Fluffy Cloud Heaven - Television Tropes & Idioms

There is no need to be worried by facetious people who try to make the Christian hope of 'Heaven' ridiculous by saying they do not want to 'spend eternity playing harps'. The answer to such people is that if they cannot understand books written for grown-ups, they should not talk about them.

— C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Fluffy Cloud Heaven is taking millennia of belief and art, and boiling it down to a Hallmark card. Don't expect to find this description in any religious text.

Heaven takes place in the clouds, which are solid enough to walk on. Humans become angels after they die. They are given wings, a long white robe, a lyre/harp and a Holy Halo that is literally a golden glowing ring that floats over their heads. Smaller Super Deformed cherubs à la Cupid may float around too. Other than that, it's not exactly clear what people do. If God exists in Fluffy Cloud Heaven at all, he's a giant white-haired, bearded man wandering around or sitting on a huge white marble throne. There is often a line in front of the "Pearly Gates" of people wanting to get in, with an angel based on St. Peter who acts as a bouncer. He'll read his book about all the naughty and nice things someone has done, and then either let them in or send them to Hell via a trapdoor. Often he has a desk right in front of the gates. Sometimes there's even a computer on it.

This is The Theme Park Version of Heaven. Nowadays, as Mr. Lewis points out in the opening quote, the utilization of this depiction is usually meant as satire. The exceptions almost invariably treat the depiction as a simple visual short-hand.

In a Rage Against The Heavens setting, Fluffy Cloud Heaven will have its tackiness emphasized: Halos are tacky and hung up via a metal strip at the back of the neck, like in a child's school play. Elements of Fluffy Cloud Heaven may be used as a disguise for "the truth."

Fluffy Cloud Heaven may be the home of Hollywood angels, who are less like something out of any established religion and more like fairy godmothers and godfathers. Some only offer banal homilies to their clients; others provide supernatural aid, but none of them smite the unrighteous, old testament style.

Speaking of angels, the cherubim in Ezekiel 1

were originally depicted as four-winged, four-armed beings with the faces of man, eagle, lion and ox, and eyes all over the place. Principalities, Powers, Virtues, Dominia and Thrones aren't exactly easy on the sanity, for that matter.

See also Fire And Brimstone Hell. Not to be mistaken for Bubbly Clouds, which may be fluffy but is still very terrestrial. Characters who die in a story often Died Happily Ever After before coming here.

Examples

Anime and Manga

In Mahou Sentai Magiranger, the Heavenly Saints live in Magitopia, a Fluffy Cloud Heaven-like Alternate Universe. There are buildings here, actually: expect the inside to be endless with no signs of walls or doors, and stark white all around (including the pillars and any furniture.) However, this being sentai, the Saints themselves are People In Rubber Suits instead of Winged Humanoids. Some of them command Humongous Mecha.
Magical Pokaan sends Yuuma to the Fluffy Cloud Heaven, to the extent that she even says "Ahhhh, it's so fluffy and comfy!". She ends up getting bored, though, so she's simply sent back to Earth.
In Dragon Ball Z, there is a variation on this. Fluffy clouds abound, and when a character dies they get a halo over their head. Heaven itself is run in a modern fashion. Everyone who works there wears white collar clothing typical of an office setting, and everyone seems extremely stressed. From the check-in point (where one awaits judgment) good beings are flown on a plane to a paradise, while bad beings are dropped through the clouds and into Hell. The true warriors are allowed to visit Gods for training and an eternity of exercise.
A standard Fluffy Cloud Heaven appears as the home of Nanael in Queen's Blade, complete with Greco-Roman architecture lying about.
Averted in Wolfs Rain. The brief glimpse we get of Paradise is endless fields, meadows, pastures, full of white flowers.

Comic Book

DC Comics have sometimes featured Fluffy Cloud Heaven, often with the justification that Heaven doesn't really look like this, but it's something mortals can comprehend. In the Crisis Crossover Day of Judgement a side-door in Fluffy Cloud Heaven leads to Grey Cloud Purgatory.
- It's also established in the DC Universe that the afterlife tends to be what the deceased wants, so if a good person expects Fluffy Cloud Heaven and desires it, that is what he will get.
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck features this version, complete with pastel colors and a fluffy cloud golf course.
Subverted in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, where the Fluffy Cloud Heaven is covered in filth and grime.
Jack Chick uses Fluffy Cloud Heaven in some of his infamous tracts, such as "This Was Your Life".
Chronicles of Wormwood by Garth Ennis. The Anti Christ visits Fluffy Cloud Heaven with the permission of Jesus (who is a brain damaged black man, no really). It's the typical sort, with a few inversions. It acts as the De Facto hell for terrorists, who are the nannies for babies' souls in Heaven. Each terrorist gets seventy babies to take care of. Think about it.

