21 Fictional Worlds That Would Suck to Actually Live In

Movies are the modern era’s foremost method of escapism — people watch them explicitly for the purpose of stepping into a world that’s prettier, more exciting, or at least less dressed than our own. In fact, there are entire theme parks that make media conglomerates extremely rich on the promise of bringing such worlds to life. People will stand in line for hours, do improv with sweaty college students in cosplay and pay $10 for a butterbeer to pretend to visit the fictional universe of their dreams.

Ironically, though, if they were actually transported to those worlds, they’d probably pay anything to leave within hours. Think about it: Get stuck in the middle of one supervillain showdown as a bystander, and you might be looking at a life-altering injury. Get hit with one stray spell, and now you think you’re a chicken. Catching monsters twice your size and training them to fight is a bigger responsibility than you want, believe us.

And so, when user Farscape12Monkeys asked r/AskReddit, “What fictional world would actually be a nightmare if it really existed?,” those Redditors who have thought about it listed the universes they’d be desperate to escape.