History Main / WarisHell

-->-- '''UsefulNotes/WilliamTecumsehSherman''' speaking to the graduating class of the Michigan Military Academy on June 19, 1879.[[note]]Sherman wrote about this at greater length when he told the residents of Atlanta [[http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/sherman/sherman-to-burn-atlanta.html why he was going to burn their city]] in 1864.[[/note]]

* ''ComicBook/{{Cossacks}}'' is set in early 17th century UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}}. The protagonist, a young Lithuanian Hussar of the Polish army, gets plenty of nightmares from the slaughters of the battles he fought in ([[RecruitersAlwaysLie after being convinced to enlist on much more glamorous promises]] by his ruthless officer, in addition to fulfilling his ReplacementSibling duty). He has enough, deserts and joins a UsefulNotes/{{Cossack|s}} tribe.

* ''ComicStrip/WillieAndJoe'': Sardonic look at frontline combat. War is rudgery, mud, foraging for food... and booze... and smokes, mud, surviving an artillery barrage from time to time, and mud.

* In ''Fanfic/ResonanceDays'', any war in the afterlife, such as the one that took place a few decades before Kyoko and Oktavia's arrival between the [[TheAlliance New Life Alliance]] and [[{{Cult}} the Void Walkers]], turns even more hellish than even normal wars. Because no one can die and everyone recovers from injuries within hours at most, any conflict becomes a ForeverWar where neither side can make much progress and the soldiers are caught in endless battles with constant bloodshed and no release. While hearing Kyoko call the NLA cowards for not putting an end to the void walkers, Marisa remembers a time she said the same to a veteran - and got a fist in the face for her troubles, having had no idea how terrible a war in heaven truly is.

* ''ComicBook/{{Cossacks}}'' is set in early 17th century UsefulNotes/{{Ukraine}}. The protagonist, a young Lithuanian Hussar of the Polish army, gets plenty of nightmares from the slaughters of the battles he fought in ([[JointheArmyTheySaid after being convinced to enlist on much more glamorous promises]] by his ruthless officer, in addition to fulfilling his ReplacementSibling duty). He has enough, deserts and joins a UsefulNotes/{{Cossack|s}} tribe.

* In ''Fanfic/ThisBites'', one of Cross's main goals is to prevent the Marineford War, not just to save Ace and Whitebeard and prevent Blackbeard's rise, but also because he wants to avert all the pointless and senseless bloodshed and loss of life, with failing to stop it his greatest fear. [[spoiler:Despite his best efforts, the war is still on the way, worse than ever]].

* ''Art/Gassed'': Sargent witnessed the aftermath of a poison gas attack in northern France during the First World War and depicted on canvas what he saw on the field: crowded front lines, blind and injured soldiers being led away for medical treatment, and wounded and dying soldiers lying on the ground.

* ''Art/{{Guernica}}'' by Creator/PabloPicasso was inspired by the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar bombardment of the Spanish town Guernica and is perhaps the most iconic anti-war painting of the 20th century.
* The drawings of Creator/OttoDix, who experienced it first-hand during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.

* In ''FanFic/{{Fractured}}'', a ''Franchise/MassEffect''[=/=]''Franchise/StarWars''[[spoiler:[=/=]''[=Borderlands=]'']] [[MassiveMultiplayerCrossover crossover]] and its sequel, ''Fanfic/{{Origins}}'', the price of victory (and even what that means) is explored.

--->'''Ironwood''': Do you honestly believe [[ExtranormalInstitute your children]] can win a war?//

** The Great War in [=RWBY's=] history was as terrible as it sounds. One hundred years of political and cultural tension erupted into ten years of brutal conflict between the alliances of Mistral and Atlas against Vale and Vacuo. Countless soldiers died in battle and just as many villages were lost to [[TheHeartless Grimm]] attacks while all of their capable fighters were drafted in the war. Humanity came perilously close to extinction until the final battle in Vacuo.

-->'''Ironwood''': Do you honestly believe [[ExtranormalInstitute your children]] can win a war?
-->'''Ozpin''': I hope they never have to.

