Basic Trope: Someone dies and goes to the afterlife, thinks they're in heaven, but it turns out they're in Hell instead.
- Straight: Alice is in a car accident, she dies and goes to an afterlife. It looks like Fluffy Cloud Heaven but when she realizes she keeps getting injured in crazy ways, she realizes she's in Hell.
- Exaggerated: Alice is in a car accident, she dies and goes to the afterlife. It looks like Fluffy Cloud Heaven and she gets a sweet new car. She gets in another car accident and then keeps getting successively worse accidents that all cause her to relieve the pain of death each time. She realizes she's in hell after the 27th time.
- Downplayed: Alice is actually in some form of purgatory masquerading as Fluffy Cloud Heaven, so it has truly good things and truly bad things.
- Justified:
- In this universe, Heaven and Hell look similar.
- Hell isn't actually a place of eternal torture, so one could easily confuse it for Heaven when entering it.
- Boredom can be a lot more torturous than an eternity of pain and Hell can be very inventive in how it brings it about.
- Inverted: Alice thinks she's in a Fire and Brimstone Hell, but she's having a great time there. Eventually, she figures it out: she is Heaven, but she's always had a fondness for devilish motifs, so this is just how it appeared for her.
- Subverted:
- It turns out Alice is actually just in Purgatory.
- It turns out that Alice is actually alive.
- Alice is in Heaven, it's just a Hell of a Heaven for her.
- This section of Hell is leased out to Heaven due to overcrowding up there.
- Double Subverted:
- But after she leaves Purgatory, she thinks she's in Heaven, but she's in Hell.
- She then dies for real and it happens again.
- But she got Rerouted from Heaven and doesn't realize it initially.
- Alice isn't allowed onto the aforementioned section.
- Parodied:
- The reason for this misunderstanding is because the afterlives have "had their decor swapped by mistake".
- Clyde dies and wakes up in a casino. Upon winning at a slot machine, he comes to the conclusion he's in heaven. Three seconds later upon winning a second time, he realizes he's in hell.
- Zigzagged:
- Alice is in a car accident. She thinks she's in Heaven but then realizes she keeps getting injured and she's in Hell...except she's not, she's in purgatory...but then she goes to a place which looks like heaven, but then turns out to be Hell...but it turns out she was in the wrong afterlife. Then, she wakes up and it turns out that she survived the crash and was taken to hospital and dreamt the experience while under anesthesia.
- Clyde isn't in heaven or in hell, he's on an airplane. And nobody believes him about the gremlin on the wing because he's Hitler, and Eva Braun is a giant fly.
- Averted:
- There is no afterlife, or at least no Heaven or Hell.
- Alice does not mistake Hell for Heaven, or vice versa.
- Everybody Lives.
- Enforced: ???
- Lampshaded: "Y'sure this is Hell? I mean I thought I was in Heaven a few minutes ago, this place ain't so bad."
- Invoked: Alice declares to everyone that they're actually in hell.
- Exploited:
- Defied:
- Alice is careful driving so she doesn't die.
- Alice makes sure not to sin.
- Alice is fully aware that she'll go to Hell when she dies, so she refuses to believe that the apparent Fluffy Cloud Heaven is anything but Hell in disguise.
- Discussed: "How do I know which afterlife I'm in?"
- Conversed: "The so-called Hell in that episode must be pretty good if someone thought it was Heaven."
- Implied: The possibility that Alice is in Hell is never actually brought up, but Heaven seems so unpleasant that the audience has to wonder.
- Deconstructed: The deception is too effective; the fake Heaven in Hell is almost exactly as good as the real one.
- Reconstructed: Once people figure out that they're in Hell, they get booted to a more traditional area.
- Played for Laughs: It pretty much is Heaven, the only thing wrong with it is that it doesn't serve raspberry lemonade.
- Played for Drama: Alice bursts into tears on realizing she's a damned soul.
- Played for Horror: Everyone in the so-called Fluffy Cloud Heaven keeps getting injured in horrific ways.