Commercials

And let's not forget those ridiculous ads for Philadelphia Cream Cheese.
- Oh please, I beg you, let's.

Film

Heaven in The Frighteners is half this, half bright-white-light. Hell, on the other hand, is half fire 'n' brimstone, half gigantic Lovecraftian worms that gobble souls up and then dive back into the abyss.

Literature

Subverted in Robert A Heinlein's Job A Comedy Of Justice. Protagonist Alex dies and goes to Fluffy Cloud Heaven, only to learn that it's deadly dull and overrun with bureaucracy.
- The scene is taken directly from Heinlein's favorite book, Jurgen: A comedy of Justice by James Cabell. Except that it's run by the hero's grandmother, who lambasted the god-above-God into making it this way.
In For Love Of Evil, Satan is trying to take over partly because he's seen that heaven is a fluffy totalitarian police state and wants to free the souls there.
- Mock-Heaven in Hell is also a Fluffy Cloud Heaven in the same book
In Mark Twain's Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven, Heaven at first is like this — but it is later revealed that this is because that's what most people expect, and Heaven tries to make people happy by giving them anything they want. Most people eventually wise up and develop more interesting lives in Heaven later.
- Mark Twain also lampoons Fluffy Cloud Heaven in Letters From The Earth, written from Satan's perspective while visiting Earth.
The Onion's book Our Dumb Century features a spoof headline from the week after the airplane was invented, about the government planning airplane expeditions to Heaven. The story reveals that within ten years, it will be possible for the average American to vacation there.

Live Action TV

The concept is mentioned in Black Adder;
Edmund: You see, the thing about heaven is that heaven is for people who like the sort of things that go on in heaven. Like, well, singing, talking to God, watering pot(ted) plants.
This editor has noticed that whenever a famous person (naturally, only people who were famous for doing good things) dies, there will be an editorial cartoon showing that person in Fluffy Cloud Heaven, either making some wisecrack to the angels/other dead people about what they're famous for or discovering that the angels/other dead people are fans of theirs.
- This editor has a picture on his hard drive of Steve Irwin in heaven cheerfully poking one of the aforementioned chibi-Cherubim with a stick.
  - This◊ was what I found matching that description.
  - This troper recalls a similar pic, only it wasn't a cherub-rather, it was a vaguely succubus-looking demon, with Steve having pink wings growing from his back.
  - Cherubim? Succubus? Bah. How about lassoing a tyrannosaurus, with the caption "In memory of Steve Irwin: wrestling dinosaurs in the sky 4-evah". Link here.
- A recent one that turned up in USA Today has late comedian George Carlin arriving here with the implication he was in trouble for having deconstructed religion so often in his act, which seems like a cruel Take That.
- Also, when Richard Nixon died, he went here but apparently had to listen to the Watergate tapes for all eternity.
- Another shows Rosa Parks being invited to sit in the front of a heaven-bound bus.
- James Doohan had a great one in the British Daily Mirror, where St. Peter phones God to tell him "I've just beamed up Scotty".
- One cartoon after Johnny Carson's death showed him standing at the Pearly Gates where St. Peter assures him that "Every cartoonist who draws me saying 'Heeeere's Johnny!' will be going straight to Hell."
Stephen Colbert, as a right-wing satire created by a devout Catholic, naturally has a very stereotypical (and more than slightly mangled) view of religion, and of Heaven:
Colbert: I'll get a harp, I'll have a mint julep and I'll ask Ronald Reagan questions.
Bishop N.T. Wright: And you'll be sitting there like that guy in the Far Side cartoon, saying "Gee, I wish I'd brought a magazine".
Lenny Henry imagined the 'House Band in Heaven' on his show - Elvis, Otis Redding, Karen Carpenter, Hendrix, Kurt Cobain... and George Formby on ukelele; "'Ey up Mr Hendrix can I 'ave a go? (sings) 'Ey Joe... where you goin' with that gun in yer 'and?'

Newspaper Comics

Parodied to... well, death, in The Far Side:
- "Welcome to Heaven. Here's your harp." "Welcome to Hell. Here's your accordion."
- Two dead people standing on a cloud. One has a shotgun and is bringing down live birds. "Are you sure you're supposed to be doin' that?"
- Someone gets sent to "hog heaven". It's Fluffy Cloud Heaven WITH PIGS!
- "... wish I'd brought a magazine..."
- Life on Cloud Eight.
- Etc. (Add at your leisure.)
Cartoonist Gahan Wilson is also fond of this trope. One of his cartoons shows some angels standing around in a small grubby room labeled "Heaven", with one of them commenting "I expected the place to be a lot more classy!"
Played straight in The Family Circus. Also, dead relatives return to Earth to talk to the living.

