Fate Worse Than Death / Mythology & Religion

"Oh, why give light to those in misery, and life to those who are bitter?
They long for death, and it won’t come.
They search for death more eagerly than for hidden treasure.
They're filled with joy when they finally die, and rejoice when they find the grave.
Why is life given to those with no future, those God has surrounded with difficulties?"

— Job 3:20-23, The Bible

• Aboriginal Australian Myths:
  • The Garkain a huge, blood-drinking bird with leathery wings that drinks the blood of travellers through the forests of Arnhem Land leaves the souls of its prey lost and alone, wandering through the forest for all eternity.
  • The Yara-ma-yha-who (a type of vampiric creature that looks like a frog) also inflicts this, turning their victims into more of them by digesting them repeatedly. Also this tends to happen to children most frequently apparently.
• In most varieties of Christianity, Hell is this by definition. What exactly it entails depends on interpretation.
  • The Mark of Cain. In some interpretations/translations of the Book of Genesis, Cain is made immortal by God, which forces him to live forever, because he committed the first murder.
  • In other interpretations, the Mark of Cain was a physical mark, placed upon Cain's forehead, to denote that God himself had doled out Cain's punishment. This mark was to reverse any damage inflicted upon Cain, and instead force it on the assailant sevenfold. Talk about Blessed with Suck.
  • Yet other interpretations state that Cain's retribution (or Mark, depending on the translation) was not the only one doled out by The Almighty. A second mark was administered to Cain's descendant Lamech, which reversed any attack upon him seventy-sevenfold!
  • In scriptures there's a place even worse than Hell, though it's not known if anyone can end up there. Its where God throws away all the sins and things he willingly chooses to forget about - his endless mind. Akin to an infinite bottomless ocean what goes there is out of sight and mind, forever. Hell burns because he's angry with you, and angry you won't repent. But this place? He's forgotten about you, and will never remember you. You are utterly alone, you can never escape it, or make yourself known to him or anyone else again.
  • Revelations 9:6 speaks of demonic scorpions sent by the demon lord Abbadon to torture those without God's protection for months on end, leaving their victims suffering so badly death becomes preferable to them.
• Islam is far more explicit about the horrors of Hell for the damned. From The Qur'an:
  But as for those who disbelieve, garments of fire will be cut out for them; boiling fluid will be poured down on their heads, Whereby that which is in their bellies, and their skins too, will be melted; And for them are hooked rods of iron. Whenever, in their anguish, they would go forth from thence they are driven back therein and (it is said unto them): Taste the doom of burning. (Surah 22:19-22)
• One story from Panchatantra describes a tale of four Brahmanas who travel north in search of fortune. The first Brahmana found copper and was satisfied with it. The second Brahmana found silver and was satisfied with it. The two men returned home while the remaining Brahmanas continued the journey. The third Brahmana found gold and offered to share his wealth with his friend. However the fourth Brahmana refused the offer and wondered what riches he would receive. Unfortunately, the fourth Brahmana was cursed to bear a wheel spinning painfully on his head. Although the man will not die by any means, for several eons he will endure thirst, starvation, and an excruciating piercing sensation on the crown of his head. The curse can only be lifted when another greedy man approaches the prisoner for riches.
• Norse Mythology has Loki's fate, chained to a rock with the entrails of his mauled son, and tormented by a snake perpetually dripping poisonous saliva into his eyes.
• Classical Mythology:
  • Prometheus was chained to a rock to forever have his ever-regrowing liver eaten by an eagle. Since he was a god, he could not die. Fortunately, he was later freed by Heracles, who took pity on his plight.
