Why the hell is hell mostly gothic?

[Antroid]

This thought came to me just recently.
I guess it isn't really that gothic in the original dooms, but still you have to admit, most of the hell's architecture left a medieval impression.

Now i know that it's better to not try and make sense of "who would build all that crazy stuff in hell" and the like. But i still think that Hell in doom wasn't supposed to be just a weird dimension or even a planet, but something similiar to christian hell.
So why, tell me, are there castles and catacombs and stuff, but mostly nothing different? Shouldn't a whole lot of other themes be associated with hell? Like all those places where bibilical events took place. Sadly, i'm not well educated about this since i'm not christian myself...
This idea was well-shown in Painkiller, by the way. Maybe a bit over the top. But i still went and added a few skycrapers to my hellish canyon of hell (in hell). And you know what? I'm gonna keep them, cause i liked the result :D
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3300/screenshotdoom200906290.png
(that burning pipe now looks industrial too)

So, what do you guys think of this? Should hell really be made of just stones, wood, marble and rusty metal? How about bricks or cement sometimes? :)

(i hope this topic wasn't brought up TOO many times before.)

[David_Dweedle]

Antroid said:

This thought came to me just recently.
I guess it isn't really that gothic in the original dooms, but still you have to admit, most of the hell's architecture left a medieval impression.

Now i know that it's better to not try and make sense of "who would build all that crazy stuff in hell" and the like. But i still think that Hell in doom wasn't supposed to be just a weird dimension or even a planet, but something similiar to christian hell.
So why, tell me, are there castles and catacombs and stuff, but mostly nothing different? Shouldn't a whole lot of other themes be associated with hell? Like all those places where bibilical events took place. Sadly, i'm not well educated about this since i'm not christian myself...
This idea was well-shown in Painkiller, by the way. Maybe a bit over the top. But i still went and added a few skycrapers to my hellish canyon of hell (in hell). And you know what? I'm gonna keep them, cause i liked the result :D
http://img141.imageshack.us/img141/3300/screenshotdoom200906290.png
(that burning pipe now looks industrial too)

So, what do you guys think of this? Should hell really be made of just stones, wood, marble and rusty metal? How about bricks or cement sometimes? :)

(i hope this topic wasn't brought up TOO many times before.)

Depends on the Mappers view of Hell.

I LOVE useing red in any Hell maps I make.. dunno why.

Im also gonna try make a Techbase in Hell soon.. sorta like the Base the UAC built when they investigated the " Other " side of the portal if you know what I mean.

[RestlessRodent]

They say hell is just an endless lake of lava and fire with tormented screams in the background. Maybe they made the castles and such to place people in them to beat the high price of lava front property.

[Antroid]

Im also gonna try make a Techbase in Hell soon.. sorta like the Base the UAC built when they investigated the " Other " side of the portal if you know what I mean.

That's a cool idea, actually! In doom 3 there were dead guys with some equipment, so they were venturing in hell. An UAC outpost built right in hell is very interesting. But i like to view hell as a lot more chaotic place, so there would be very little chance to stumble upon that base for the marine, if the teleporter doesn't lead exactly there, of course.

They say hell is just an endless lake of lava and fire with tormented screams in the background. Maybe they made the castles and such to place people in them to beat the high price of lava front property.

Well an endless lake of lava wouldn't be that fun of a level. But why don't they steal our mighty modern (or futuristic) house building technologies?

[Enjay]

I guess that the answer is really that hell can be anything you want it to be. In my mind's eye, I think that hell has always been some sort of natural place. OK, yes, a very unnatural natural place full of twisted forms and fiery pits but it feels right to me for it to somehow be a demonic habitat for the vile creatures that live there. That doesn't, of course, totally preclude buildings but I see most of it as being made of "natural" forms.

[Antroid]

I always liked the mystery of all these structures in hell that make no sense, and yet still appear built by someone intelligent (yet insane). Not by the demons, though. Maybe it forms itself somehow, but still resembles intelligent design. (thinking that some kind of satan being would spend time manually designing ironic and intimidating hell is pretty dumb imho).

