History Main / ThePromisedLand

* Creator/SelmaLagerlof's ''Jerusalem''. A Swedish sect decides to sell their property and real estate and found a colony in Jerusalem. In the end they find, instead of land of milk and honey, a slovenly run filthy and crappy Oriental town. [[spoiler:They still make it. The book is based on RealLife events (see RealLife section). The colony exists still today.]]

* Invoked in the Icelandic ''Book of Settlements'': After spending two winters in unpopulated UsefulNotes/{{Iceland}}, Floki Vilgerdarson and his company return to Norway. When people want to know how good the new land is, Floki says it is all bad; Floki's retainer Herjolf says that it has both good and bad qualities; his other retainer Thorolf says that it is so good that "butter drops from every blade of grass".

* In ''Brak the Barbarian'' by John Jakes, the titular Brak is in route to Khurdisan the Golden, a legendary paradise known all over the world, with his various adventures happening on the way there. As of this writing, Brak has never [[LeftHanging reached his goal]]. When interviewed on Brak, Jakes implied that Khurdisan may be of the cynical type of this trope; he says that Brak will make it to Khurdisan but it will not be what he expected.

* In Creator/DrSeuss' story ''Literature/IHadTroubleInGettingToSollaSollew'', the titular Solla Sollew is a Unreachable Promised Land, as a key-slapping slippard prevents the door from being unlocked.

-->--'''[[Literature/BookOfDeuteronomy Deuteronomy 27:3]]''', ''Literature/TheBible'' (NIV)

* Rupeeland in ''VideoGame/FreshlyPickedTinglesRosyRupeeland''

* '''No Promised Land:''' The Promised Land never really existed; it was just a myth, perhaps created to give people hope of a possible better life, or from a misunderstood or distorted legend of the past. Sometimes, even more cynically, the idea of the Promised Land is a lie, deliberately concocted in order to control people with a false promise of better times with the price of submitting under a cruel rule, or to lure people into danger and death. In {{dystopia}}n works, an even crueler variant exists in the form of being ReleasedToElsewhere--in other words, the people going to the "Promised Land" are being killed instead.

* '''No Promised Land:''' The Promised Land never really existed; it was just a myth, perhaps created to give people hope of a possible better life, or from a misunderstood or distorted legend of the past. Sometimes, even more cynically, the idea of the Promised Land is a lie, deliberately concocted in order to control people with a false promise of better times with the price of submitting under a cruel rule, or to lure people into danger and death. In {{dystopia}}n works, an even crueler variant exists in the form of being ReleasedToElsewhere.

* ''Film/TheIsland'' is named for its so-called Promised Land which people can "win" a one-way trip to -- in reality, [[spoiler:they're clones being harvested for parts. Winning your trip to the Island means that [[ReleasedToElsewhere it is your time to be harvested]]]].

* The ''Literature/AlienChronicles'' trilogy has Ruu-113, a secluded paradise planet accessible only by a long-dormant star gate. The Viis view the planet as little more than a source of resources to prop up their faltering empire, and press their technologically-savvy Zrheli slaves to try to fix the gate at any cost. But the Zrheli consider Ru-113 to be sacred, and have spent centuries continually sabotaging the gate they are supposed to be repairing. Protagonist Ampris takes an interest in the planet, hoping that it will one day serve as a new homeworld for those enslaved by the Viis Empire, but the Zrheli prove hesitant to work with outsiders. [[spoiler: Until the end of the series, at least, when Ampris negotiates passage to Ruu-113 for her her exodus. According to Ampris' visions of the society that ultimately blooms on Ruu-113, it's very much an idealistic example of a Promised Land.]]

** ''Film/MadMaxFuryRoad'' has "The Green Place", where Furiosa planned to take the Five Wives to, only to find out it's now an uninhabitable swamp land. They instead return to the Citadel to turn that into a new Promised Land, once Immortan Joe and his allies have been dealt with.