3 Best Afterlives in Pop-Culture
2020 has been a shit year for most of us. A deadly virus has joined forces with natural disasters and terrible governance to give the whole epoch a very “and then the Fire Nation invaded” vibe. On top of all of this I and a few of my friends have suffered losses this year due to the circumstances surrounding COVID. Family members and friends have been taken from us and there are few things I can do to keep it together while I’m stuck in my own house waiting for a vaccine than to either write or consume media. I noticed a trend in my media consumption (as did my roommate). I ended up gravitating towards pieces focusing on an afterlife of some sort. Anne Rice’s The Mummy; or Ramses the Damned is a book I happened to pick up about the first Egyptian mummy to actually live up to the ‘rise from the dead’ hype. I re-watched The Exorcist III wherein a weary police detective named Kinderman (played by George C. Scott) is caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse with a demonic serial killer and along the way ends up in “Heaven,” which turns out to be a massive waystation run by angels and filled by the recently deceased (most of whom don’t mind being dead)…also Fabio was there.
This and some past articles and podcasts set me an an innocent thought experiment, namely which fictional afterlife is the best and why;
#3 The Haunted Mansion
The Haunted Mansion is a dark ride at Disneyland Resort in California, The Magic Kingdom in Florida, and Tokyo Disneyland. It also happens to be a 2003 live action Disney movie staring Eddie Murphy (which I will not be talking about). The premise is basic. There is a house inhabited by “999 happy haunts.” Why is this one of the most banging afterlives you might ask.
The mansion is a phantasmagoric celebration of life. The dead loved living so much it seems they never stopped. The pipe organist can summon banshees, the bride in the attic faces opposite her groom as his head appears and disappears from a hat box at his side (at least after he was re-added in 2006). You can swing from a chandelier chugging mead and never get a hang-over. Got beef with another spirit? Have a consequence free duel in the grave-yard. You can be what ever you want to be in the mansion. You can be a singing statue like Cousin Algernon. Oh and there will be singing if your into that sort of thing. Otherwise you can always be the silent guy in the coffin constantly raising the lid. And if it ever gets old there’s always a way out. Just catch a ride with some unfortunate meat bag who wandered in…
Delightful as it may sound some people just can’t find the joy in death. The next afterlife has significantly less macabre baggage.
#2 The Trill from Star Trek
There aren’t many afterlives in the Star Trek franchise. It was designed by Gene Rodenberry initially to eschew all forms of spirituality for enlightened ideals. All forms of religion in the Star Trek franchises beginning was anathema to the ethos of the show, though it did roll through from time to time. When it poked its way in it was eventually met with a sound disproving captain explaining why what ever deity they had just encountered was not actually a god, it was just mistaken for one. On more than one occasion they were just outright imposters. In the OG series “Who Mourns for Adonis” (season 2, episode 4) Kirk and the crew roll up upon the honest to Zeus Greek pantheon only to find out that they were merely sexy aliens from Pollux IV with some intense psychokinesis. From there it only gets weirder.
In the Next Generation episode the “Devil’s Due” (season 4, episode 13) Picard and company find a planet under the control of the devil herself as they had singed a Faustian pact with her. Despite mounting evidence that the Enterprise crew are dealing with ‘for-real’ Satan (the Satan architype from across all Federation cultures) they give into her demands since the universe is bigger than any one of us and just because we don’t believe in something doesn’t me we ignore the evidence. Just kidding they disable her ship and prove that she is no more than a technologically advanced grifter.
This all hits a head when in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier the OG crew meet ‘capital G’ God who wants only a starship with which to spread his message…
After big Gene passed into the afterlife himself, the afterlife started to find its way into the franchise but this time without the fedora tip each of these scenes implies its writer doing. In the pilot for Star Trek: Deep Space Nine we are introduced to the Prophets of Bajor who are interdimensional beings and the center of the planet Bajor’s major religion. They play a roll in the events of the show until its end and are probably the most positive examples of gods in all of Star Trek. In Voyager’s “Barge of the Dead” (season 6, episode 3) B’Elanna Torres dies in a shuttle accident only to find out Klingon Hell is real and metal as fuck. Gre’thor is accessible upon a ship surrounded by blood oceans and the voices of friends and loved one’s trying to tempt you in.
