So admittedly, we don't have a lot of facts to work with here, but from what we have seen, the majority of people don't become ghosts and are instead either sucked off or go down when they die. Also, animals don't become ghosts. This would indicate that there are unique conditions that lead to ghosts, most likely involving a sudden/unpeaceful death and unfinished business/deep personal regrets. It also indicates that there is some sort of higher power that judges humans; this is supported by Elias's return visit. It is likely that had Elias choked on an olde-timey donut hole just outside of his vault instead of being locked inside it, he'd have gone down straight away.
Does this mean that being inside the ghost-proof vault makes you invisible to Higher Powers??? How does the vault exist?
This is something I haven't given much thought to but it's about time! So let's see. Totally agree that there seems to be some judge in the world of Ghosts that determines who goes and where (and that there are specific reasons why people become ghosts) Fun story about the BBC version of Ghosts, there's actually a ghost pigeon that we see for a little bit so at least there animals CAN become ghosts but I doubt they would be so for very long on the off-chance they were.
Now, as for Elias, I don't know if I agree that he would have gone straight to hell had he died outside the vault. Cause using that reasoning, if he were hellbound from the moment of death and it was only the vault protecting him, he would have been sucked down the second he left it, and he wasn't. It was only after he refused Hetty's offer to stay and reform with the rest of them that he got sucked down, which to ME indicates that these powers that be seem to assume goodness as the default (or its their intent for everyone to go up, even if, like Hetty for instance, you did some stuff in life that you have to atone for as a ghost on Earth before you get brought up.) And if that's the case, it's choosing NOT to atone that sends a person to hell. You aren't just sent there. You have to choose it through not wanting to better yourself after all your bad deeds when you were alive.
As for the mechanics of the vault...they really need to go into that more. I mean was the guy who built it like secretly a ghost buster or something and he KNEW the exact sort of stuff that would keep ghosts in? I mean he intentionally locked Elias in the vault, knowing that it would kill him, and made the vault out of a material that would stop Elias from being able to move on either way. That cannot be a coincidence. It just can't.