  • The Underworld was full of these (a sort of Fate Worse Than Death plus Regular Death). Tantalus killed his son Pelops and tried to feed him to the gods when they came over for dinner. In response, the gods killed him and placed in a pool with water up to his chin and delicious fruit dangling above his head, but whenever he tried to bend down and drink the water or reach up and grab the fruit, the water would drain away and the fruit would be blown just out of reach by a gust of wind (hence the word "tantalise" entered into the vocabulary). Sisyphus, punished for cheating death, was forced to roll an incredibly heavy boulder up a steep slope. When he was about to reach the top, the rock would tumble back down the slope, forcing him to start over. The Danaeids were also punished for murdering their husbands, forced to try and fill a water trough using jars with no bottoms.
    • The only relief that the three mentioned ever got was when Orpheus arrived. The song that he played asking for Eurydice's soul back not only melted Hades's heart, but quenched Tantalus's thirst, halted Sisyphus's boulder, and kept the water inside the jars... until he left.
  • Atlas, who has to hold the Earth (or the sky, according to The Other Wiki) on his shoulders from the beginning of the world until a few thousand years ago, when the Greek hero Heracles, better known by what the Romans called him (Hercules), builds "the pillars of Heracles" to carry Atlas's burden.
  • The personification of Dawn asked Zeus for eternal life for her lover Tithonus... and forgot to ask for eternal youth for him. Consequently, he got so old and feeble that eventually, he turned into a grasshopper.
  • Pirithous and Theseus won the idiot award by trying to carry off Persephone, wife of Hades. Hades invited them to a feast and tried to dissuade them, and when they refused to give up the plan, the bench fused to them. Heracles was able to save Theseus (who was only there to help Pirithous), but Pirithous was trapped there for eternity for his impiety and unquestionable stupidity.
  • Ixion was strapped to a flaming wheel in Tartarus for eternity, in a horrible cross between a stretching rack and being on fire. His crime? Kinslaying, severe violations of host-guest obligations, and trying to rape Hera while a guest of Zeus.
  • Chiron, the wise and immortal centaur teacher, meets his end after being accidentally pierced by a poisoned arrow (either due to a case of Collateral Damage on Hercules' part, or because Chiron accidentally dropped it onto his hoof, depending on the version of the story). Due to his immortality, the poison doesn't kill him, but it leaves him in such agony that he's unable to treat himself despite being an expert healer (doesn't help that the poison is either the Hydra's blood, or a concoction of Chiron's own making). The pain is so great that Chiron willingly chooses to relinquish his immortality rather than spend an eternity of suffering, turning his body into the Centaurus constellation.
• In the Fourth Branch of Pedeir Keinc y Mabinogi (Middle Welsh tale, probably 11th century), Gwydion (the Anti-Hero) tells Blodeuedd (a Femme Fatale), "I won't kill you, I'll do that which is worse to you," before turning her into an owl. (He was serially turned into animals as a punishment earlier in the tale, so presumably knows what he's talking about.)
  • This gets referenced in The Owl Service, which provides an Alternative Character Interpretation for Blodeuedd. Blodeuedd was a woman who was made of flowers by Gwydion so his nephew could have a wife, and she was turned into an owl because of a certain trope being heavily averted. This actually is a plot point, and to break the curse afflicting the main characters, Blodeuedd must be freed of this curse.
• While any version of Hell is bad in Buddhism, they are supposed to be places of purification as well as punishment, and damned souls can at least hope to be reborn again someday. However, Buddhism has a special one called Avichi, which is for souls that are so evil, they're kicked out of the reincarnation cycle completely. That only happens to those who commit one of the Five Grave Offenses which is limited to killing an Arhat (an enlightened being), shedding the blood of the Buddha, creating a schism within the Sangha, (a community of pacifist Buddhist monks and nuns), or murdering one of your parents. Most Buddhist monks consider it taboo to publicly condemn a man to Avichi, as it would be making a judgment mortals have no right to make; even the will of gods cannot condemn a man to this Hell. Buddhist dogma specifically states that a sinner forges his own path here.
• Buzzard King from African-American folklore was a West African king who sold other Africans into slavery, leading God to decide that no animal was lower than him. As punishment, Buzzard King roams the spirit world in the form of a buzzard, rejected by all people, animals and spirits.