Judgement of the Dead

"Also another book was opened, the book of life. And the dead were judged according to their works, as recorded in the books."
— Revelation 20:12^note Detail from The Last Judgement (1904)

Suppose that The Hero Dies. Will they go to Heaven, to Hell, or somewhere else entirely? In this trope, our hero (or their spirit/soul) appears before a judge, who reviews their actions in life to determine where they deserve to end up. Often this is a chance to recap and reflect upon important events and character-defining moments in the story.

The judgement typically takes place in an Afterlife Antechamber, with the character being judged moving on to Heaven and Hell, the Spirit World, The Underworld, The Nothing After Death, or wherever is appropriate for the setting and deeds. Occasionally, the deceased person might be able to talk the judge out of sentencing them at all, and return to the land of the living. In To Hell and Back plotlines, this sort of Rules Lawyering is essential to persuade the judge to let you in or out.

Who does the judging can vary — it can be anyone from God himself to a God of the Dead to the Grim Reaper to Saint Peter (the gatekeeper of Fluffy Cloud Heaven) or any other form of divine lackey. The judge's temperament can fall anywhere from the Hanging Judge to The Paragon, but often they are Lawful Neutral, appearing harsh or eerie but devoted to justice. All Are Equal in Death after all, and beggars and kings alike can expect to be judged by the same standards. This trope is almost essential to any Celestial Bureaucracy.

Note that the judgement does not need to be a formal proceeding, occasion or event; in fact, the less important the judge is in the grand scheme of things, the less likely it is to be an actual trial. A typical depiction (particularly in comedic works) is to have St. Peter simply read over the newly deceased's entry in the all-seeing Book of Earthly Deeds, and make a pass/fail decision then and there. Of course, the Rule of Drama states that the protagonist is most likely to be refused passage.

This trope is Older Than Dirt, as the judgement of the dead was a key part of Egyptian Mythology. Similar elements exist in many modern religions. Shout Outs to to older examples are common; expies of characters from The Aeneid and recreations of the Weighing of the Heart from the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead seem to be especially popular.

Compare Chess with Death, where a character's fate is determined by a test of skills or luck rather than a trial of their actions. Compare also Jury of the Damned, where the judgement happens while the defendant is still alive and by a jury of evil souls. Contrast It's a Wonderful Plot and Yet Another Christmas Carol, which also involve supernatural reflection on a character's life, but seek to make a character change their ways rather than determine their fate in the afterlife.

As this is a Death Trope, unmarked spoilers abound. Beware.

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Examples

Anime and Manga

• The famous ritual of Anubis weighing dead people's hearts on a pair of scales against a feather is parodied in Oh, Suddenly Egyptian God. The scales are replaced with a see-saw; Anubis stands in for the feather of Ma'at at one end, while the souls (not hearts) jump onto the other end to weigh against him.
• King Yemma, based on the figure in Japanese folklore with the same name, is introduced in Dragon Ball Z as the one to judge souls brought to his palace after death. He is a massive horned oni who, comedically, is in a business suit for a literal desk job and endlessly stamps away on paperwork deeming if souls will go to Heaven or Hell, though some characters like Kami can influence his decisions if the situation is dire enough.

Art

• The Sistine Chapel's altar painting depicts Jesus in the center calling the souls of the just from the grave to ascend to their reward of Heaven with his right hand while condemning the souls of the wicked into the fires of Hell with his left hand.

Comic Books

• The French comic Passe Moi Le Ciel has as this its premise: St. Peter looks over the life of people waiting to get into Heaven and sends them to Hell if they deserve it (and/or he doesn't like them for some reason). The Devil is both a coworker and Sitcom Archnemesis.

Fan Fiction

• Evilhumour's "Powers That Be" multiverse, including A Diplomatic Visit and The Pieces Lie Where They Fell, has the Judge (whose Role, per this trope, is to judge the dead, though Death can bypass the Judge if the soul involved had been a Power, and carry them straight to their intended place in the afterlife) as one of the Powers, and the only one without an Opposite. Princess Luna, in the second of the Diplomacy-verse stories, says this of them:
  Luna: "They can't be bargained with. They can't be reasoned with. They don't feel pity or remorse or fear. All they do is judge, determining a soul's fate upon its entrance to the afterlife. And their decision is final."
• In Pony Pals: Dirk Strider Edition, Author Avatars Dirk Strider and Jeanne Betancourt get together with a demonic cat named Minos to judge Acorn for his many crimes and shepherd him into the afterlife. Things quickly get derailed in a very meta way, and Acorn is able to return to the land of the living through a Retcon.
• With This Ring: Paragon Paul invokes this judgement for Teth Adom and Teth Adam by starting a Battle in the Center of the Mind between them and inviting the gods who empower them to provide the judgement. When Adam fails, he is swallowed by Ammut and Adom takes over the body.

