Due Diligence Before You Relocate to Middle-earth: Ranking Fictional Universes by Livability

Everyone has played the game at some point: if you could live in a fictional world, which one would you pick? It's a fun question right up until you treat it like a serious relocation decision — which, frankly, is more fun. Because the moment you apply the boring standards of an American homebuyer — schools, commute, insurance premiums, whether the tap water is trying to kill you — most beloved fictional universes collapse like a house of cards in a stiff breeze.

We did the audit. Here's the report.

Tier One: The Shire (Middle-earth)

Let's start with the gold standard. Round doors, generous pantries, a culture that treats second lunch as a constitutional right. Crime is essentially nonexistent. Healthcare consists of athelas and good cheer, which beats a surprise ER bill. The catch? Your entire civilization is a single invasion away from disaster, and you personally will never be asked to help — a comfort and an indignity in one. Livability score: 9/10, docked a point for the constant background threat of apocalyptic war.

Tier One: Starfleet-era Earth (Star Trek)

No money, no hunger, replicators on every corner, and a medical system that routinely brings people back from the dead. On paper, this is the best deal in fiction. The catch is subtle but real: post-scarcity utopias have a purpose problem. What do you do all day? In Trek's universe, the answer is usually "join Starfleet and nearly die weekly," which suggests the society quietly funnels its restless citizens into danger. Comfortable, yes. But read the fine print on the lifestyle.

Tier Two: the Wizarding World (Harry Potter)

Magic! Flying! Instant travel! Also: a government run by an unaccountable elite, a prison guarded by soul-eating wraiths, sentient paintings as home security, and a school that loses children on an annual basis and responds with a strongly worded letter. The charm is real, but so is the institutional rot. It's the fictional equivalent of a gorgeous Victorian house with a foundation made of lies. 6/10, and that's being generous about the moving staircases.

Tier Two: the Disc (Discworld)

Ankh-Morpork is a nightmare by any health inspector's standard — the river is more of a solid, the fire brigade doubles as an extortion racket, and the city watch has historically been one man and a six-foot dwarf. And yet: it works. Terry Pratchett's Disc is one of the few fictional worlds where institutions actually improve over time, where the commonsense of ordinary people slowly beats back the madness. High chaos, upward trajectory. A fixer-upper.

Tier Three: Westeros (A Song of Ice and Fire)

No. Just — no. Average life expectancy is a punchline, the healthcare system is a guy with a leech, and the political system resolves disputes through ritualized decapitation. The scenery is lovely. The mortgage is your life. 1/10, and the single point is for the lemon cakes.

The Point of the Exercise

Here's what the ranking actually reveals: every fictional world prices its comfort somewhere. The Shire's peace is subsidized by ignorance and other people's wars. Trek's abundance is subsidized by a frontier that absorbs society's ambition. Hogwarts' wonder is subsidized by a refusal to fix anything. There is no free lunch in worldbuilding — only lunches whose cost shows up on someone else's tab.

Which is why the livability question is more than a parlor game. It's a stress test. The universes that survive it are the ones whose authors thought through what ordinary, non-heroic life would actually feel like — the commute, the neighbors, the tavern's health code. That's the difference between a backdrop and a world.

So where would you move? Tell us in the comments. Just read the lease first.