* ''The Triumph Of Death'' by Creator/PieterBruegelTheElder shows how skeletons walk around and triumph in every way. Some of them are soldiers.

* ''Guernica'' by Creator/PabloPicasso was inspired by the UsefulNotes/SpanishCivilWar bombardement of the Spanish town Guernica and is perhaps the most iconic anti-war painting of the 20th century.
* The drawings of Otto Dix, who experienced it first hand during UsefulNotes/WorldWarI.

* ''[[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f0/1871_Vereshchagin_Apotheose_des_Krieges_anagoria.JPG The Apotheosis of War]]'' is a mid 19th-century painting by the Russian artist Vasily Vereshchagin depicting a huge pule of human skulls as the aftermath of a battle. The artist dedicated his painting "to all great conquerors, past, present and to come."

* Creator/FranciscoDeGoya 's ''Los Desastras De La Guerra'' (''The Disasters of War'') and ''The Third Of May, 1808'' show the brutalities and dehumanizing effect of the Napoleonic Wars in Spain.

* In the sequel to ''The Salvation War'', ''Pantheocide'', we get "treated" to [[spoiler: the angelic army being hit with a nuclear initiation. The description of the results is chilling.]].

* ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'' was never shy to this trope, but it was brought especially into focus in the ''Brothers' War'' 2022 set. While the original Brothers' War story had plenty of hallmarks of this trope in general, it largely focused on the big picture; The 2022 storyline instead focuses on the small people and perspectives not seen before. The stories follow soldiers left to die the hellish midts of battle, troops languishing in the desolate hell of the trenches, and survivors left to rebuild after the war's end, with no way to deal with the immense trauma and loss they've all suffered.

While not required, this theme is more common in wars set in recent history with the advent of the modern industrial age. Certainly war was never pretty or fun in the past, but with the creation of weapons capable of killing thousands of individual men and women in a matter of hours or weapons of mass destruction capable of wiping out whole cities at once, battlefields went from merely looking like places where people fought and died to ruined wastelands littered with corpses. More modern wars are also where the practice of total war, war on a whole country where even non-combatants aren't spared, became prevalent and the idea that a war wasn't finished until you completely ruined the enemy's ability to fight back. On this note, and while certainly experienced before industrialized war, is the horror of [[WarComesHome the war spreading to your homeland]] in which your town, city or nation is directly attacked or even invaded by a powerful military force. What's worse, this causes your friends, family and former non-combatants to be caught in the crossfire where they can easily die, which makes this conflict a [[ItsPersonal a personal one]] that has left destruction, death and pain in its aftermath should you fail to protect your allies from the enemy.

* In the OpeningPrologue of ''Series/TheLordOfTheRingsTheRingsOfPower'', glimpses of what is looks like the aftermath of ''the Battle of Unnumbered Tears)'' are shown, with a hill made of helmets and heads, and a traumatized Galadriel next to it. The war against Morgoth was so terrifying that the Elves of Valinor learned on their skin for the first time what "death" means. Galadriel herself was left so scarred by the war, that she spent centuries hunting down any evil left, alienating everyone around her because of her KnightTemplar tendencies.

* Utilized with brutally effective MoodDissonance in ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}''. A cheery Disney musical number is [[MusicalInterruptus literally interrupted mid-verse]] by the discovery of a massacred village (courtesy of the Huns), complete with a giant field full of dead bodies and a gratuitous EmpathyDollShot confirming no children escaped either. Until now the horrors of the BigBad's war crimes had been [[GoryDiscretionShot kept well away from the camera]], but this scene pulls no punches in showing that Shan Yu is a warlord with no compunction about turning China into a graveyard as part of his invasion.

* Utilized with brutally effective MoodDissonance in ''WesternAnimation/{{Mulan}}''. A cheery Disney musical number is literally interrupted mid-verse by the discovery of a massacre (courtesy of the Huns), complete with a giant field full of dead bodies and a gratuitous EmpathyDollShot confirming no children escaped either. Until now the horrors of the BigBad's war crimes had been [[GoryDiscretionShot kept well away from the camera]], but this scene pulls no punches in showing that Shan Yu is a warlord with no compunction about turning China into a graveyard as part of his invasion.