Film

• This is the premise of Defending Your Life, in which souls pass to an Earth-like purgatory called Judgement City after death. Here, souls are tried to see whether they should be sent back to Earth (if they are very flawed or still retain fears), or Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence (if they do not).
• Dont Eat The Pictures features Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus — yes that Big Bird and Mr. Snuffulepagus -- helping a 4000 year old Egyptian child solve a riddle that will allow him to be judged by Anubis. Once that's over with, Big Bird then has to provide one of his feathers to be balanced against the child's heart to decide whether he joins his ancestors among the stars.
• Outward Bound is about passengers on a spooky ocean liner, who aren't quite sure how they got there. Eventually they figure out that they're all dead and the ship is an Afterlife Express taking them to either heaven or hell. Once their voyage is done, an "Examiner" comes on board, reviews their cases, and decides whether they're going to heaven or hell and just what the nature of their afterlife will be.
• A whippet angel greets unscrupulous Charlie Barkin in All Dogs Go to Heaven. She consults a tome which contains Charlie's image and a list of his misdeeds. Subverted, as none of this seems to matter, as dogs are inherently good and loyal, thereby attaining heaven by default.
• In Left Behind: Rise Of The Antichrist, Chloe Steele dreams of standing before Jesus and handing Him a photo of herself, awaiting judgment. Jesus looks at her, shakes His head no, and prevents her from going through the door to meet with her brother Raymie.

Literature

• The Aeneid:
  • King Minos is seen judging the newly dead in between the ghosts of infants and the suicides as Aeneas enters the realm of Pluto.
  • Apollo's priestess explains that those damned to the Fields of Punishments are first interviewed by Rhadamanthus, who they are compelled to tell their every crime.
• In American Gods, Anubis weighs Shadow's heart against a feather. It balances, and when Shadow is given his choice of afterlife he chooses The Nothing After Death.
  Shadow: I want to rest now. That's what I want. I want nothing. No Heaven, no Hell. Just let it end.
• In the Bobby Dollar series, recently deceased will be visited by angels and demons who then hold a trial where the parties serve as defense and prosecution respectively, while a neutral celestial being acts as the judge to decide if the deceased will go to heaven or hell.
• The Camp Half-Blood Series:
  • A version of The Underworld shown in Percy Jackson and the Olympians, the judgement of the souls is performed by a rotating roster of judges done at the Judgment Pavilion. They decide whether souls go to the Fields of Punishment (for those who did evil), the Fields of Asphodel (for more or less neutral souls), Elysium (for good souls), or in exceedingly rare cases, the Isles of the Blest (for the absolute best souls who do good three reincarnations in a row). True to Classical Mythology, Minos is one of the judges, although historical figures such as Thomas Jefferson and William Shakespeare are also mentioned.
  • In the companion series within the same continuity, but based on Egyptian Mythology, the judgement of Anubis becomes a plot point. Since most of the pantheon has been sealed away for thousands of eons and only recently released the characters are working to restore their stations; as the new Osiris, Julius Kane is working through a long backlog of souls (and the finale has him rejoined by a number of other judgement gods, who'd previously resided in the House of Rest until they felt they were needed again during the battle with the Forces of Chaos). To this end they must deliver the feather of truth to the scale at the entrance to the afterlife, but they must maintain total honesty or it becomes too heavy to move.
• The Divine Comedy: In Inferno, King Minos is depicted as the judge of the dead in Hell, sitting at the entrance of the second circle where he judges damned souls that enter, wrapping his snake-like tail around them corresponding to the circle number they are sent to. Just one of the many elements lifted from Classical Mythology.
• Incarnations of Immortality: On a Pale Horse: The job of Death is to judge the souls that are too close to the line between good and evil, and help them go to their correct afterlives.
• The Silmarillion: In J.R.R. Tolkien's Legendarium, the Vala Mandos (Namo) presides over Aman's halls of the dead, where the souls of elves killed in conflict are interred until they are deemed fit for re-embodiment. Mandos presides over these judgments based on the individual's deeds in life, mental health, and willingness to return to the world of the living; only one, Feanor, has been barred from leaving until the end of time.
• Warrior Cats: In Squirrelflight's Hope, the titular character and her sister, Leafpool, are fatally wounded by a rockfall while helping the Sisters and their souls end up being judged before StarClan. There, the StarClan cats challenge Leafpool for having broken the code by taking a WindClan mate and for Squirrelflight lying about being the mother of her kits, to which Leafpool defends her sister and tells the cats that she had long paid for her mistakes and never regretted having her kits. Leafpool then chooses to move on to StarClan while Squirrelflight successfully fights to return to her family and clan.
• In The Wish List, it's revealed that all souls who have recently died will have the good deeds and sins that they have performed in their life weighed upon each other to determine whether they will go to heaven or hell. The Protagonist Meg Finn is one of the rare cases where her soul is perfectly balanced between good and evil, so she gets sent back to Earth as a spirit in order to tip the scales one way or the other.