*Pause for guitar solo*
But before I lead us any further afield…
This is Jadzia Dax. She is a Trill from planet Trill and as the meme would suggest she has a worm inside of her. The worm is a symbiont of which there are many on Trill. It is a long standing tradition of Trill society that if you are found capable you are joined with one of these symbionts which chill in caves beneath the surface. Where’s the upside? I hear you ask. Unlike your usual brain slug sci-fi where the parasite takes over your body essentially piloting you like a human mech suit the Trill have a very different situation worked out. The symbionts bring with them the life, experience, and memories of every Trill it had ever joined with and the host brings a new set of talents, personality traits, and knowledge the symbiont might not have acquired yet. The Dax symbiont in all of its lifetimes has been; an engineer, an Olympic gymnast, the head of the Trill Symbiosis Commission, a pilot, a musician (and serial killer), the Federation Ambassador to the Klingon Empire, and a Starfleet Science officer. It’s a constant evolution for the symbiont but what’s in it for the host? Oh just, ACTUAL IMMORTALITY!
In the DS9 episode “Facets,” (season 3, episode 25) we find get to see a ridiculously cool Trill ritual involving all of Jadzia’s past hosts. The personalities of those hosts are still contained within the symbiont and in this ritual they are pulled out and literally posses the DS9 crew. She gets to have one on one gab sessions and legitimate closure from all of the people she used to be. She has trouble getting one of her more rambunctious former selves back into her body but it seems as though peacing out of this afterlife at any time is apparently and option. He does go back in the end though as they all do because they do get to live on until the symbiont ages out of being joined. And then they die right? lol
According to the DS9 extended universe the old Trill symbionts sink to the bottom of the pools to become caretakers for the super old symbionts who join with each-other building a sort of Voltron of life experience in the depths of the caves. Until apparently they get to join this mega being and become something cooler than any human ever got to become. That’s hard to beat man…I’m not sure if I could top that. How about you tell me the best fictional afterlife and I’ll tell you why it’s the X-Men.
#1 The X-Men
This may seem like the worst afterlife or afterlives (for there are several ways to go in the X-Men universe but it’s not quite as bad as all that). Sure Jean Grey has died, and Colossus, and Wolverine, and Cyclopes, and Professor X…Nightcrawler…Psyloch…I may have bitten off more than I can chew.
Well, too late to stop now. Sure these people die but unlike Uncle Ben they don’t stay that way. In the Phoenix Saga from the 80s Jean Grey realizes that she is the only hope to save her friends. Sure people try to stop her but eventually they defer to her judgment. She uses her powers one last time to save the day and earns a hero’s funeral and no one ever asked for more from this brave woman.
She gets resurrected by a sentience from outer space dubbed “The Phoenix,” the source of fire and life incarnate, and now she’s dating Scott Summers.
See the thing is she dies again after this. In one version (after she did all the bad things in those two movies we hated) she was actually MIA for the whole Dark Phoenix story line as the Phoenix made a copy to inhabit before sacrificing itself eventually letting real Jean come back. Colossus was killed by allowing his body to be used as the catalyst to cure the Legacy Virus (a.k.a. mutant AIDS) only to find out he was re-animated and kept on an alien ship until his arrival would be super emotional.
The thing is, in this universe death is common, but unlike our universe it’s not exactly permanent. You’re down for the count until it’s time to roll up with the crew to save the world. Or maybe it’s a heel turn. If you end up like Psylocke you could die, have your soul put back in the wrong body, adventure a bit and then have the Sisterhood of Evil Mutants (which is totally a thing and I’m living for it) reanimate your dead body because, oh right, they have someone who can do resurrections on their team.
Psylocke gets brought back and brainwashed but still, by the end of the day, the power of friendship is stronger than momentary allegiance. The fact that she cheated death is almost completely incidental to the story. Then there’s Kurt Wagner (a.k.a. Nightcrawler). He died trying to help Hope Summers escape to the mutant island of Utopia and seemed to stay dead a minute. Sure he would kick it in heaven with Professor X, help Wolverine out when he became possessed by a demon. Eventually he just swash-bucked his way back to life after defeating his demon father Azazel.
In the X-Men you’re gone but not forgotten, not even completely gone. Imagine a world where the pull of family can bring you back and you might be gone again later. But that seems way more interesting than what we got going on now. And what the X-Men have going on now trumps all that came before. In the current story arc “House of X” and “Powers of X” mutants have come together, created a civilization of their own and have begun to conquer death itself. Five mutants; Eva Bell, Proteus, Hope Summers, Elixir, and Egg (although to me he will always be Gold Balls) can combine their powers in such a way as to restore the dead to life. In this reality not only are the lines between life and death blurred but all mutants have come together to restore their friends to life and literally undo genocides like what happened in Genosha. A consummation devoutly to be wished. If you like what you read give me a clap or a comment and hit me up on Twitter or Instagram.