So he enquires for a trip to Hell and sees a place of neverending free-and-easy pleasures. So he volunteers to move to Hell for good and is thrown into a pit of boiling tar. "What the fuck! Last time it was all different!!" - screams the man. "Last time you were a tourist, and now you're an immigrant," - responds the demon.
There are countless variations of the punchline: "Last time we were recruiting you, now you are staff."; "What you first saw was the demo, this is the actual product", etc.
A virtuous man dies of old age after a life of avoiding the temptations of the flesh. The angel of death takes him and says "For your life of virtue, you will now get to spend eternity in Heaven. Before we go there, though, here's a peek at the other option:". Both go to Hell, and find out that it's a huge, never ending party with music, drugs, sex, whatever. After spending a few minutes there they leave for Heaven, only to find out that it's a bleak, white plane devoid of life. The man, angry, asks the angel why. "Well, what did you expect? We're not going to invite a DJ to play for three guys."
Fred the Crab and Sam the Clam, who are friends, both die. Fred, who was virtuous, gets sent to H Sam gets sent to Hell. Fred gets issued a harp, which he's very good at playing with all his little legs. But eventually he gets lonely and wants to see Sam again, so he asks God if he can go visit Hell. God says yes, but he has to be back by midnight. Fred goes to Hell and finds out that Sam has a swinging nightclub. Fred plays the harp with them and they have such a good time that he almost loses track of time, and when he looks at the clock it's a quarter to midnight. He rushes back to Heaven and gets there right at midnight. "Wow, you just barely made it," says God. But then Fred says, "I have to go back! !" ()
An Oirish drinking toast:
If you want to be happy, you have to ask yourself one question: Are I well or am I sick? If you're well, you've not nothing to worry about. But if you're sick, you have to ask yourself one question: Am I getting better or worse? If you're getting better, you've got nothing to worry about. But if you're getting worse, you have to ask yourself one question: Am I a going to live, or am I going to die? If you're gonna live, you've got nothing to worry about. If you're gonna die, you have to ask yourself one question: Am I going to Heaven or Hell? If you're going to Heaven, you've got nothing to worry about. But if you're going to Hell, you'll be too busy with your old buddies to care. So stop worrying and drink up.
Another joke tells about a man who the devil greets saying that Hell is actually a really good experience since each day of the week is devoted to a different vice: monday is about eating all the food you want, tuesday is about having endless sex, wednesday is about all the booze one can manage, thursday is dedicated to all the drugs that ever existed... but when he finds out the man isn't homosexual, he answers "Then you're not going to like fridays...."
&&&&Comic Books&
R&surrection, the Hell of Franco-Belgian comic , is a bizarre inversion of the Earth where the oceans and continents exchange place, time flows backwards and people are resurrected as various fantasy monsters like vampires, werewolves, ghouls etc. Most importantly however, the world
the more evil you were in life the better you are rewarded in hell, so the people who committed the worst evils are resurrected as vampires and form the top clique in the world's demonic society, while petty criminals are resurrected as zombies that languish at the bottom as either slaves to the vampires or scavengers out in the vast plains where people first enter hell. The worst off, though, are the Lemures (or as the English translation somewhat inexplicably labels them, Lamias) — the setting's ghosts, these are good people who died as victims of someone who qualified for this world, and have to live in R&surrection as eternal victims, only able to escape if the person responsible for their being condemned to R&surrection is "expirated". The one perk is that they get to torment their killers in their sleep.
In , Catman's mother was sent to Hell when she died. She doesn't mind at all since she was turned into a badass human-faced lioness who gets to tear apart and devour her abusive husband (who also went to Hell) every day for eternity. As Catman's guide told him, this is Heaven for her.
In one , several Marvel Comics villains ( ) do their best to try and reform when Mephisto warns them where they're going to wind up after they die. Venom's act is to rid the world of Bill Gates, but even in death he remains incredibly wealthy, so much so that he winds up buying Hell out. Now it's just a place for people to get on the internet when they die.
The DCU Hell isn't supposed to be like this, but when Lobo got sent there, he turned it into one by throwing wild parties, until he finally got kicked out. (Naturally, Heaven didn't want him either, making him pretty much immortal since then.)