Makes me think i'll have to add a twisted touch to my hell skyscrapers.

And i like seeing the demons not just as very agressive and hostile monsters that live in hell, but as beings whose purpose is torturing and killing, and they know that.

[Gez]

Antroid said:

"who would build all that crazy stuff in hell"

Nobody. The ruined castles and stuff just are. They have never been built. They just exist. And demons aren't biological creatures that are born, nurtured, grown and educated. They just are embodiment of violent, malevolent hatred.

That's the only good part of MAP30: it shows that demons are simply willed into existence by other demons, cybernetical prosthesis and all.

It's not a normal dimension with normal entropy and causality. It's a dimension ruled by teleology. It doesn't make any rational sense.

[Antroid]

Wow, that's exactly like i always saw it.
A realm where concepts take rule instead of physics and such. That's pretty deep and interesting. And it does indeed open doors for stuff different from what we are used to in hell levels. Basically, everything that can look evil, twisted and intimidating.


That's why in doom 3 i really didn't like the biological research done on the demons. Especially the part about revenants' rocket launchers. If you know the game Eternal Darkness, there were monster autopsies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5ej7btgqwA&fmt=18), that idea is very well done there. The character says stuff like "such anatomy shouldn't work" and "there are no organs or stuff" about them.

[Aaron_Black]

I think it is about mood setting. The medievel period is always associated with dark and mystical events (like witch burnings etc) so the zeitgeist and popular culture has us associate bad things with gothic/medievel times and the architecture is a predominant feature of that period.

Look at Evil Dead 3: Army Of Darkness. Interstingly, this film was released in 1992 and Doom was released in 1993.

[Antroid]

A certain level of Painkiller: Battle out of hell called Dead City kinda opened my eyes and made me realise that modern cities can look very freaking evil and sinister. Aren't a lot more sinful things happening now than in medieval times?

[esselfortium]

Yes, but those settings are familiar to us. The sort of themes we see in hellish Doom levels are something we don't really see in regular manmade structures today.

Of course, though, what Hell looks like is very much up to interpretation. I think a red fire-and-brimstone hell, an organic fleshy hell, an icy hell, a corrupted city hell, and all sorts of other concepts could potentially be about equally as intimidating in the hands of a competent enough level designer.

[eargosedown]

Antroid said:

Well an endless lake of lava wouldn't be that fun of a level.

I just had a really sadistic thought:
A level of pure damaging floor, with health packs scattered all over the place to keep you at a moderate health amount at all times; unless you slow down or try to backtrack.

[Super Jamie]

The Doom "hell" is not necessarily intended to be a "Christian" view of hell. Sure, it does take some design features from common western beliefs, but the designers (Adrian Carmack in particular) also were interested in a hell based on the works of HP Lovecraft, and influenced by the group's history of playing interplanar Dungeons and Dragons campaigns.

This was discussed in this religion thread.

[Creaphis]

Antroid said:

But i still think that Hell in doom wasn't supposed to be just a weird dimension or even a planet, but something similiar to christian hell.
So why, tell me, are there castles and catacombs and stuff, but mostly nothing different? Shouldn't a whole lot of other themes be associated with hell? Like all those places where bibilical events took place. Sadly, i'm not well educated about this since i'm not christian myself...

