punishment in the afterlife theme

also known as: what if I had to endure eternal torment

A character (or their soul) is posthumously tortured because of wicked things that they did while alive.

16 total · 3 choice · 10 major · 3 minor

StoryLevelMotivation
tftc1989e4x08 choice The gunslinger Billy Quintaine found himself in a saloon of the dead, among the victims of his past revolver duels.
tftc1989e6x01 choice The story features the popular notion of a hell-like environment in which sinners are punished in a ironical manner that supposedly befit the crime. Specifically: Geraldine and Austin had, in life, been unscrupulous lawyers. They were therefore made to function, eternally, as lowly defense attorneys in a Kafkaesque courthouse full of perverse laws and sadistic judges. The experience drove Austin to jump at the opportunity to commit suicide.
tz1959e1x28 choice We saw the ironic afterlife punishment meted out to petty gangster Rocky.
nightgallery1x05b major The survivor's punishment for breaking the maritime law of women and children first was to drift the seas in a lifeboat and be picked up by doomed ship after doomed ship.
nightgallery2x09d major Randy Miller died and went to Hell's waiting room. Randy Miller found himself in hell's waiting room after dying in a car crash.
nightgallery2x12b major Mr. Gringold trapped William Sharsted in a ghoul infested version of Sharted's past.
nightgallery2x18a major Gunslinger Sam Dichter found himself in a saloon of the dead among a number of miscreants who were awaiting divine judgment.
tftc1989e6x03 major Although it is never made clear, the tortuous cycle of repeats began shortly after Rolanda had just committed the mortal sin of murder and gotten killed by the police. We must ponder the interpretation that she was suffering a run-of-the-mill ironical punishment in the afterlife.
tz1959e1x10 major U-boat captain Carl Lanser was condemned repeat his ruthless sinking of a passenger ship every night for eternity, only as a passenger aboard the ship, rather than as captain on the U-boat.
tz1959e3x09 major Lutze was made to undergo the same horrors he had imposed on the inmates in the Twilight Zone.