# 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:** 3
**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, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/41 "2021-12-06T23:38:57Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > In The Culture series of books by Ian M. Banks the digitalization and uploading of your consciousness is a well know and widely used technology, usually for benevolent purposes. Except in one of the books it is revealed that some more conservative civilizations have literally invented hell and upload the consciousness of people they deem undesirable into it. It is… brutal. I came in to mention this. _Surface Detail_ is the book. Brutal as you say, but a superb book, one of his best. I especially like the audiobook - Peter Kenny has the perfect voice for reading Banks. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/42 "2021-12-07T00:01:41Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > That’s very spoilery. I think at this point is is pretty much on “Rosebud was a sled”/“Darth Vader is Luke’s father” level of spoiler. Soylent Green is people! ---
**Author:** ![Dropo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ce7236/32.png) [@Dropo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dropo)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 12:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/43 "2021-12-07T00:39:45Z")
Some lesser known hells: _Dante’s Inferno_ (1935) - [DANTE'S INFERNO (El Infierno del Dante-1935) - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8M2HWEqOB2k) _Jigoku_ (1960) – features a colorful if pointless tour through hell _The Devil’s Eye_ (1960) – Don Juan in hell is kinda fun. Unfortunately, most of the film takes place on earth _Double Vision_ (2002) – Illustrations of Tongue Removal Hell are seen as part of a Taoist tapestry Also - [https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/jean-delville/the-treasures-of-satan/](https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/jean-delville/the-treasures-of-satan/) ---
**Author:** ![burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/burpo_the_wonder_mutt/32/365_2.png) [@burpo\_the\_wonder\_mutt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/burpo_the_wonder_mutt)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/44 "2021-12-07T02:00:52Z")
There’s a Harlan Ellison story, “Hitler Painted Roses,” where the main character is sent to Hell (brimstone, victims burned and blackened, dark, burning tunnels) for basically a clerical error, but she escapes and makes her way to Heaven which is represented as a slightly tacky theme park. Heaven starts peeling at the edges until she leaves – back to Hell. ---
**Author:** ![gkster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gkster/32/14107_2.png) [@gkster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gkster)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/45 "2021-12-07T04:24:07Z")
Dante, a fave because of the variety of the circles of Hell and the character backstories and descriptions. CS Lewis’s _Screwtape Letters_, where it’s a goal-oriented bureaucracy: “the justice of Hell is purely realistic, and concerned only with results. Bring us back food, or be food yourself.” ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 6:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/46 "2021-12-07T06:00:17Z")
I was going to nominate _Barlowe’s Inferno_, also for the idea of Hell as a place with its own ecology and prior inhabitants. That and I like the Hell in the recent _A Tale Dark_ & _Grimm_ animated show on Netflix. Punishments are illusionary. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/47 "2021-12-07T09:49:44Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > In The Culture series of books by Ian M. Banks the digitalization and uploading of your consciousness is a well know and widely used technology, usually for benevolent purposes. Except in one of the books it is revealed that some more conservative civilizations have literally invented hell and upload the consciousness of people they deem undesirable into it. It is… brutal. There’s a Mitchell and Webb radio sketch along these lines - people have paid to have their consciousnesses uploaded to a virtual afterlife but due to a computer error once they “arrive” they are promptly stuffed into a large pig. It is extremely unpleasant. In lesser-known hells, there’s always [Stig’s Inferno](https://www.templetons.com/ty/stig/). The perpetually unfinished state of the story (which got rebooted but still not finished) is a minor torment in itself. ---
**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 7, 2021, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/48 "2021-12-07T12:47:52Z")
[https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/10603629\_729369713802615\_8898034838152133440\_n.jpg?\_nc\_cat=109&ccb=1-5&\_nc\_sid=2d5d41&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&\_nc\_ohc=J8y9-0itwLMAX-IQ3Ni&\_nc\_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=c147ca1401ec803a559fa2ea62eaefd1&oe=61D6A5A2](https://scontent-iad3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.18169-9/fr/cp0/e15/q65/10603629_729369713802615_8898034838152133440_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-5&_nc_sid=2d5d41&efg=eyJpIjoidCJ9&_nc_ohc=J8y9-0itwLMAX-IQ3Ni&_nc_ht=scontent-iad3-1.xx&oh=c147ca1401ec803a559fa2ea62eaefd1&oe=61D6A5A2) ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/49 "2021-12-07T12:54:05Z")
Also known as The Prince of Insufficient Light. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 1:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/50 "2021-12-07T13:22:15Z")
All of this, and no one mentions the “Don Juan in Hell” segment from George Bernard Shaw’s **Man and Superman**? it hasn’t got the drama and terror of Dante’s Hell, or any of the books (Like Niven and Pournelle’s _Inferno_) based on it, nor the wonderful grotesquerie of the Hell depicted in several of Hieronymous Bosch’s triptychs, but it’s witty and intriguing, and the first case I know of where it’s suggested that the inmates of Hell are there essentially by their own choice. Shaw loved inverting tropes and defeating people’s expectations, so having the debauching and debased sinner Don Juan Tenorio being the spokesman of reason is really kind of a hoot. > [@](#): > > ### Don Juan Play[[edit](https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Man_and_Superman&action=edit§ion=4)] > > The long third act of the play, which shows Don Juan himself having a conversation with several characters in [Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell), is often cut. Charles A. Berst observes of Act III: > > > Paradoxically, the act is both extraneous and central to the drama which surrounds it. It can be dispensed with, and usually is, on grounds that it is just too long to include in an already full-length play. More significantly, it is in some aspects a digression, operates in a different mode from the rest of the material, delays the immediate well-made story line, and much of its subject matter is already implicit in the rest of the play. The play performs well without it.