, When Yulaw is sent to a prison dimension after failing to become the one he finds it's not so bad, as he receives what he wanted anyway — a place where he is the most powerful of all.
, in the end, the two pseudo-Satanists that Nicky befriended on earth die in a plane crash and are shown in Hell, partying in Nicky's former room. "They have never been happier."
, the remake, where Hell seems to be a non-stop nightclub. Slightly subverted in that it's implied that eventually it gets really, really boring.
mostly features
tailored to the characters, a deleted scene would have added
before catching Satan's attention, the duo would have been forced by a demon to break rocks with hammers. Bill discovers he actually really enjoys doing so.
in the 1920s short film The Devil's Cabaret.
is concerned about the fact that there are not enough people going to hell, so he puts on a show with singing and dancing to show people that hell can be fun and entice more people to go there.
clearly loved playing , and a fiery grotto with gleeful (often dancing) demons occurs time and again in his pioneering works of early film. See The Merry Frolics of Satan, or any of his several adaptations of Faust, or pretty much any M&li&s film with the word "Infernal" in the title.
&&&&Literature&
's The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell is probably the .
In the Eoin Colfer book , more evil people get luxury apartments, complete with lava hottubs.
Used in , where an angel and a demon discuss who gets the better entertainment (Hell wins, as all Heaven has is Elgar and The Sound Of Music for all eternity). Overall, however, Hell is said to be extremely unpleasant. The real point of the argument is that the Earth, possessing the best of both worlds, should be saved.
In , the capital of Hell (Pandemonium) is portrayed as a somewhat glorious place - far more beautiful than anywhere on earth, but rather small for countless of millions of gigantic fallen angels. Thankfully they can change their size at will.
In 's , God created Hell to be a bad place, but then Satan took over and turned it relatively nice. It's notable that the story features a
plot that is itself subverted by revealing that God and Satan "take turns" playing the Good and Evil deity role and they're merely junior members of a vast .
features the Disc's version of Hell and the description of how it used to be before the book's
took charge doesn't sound that bad - people did get , but since they didn't have physical bodies this wasn't a problem and the demons were quite friendly. But the new management has switched to psychological torture by .
In the novel Waiting On The Galactic Bus by Parke Godwin, Heaven and Hell (or "Topside" and "Downstairs" as the characters refer to it) are pretty much the same, shaped only by the minds of the souls ("post-life energy") who inhabit it. Also, people tend to end up in the version they expect to. In the sequel, The Snake Oil Wars Topside is run by one of the two immortal alien brothers accidentally responsible for human evolution, and Downstairs is turned over to Jesus (Yeshua) and Judas (Yes, that Judas).
In the story "Gilgamesh in the Outback", Hell is the only known afterlife. However, Gilgamesh observes, it's not really that bad. People can eat real food but have a hard time passing it, and there's no climax when having sex. It gets worse when Christians came with their ideas of eternal punishment, as Satan merely set up Torture Towns aplenty. The Old Dead think the Christians are silly for this.
The Hell in the novels of Edward Lee is one of the "only a nice place to the evil" sorts. The Mephistopolis, as they call it, is a big
city with a government and economic classes. A Satanist, Nazi, mass murderer, fallen angel, tyrant, serial rapist, etc. has a much better chance of getting into Hell's privileged upper class than a suicide or a drug dealer.
In Ted Chiang's short story "Hell is the Absence of God" Hell is exactly like Earth except God is absent. His absence is immediately noticable because God's angels frequently make random appearances on Earth that are accompanied by destructive weather patterns. The only people this bothers are the really religious, who fear eternal separation from their Lord if they fail to love him enough.
The Afro-American folktale character Stagger Lee aka Stag O' Lee,
is a living
that makes Chuck Norris seem ho-hum even on his best day as he simply decides as a child not to be a slave in Pre-Civil War America and
carrying only a deck of cards (to win money,) a guitar (to seduce WHITE women) and a gun (to kill men, especially White men) as he literally gets away with murder, marries his victim's wife, can't be killed by hanging and shoots at the Grim Reaper to live into the 20th Century, forcing God to step in and smite him with a bolt of lightning. Stag's response: go up to , break up God's card game, declares the place sucks (only White people and Uncle Toms) and deliberately goes to Hell where he
The entire Heroes In Hell shared universe book series. Everybody who was anybody ends up in hell. Each person is dealing with their own personal level of torment or contentment. Julius Caesar is in hell, but his attitude is 'It's just afterlife, and not a bad one".
series, Hell is definitely a bad place, but the current Satan has instituted various "reforms" to make it more efficient, and has also visited Heaven and found it to be dreadfully dull. More literally, he's set up a special annex of Hell for the souls that properly belong in Heaven but were misclassified. This annex is really nice, the way Heaven is supposed to be, and
when he does finally manage to get an exchange program set up, as most of the souls don't want to leave.