Live-Action TV

• According to Jim: The Series Finale, "Heaven Opposed to Hell" combines this with Courtroom Episode; After Jim chokes on a shrimp puff, God decides to hold a trial to determine whether Jim gets to go to heaven or hell, with Andy (who loves Jim the most) defending Jim and Dana (who despises Jim the most) and the Devil trying to get him to Hell. Eventually, God ultimately decides that he doesn't want Jim to go to Heaven, so Jim's family stands up for him and also decide to go to Hell as a happy family. The Devil doesn't want this, so he and God both decide to give Jim a second shot at life.
• In American Gods (2017), Anubis serves this role for two characters and weighs their hearts against an ostrich feather:
  • Mrs. Fadil, who initially doesn't realize that she's dead. When her heart balances with the feather she asks Anubis to choose an afterlife for her, and only wants to not be sent to the same place as her abusive father.
  • Laura Moon. She declines to have her heart weighed, and Anubis sentences her to The Nothing After Death for her lack of belief. She refuses to go, but then she's resurrected by the power of Mad Sweeney's coin anyway.
    Laura: Don't I get a say in this?
    Anubis: Death is not a debate! How many, do you think, have come before you, all with promises and threats of glory, gold, love? Who are you to misguide me from my duty? You are but a man, not even one I should remember! You shall go into the darkness, and I shall forget having ever met you.
• One episode of The Brittas Empire has Brittas dying and being sent up to heaven. He is read a List of Transgressions from Saint Peter and is subsequently prevented from going to Heaven. However, Peter then receives word of the Heroic Sacrifice he committed beforehand, which allows him in.
• An entire season (all ten episodes) of the Norwegian comedy show Fleksnes Fataliteter revolved around the main character dying and ending up in front of the Pearly Gates. But St. Peter doesn't allow him entrance, and instead makes him watch various scenes from his life (which partly includes footage from earlier seasons).
• While there is no singular 'judgement' that happens per individual, the idea of judging people based on the good or bad they did on Earth and sending them to an appropriate afterlife is an essential part of the premise of The Good Place. Each action has a positive (good) or negative (bad) point value, and only the people with the highest positive scores get into the titular Good Place, with everyone else save one person sent to the Bad Place. The only problem is that the system has failed to account for how complicated and interconnected modern life is.
• Played For Laughs in Horrible Histories where one reoccurring sketch called "Stupid Deaths" has Death himself judging the deaths of various people throughout history to determine whether they make it through to the afterlife. However unlike most versions of this trope, he judges based on how much the deaths are able to make him laugh, and if they entertain him enough then he lets them into the afterlife.
• Played With in Lexx. Stanley falls off a Moth and drowns on the Planet Water, which the course of season 3 eventually reveals is the in-universe equivalent of Heaven. Its counterpart, Fire, serves as Hell. Stanley is then judged as to which of the two planets his soul should be remanded to. Unfortunately, the judge is Prince the ruler of fire, (and thus, the analog of Satan) who has his own reasons for wanting to condemn Stanley to Fire, effectively making it a Kangaroo Court. At the end of the episode, despite having tried his best in a hard universe and numerous extenuating circumstances, even Stanley himself is convinced he truly belongs of Fire. And then the whole thing gets subverted since souls on Fire and Water are effectively still alive, and Xev is ultimately able to rescue him.
• This becomes one of the major themes in Manifest. People who have returned from the dead have a period exactly as long as they were gone, and then they're judged. Those who are still evil die again, while those who have redeemed themselves can survive it. An extra complication is that people who died and returned as a group are also judged as a group. And the plane had nearly 200 people on board...
• Saturday Night Live: This appears n a tribute to Rodney Dangerfield. In the sketch, St. Peter reads a list of questions to the late comedian who has arrived at the pearly gates, then simply says, "Okay, you can get in." RD is amazed at this, and St. Peter admits, "I just wanted to hear those jokes one last time." RD is nearly reduced to tears upon realizing that he has finally gotten some respect.
• In the first episode of the Fox series Second Chance Charles Russell dies and goes to be judged; he's found too bad for Heaven and too good for Hell. He is given the opportunity to go back to earth and try to give his teenage self a nudge in the right direction - a "second chance" if you will.
• Zigzagged in Supernatural. The Grim Reaper and his army of lesser "Reapers" are responsible for ferrying souls to the afterlife, but they do not judge which afterlife they are destined for. This role was originally carried out by God, and after he went missing the Angels hired the pagan god Anubis to continue judgment in his absence. However, when the Winchesters attempt to blackmail Anubis into altering somebody's destined afterlife, he flatly declares that neither he nor God can actually change it: people themselves are responsible for their fates, through the choices they have made in life. Free will and all that.

