History Main / CrapsackOnlyByComparison

* TheNumberOfTheBeast by Heinlein has our protagonists run into several such worlds. One of these, merely described, indicates abrupt EarthDrift.
* Most citizens of {{Xanth}} (magical realm) who travel to "drear Mundania" (non-magical rest of the world) feel that way about it.

* In ''BraveNewWorld'', John the Savage views the "utopian" world of London as amoral, unnatural, and pointless, while Lenina sees John's home on the savage reservation as backwards, uncivilized, and barbaric.

* This trope, or possibly its inversion, shows up in ''TheDispossessed'' by UrsulaKLeGuin. The protagonist, Shavik, goes from an anarcho-syndicalist utopia on the planet/moon Anarres to its planet/moon Urras (it's a double-planet system, and the two bodies aren't too different in size), which is dominated by the capitalist parliamentary republic A-Io and the totalitarian socialist Thu ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything if this reminds you of anything]], [[ColdWar it should]]), both of which have rigid class structures. After encountering the way the lower classes live and then being forced to take refuge in the embassy from a post-apocalyptic Earth, he says that the planet seems like hell to him; the ambassador comments that, compared to the way things are on Earth, it looks like heaven.\\

* "Stealing the Elf-King's Roses" by DianeDuane has a great example. It's a spoiler, though.

[[AC:Real Life]]
* Mexico.

* {{Enchanted}} sends Giselle to a place where TrueLove doesn't exist and there are no happy endings... [[TakeThat New York.]] Semi-subverted in that by the end of it she does seem to have managed a happy ending and true love while staying in our world.

* An episode of ''DoctorWho'' involves The Doctor trapped (possibly) in a dream world where his two married companions are in a humdrum rural town that is incredibly boring. The Doctor asks, "[[CrossesTheLineTwice So, what do you do to stave off the self-harm?]]" Apparently the CallToAgriculture is a death knell to him.

* BobTheAngryFlower dies and goes to heaven during one comic; he realizes that everything up there is so awesome that people still living on earth are in agony, relatively speaking. He then jumps down to earth, saying "I've gotta kill everyone!" (doubles as a cruel parody of DamagedSoul)

* This trope, or possibly its inversion, shows up in ''TheDispossessed'' by UrsulaKLeGuin. The protagonist, Shavik, goes from an anarcho-syndicalist utopia on the planet/moon Anarres to its planet/moon Urras (it's a double-planet system, and the two bodies aren't too different in size), which is dominated by the capitalist parliamentary republic A-Io and the totalitarian socialist Thu ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything if this reminds you of anything]], [[ColdWar it should]]), both of which have rigid class structures. After encountering the way the lower classes live and then being forced to take refuge in the embassy from a post-apocalyptic Earth, he says that the planet seems like hell to him; the ambassador comments that, compared to the way things are on Earth, it looks like heaven.
** We should note that ''The Dispossessed'' has a subtitle: "An Ambiguous Utopia;" [=LeGuin=] takes pains to portray the problems of an anarcho-syndicalist system in practice,[[hottip:*:Here would be a good place to note that [=LeGuin=] herself is an anarcho-syndicalist]] and Shavik frequently has his doubts about his own society.

* This trope, or possibly its inversion, shows up in ''TheDispossessed'' by UrsulaKLeGuin. The protagonist, Shavik, goes from an anarcho-syndicalist utopia on the planet/moon Anarres to its planet/moon Urras (it's a double-planet system, and the two bodies aren't too different in size), which is locked in a SpaceColdWar between the capitalist parliamentary republic A-Io and totalitarian socialist Thu ([[DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything if this reminds you of anything, it should]]), both of which have rigid class structures. After encountering the way the lower classes live and then being forced to take refuge in the embassy from a post-apocalyptic Earth, he says that the planet seems like hell to him; the ambassador comments that, compared to the way things are on Earth, it looks like heaven.

** We should note that ''The Dispossessed'' has a subtitle: "An Ambiguous Utopia;" [=LeGuin=] takes pains to portray the problems of an anarcho-syndicalist system in practice, and Shavik frequently has his doubts about his own society.

* This trope, or possibly its inversion, shows up in ''The Dispossessed'' by UrsulaKLeGuin -- the protagonist goes from an anarchic quasi-utopia on a moon to a much more statist society with rigid class stratification on the planet the moon is orbiting. After encountering the way the lower classes live and then being forced to take refuge in the embassy from a post-apocalyptic Earth, he says that the planet seems like hell to him; the ambassador comments that, compared to the way things are on Earth, it looks like heaven.

Compare LifeWillKillYou and HumansAreBastards. ValuesDissonance and CrazyCulturalComparison are bound to come into play.

Compare LifeWillKillYou and HumansAreBastards.

* In the 1987 ''Film/MastersOfTheUniverse'' movie, Teela and Man-at-Arms have their first taste of Earth food. Teela curiously asks what the white sticks in the middle are for, and she's instantly rendered nauseous when she's told that they're rib bones and she's eating a dead animal.

* In the 1987 ''MastersOfTheUniverse'' movie, Teela and Man-at-Arms have their first taste of Earth food. Teela curiously asks what the white sticks in the middle are for, and she's instantly rendered nauseous when she's told that they're rib bones and she's eating a dead animal.

* An episode of ''DoctorWho'' involves The Doctor trapped (possibly) in a dream world where his two married companions are in a humdrum rural town that is incredibly boring. The Doctor asks, "So, what do you do to stave off the self-harm?" Apparently the CallToAgriculture is a death knell to him.

* ''BraveNewWorld''. John the Savage views the "utopian" world of London as amoral, unnatural, and pointless, while Lenina sees John's home on the savage reservation as backwards, uncivilized, and barbaric.

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* ''The Adventures Of Oliver And Columbina'' features two world: The rosen dream lands, and reality-where-you-get-bored. The latter is simple and unproblematic for the readers, but totally incomprehensible for the characters.

* PansLabyrinth plays this straight for a few minutes, as the problem with our world is claimed to be that it has bright sunlight and cold. Then brutally averted for the rest of the movie, as it turns out that the world the heroine now lives in is a straight CrapsackWorld saturated in HighOctaneNightmareFuel.

* Inverted & played with in TheGiver and GatheringBlue: Jonas at first THINKS that he's in a utopia, but it's actually more of a CrapsackWorld. The town of GatheringBlue thinks itself a utopia, but it really isn't.
* Inverted in {{Discworld}}, with a traveler who consider Ankh-Morpoc to be NOT crapsack because his own homeland is so much worse. Rude and obnoxious guards are celebrated for not torturing random innocents to death, and so on.

* {{SPOCK}}'s song "Beam Me Up", (surely inspired by StarTrekIVTheVoyageHome,) sums up our world with the words "Beam me up, there's no intelligent life down here where I am".

''BraveNewWorld''. John the Savage views the "utopian" world of London as amoral, unnatural, and pointless, while Lenina sees John's home on the savage reservation as backwards, uncivilized, and barbaric.