Videogame

In the video game Cave Story, the final enemies are demons who disguise themselves as Cupid-esque cherubs; the truth is revealed after they are killed.
At the end of Blue's Story in SaGa Frontier for the original PlayStation, Hell resembles Fluffy Cloud Heaven, until the hero approaches one of the cherubs....
Celestia in Disgaea resembles this.
- As does the heaven visible in Soul Nomad And The World Eaters.
Super Paper Mario has the "Overthere", a land of clouds and ~~angels~~ Nimbis for Good Players who ~~died~~ got their Game Over. Not to be confused with other more mortal cloud lands in the Super Mario Bros universe, of which there are quite a few.
In Afterlife, you build a Fluffy Cloud Heaven, though the angels are the working force instead of the residents (and some souls can become angels through training).
- The angels can also be residents as well (if you don't want them commuting from some other universe's Heaven), though they're segregated away from regular souls into their own special residential complexes. Got to be a trope in that somewhere...
Skyworld in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
The Simpsons 2007 plays this concept fairly straight. Cloud hopping and angelic versions of enemies from previous levels run rampant.
The Disc One Final Dungeon of Persona 4 is a variation of this with a somewhat melancholy ballad as the theme music. This is because it was made from Nanako's desire to see her dead mother again.

Webcomics

Used in The Order Of The Stick, when Roy Greenhilt dies.
- Subverted in the fact that this is just a sort of proto-heaven adventurers go to so that they can get sorted out in the great bureaucracy of the Afterlife; if you're approved, you get to go hang out in the first level of real Heaven until being raised or the desire for more spiritual fare sends you elsewhere. If not, you have to stay in Fluffy Cloud Heaven until that assessment changes.
  - It's implied that the Lawful Good heaven ascends to spiritual heights that mortals would only achieve after a long period there, but at least the entry has all the trappings of this trope. There's fluffy clouds, pearly gates, spirits peering down on the lives of the living. No St. Peter, but there's a morality-auditing angel with desk and computer.
Dresden Codak employs a variation of this, known as Secular Heaven, an afterlife specifically reserved for people who don't believe in an afterlife. With dragons.
Subverted partially in Narbonic, when a bunch of monstrous creatures turn out to be cherubim: they, unlike the traditional babies with wings, more closely resemble the Ezekiel description. (Imagine a ball of eyes with six wings and insectoid jaws, and you'll have a pretty good idea.)
- This troper is pretty sure that this depiction of cherubim owes a lot to the character Progo from Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind In The Door, who is similarly depicted — and who identifies himself as a "cherubim" rather than a "cherub" , insisting that on some level he is in fact a plural entity.

Western Animation

Nearly any North American cartoon, especially The Gary Coleman Show.
Spoofed in The Simpsons. One chapter of the former shows the difference between the "Protestant Heaven", a great gala of classy British and American gentlemen, and the "Catholic Heaven", with Latinos breaking piñatas and Irish dancing like Michael Flatley.
- Spoofed further in another episode where Marge forces the family to watch a Christian sitcom "about the everyday lives of angels" called Good Heavens. It depicts a middle-aged angel couple sitting on clouds reading, their dull routine only broken up by the wife telling the husband that Jesus called that afternoon ("He DID?!!?")
Subversion: In the aptly named South Park episode "A Ladder to Heaven", the boys try to build a physical ladder to Fluffy Cloud Heaven to contact the deceased Kenny so he can tell them where he hid a raffle ticket. They do succeed in reaching the clouds, but find no one there. The actual Heaven turns out to really be a Fluffy Cloud Heaven.
- Also shown in the episode "Best Friends Forever", where Kenny controls Heaven's army by PSP.
- "Probably" confirmed that not only is this a Fluffy Cloud Heaven, it's only for Mormons. Thus, in a further subversion, it's dull, especially compared to the Fire And Brimstone Hell where everybody else, good and evil, winds up.
- In the movie, Kenny is about to be welcomed into Fluffy Cloud Heaven complete with topless angels before he falls into Hell. He gains re-entry with his Heroic Sacrifice.
In Futurama: The Beast with a Billion Backs, it is revealed that this version of Heaven takes place on a planet-sized, tentacled alien from another universe.
- The idea is partially subverted when Leela says it's boring because everything is so wholesome, and we then see that people indeed have regular orgies.
The racist Uncle Ruckus dreams in The Boondocks episode "The Passion of Reverend Ruckus" of briefly visiting "White Heaven". He is met by Ronald Reagan, who explains that there are many "separate but equal" heavens for the various races, but strongly hinting that White Heaven is better.
Robot Chicken mocked this heavily as one skit featured a Fluffy Cloud Heaven that had people being regularly sucked into airplane jet engines.
- Damn you FAA!