Mythology And Religion

• The Ur-Example may be Egyptian Mythology. After death, people would be sent before Osiris (or a tribunal of gods in some versions), who would weight their heart against a feather representing truth and goodness. If the person's heart was heavy with bad deeds, it would be fed to demons and they would be destroyed. If not, the deceased would be allowed to live forever in the land of Osiris.
• Many passages in The Bible refer to a final judgement of souls. Most Christian denominations believe in a Last Judgement in which Christ will return in some manner and separate the good and the evil and send them to separate fates, though there is considerable disagreement about the timing and location of this.
  • In Eastern Orthodox theology, there is a distinction between the Last Judgement (for the entire humanity after the Second Coming of Christ) and the Personal Judgement (for every person after death; often called the aerial tollhouses). In short: first, the Personal Judgement's results may be changed for the better until the Last Judgement, while the latter will be the absolutely final decision; second, after the Personal Judgement, the soul gets just the foreshadowing of its future eternal glory or eternal despair, after the souls reuniting with bodies and the Last Judgment, the person will experience the fullness of Heaven or Hell.
• Similarly, in Islam there is a belief in a Last Judgement where at the end of the world the dead will be resurrected and God will judge everyone based on their deeds, with the righteous being granted eternal life.
• In Chinese Mythology, the soul of the departed, obviously the defendant, is tried up against a Mirror that plays instances of specific actions in his life. The defendant gets a supernatural lawyer who knows the laws of heaven. Unlike in most religions, you can argue your way out of a sentence in Chinese Hell. Chinese Hell resembles an Old Chinese torture chamber/prison, whereby you serve your punishment for a given amount of time (not unlike the mortal penal system), and then you're released either in the afterlife or you get reborn.
• In Greek Mythology the dead were judged by Minos, Aeacus, and Rhadamanthus upon entering Hades' realm to determine what their fate in the underworld would be. Especially wicked people were sent to torment in Tartarus.
• In Hindu Mythology, the judgement is done by Yama, the god of Death, based on one's accumulated karma throughout their life. Those who have good karma spend some pleasant time in the afterlife and are reincarnated as a higher class or lifeform, while the opposite is true for those with bad karma, who are tortured in Naraka and reincarnated as lower classes or lifeforms.
• In Mesopotamian Mythology, either Shamash (the sun) or his father Sin (the moon) judge the souls of the dead in the afterlife.

Tabletop Games

• The Tabletop Game adaptation of the Artesia setting, Artesia: Adventures in the Known World, has a section on the mechanics of what happens after death. For followers of the Yheran faith, the Path of the Dead ends in this on the Seventh Day^note assuming you make it to Seedre's court, when they ask for forgiveness from those dead who they have wronged, have their sins and the prayers of the living tabulated, and are assigned their final fate. Followers of Islik, the Divine King avert this: They don't ask for judgment, but for Islik's divine mercy. If they don't get it, they have to face Seedre's judgment - which usually means Hell, since they haven't lived by Yhera's laws.
• In the Forgotten Realms campaign setting, Kelemvor, the god of the dead, judges the false based on how righteous they are and assigns them to live various locations in the City of the Dead in accordance with their deeds. People who never had faith at all are turned into mortar for the city wall. People who had faith but not in one specific deity go to the corresponding Outer Plane based on Character Alignment. People who worshipped one god above all others are (generally) collected by the god's servants and taken to their patron's specific afterlife realm.
• Zig-Zagged in Pathfinder's Golarion setting. Souls naturally progress to an afterlife appropriate to their Character Alignment and/or Patron God, so the Psychopomps only adjudicate complicated cases like major last-minute conversions or disputed soul-binding pacts. The ultimate authority is the God of the Dead Pharasma, but it's very rare for her to get involved.

