It won't be a place of endless fiery torment, but it won't be paradise, or even as relatively pleasant as being alive.įor some this may be a short stay, while for others it can last anywhere from a few centuries to all eternity. The Limbo of The Divine Comedy is a serene and beautiful but endlessly dreary castle on the outskirts of Hell. Sometimes it's a literal waiting room, or a bright garden or chamber of white stone with light pouring in from Heaven proper. Bleaker works may depict it as a dull greyish void where nothing happens, or a misty ruin, shadowy forest, endless cave or desert, or a dark version of the real world. Sometimes it's shown as another world, much like our own. What these (meta)physical places are actually like varies greatly. Alternatively, in the event of a Near-Death Experience, this may serve as a brief respite where the hero can confer briefly with a dead loved one or mentor before coming Back from the Dead to fulfill their ultimate destiny. Often the first place that people come when they die, this may be simply an Afterlife Antechamber: a waiting room of the dead, where the souls of the departed may be assigned to their final destination by some manner of Celestial Bureaucracy. In fiction, however, the names are often treated as more or less interchangeable. note The two actually aren't the same in Catholic theology - Purgatory refers to a place where one's sins are purged before ascending to heaven Limbo (from the Latin limbus, meaning "edge") is a region on the outskirts of Hell where the souls of the unbaptized wander forever. The concept not being unique to any one religion or universal to most of them, however, can mean the names get co-opted for any number of other purposes. This trope is about places, usually called Purgatory or Limbo, which serve as an intermediate afterlife between Heaven and Hell, where morally average people go after they die. note But don't abandon all hope, ye who enter. But what about the others, those who aren't good enough to meet the strict prerequisites of Heaven, nor evil enough to deserve Hell?Įnter this trope. When people die, good ones go to Heaven, while the bad ones go to Hell.
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