This also gets a playful nod in earlier books, where Hell is actively advertising how much more fun it is than Heaven, complete with a pair of comical devil mascots.
In the novel Jitterbug Perfume, the afterlife is briefly explored by one character. Most people seem to just get shuttled off on some boats to have their souls reincarnated/"return to the source" or something. But those who pass the test (heart lighter than a feather) are sent to the eternal party boat full of philosophers, artists, interesting people, etc. One side of the boat has the word "Heaven" painted on it, the otherside says "Hell"; it's all a matter of perspective I guess (some people would see lingering around forever instead of "moving on" as a punishment I guess?)
In the French play Aucassin and Nicolette (said to date back to the 1200s!), Aucassin basically says that he'd rather to go to Hell (with Nicolette) than to Heaven, because in Hell reside "the fine churchmen, and the fine knights, killed in the tourney or in some grand war, the brave soldiers and the gallant gentlemen".
In Dante Alighieri's Inferno, sodomites run on burning hot sand in great pack of naked sweating men. In other words, they spend all eternity on Fire Island in summer.
series, the Bastard is the lord of demons and carries unrepentant monsters to his hells. His dedicated clergy also get taken there, but it's implied to be a much nicer place for them.
Most of Hell in
is a , but the very worst sinners get luxury treatment. Partly to encourage people who think they are going to hell to sin as much as they can and partially because, "These places pay for themselves, evil-wise. I just give everyone who died in the Holocaust a little magic stone that lets them know what Hitler?s doing at any given moment, and you wouldn?t believe how they howl."
&&&& Live Action TV &
Toyed with in the first series of . After being appointed Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund is charged with ensuring a nobleman leaves his lands to the crown instead of the church. He does this by explaining that Heaven is for people who like praising God and watering pot plants, while Hell is for pillage, adultery, and so on. Judging from the man's reaction just before dying, this is probably not true.
In the infamous
episode'' "A Nice Place To Visit", this trope is actually .
with . Their
is a great party, but the party doesn't stop...
Al Bundy's hell in the
episode "Damn Bundys" shows the devil (play by Robert Englund) punish him by giving him only Weenie Tots (his favorite food) to eat because it'll make him go to the bathroom for long periods of time (the reason why is his favorite food) and not allowing him to see his family ever again, so from his perspective, is heaven.
&&&&Music&
From Billy Joel's "Blonde Over Blue":
"In Hell there's a big hotel Where the bar just closed and the windows never open No phone so you can't call home And the TV works but the clicker is broken"
From his "Only the Good Die Young" (although it doesn't actually mention the word hell):
"They say there's a heaven for those who will wait/ Some say it's better but I say it ain't/ I'd rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints/ The sinners are much more fun."
In the Irving Berlin song "Pack Up Your Sins And Go To The Devil," Hell is a happy hot spot where "the finest of gentlemen and the finest of ladies" can party to the
and "never have to go to bed at all."
would like to remind you that "Hell ain' Hell is From Here To Eternity". But they also told us of "the evil face that twists my mind and brings me to despair". Maybe it's only not a bad place for girls like Charlotte.
would also like to remind you that "Hell Ain't A Bad Place to Be"
song "To Hell and Back" depicts a rollicking party full of breeding mutants, dancing zombies, Satanic queens and so forth. By metalhead standards, it sounds pretty cool. (A similar song by the same band begs "Leave Me in Hell"; granted, that narrator's daddy "rules hell's domain," so it's a good bet he's got a privileged perspective on the place.)
A fairly common theme in 's solo work.
"And when I die, I want to go to hell!"
's "The Fly" features a narrator who calls his lover from hell. The twist is he kind of likes it there.
