History Main / HellOfAHeaven

* Used in the "Captain Stormalong" segment of ''WesternAnimation/TheAdventuresOfMarkTwain''. Captain Stormalong of California, Earth, accidentally finds himself in an ''alien'' heaven, which is shown as a loud, colorful nightclub full of bizarre creatures. He's eventually ushered to his own Christian heaven, which...isn't really all that great either. It's portrayed as a solemn, peaceful place of worship.

* In ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'', Jasper notices that Elysium is peaceful, but he also seems kind of horrified by the thought of spending a lifetime in there.

* OlderThanFeudalism: One version of the classic Indian epic ''Literature/{{Mahabharata}}'' has a very similar scene to the [[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E84TheHunt Twilight Zone example]].

* In ''Theatre/JasperInDeadland'', Jasper notices that Elysium is peaceful, but also seems kind of horrified by the thought of spending a lifetime in there.

-->-- '''Sparks''', "Here in Heaven"

* In ''50 Percent Grey'', Heaven is an endless grey plain, marked only by a fancy TV explaining where you are and why. [[spoiler:Purgatory and Hell are exactly the same, except the TV is cheaper and the explanation is different.]]
* The psychotic main character in ''Unspeakable'' hallucinates that his dead daughter is speaking to him from beyond the grave, claiming that Heaven is terrible and GodIsEvil.

* The ''WebAnimation/QueerDuck'' episode "Ku Klux Klan & Ollie" ends with Queer Duck and Jerry Falwell dying and going to heaven. Queer Duck likes it in heaven because he gets to hang out with deceased gay men, while Jerry Falwell considers heaven to be Hell for the same reasons.

* This was the fate of the villain Malikar from ''WebAnimation/PuffinForest''. He got sent to a random plane of existence and through seer chance happened to land on the worst possible place for him to be, Mount Celestia, the equivalent of heaven. Angels immediately arrest him and throw him in a heavenly prison guarded by baby seals, keeping him from returning to threaten the world for a very long time.

* Creator/AnthonyHorowitz's short story 'Howard's End', a thuggish delinquent boy dies after being hit by a bus. When he wakes up, he joins the queue to get into heaven, and lies that he has behaved well and led a good life, to a man he thinks is Saint Peter, in order to be let into heaven. Saint Peter lets Howard in, but Howard finds Heaven to be dreary and dull. There are few people there, and those he tried to talk to or attack merely forgive him and vanish away. At the end of the story, Howard finds Saint Peter, and tries to explain to him that heaven is the wrong place for him, since it is so boring and uninteresting. [[spoiler:"Saint Peter" starts laughing at him, and asks Howard what made him think that he was in heaven: this is hell. As the story ends, Howard realises that "Saint Peter" has horns poking through his hair]].

* ''Series/TheTwilightZone1959''
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS3E84TheHunt The Hunt]]" [[PlayingWithATrope plays with]] this trope. A recently dead hunter is walking a long road and comes across the path to Heaven when a "gatekeeper" tells him that his dog can't go in with him. After some debating and considering things, the hunter chooses to continue down the road with his canine companion rather than enter Heaven. Soon afterwards, an angel tells him that the gatekeeper was trying to trick him into Hell, which is why the dog wasn't allowed in: "A man, well, he'll walk right into Hell with both eyes open. But even the Devil can't fool a dog!" The hunter and his dog enter the real Heaven together.
** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place To Visit]]" plays with this again. A low level criminal named Rocky is killed by police soon after robbing a jewelry store. He is greeted by an affable guide named Pip who takes him to a lavish hotel room and offers him his heart's desires, from nice clothing, to booze, to women. Seeing all the niceties and good things, Rocky realizes this must be Heaven, but is confused as he doesn't remember doing anything of great good to merit being there. After a month, the good times have gotten boring. He always wins at roulette, always hits jackpot on the slots, one shot on a pool table and he sinks all the balls, he can rob a bank and not get caught; even the easy women now bore him, to his surprise. Rocky is really beyond bored and nearly driven insane by how good things are for him. [[spoiler:It turns out, though, ThisIsntHeaven. It is an IronicHell constructed for a man of greed and pride to now receive [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor all he can ever hope for and more]] with [[NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction none of the satisfaction of taking it]]]].