Theatre

• Liliom has a scene in which Liliom and two other suicides are posthumously brought to a police magistrate's court (an analogous scene was written for the musical adaptation Carousel but ultimately deleted).

Video Games

• In Dante's Inferno, the video game adaptation of The Divine Comedy, Minos, the Judge of the dead, is depicted as the second boss. Dante is forced to fight him and split his face in half on his own breaking wheel to gain access to the second circle of Hell.
• In Final Fantasy XIV, Thal, God of the Dead and one half of Nald'thal the Traders, is believed to judge the dead within his hallowed halls. Thal weighs a soul's deeds in life on his Scales of Justice, and from the balance decides which of the six heavens or six hells that soul will go.
• Guild Wars 2
  • Those who die enter the Realm Of Lost Souls in the Mists. Dead spirits must discover their purpose, and then talk with a judge (formerly the death god Grenth, now his avatar) in order to move on. The Judge is portrayed as just but a bit creepy.
  • In Vabbi, priests of Palawa Joko hold a trial for every dead person to evaluate their deeds to determine if they are worthy of the "privilege" of being Awakened— turned into a mummy. This is presented as a great honor even though it is in fact an eternity of mindless slavery.
• League of Legends has an alternate skin for Galio called Gatekeeper Galio which transforms him into a Big Red Devil that serves as this for the enemies he faces. Hell is the only place he considers sending people, it's just a matter of which specific circle of hell they'll be assigned to, and he's not remotely picky about his criteria.
  (towards Illaoi) "Worshipping false gods! Circle Six!"
  (to Graves) "Have you been smoking? Circle Three!"
  (to Aurelion Sol) "Pride! Circle Eight!"
  (to Ivern) "Being a weirdo tree hugger! Circle One!"
• Touhou Project bases its afterlife upon a combination of Classical and Buddhist mythology, starting with the departed finding themselves at the shores of the Sanzu River where the local shinigami ferries the departed across the waters, the distance from the shore of the living to Higan, the other side, depending on variables such as payment done to the ferrywoman and who they were in life. Once in Higan, the departed is brought before Eiki Shiki, Yamaxanadu, the Yama of Paradise, who, using her Rod of Remorse and Cleansed Crystal Mirror, confronts the departed with their past and sins and then passes judgement upon them. She also tends to visit the realm of the living on slow days (or when her shinigami ferrywoman is slacking off again) and always makes time to lecture the living in order to make them improve upon themselves so she won't have to send them to Hell.
• In World of Warcraft, the souls of the dead are guided to the Shadowlands. Their first stop is in Oribos, the Eternal City. There, they are brought before the Arbiter. With a single glance, the Arbiter sees the entire life of a soul in an instant. And with that knowledge, she sends the soul to their deserved afterlife among the infinite realms of the Shadowlands. Recently, something has caused the Arbiter to fall into an unending slumber. Without her power to judge and guide souls, all souls coming to the Shadowlands since then have been cast into the Maw.

Web Comics

• When a god-tier player dies in Homestuck, a cosmic clock will judge whether their death was heroic (i.e. martyrdom), just (if the person had become evil or tyrannical), or neither. If the death is neither, the player will return to life to continue fighting, but if they died for good or evil, they will remain dead forever.
• In The Order of the Stick, after Roy dies he sits down with a celestial deva who resembles a lawyer or a social worker. They go over his "file" of actions in life to determine if he is worthy of a Lawful Good afterlife.

Western Animation

• In Beavis And Butthead, Beavis is (temporarily) dead after running head-on into a wall. He rises through the clouds hearing angelic choirs ("This music sucks!") and encounters St. Peter, who reads all Beavis's bad deeds recorded in his life journal...this ends up going on a long time with no sign of ending.
  Beavis: Uhh, this is beginning to suck. Do I get into Heaven or not?
  St. Peter: ...Umm, no.
• The Tom and Jerry cartoon "Heavenly Puss" has Tom get squished by a piano (a typical injury that in other episodes Tom would bounce back from, but in this story he actually dies) and ascend via escalator to Fluffy Cloud Heaven. However, a gatekeeper cat informs Tom that he cannot board the Heavenly Express until he obtains a signed Certificate of Forgiveness from Jerry. Tom has only one hour to complete this mission; failure will result in Tom being condemned to a fiery Hell presided over by a satanic bulldog. Fortunately for Tom, given that Jerry relents a fatal instant too late and Tom falls into the fiery cauldron just as he was making a dash for the escalator, it turns out that It Was All A Dream.

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