Played as a
in 's "Youngstown", where an unemployed iron worker sums up his life:
When I die I don't want no part of heaven
I would not do heaven's work well
I pray the devil comes and takes me
To stand in the fiery furnaces of hell
in "Death Death (Devil, Devil, Devil, Devil, Evil, Evil, Evil, Evil Song)" by . After dying and going to hell, Voltaire finds that Satan and his wife are his biggest fans...and then Satan jabs him in the junk with a pitchfork. But then he says he was just kidding, welcomes Voltaire to hell, and tells him to "enjoy the buffet".
In 's song Go To Hell, the band go to Hell "Because we need a vacation" (Of course they have a twisted definition of fun and think it sounds fun because they've heard that it has "a sea of urine where rats eat your face")
's "Wish You Were Here" (from the 1976 album Alice Cooper Goes to Hell) comes very close to being the
with its "Having a wonderful time, my dear - wish you were here." Ultimately a subversion, as the rest of the album makes clear that the song is ironic.
The first verse of 's "You & Eye" involves winding up in Hell, and finding that it has good music, and better barbecues and beer than on Earth. "And darling, I think you'll like it here."
has the song Himmel und H&lle (Heaven and Hell), which is about sitting around a fire, singing and drinking in hell while the devil has to scoop coal into the fire, because heaven is to boring.
has "Mama", a song about the narrator's guilt and less-than-stellar relationship with his mother, as well as the impermanence of life. It claims "we all go to hell", but that it's "really quite pleasant, except for the smell."
&&&&Mythology&
, despite what , never implied that the Underworld was a necessarily bad place for people to go when they died, though admittedly it wasn't the happiest place to end up unless you were a good person in life. Ultimately, Tartarus was the part of the Underworld you really wanted to avoid, as he (yes, ) was the part of the Underworld that punished the souls of those who committed wicked deeds in life (, for example). Other than that, the Underworld didn't seem all that bad, if not a little gloomy. The underworld also counted Elysium amongst its realms compared to the basic underworld and Tartarus, and Elysium was Heaven by any other name.
Rather like
above, Niflheim/Helheim in
isn't so bad a place. There's dangers in getting there, but they're mostly to keep the dead from getting back out, and at worst it's basically just a dull, misty, dreary sort of place. The souls of the wicked go to Hel's Hall, which is a specific place for tormenting the evil, where they must wade ceaselessly through gore beneath a roof venom-dripping snake skeletons and with nothing but goat urine to quench their thirst.
&&&& Newspaper Comics &
One of Dan Piraro's
strips depicts a festive setting with everyone wearing Hawaiian shirts and holding drinks. An overhead banner reads, "Welcome to Hell. Get-acquainted luau 7:00 p.m." One newcomer asks another, "Surprised?"
German newspaper comic Touche by &Tom has reoccuring strip of
welcomming new residents to Hell. The devil is a fat and bald naked man with glasses who is usually much more interested in his notepad than talking to the new arrivals, which makes most people a little confused about what place they've ended up. But he soon informs them about the particularly cruel punishment they . ( is about a department store cashier who died during christmas season.
Translation:
"Ah, the quiet!" "Quiet? The last one thought it sounded like a roller coaster full of acrophobiacs, and he was deaf!" "Well then you should try working in a department store! Oh, that Christmas recorder music! The Chinese water torture is a joke next to that..." "Shultz! A fan!"
&&&&Radio&
is set in Hell - and while the descriptions of individual punishments sound unpleasant (The Devil's
is ordered to literally eat himself for instance) they don't seem to actually bother the protagonists much, or last long. The unhappiest person actually appears to be Satan himself, a miserable, self loathing prison warden who can never escape his job and only painfully remember his days as an angel.
&&&&Theater&
In Jacques Offenbach's operetta Orphee aux Enfers (Orpheus in the Underworld), the gods hold a massive party in Hell and dance to the most well-known can-can tune. (Though its not the same thing as the Christian hell, in ancient , hell is practically a portmanteau synonym of afterlife.)
In the third act of 's Man and Superman, referred to as Don Juan in Hell when performed separately, Dona finds Don Juan and the Devil discussing philosophy, and is horrified that her guardian, the Commendatore killed by Don Juan, is present as well. He has quit heaven due to boredom and moved downstairs.