* ''Webcomic/ImTheGrimReaper'':

* ''Webcomic/ImTheGrimReaper'': Brooke got into purgatory, which is still considered paradise to some because it's a lush environment without the stench of death and you get to talk to a bunch of other non-saint non-sinners... but other than that, it's no different than the first circle of Hell; pointless, endless, and empty. Brooke decided to become a Reaper just so he could have something, anything, to work towards, and used getting his sister out of Hell as an excuse for his hard work.

** On a similar principle, many Christians believe this is why Hell exists. The fallen angels and
souls of the damned either hate God or love sin so much being in Heaven would be a torment, so Hell is just as much an act of mercy as it is a punishment.

** The group's [[ReroutedFromHeaven experiment on 4 test subjects]] to determine if humans actually can improve in the afterlife functions as this to the unwitting participants, and even relies on it in the last few minutes of the experiment, when Eleanor and Michael use this to their advantage by letting Chidi and Brent "realize" and believe they were in The Bad Place the whole time so that Brent would finally realize he's a bad person, so that he'll have a last-minute point boost.

* In ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'', world-destroying crime lord Frieza is found in the afterlife assigned to a colorful world where fairies and little critters happily sing and dance all day long. Frieza, meanwhile, is bound inside of a cocoon, unable to escape but able to see everything -- and loathes every second of his time there. That being said, he was likely assigned there, the [[CelestialBureaucracy folks in charge]] knowing full well it would be the place Frieza would hate the most.
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* In the Creator/StephenKing short story "You Know They Got a Hell of a Band," from ''Literature/NightmaresAndDreamscapes'', any rock star who dies before their time is transported to "Rock and Roll Heaven," an idealized small town in the backwoods of Oregon. They all get fun jobs during the day and have a huge concert every night that, despite needing to be over by midnight, can [[YearInsideHourOutside last for years]] if they really get into it. It's a rocker's paradise!...except what's the point of music without an audience? That "audience" turns out to be people who randomly stumble into the town. The rock stars--who, regardless of how kind or good they were in life, [[CameBackWrong come back wrong]] and become cruel, malicious, sadistic revenants--force these people to take on mundane jobs that they don't want, then attend the nightly concerts. They're also eternally young and can't die themselves, but they ''can'' be tortured and feel pain, to the point where they're forced to use massive amounts of drugs to cope with the horror. All of these people end up exhausted, apathetic, miserable husks of humans with no hope of escape, while the rock stars take pleasure in their agony as they perform.

** "[[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E28ANicePlaceToVisit A Nice Place To Visit]]" plays with this again. A low level criminal named Rocky is killed by police soon after robbing a jewelry store. He is greeted by an affable guide named Pip who takes him to a lavish hotel room and offers him his hearts desires, from nice clothing, to booze, to women. Seeing all the niceties and good things, Rocky realizes this must be Heaven, but is confused as he doesn't remember doing anything of great good to merit being there. After a month, the good times have gotten boring. He always wins at roulette, always hits jackpot on the slots, one shot on a pool table and he sinks all the balls, he can rob a bank and not get caught; even the easy women now bore him, to his surprise. Rocky is really beyond bored and nearly driven insane by how good things are for him. [[spoiler:It turns out, though, ThisIsntHeaven. It is an IronicHell constructed for a man of greed and pride to now receive [[BeCarefulWhatYouWishFor all he can ever hope for and more]] with [[NoChallengeEqualsNoSatisfaction none of the satisfaction of taking it]]]].

** When Homer erroneously predicts Armageddon in "Thank God It's Doomsday" after seeing a ''Film/LeftBehind'' movie and the Springfield residents are infuriated when it doesn't occur like he predicted, he gets taken to FluffyCloudHeaven in the rapture, only to be miserable knowing that his family and friends are suffering on Earth. He starts vandalizing Heaven, persuading God to rewind time ("Superman did it!") and postpones the end of the world.