History Main / TheUnderworld

* ''Film/ShredderOrpheus'' shows sections of the Underworld connected to separated areas. The main area is Hades and Persephone's broadcasting network, which is adjacent to a gloomy office setting where Apollo and Calliope are tasked with erasing incoming souls' memories via a paper shredder. The second area is deep below the earth and is connected to a shady parking garage, where flame jets and seemingly impossible skateboarding jumps deter intruders.

* ''Film/ShredderOrpheus'' shows sections of the Underworld connected to separated areas. The main areas is Hades and Persephone's broadcasting network, which is adjacent to a gloomy office setting where Apollo and Calliope are tasked with erasing incoming souls' memories via a paper shredder. The second area is deep below the earth and is connected to a shady parking garage, where flame jets and seemingly impossible skateboarding jumps deter intruders.

* The Underworld in ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', based as the entire movie is on Myth/ClassicalMythology.

The Underworld is often a gloomy, depressing realm, if only because it is often depicted as being BeneathTheEarth. (The fact that people go there after they die might have something to do with it, too.) Still, [[DarkIsNotEvil it isn't evil.]] It's not {{Hell}}. ''[[OnlyOneAfterlife All]]'' [[OnlyOneAfterlife of the dead come here]], whether they were [[IncorruptiblePurePureness saints]], [[CompleteMonster total jackasses]], or [[MrViceGuy just kinda so-so]] in life. Some versions of the Underworld judge the dead and grant them different living standards (or unliving standards, if you prefer) depending on their conduct in life. In others, there's no real judgment, and life -- or whatever -- continues much as it did before. Possibly they receive, in due course, a chance to go back. The Underworld is often connected to the world of the living in some manner, although it is typically very difficult to reach. In most cases, it is literally underground, only reachable through hidden passages winding deep into the bowels of the earth; in other cases, if the setting is a FlatWorld, it is at the farthest edge of existence, on the very border of creation. In either case, there is often an UnderworldRiver serving as a boundary.

* Creator/AGnosis' works, being based on Myth/ClassicalMythology, feature the Greek Underworld as a humongous underground cave that can be accessed through magic portals, as one in a cave beneath a temple of Hades, with little illumination except a part of Elysium that receives sunlight and with the locations featured in the mythos as Hades' [[spoiler: and Persephone's]] palace, where he judges the dead, or the Asphodel Fields. Persephone describes the place as stagnant, noticing how the old trees produce fruit, and it's also inhabited by other deities as Nyx and the Erynies.

See also {{Heaven}} and {{Hell}}, the Underworld's more exclusive counterparts. Despite its normally neutral nature, the Underworld, especially the Myth/GreekMythology version, is susceptible to being HijackedByJesus and becoming {{Hell}}. Expect intrepid mortals to mount an OrpheanRescue for a loved one. See also AfterlifeAntechamber, which is a waiting room or brief rest stop on the way to the true afterlife. Compare and contrast MundaneAfterlife. If you were looking for the ''criminal'' “underworld”, try TheMafia.

* The Underworld in ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', based as the entire movie is on Myth/GreekMythology.

* In Myth/GreekMythology, the Underworld is Hades, the realm of the god of the same name. Depending on their conduct in life, the dead can end up in the Elysian Fields, which are basically paradise, in the Fields of Asphodel, where they just sort of...hang out, or in Tartarus, whose inmates are tortured for all eternity for crimes against the gods.

* The Underwhere of ''VideoGame/SuperPaperMario'' is pretty much one big {{Expy}} of the underworld from Myth/GreekMythology. It's populated by creatures called Shaydes (Shades) who lament about how their [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall "games were ended"]] and ruled by Queen Jaydes (Hades), who acts as a judge for the Shaydes. Other characters include a ferryman named Charold (Charon) who provides you safe passage across the River Twygz (River Styx), a three-headed Chain Chomp named Underchomp (Cerberus) that guards the entrance to the Overthere (Elysium), and three old hags (Fates) who live on the Underwhere Road (Tartarus).

* ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' has BigGood and sun goddess Princess Celestia put out lost dog flyers for Cerberus, and Twilight worries about the evils in Tartarus escaping. Putting something from Myth/GreekMythology into a world that has little to nothing to do with the world of the viewer was a bit jarring. However, it ''definitely'' still counts: much much much later, the final enemy of season four [[SealedEvilInACan was being held there]] and Cerberus' temporary absence so long ago was what allowed him to get free. It's eventually shown that Tartarus is the place where monsters and those who committed crimes against all of Equestria are imprisoned.

The Underworld is often a gloomy, depressing realm, if only because it is often depicted as being BeneathTheEarth. (The fact that people go there after they die might have something to do with it, too.) Still, [[DarkIsNotEvil it isn't evil.]] It's not {{Hell}}. ''[[OnlyOneAfterlife All]]'' [[OnlyOneAfterlife of the dead come here]], whether they were [[IncorruptiblePurePureness saints]], [[CompleteMonster total jackasses]], or [[MrViceGuy just kinda so-so]] in life. Some versions of the Underworld judge the dead and grant them different living standards (or unliving standards, if you prefer) depending on their conduct in life. In others, there's no real judgment, and life -- or whatever -- continues much as it did before. Possibly they receive, in due course, a chance to go back.

