This Isn't Heaven

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    Valentine: "I don't belong in Heaven, see? I want to go to the other place."

    Pip: "Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven, Mr. Valentine? This is the other place!!"
    —The Twilight Zone, "A Nice Place To Visit"

    Bob dies and goes to the afterlife. At first he seems to have gone to Fluffy Cloud Heaven: it's beautiful, there's wonderful music playing, he has everything he ever wanted, etc. But then he realizes that there's one essential thing missing or wrong, and the sudden realization dawns: This Isn't Heaven! Cue the frantic screaming of a damned soul...

    Often the thing missing or wrong is something superficial, like "no beer" or "eternally noisy neighbors." Can be a form of Ironic Hell, but it's not necessary. This is specifically for actually being in hell (or thinking that that's the case), not just still being alive or something similar.

    When they are actually in heaven and things are still like this, you get Hell of a Heaven.

    Examples of This Isn't Heaven include:

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    Film

    • At the end of Bad Girls From Valley High, the two Alpha Bitch Villain Protagonists die and wake up in a luxurious hotel room and are convinced they went to Heaven. Then the school dork shows up, claiming that he committed suicide to be with them and that he will be their roommate for the rest of eternity. He then briefly turns into a demon, prompting the girls to realize where they are and scream.

    Jokes

    • A classic Islamic joke: A man dies and meets God after death. God says, "You may have anything you ask." The man has as much food, wine, women, etc, as he wants. Then he gets bored and asks, "May I have some work?" God answers, "No, you can't. Enjoy!" The man says, "Then I want to go to hell!" And God smiles and says, "But you are in hell."
    • There are a number of jokes based on the idea that Hell is like Heaven where you have everything you want, but some detail is missing that prevents you from enjoying it.
      • A crossword puzzle maniac would find a whole library of them, only to realize that no-one has a pencil.
      • The stoner who chooses between the afterlife on fire and the afterlife without fire. He chose the latter and finds himself in a huge field of marijuana plants.
    • A variant - a hedonistic rockstar dies and goes to Hell. Considering that he's been a sinner all his life, he thinks he might be of some use to Satan, and so is eager to meet him - but before he can do so, he's made to sit in a drab waiting room, with nothing on the walls, five-year-old magazines on the coffee tables and two old biddies gossiping in the corner. Bored out of his skull, he grows increasingly impatient waiting for Satan, wondering how long he'll have to spend in the waiting room - upon which it dawns on him that he's not actually in the waiting room of Hell.
    • A priest that firmly believed Sex Is Evil had a disciple. The priest died and some time later, the disciple died too. At the afterlife, the disciple saw the Priest with a gorgeous woman at his lap.

    Master he cried – I see that God appreciated your sacrifices on earth, and now you will be rewarded with paradise’s pleasures!
    You Fool! – answered the priest – In the first place, This Isn't Heaven! And in the second, I am not being rewarded, she is being punished!


    Live Action TV

    • The Twilight Zone TOS. In "A Nice Place to Visit", a burglar is killed and goes to a place where his every wish is fulfilled by a man named Pip. Eventually he gets bored and the page quote above is spoken.
    • In The IT Crowd there's an episode where Douglas has a near death experience. His father is welcoming him towards a big white door, and it's all very white and glowy. Then Hitler pokes his head out, and Renholm tries to explain that "we're having a fancy dress party in Heaven"

    Music

    • In Sound Horizon's "Eru no Rakuen [-> side:A ->]", Elise wakes up in what she believes to be paradise - until she hears crying, and since she knows that no one would cry in paradise...

    Newspaper Comics

    • One arc in the "Celeb" strip in Private Eye had the protagonist apparently dead and in Fluffy Cloud Heaven. After a few strips, he becomes dissatisfied and complains to an angel that "this is purgatory". The angel replies "Of course it is. Where did you think you were?"

    Web Animation

    • The Trope Namer is an Easter Egg in the program Macromedia Central that features a Homestar Runner cartoon where Homestar and Strong Bad are stuck in "blue-fadey-land." Homestar thinks they died and went to heaven, and Strong Bad agrees after they find a Twinkie. Then Homestar says that it's just Strong Bad and him, forever! It suddenly dawns on Strong Bad that they're definitely not in heaven. He pounds on the edge of the frame screaming frantically as the background turns red...

    Homestar: Yeah you're right. I think it's probably Massachusetts.

    Web Comics

    Wonderella: "Wow, you guys are watching me from Heaven?!"
    Frank Sinatra: "Well, assholes don't exactly go to heaven, kiddo... ...but we're watchin' all the same."

    Western Animation

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