History Main / PossessiveParadise

Essentially, it's a [[GeniusLoci sentient setting]] with a possessive {{yandere}} complex for anyone unfortunate enough to visit. Or fortunate enough, if you fancy staying to enjoy the party. Sometimes, however, the party is just a build-up to you being the main course...

Compare LotusEaterMachine (where the place's tactics extend to [[PrefersTheIllusion making sure you don't]] ''[[PrefersTheIllusion want]]'' [[PrefersTheIllusion to leave]]), and GildedCage, which is a more mundane version, in which the obstacles to leaving come from the place's staff rather than the place itself. See also DepartureMeansDeath for cases in which a person stays somewhere because their life force is now tied to the place rather than because the place or locals are keeping them there.

* In ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', Creator/{{Homer}} gave us an OlderThanFeudalism example. Odysseus washes up on the luxurious island of the goddess Calypso, who promptly takes a liking to him--except he wants to return to his wife. So Calypso decides to imprison him as her SexSlave until ''seven years later'', when Hermes intervenes so Odysseus can leave.

* In ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', Creator/{{Homer}} gave us an OlderThanFeudalism example. Odysseus washes up on the luxurious island of the goddess Calypso, who promptly takes a liking to him--except he wants to return to his wife. So Calypso decides to imprison him as her SexSlave until Hermes orders her to release Odysseus ''seven years later''.

* In ''Literature/TheOdyssey'', Creator/{{Homer}} gave us an OlderThanFeudalism example. Odysseus washes up on the luxurious island of the goddess Calypso, who promptly takes a liking to him--except he wants to return to his wife. So Calypso has to imprison him as her SexSlave until Hermes orders her to release Odysseus ''seven years later''.

* In ''Anime/{{One Piece}}'', this is one of the themes of of the country ruled by Big Mom, one of the Four Emperors. It is sweet and happy if you enter and stay (provided that you pay some of your lifespan in tribute to [[LifeDrinker Big Mom]]), but if you leave, you will most likely die.

* The caves in ''The Lotus Caves'' by Creator/JohnChristopher, which are controlled by an alien who provides an idyllic life fulfilling all their needs. However, the caves also gradually remove the will to escape, and, eventually, to ability have any desire beyond worshiping the alien.
* In Creator/RayBradbury's short story ''HereThereBeTygers'', the paradise planet seems to be this way. Once [[spoiler:almost all]] the astronauts leave, since one was killed (eaten by a tiger since he was trying to drill into the planet) they see the beautiful planet now covered with nasty storms, volcanic eruptions, lightning storms and the likes. The twist is [[spoiler:one astronaut stayed behind; the nastiness is an illusion, as the one who stays will be spoiled rotten by the planet]]

* In the ''{{Anime/Memories}}'' episode ''Magnetic Rose'', when Heintz tries to break free from the ship, and take Miguel with him, the ship starts to employ certain measures, such as [[spoiler:eating their ship, and sending little lazer-firing cherubs after Heintz]].

[[folder: Fanfiction ]]
* Reconstructed in ''WesternAnimation/TeenTitans'' fanfic [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/6263444/1/Transition Transition]], [[GeniusLoci K'naa]] wants people to be able to leave, because then they could tell others where she is, which means more visitors. The problem is she's at a location in the universe that is both hard to find or reach, and while she can teleport people to her, everyone she does this to has to find their way back on their own. She uses her powers to abduct Raven because Raven's own teleportation powers potentially mean she could be the first person to actually leave and make it back to any civilization; conventional means of traveling through space wouldn't make it to a civilized planet before the pilot died of old age.

* Yivo, the titular ''Beast With A Billion Backs'' from ''WesternAnimation/{{Futurama}}'' proposes to and marries the entire population of Earth and brings them to shkler paradise of a home dimension... except for the robots. Yivo's one condition is that none of them are ever allowed to communicate with another universe ever again. It's treated as a cross between romantic jealousy and the First Commandment (Thou shalt not have any other gods before Me). [[spoiler:Fry gets everyone kicked out after he sends a letter to Bender, who wasn't invited]].

* The fourth part of ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' has a telephone tower on the edge of Morioh. The tower is actually sentient, and has a Stand, Superfly. And it really hates people trying to leave once they've come in. That being said, it only works on one person at a time, as you can escape the tower if you lure someone else in.

* "Rose In Paradise" by Music/WaylonJennings. A ravishingly beautiful young woman named Rose marries a rich banker, who promises her a rich, lavish, never-wanting-for-anything-ever-again lifestyle. It soon becomes a prison for her, as he reveals himself to be a jealous, possessive husband behind closed doors; he remains a soft-spoken, humble and respected man in public ... except when the conversation turns to Rose (''I would walk through Hell on Sunday/To keep my Rose in paradise''). He goes so far as to hire a gardener to keep an eye on her during his many extended business trips, and make sure she never leaves. Whether Rose escapes her predicament or dies is deliberately never made clear, as there are equal numbers of rumors circulating that they (Rose and the gardener) ran away together and never revealed to anyone their destination, or that Rose simply vanished without a trace and those circumstances left unknown. (In fact, several people close to Jennings have mentioned that he deliberately did not want a video made of the song, to leave Rose's disappearance ambiguous and to the imagination of the listener. That said, one could imagine such a video having at the end a number flashed on the screen for the National Domestic Abuse Hotline.)