Don Juan: Hell, Se&ora, is a place for the wicked. The wicked are quite comfortable.
Subverted in 's
in which death is a never-ending party because the dead will grasp at any distraction from the fact that they're dead:
What with the dancing and the eating
and the laughing and the drinking
there's no problem in retreating
from the awkwardness of thinking
of that ever-present smidgen of dread
down here, among the dead
&&&& Video Games &
The video game
(also known as Beyond Atlantis) portrayed the Chinese Hell as not scary at all, and the only "hellish" thing about it was the
running the place. People could also freely enter and leave it, at least living ones. It also portrayed the Mayan underworld, Xibalba, as a tropical paradise overseen by a slightly insane bat-god.
In the Interactive fiction game Perdition's Flames, ever since the afterlife industry was deregulated, Hell had to compete, and now it's tough to tell the difference between the two. The brief view we get of Heaven in the game has more fluffy clouds and angels and fewer run-down suburbs, but is actually just as soul-crushingly obnoxious and tedious as Hell. Thus, you win, not by getting into Heaven as first implied, but by arranging to go on an expedition to various other Heavens and Hells which will hopefully be more interesting and less comical.
In , Daedra seem to be the resident equivalent of demons, therefore making the realms of Oblivion the equivalent of Hell. Sure, Dagon's plane isn't all that great, but, say, hanging around Sheogorath's realm of Oblivion is quite fun, making this a straight example. Somewhat.
Sanguine, despite looking like a , is the fairly friendly Prince of Debauchery. His realm is a drunken feast in a misty grove, very much Dionysian.
In , the Heaven's Peak Abyss is this for the women, as part of its being an
for Sir William and the men. As well, although the Mellow Hills Abyss is intended to be torture for the human peasants, since it's only an
for Melvin and his Halfings some of them see being chained to a wall forever in a
as an improvement over toiling as your slaves for the rest of their lives — as one puts it, "In the warm, a bit of a stretch, giant exploding halfling to watch. What more could a man want?"
's penultimate level takes place in a hell where there are frequent rock concerts. In the North American release, this was changed to an island, but that doesn't really explain the frequent electrocution of the audience.
3's final stage has you learning that your manager Lou is actually the devil in disguise, after you try to get out of your contract. He drags you to hell... Where you rock out a ridiculous concert with
on stage and in cages. You're doing so well he thinks you'll be able to get out of his arrangement, so he challenges you. . And it, is, awesome.
The interior decor of the Afterlife in
invokes this, being based entirely on flames and steel while being simultaneously the .
In the True Cheater Ending of , Hell turns out to be a pretty nice place for Vincent. He gets a replica of his old apartment in Hell and has a beautiful wife. Several weeks there, and he becomes a powerful incubus with an entire harem of succubi enamored with his power, including his wife Catherine. He also uses his demonic father-in-law as a throne.
The second half of the
killers getting sent to Hell after they commit suicide at the end of their rampage. It's a
straight out of , complete with demon soldiers, imps, barons of hell and a Cyberdemon... in other words, exactly the sort of thing that two spree killers who played tons of Doom would enjoy. It ends with the two defeating
himself and .
Most of Nippon Ichi's titles (, , etc.) take place in various Netherworlds, hellish realms populated by demons and monsters... who are having a fairly normal and good life, generally. The demons claim that they are all evil and terrible and all, but most of them live fairly normal, decent lives with only the occasional
moment. The worst they can get is beating up someone for angering them or taking their stuff by force. Sinners ending up there tend to become full demons and have ample opportunity to kick butt and get comfortable around the place. Serious sinners have to work off their debts as
first, though.
The MMORPG
has what is, given the humor, probably a
in the form of Hey Deze. There is a typical "arcane" gate which leads to the city of Pandemonium (which has a comedy club and an arena hosting a rock concert), and a "Waffle Haus" which leads
adventurers to a neighborhood near the River Styx.
Early on in , the game developer gave players who were in control of their Regions the power to enforce their own regional rules by ejecting whoever they wanted to a "desolate wasteland" region named . Some of the players promptly took the Rejected Realms over and . Several years of this trope later, it's an exceptionally well-respected region that prominent figures in the community regularly emigrate to on purpose.
