# Your favorite fictional depiction of Hell **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 6, 2021, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574 "2021-12-06T14:53:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/21 "2021-12-06T17:23:06Z")
I liked the depiction of Hell in the movie [As Above, So Below](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2870612/) (2014). In it, Hell is presented not as an expansive spectacle of suffering, but rather a desolate, claustrophobic, confusing, and lonely maze with no discernible beginning or end (it’s still based on Dante’s Inferno). Also enjoyed their depiction of Satan as just a silent figure in a robe, with the cherub-like face of angel but disfigured and corrupted. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/22 "2021-12-06T17:41:42Z")
Back in the 80’s, there was an anthology series called _Heroes in Hell._ > **[Heroes in Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroes_in_Hell)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Heroes in Hell is a series of shared world fantasy books, within the genre Bangsian fantasy, created and edited by Janet Morris and written by her, Chris Morris, C. J. Cherryh and others. The first 12 books in the series were published by Baen Books between 1986 and 1989, and stories from the series include one Hugo Award winner and Nebula nominee ("Gilgamesh in the Outback" by Robert Silverberg from Rebels in Hell), as well as one other Nebula A... I don’t remember much, but some of the authors shared a storyline centered on Caesar, Hector, and other personalities from ancient civilizations trying to work together to take over Hell, but they could never really cooperate. They were all used to bossing thousands of bootlickers around and frequently betrayed each other. Yuri Andropov had just died before the first book was published, so the intro story was him meeting the devil, who looked like JFK, the most egregious example of capitalism gone amuck. Satan otherwise didn’t figure into the stories that much, because Hell was beyond his control and he mainly served as a figurehead. Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington had to suffer each other’s existence, so they became sort-of friends for protection purposes. I didn’t realize the series was revived in 2011, so I’ll have to check it out. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/23 "2021-12-06T19:31:00Z")
Minecraft Nether. Not for any sort of accuracy, but for the ironic utility, simplicity, peace and escape it sometimes gives. ---
**Author:** ![SmartAleq](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smartaleq/32/163_2.png) [@SmartAleq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmartAleq)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/24 "2021-12-06T19:41:18Z")
Richard Matheson’s _What Dreams May Come_ has a pretty good interpretation of Hell, although it’s not an actual hell but a state of being a person has imposed on herself. Don’t think the movie really captured the essence of it, book is better. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/25 "2021-12-06T19:49:13Z")
“Huis Clos” (“No Exit”) by Jean-Paul Sartre “Hell is other people.” ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/26 "2021-12-06T19:59:33Z")
[Attributed to Ahmet Ertegun:](http://artandpopularculture.com/Heaven_is_where_the_police_are_British) > What’s heaven? Heaven is where the police are British, the chefs are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and the organizers are Swiss. > > So then, what’s hell? Hell is where the police are German, the chefs are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and the organizers are Italian. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/27 "2021-12-06T20:02:49Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > Larry Niven’s Inferno, inspired by Dante. Yes, the best. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/28 "2021-12-06T20:13:17Z")
Also Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle ---
**Author:** ![bleach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bleach/32/3106_2.png) [@bleach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bleach)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/29 "2021-12-06T20:17:14Z")
Just came across Steven L. Peck’s _A Short Stay in Hell_, where hell is the [Library of Babel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Library_of_Babel). In other words, a large combinatorics problem. Oh you can leave, but it may take some time. ---
**Author:** ![Bonum\_Legatum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bonum_legatum/32/6183_2.png) [@Bonum\_Legatum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bonum_Legatum)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/30 "2021-12-06T20:26:59Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > In Soviet Hell, you have to eat two shovels of shit a day. But half the time there’s no shit, and in the other half, there aren’t any shovels. The way I heard it takes a bit of explaining. Workers in Soviet manufacturing companies were give a quota of “whatever product”, and it was checked at the end of each month. The company rarely had enough raw material on hand, so they would have to send the workers out to scrounge and expedite shipments. By the middle of the each month they would have enough and the workers would “storm” to turn the raw material into the finished product. (Quality absolutely suffered.) By the end of the month everyone was exhausted - and would take a week to recover. Then the cycle began over again. So the story goes: “In capitalist hell the devil comes by every day and hammers a nail into your butt. In Soviet hell, you don’t seem him until the end of the month, when you get your quota all at once.” ---
**Author:** ![Cardigan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cardigan/32/187_2.png) [@Cardigan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cardigan)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/31 "2021-12-06T20:29:13Z")
Hell as depicted in [The Good Place](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Good_Place) was pretty entertaining. Making a select group believe they were undeserving schmucks that somehow wound up in heaven is a great sit for a sitcom at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chockfullofheadygoodness/32/511_2.png) [@ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChockFullOfHeadyGoodness)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/32 "2021-12-06T20:33:50Z")
_Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey_: “We got totally lied to by our album covers, man.” ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/33 "2021-12-06T22:51:31Z")
the movie of _Hellzapoppin_. “That’s the first taxi driver ever went straight where I told him to.” ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/34 "2021-12-06T22:55:52Z")
Hell in Neil Gaiman’s _Sandman_ (and later, sort of, in the Lucifer TV series). People are only in Hell because they want to be - because they think that’s what they deserve. Anybody can leave Hell at any time, but nobody ever has. ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/35 "2021-12-06T23:18:45Z")
That’s very spoilery. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/36 "2021-12-06T23:24:35Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > Off the top of my head, C. S. Lewis’s in _The Great Divorce_. Off the top of my head, the remark by a defense attorney in Stephen King’s _The Jaunt_. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/37 "2021-12-06T23:27:07Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > That’s very spoilery. Agreed, and so spoiled. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/38 "2021-12-06T23:27:39Z")
Am I really the first one to mention Hieronymus Bosch? ---
**Author:** ![Riemann](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/riemann/32/3133_2.png) [@Riemann](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Riemann)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/39 "2021-12-06T23:32:02Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > So then, what’s hell? …the organizers are Italian. At the beginning of _Gladiator_, are we seeing a depiction of Hell? A vast horde of screaming disorganized Germans is defeated by a smaller Italian force through superior organization and discipline. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2021, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/40 "2021-12-06T23:34:15Z")
> [@Riemann](#): > > At the beginning of _Gladiator_, are we seeing a depiction of Hell? A vast horde of screaming disorganized Germans is defeated by a smaller Italian force through superior organization and discipline _ **“SPANIARD!!!”** _ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574.md?page=3)