Interestingly, the bible itself doesn't support most of the notions we have about "Christian hell". If you read the Old Testament, you'll come across a few mentions of "hell," but this is often a misleading translation from "Sheol", an entirely different Jewish conception of the afterlife: a dark, quiet realm where all souls rest, good or bad. The New Testament emphasizes that followers of Jesus will have an eternal place in the kingdom of God, but, similarly, this has little in common with the modern conception of "heaven." The kingdom of God is the earth itself, once God has restored it, free from sin. At this time, so the story goes, God will re-establish the bond between himself and humanity, broken in the Garden of Eden, by dwelling within his creation. The dead shall be bodily resurrected and then given their final judgement - either they shall live in the restored creation, or be tossed into the "lake of fire", which, while it is much closer to the mark in terms of what we imagine as "hell", is still fairly vague as locations are concerned. Hell's complex geography and its web of associated symbols are things that evolved later, due to the Catholic church's habit of incorporating new beliefs and traditions that lack scriptural basis, and due in particular to the epic poetry of Dante Alighieri, which popularized (if it did not originate) the notion that hell is seven circular layers of goat-legged demons meting out ironic punishments. His take on the Christian afterlife has become inextricably linked with the beliefs of the Christian populace, despite the fact that it goes far beyond the biblical text.

In other words: Even if Doom's hell is the Christian hell, that doesn't mean it has to match some detailed specification. Hell can be whatever the hell you want it to be.

[Antroid]

That's the thing, if everybody understands that they can make hell look however they want, why do we almost always see very similiar stuff? I would love to see somebody try to make a hell level that looks like some abstract industrial setting. In fact, i think i will try this myself for one of my wad's hell levels.

[Phoenix]

Creaphis said:

In other words: Even if Doom's hell is the Christian hell, that doesn't mean it has to match some detailed specification. Hell can be whatever the hell you want it to be.

Hell to me is a month in Churchill (way up north) cold, icy, windy Wooden Baracks, the fire seems to do as much as a match ... and the sun is allway somewhere around ... but how can you put that into a game?

[Super Jamie]

Make someone play Rise Of The Triad naked in an industrial freezer?

[Antroid]

Let's try to not conjure an image that could destroy our minds. For me, playing RoTT is enough.

[Doom Marine]

Hell is whatever you want it to be. With that said, I can only answer for my own hell, which is of the fire/brimstone/gothic mold.

First off, Gothic needs to be put into context and defined. I will have to oversimplify the history of Gothic architecture: The term "Gothic" is a misnomer coined by Renaissance writers of the 1500s to associate works of the medieval age with the "barbarous" Goths who invaded Rome, in order to take maximum credit for their new "classical" revival.

"Gothic" architecture is actually known as the "French style" during its conception in the 1100s, as a series of solutions to engineering problems posed by the semicircular Roman vaults used in churches. The results were pointed arches and butresses that allowed for churches to soar beyond limits imposed by the old semi-circular Roman vaults.

The goals of the French style were threefold: heights ascending to heaven, lights from heaven, and dematerialization of the walls as to render the church a gilded ornament of God. It is no wonder that the dizzying heights of the "Gothic" churches featured large colored glass windows that makes the stone walls appear gilded and light.

The Renaissance happened in Italy: revival of Roman architectural motifs, the French style of old was now out and lambasted as "Gothic".

This Gothic architecture bears great cultural significance as it is associated with the Church but at the same time written off as a barbarous artifact of the old in contrast to the new "age of enlightenment."

This cultural duality of Gothic architecture sets it up as a great symbol for heresy, and it doesn't take much to perverse a French-styled Christian Cathedral into an Unholy Cathedral. The same striving to reach the heavens can now be darkened to portray the thunderous halls of the damned, where the rose glass windows once let in the light of God is now basking in the fires of hell. The statues of kings and saints can be replaced by gargoyles and demons. The potential for contortions and violence of good is great for this "Gothic" architecture.

Also, look into Dante's inferno as well. I could explain it now but I'm too tired right now gotta be asleep school microbio labs tomorrow I'll save the explanation for another day heh.

[Antroid]

There's no doubt that gothic or medieval stuff fits very well into hell. But the whole idea is that it probably shouldn't be the only style that comes to everybody's minds. Of course, completely random and mish-mashed hell would be very hard to make atmospheric, but i still want to try it.

Also, what would doom's hell look like before medieval times then? When it didn't have such sources for inspiration as you described? :D

p.s. i loved the hell atmosphere in deus vult's... was it map02? The one that had dck2's castle music.