&&&& Web Comics &
In Happy But Dead, Colin, Gear and Tito all die, and Colin and Gear go to Hell (Tito goes to Heaven because ""). However, Gear and Colin soon discover that Hell isn't so bad. It's actually just like their home on Earth, except they now have healthcare and there are free hotubs (technically lava pits) everywhere.
In , everyone drives a 1982 Subaru Brat, there's a KFC, a Best Western where Robert Johnson performs (and the wallpaper mocks you), and a Friendly's that contains . If you try calling your still-living loved ones on a payphone, your side of the conversation is secretly replaced with a random telemarketer's pitch. The
sums it up nicely: "Hell is kind of a weird place".
In , Hell is an eternal ferret rave. The
for wicked souls are there too, but still... ferret rave!
Additionally, Hell turns out to be where Pepito and Avogadro are reunited. True hell for Pepito, although Avogadro apparently is a thorn in the side of the local administration by complaining that there isn't enough torture.
: Black Mage dies and goes to
but then takes over and starts enjoying his power, at least until he's kicked out (brought back to life) for being too evil.
strip featured a man being presented with a banana split by a giant demon. When the man comments that it doesn't have enough whipped topping, the demon shouts, "That's because you're in Hell!" The comment notes that because demons are mostly fallen angels, they're not very good at torturing people. And then, as SMBC does, it goes
In , punishment in Hell ranges from "tortured to death on a daily basis" to "absolutely nothing at all". As the title implies, we don't see much of the former, though the latter could be considered a punishment by
as The Ring of Slightly Damned features: small brown rocks, big brown rocks, huge brown boulders, brown plains, brown mountains and brown cliffs as far as an eye can see. Understandably, the number of inhabitants is one-digit.
of the only good for bad people variety.
Inverted in the . Apparently, hell is presented this way in the media and/or among roleplaying gamers, satanists and other sinful people. One comic had someone arriving in hell and expressing disappointment that it is not a huge party and another one had a sign at the gates of hell reading "Welcome to Hell. All parties cancelled due to ".
In , you can do anything you want in hell,
While in Jack, Hell is not a happy place at all, there are places
sometimes, clusters of nonviolent damned create small enclaves in out-of-the-way places where they live in relative peace, while in 'the Satyr's Suitor', lesbian orgies are an option.
In , the afterlife doesn't seem to have any rules. You just get transferred to a normal-looking location and then you're pretty much on your own. Find an apartment, get a job, and have all the fun you want. Just like . Sure, demons are the government, but they don't seem to meddle much.
&&&& Web Original&
This is a major part of the premise of Bartleby Tales—God went completely nuts, and almost everyone goes to Hell, so the Devil decided not to punish people who aren't really that bad. The part of Hell that most directly fits the trope is the second level, where people deprogram themselves from all the silly taboos they were taught in life. (We never see the first level, and the third and lower are for people who genuinely need to atone for something.)
dies at in the penultimate episode with the rest of the cast and winds up in hell. She is ecstatic, though
, that's probably not a good sign.
Hell starts out as a spectacularly horrible aversion in , but once the human invasion force arrives things improve noticeably,
with Julius Caeser recreating the Roman Empire. They even find oil and tons of minerals in hell.
Subverted in the
parody video . The Nether (the Minecraft equivalent of Hell) is at first presented as a great place to live, but any benefits it has prove to be overshadowed by the incessant mob attacks.
then goes into a rant about how he misses the overworld, as well the fact that the titular dimension's hot and never rains, before leaving for the overworld.
In , . Aside from little quirks (like six-headed go-go dancers), it's described as a decent place.
In 's review of , she questions why Persephone wants to leave the Underworld ( a jazzy
ruled by "") and go back to her boring field of cutesy animals.
features Downside, initially a
managed by the Admin, an omnipotent Cosmic Packrat, who dislikes things ceasing to exist and doing anything. Some people bothered her into separating it into the eponymous Downside and Upside, having people going downside tortured. Naturally the Peal of Bells takes over and gives the whole place an overhaul, creating this trope.
&&&& Western Animation &
A episode has Bart experiencing a vision of Hell after being hit by a car. This version is directly inspired by the paintings of Hieronymus Bosch, but Satan seems like a fairly
who takes an immediate liking to Bart, and sends him back to Earth with an apology when he finds out he shouldn't be dead yet, though he reminds him to "lie, cheat and steal" as he does so.