[[8]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Superman#cite_note-extra-8) > > _Don Juan in Hell_ consists of a philosophical debate between Don Juan (played by the same actor who plays Jack Tanner), and the [Devil](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Devil), with Doña Ana (Ann) and the [Statue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statue) of Don Gonzalo, Ana’s father (Roebuck Ramsden) looking on. This third act is often performed separately as a play in its own right, most famously during the 1950s in a concert version, featuring [Charles Boyer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Boyer) as Don Juan, [Charles Laughton](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Laughton) as the Devil, [Cedric Hardwicke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cedric_Hardwicke) as the Commander and [Agnes Moorehead](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnes_Moorehead) as Doña Ana. This version was also released as a [spoken word album](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoken_word_album) on [LP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LP_record), but is yet to appear on CD. In 1974–1975, [Kurt Kasznar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_Kasznar), [Myrna Loy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myrna_Loy), [Edward Mulhare](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Mulhare) and [Ricardo Montalban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricardo_Montalban) toured nationwide in [John Houseman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Houseman)’s reprise of the production, playing 158 cities in six months.[[9]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Superman#cite_note-9) > **[Man and Superman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_and_Superman)** > > Man and Superman is a four-act drama written by George Bernard Shaw in 1903. The series was written in response to a call for Shaw to write a play based on the Don Juan theme. Man and Superman opened at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 21 May 1905 as a four-act play produced by the Stage Society, and then by John Eugene Vedrenne and Harley Granville-Barker on 23 May, without Act III ("Don Juan in Hell"). A part of the third act, Don Juan in Hell (Act 3, Scene 2), was performed when the Mr.... ---
**Author:** ![ZonexandScout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zonexandscout/32/544_2.png) [@ZonexandScout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZonexandScout)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/51 "2021-12-07T13:27:28Z")
I’ve really enjoyed Mark Cain’s take on Hell in his _Circles of Hell_ series. It’s sort of a mix of the Bizarro world, _Brazil_, and vaudeville. One nice touch is that you get a cream pie in the face if you compliment somebody. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/52 "2021-12-07T13:33:09Z")
Dante’s got to be the winner. But I also like the version of Hell in the animated series Ugly Americans, where they built the tourist attraction/shopping area New Hell on top of Old Hell. ---
**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 7, 2021, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/53 "2021-12-07T13:55:10Z")
There’s the Adult Swim series, _Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell._ The obnoxious annoying losers nobody can stand are now low-level demons working in Hell’s cube farms. Satan’s a horrible boss, but easily amused with meaningless suffering. > **[Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Your_Pretty_Face_Is_Going_to_Hell)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell is an American live-action television series on Adult Swim, Cartoon Network's late night programming block. The series made its official debut on April 18, 2013, on Adult Swim. The show is a live-action workplace comedy about Gary, an associate demon, as he attempts to capture souls on earth in order to climb the corporate ladder of the underworld. Gary hopes to advance in Hell, but he may be too stupid, lazy and ... ---
**Author:** ![DigitalC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ebca7d/32.png) [@DigitalC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DigitalC)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/54 "2021-12-07T18:46:50Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#): > > think at this point is is pretty much on “Rosebud was a sled”/“Darth Vader is Luke’s father” level of spoiler. Is it? The Good Place ended last year and it wasn’t like a giant hit or anything. ---
**Author:** ![Guest-starring\_Id](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guest-starring_id/32/21736_2.png) [@Guest-starring\_Id](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guest-starring_Id)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/55 "2021-12-07T19:33:12Z")
I like Goya’s hellish visions in his _Follies_, which were a set of 22 black and white prints, and then later, his much darker (in both senses of the word) _Black Paintings_, featuring the quite grisly _Saturn Devouring His Son_. And of cource MC PeePants having a tough go of it. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/qebsMF9j89I/hqdefault.jpg "[ATHF] MC PeePants in hell") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qebsMF9j89I) “No, it isn’t.” ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/56 "2021-12-07T20:30:03Z")
I like the Sebastian Cabot hell, but with my luck there’d be no internet. ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/57 "2021-12-07T20:53:47Z")
Wasn’t Homer in a hell where they tried in vain to torture him by force feeding him donuts? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/58 "2021-12-07T21:34:33Z")
[![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/LtEFEdrrXc4/hqdefault.jpg "Homer's Donut Hell") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtEFEdrrXc4) ---
**Author:** ![Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/779978/32.png) [@Two\_Many\_Cats2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Two_Many_Cats2)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/59 "2021-12-07T22:03:51Z")
Hell, Michigan is actually kinda nice. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2021, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574/60 "2021-12-07T22:13:03Z")
[Hell](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hell,_Grand_Cayman), Grand Cayman looks scary, but is in the middle of a beautiful island. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-favorite-fictional-depiction-of-hell/955574.md?page=4)