[printz]

Gothic architecture is beautiful.

[Antroid]

No arguing there, but doesn't being ugly suit hell better? And i don't mean ugly as in lazy design and bad texturing of course.

[printz]

Arguably yes. I like hell levels where the building is a gross square without detail, made of red hot bricks.

[Antroid]

I did point out that "ugly" didn't mean "bad design" in my previous post. That's in case you were sarcastic right now.

[Snarboo]

That is partially the reason Episode 3 is one of my favorites: while most of it is fire and brimstone, a lot of it is chaotic and confusing. Pandemonium, while one of the ugliest levels in the game, represents the idea of a chaotic hell very well. Most of the architecture is a mishmash of styles, familiar and not, all stitched together with no meaning. You might be in a chruch one minute, then in a technological base, followed by a room supported by fleshy pillars.

To me, Hell is a vast realm of evil thoughts, nightmares, and things that shouldn't be. A hellish cathedral is just as representative of hell as a skyscraper made of flesh or an icy cavern that never ends and seems to be illuminated by nothing at all. Pain and suffering is infinite, after all.

[Maes]

Antroid said:

Well an endless lake of lava wouldn't be that fun of a level.

That didn't stop people from making them, though.

[printz]

Antroid said:

I did point out that "ugly" didn't mean "bad design" in my previous post. That's in case you were sarcastic right now.

Maybe I was, but I didn't add "bad design" to my intention. I also hold a part of belief that hell can be unaesthetic, just like the real world under bad mood, and the buildings can look crude accordingly. But at least be good to play through.

[Antroid]

That is partially the reason Episode 3 is one of my favorites: while most of it is fire and brimstone, a lot of it is chaotic and confusing. Pandemonium, while one of the ugliest levels in the game, represents the idea of a chaotic hell very well. Most of the architecture is a mishmash of styles, familiar and not, all stitched together with no meaning. You might be in a chruch one minute, then in a technological base, followed by a room supported by fleshy pillars.

If i ever finish my wad, you're gonna love it. ;) That's exactly what i like and tried to make.

[myk]

Doom Marine said:
Also, look into Dante's inferno as well.

Indeed, Dante's Hell (after which E3 is named) had a lot of human-like architecture, and when we picture his vision of hell, we see the architecture of his times. Additionally, I'd add Lovecraft as a vague influence to the "gothic" texturing in DOOM. Ancient green stone architecture appears more than once in his writings, as do monolithic stones like the ones in E2M8.

Creaphis said:
Hell's complex geography and its web of associated symbols are things that evolved later, due to the Catholic church's habit of incorporating new beliefs and traditions that lack scriptural basis, and due in particular to the epic poetry of Dante Alighieri, which popularized (if it did not originate) the notion that hell is seven circular layers of goat-legged demons meting out ironic punishments. His take on the Christian afterlife has become inextricably linked with the beliefs of the Christian populace, despite the fact that it goes far beyond the biblical text.

You can add the Romans, certainly Virgil's Aeneid, as an influence on Dante and Christianity in this respect. They imitated the Greek Hades, but made it more a hot place of torture and less a cold place of lament. Possibly because they were more authoritarian than the Greeks and also because they lived in areas with volcanic activity. Dante himself used Virgil as an important character in his Divine Comedy, in a form of literary homage.

[CyberBaron]

Perhaps the demons are more intelligent than we give them credit for. What if they are fully sentient beings? Working under that assumption, much about the setting and the creatures becomes clearer. These structures, instead of being inexplicable and useless, are the demons' homes and infrastructure.

As for why the buildings have a Gothic motif, here's another idea: such buildings may have been the last human structures these creatures have seen in centuries. Around the time when Gothic architecture went out of style, there also began a steady decline in religion's role in society. People stopped thinking about demons often enough and, like Freddy Krueger, they were locked away from the world because humanity no longer feared them as much.