Human World As Hell / 人间如地狱

Human world as hell is the reading frame where hell imagery names worldly social reality rather than only afterlife punishment. 17.地狱变：众生皆苦，一念入魔 adds the concept through 《地狱变》, where the painting’s 十殿阎罗, fire, torment, and bodies are not distant religious spectacle; they mirror lordly impunity, coerced service, sexualized power, and obedient narration.

This differs from Afterlife Moral Accounting. In afterlife moral accounting, hell restores some imagined order by punishing wrongdoing. In 《地狱变》 as read by the episode, hell is already here, and the social order protects the people who make it.

Key Claims

• Religious hell imagery can become social diagnosis when earthly institutions reproduce torment.
• A story can use supernatural or Buddhist vocabulary without making the afterlife its main concern.
• When official praise surrounds violence, the social world itself becomes infernal.
• The frame explains why a painting of hell can frighten the powerful: it shows them their own world.

Connections

• 《地狱变》 - source case.
• 十殿阎罗 and Afterlife Moral Accounting - contrasting afterlife-imagery branch.
• Unreliable Praise Narration / 赞美式不可靠叙述 - narration mechanism that exposes the social hell.
• Art As Revenge / 艺术作为复仇 - artistic response to that world.
• Truth Against Absurd Power - adjacent pattern where power tries to determine what can be said.