In another episode, a church carnival has a mirror that shows what you'd look like in Hell. When Lisa looks into it, she sees herself in ragged clothes being eaten at by flames. When
looks into it, he sees himself dressed as a king and eating Smithers' head like a candied apple. ""
"Treehouse of Horror IV" features Ned Flanders as
(explaining "Always the one you least suspect") who manages to get Homer to sell him his soul for a doughnut. Though Homer is able to wrangle out of this before an infernal court trial he still is consigned to hell for a day. Hell is played dead straight as a place of suffering and torment, but an attempt at
backfires as Homer is fed all the doughnuts in the world in an atte it fails as, much to the annoyance and bewilderment of the demon "torturing" him, Homer genuinely enjoys the experience and keeps asking for more donuts.
Demon: I don't understand it. James Coco went mad in fifteen minutes!
Hell is completely inconsistent. Sometimes it'll be a place of suffering and torment, and sometimes we'll drop in on Satan throwing a luau of the damned and people having a decent time(except for the occasional demon mauling). What is somewhat consistent (or at least given the occasional ), though, is that it contains everyone who isn't a Mormon. From what they've shown, Heaven seems like a pretty boring and annoying place filled with stereotypical Mormons. The reason could be that Satan in this show is a flippant and fickle , so Hell is probably oscillating between this and a "regular" Hell, depending on his whim. This is pretty much confirmed in an episode where Satan broke up with his boyfriend. He addresses the damned with his
spiel but breaks off in the middle, saying that he is not in the mood.
One of the episodes also shows that Satan only does the whole fire and brimstone thing with real sinners. Because of the "only Mormons get into heaven" thing, he doesn't bother punishing those who just wind up down there for having the wrong religion.
This was lampshaded in the show itself. When Saddam Hussein proves to be too much of a hassle for Satan himself, what does he do? .
On , Miseryville is heavily implied to be Hell. It was even more blatant in the original pitch. Despite this, even though it's run by , who is determined to make everyone miserable, it looks pretty tolerable. Probably because he is . It's also helped by the fact that , who is both genuinely interested in making people miserable and actually competent is at least as interested in making Lucius miserable as anyone else — and the best way to do that is to make things enjoyable for everyone else. Such as the time she convinced him that he actually lived in Smilesville, where everyone was constantly happy... or tricked him into running a carnival by
to make it sound like something people would hate instead of enjoy.
The Baskervilles takes place in 'Underworld: The Theme Park' and is run by a man who thinks he's the Devil. Both shows also are named after and star a character(s) who .
On , Heffer's cranky grandma has gone to Hell, but she isn't tortured or anything. (In fact, she bosses around the demon who is supposed to be her overlord!)
"I like it here! It's warm!"
a bit in . Robot Hell has plenty of show tunes and classy humor, but it is also a place of eternal torment for evil robots. The Robot Devil just
winds up in a
after being accidentally killed by Granddad. And to no ones surprise, the crotchety old bastard loves it.
Stinkmeaner: Y'all gonna have to kick me out of this bitch! I'm having the time of my life!
episode, Beavis dies after striking his head and goes up to Heaven (though it later turns out it's ). Beavis ultimately finds it boring and after reviewing enough of his deeds in life Saint Peter ultimately decides to send him down to Hell. Beavis has a much more positive reaction after arriving there.
&&&& Real Life &
A quote that is attributed to
goes "I desire to go to Hell and not to H in the former, , whereas in the latter there are only beggars, monks and apostles." Presumably he was joking, but you never know.
The Biblical location of Hell and its Hebrew name source, Ben Hinnom Valley ("Gai ben Hinnom" or Gehenna), is nowadays where the Jerusalem Cinematheque resides.
'60s activist Saul Alinsky, in a 1972
, was quoted as saying that he'd rather go to hell than heaven for this reason.
"Hell would be heaven for me. All my life I've been with the have-nots. Over here, if you're a have-not, you're short of dough. If you're a have-not in hell, you're short of virtue. Once I get into hell, I'll start organizing the have-nots over there."
Alternative Title(s):
Hell Of A Time
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/AHellOfATime