* ''Literature/TheLockedTomb'': The River is the destination of all dead souls, a dangerous spiritual realm inhabited by billions of starving ghosts. The bottom of the River has mouthlike openings into a dreaded space that no one has ever explored, but which the knowledgeable refer to as Hell. Although there is a fringe belief that the River is supposed to be a transitory space whose current state is the result of something going terribly wrong.
* ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' uses the underworld several times, although the movie interpretation is exclusively a FireAndBrimstoneHell.

* In ''Literature/TheSalvationWar'', God had already accepted his most blindly devoted worshippers (historically ''maybe'' 10% of the population) and closed the gates of Heaven. This action had the effect of ensuring that [[GodAndSatanAreBothJerks everyone else (faithful or not) would burn in]] FireAndBrimstoneHell after death. When humanity finds out, they decide to [[RageAgainstTheHeavens fight back]].

* In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', it's Gilgamesh's fear of ending up here, no matter what he does on Earth, that drives his quest to [[DoNotGoGentle overcome death]], after seeing his best friend Enkidu sicken and die, tormented by dreams of the Underworld as a nightmarish prison. To quote from Stephen Mitchell's translation:

* In ''Literature/TheFaerieQueene'', Mammon rules the Underworld with his daughter, Prosperina, which takes after the Greek account of the Underworld than classic depictions of {{Hell}}. Persephone's garden is there, Tantalus is seen reaching for food that moves out of his reach, and souls are even seen wailing beneath the river Cocytus.
* In ''Literature/HisDarkMaterials'', God is a pretender who created an afterlife of near non-existence, where no one was happy; murderers and saints and poets and beggars all went to the same miserable, grey place.

* In ''Literature/{{Riverworld}}'', there are two afterlives: one for children who die before the age of five, and the Riverworld itself for those who die at an age where they'll be able to care for themselves once they're resurrected.

* The Necromongers in ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' speak of their promised land as "the underverse", an alternate plane where the dead go, and which has been visited by every Lord Marshal to have ruled their empire, gaining magical abilities because of it.

** Although never implemented in a game product, a series of ''Dragon'' articles by Bruce Heard posited a shadowy ghost-world for the TabletopGame/{{Mystara}} setting: a lightless parallel of the mortal plane, home to incorporeal undead, to which the souls of the slain would pass immediately upon death. The lucky ones would find a handy portal to the ''true'' afterlife promised by their respective faiths, while the unlucky might be consumed by hungry wraiths or cannibalized by other souls before they reached one.

* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Ryuk informs Light that anyone who uses a [[ArtifactOfDoom Death Note]] can neither go to Heaven nor to Hell, but rather to a place called "Mu," or [[TheNothingAfterDeath "nothingness."]] Eventually, Light figures out that [[spoiler:this applies to ''everyone'', whether they have used a Death Note or have never even seen one.]] The original series implies that this entails CessationOfExistence, but the prequel novel ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'', the narrator [[spoiler:Mello]] hints that Mu may actually more of a MundaneAfterlife or simply a generic world of the dead.

* According to WordOfGod, this is [[DevilButNoGod how the Demon World works]] in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' in spite of several characters referring to it as Hell. It's unclear how personal morality factors in, but it's made clear that the Underworld is divided into different zones with demons like Berial ruling over a FireAndBrimstoneHell while the {{Ascended Demon}}s known as [[LightIsNotGood The Fallen]] live in higher areas.

* In ''Manga/DeathNote'', Ryuk informs Light that anyone who uses a [[ArtifactOfDoom Death Note]] can neither go to Heaven nor to Hell, but rather to a place called "Mu," or [[TheNothingAfterDeath "nothingness."]] Eventually, Light figures out that [[spoiler: this applies to ''everyone'', whether they have used a Death Note or have never even seen one.]] The original series implies that this entails CessationOfExistence, but the prequel novel ''LightNovel/AnotherNote'', the narrator [[spoiler: Mello]] hints that Mu may actually more of a MundaneAfterlife or simply a generic world of the dead.

* In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, the dead go to Irkalla, ruled by Ishtar's DarkerAndEdgier twin sister Ereshkigal. [[Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld Ishtar tries to take over.]] [[spoiler: She isn't successful, and in fact loses her beloved husband Dumuzi for six months out of the year. Sort of karmic payment for stealing Ereshkigal's husband and getting him killed.]] See above under Literature for how the Sumerian incarnation of Ereshkigal's underworld shows up in ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh''.

* In ''VideoGame/LostEden'', The Valley of Mists is this for the dinosaurs, and is accessible by humans only by eating the Root of Ages. [[spoiler: It's also where you learn the secret of the strange tablets you've been collecting throughout the entire game.]]

* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFourthEdition'' noted that the traditional "Great Wheel" cosmology of D&D actually lacked a plane that filled this archetype; the closest was Hades, which had undergone the [[HijackedByJesus Christianity-inspired}} reworking into a {{Hell}}-plane mentioned in this trope's description, being presented as a barren wasteland where all positive feelings are slowly sucked away, leaving only the worst impulses before those too fade into total apathy, the spiritual manifestation of NeutralEvil. Thus, the newly fledged "World Axis" cosmology released hand-in-hand with the ''TabletopGame/NentirVale'' setting, featured the '''Shadowfell'''; a gloomy and depressive realm primarily inhabited by the transitory spirits of the dead before they pass on to their final fate, be it joining their deity in its home realm or something else. It's also the homeland of the undead, as well as several DarkIsNotEvil-themed races. There are living inhabitants here, but it's noted as a distinctly unhealthy environment for them.
** ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAdndDragonsFifthEdition'' retained the Shadowfell, despite largely going back to the Great Wheel cosmology.
** In the 4th edition iteration of the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'', the Shadowfell is said to be a new part of the cosmology born from the great cosmological disaster that occurred during the TimeSkip, which resulted in a contamination of the Plane of Shadow (ElementalEmbodiment of darkness) with the Plane of Negative Energy (ElementalEmbodiment of death and decay).
* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' setting of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', the souls of the dead go to the grey wasteland of Dolurrh, where the pervasive hopeless apathy of the realm causes them to fade into Shades. The world's primary religion accepts this as the natural order of things, although others, like the Church of the Silver Flame, promise deliverance from Dolurrh to the faithful. It's essential Hades from the Great Wheel, but shorn of the NeutralEvil associations.

[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant If you were looking for the band]], it is [[{{Music/Underworld}} at a different realm.]]

* In ''Literature/TheEpicOfGilgamesh'', it's Gilgamesh's fear of ending up here, no matter what he does on Earth, that drives his quest to [[DoNotGoGentle overcome death]], after seeing his best friend Enkidu sicken and die, tormented by dreams of the Underworld as a nightmarish prison. To quote from Stephen Mitchell's translation:
-->Those who dwell there squat in the darkness, dirt is their food, their drink is clay, they are dressed in feathered garments like birds, they never see light, and on door and bolt the dust lies thick.

* According to WordOfGod this is [[DevilButNoGod how the Demon World works]] in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' in spite of several characters referring to it as Hell. It's unclear how personal morality factors in but it's made clear that the underworld is divided into different zones with demons like Belial ruling over a FireAndBrimstoneHell while the {{Ascended Demon}}s known as [[LightIsNotGood The Fallen]] live in higher areas.

* The SwordAndSandal movie ''Film/HerculesInTheHauntedWorld''. The "Haunted World" refers to this place, as Herc must [[ToHellAndBack travel deep into the realm of Hades]] to find the [[MacGuffin Stone of Forgetfulness] which, he hopes, will work like a mental ResetButton to cure his semi-comatose lover Deianira. Despite the movie's very low budget, director Creator/MarioBava still gives us a vivid and stylized Underworld, with some cool sets and the very evocative lighting his movies are known for.

* In Myth/MesopotamianMythology, the dead go to Irkalla, ruled by Ishtar's DarkerAndEdgier twin sister Ereshkigal. [[Literature/InannasDescentToTheNetherworld Ishtar tries to take over.]] [[spoiler: She isn't successful, and in fact loses her beloved husband Dumuzi for six months out of the year. Sort of karmic payment for stealing Ereshkigal's husband and getting him killed.]]

* In Myth/NorseMythology, you have Hel, which like Hades is the realm of a goddess sharing its name. There is also Niflhel (Misty Hel), where the dead go when they die. Apparently that which is dead may die again.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has the Land of the Dead seen in "Death in Bloom". Later episodes mention different parts of the Land of the Dead known as "dead worlds".

** ''TabletlopGame/DungeonsAdndDragonsFifthEdition'' retained the Shadowfell, despite largely going back to the Great Wheel cosmology.
** In the 4th edition iteration of the ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'', the Shadowfell is said to be a new part of the cosmology born from the great cosmological disaster that occured during the TimeSkip, which resulted in a contamination of the Plane of Shadow (ElementalEmbodiment of darkness) with the Plane of Negative Energy (ElementalEmbodiment of death and decay).

* In the ''TabletopGame/{{Eberron}}'' setting of ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'', the souls of the dead go to the grey wasteland of Dolurrh, where the pervasive hopeless apathy of the realm causes them to fade into Shades. The world's primary religion accepts this as the natural order of things, although others, like the Church of the Silver Flame, promise deliverance from Dolurrh to the faithful.

* According to WordOfGod this is [[DevilButNoGod how the Demon World works]] in ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' in spite of several characters referring to it as Hell. It's unclear how personal morality factors in but it's made clear that the underworld is divided into different zones with demons like Belial ruling over a FireAndBrimstoneHell while the AscendedDemons known as [[LightIsNotGood The Fallen]] live in higher areas.