Moloch in literature and popular culture

Last updated October 29, 2024

The Biblical term Moloch has traditionally been understood as a Canaanite god to whom child sacrifice was offered. In post-classical rabbinical tradition, this supposed deity was associated with Greco-Roman reports of Carthaginian child sacrifice to the god Baal Hammon. In later Christian tradition, Moloch was often described as a demon. Moloch is depicted in John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost as one of the greatest warriors of the rebel angels, vengeful and militant.

In the 19th century, "Moloch" came to be used allegorically for any idol or cause requiring excessive sacrifice.^[1] Bertrand Russell in 1903 used Moloch to describe oppressive religion, and Winston Churchill in his 1948 history The Gathering Storm used "Moloch" as a metaphor for Adolf Hitler's cult of personality.

Allegorical

Part II of Allen Ginsberg's 1955 poem "Howl", "Moloch", is about the state of industrial civilization, Moloch is also the name of an industrial, demonic figure in Fritz Lang's Metropolis, a film that Ginsberg credits with influencing "Howl, Part II".^[2]

Moloch (Молох) is a 1999 Russian biographical drama film directed by Alexander Sokurov. It portrays Adolf Hitler living life in an unassuming manner during an abrupt journey to the Bavarian Alps.

Moloch, an opera by Max von Schillings, (premiered December 8, 1906 in Dresden) is about a priest, seeking to teach those oppressed by the Romanas, who becomes frustrated and commits suicide.^[3]

Eponymy and other references

Eponym: One who gives, or is supposed to give, his name to a people, place, or institution (OED)

Literature

Gustave Flaubert's Salammbô (1862), a semi-historical novel about Carthage, depicts the practice of child sacrifice to Moloch.
In the dystopian novel The Secret of the League (1907) by Ernest Bramah, Moloch is the name of a prototype flying-machine that goes off course and is eventually lost.
In Isaac Asimov's short story "The Dead Past" (1956), the plot hinges on a historian's obsession with exonerating the Carthaginians of their supposed child sacrifice to Moloch.
In Robert A. Heinlein's novel Job: A Comedy of Justice (1984), the main characters join a church pastored by "Reverend Dr. M. O. Loch."
In Walter Moers's The 131⁄2 Lives of Captain Bluebear (1999), the great ship is called the Moloch.
Moloch is one of the names given to Corky Laputa in Dean Koontz's novel The Face (2003).
Moloch played an important role in Jeff Lindsey's novel Dexter in the Dark (2007).
Moloch is a character in the Felix Castor novels written by Mike Carey (2007 and following).
In Derek Landy's Skulduggery Pleasant (2007), Moloch is the name of a vampire living in Ballymun.
In Wayne Barlowe's novel God's Demon (2007), Moloch appears as an infernal general to the ruling demonic legions, ruling under Beelzebub. His relationship with Hannibal particularly focuses on his demands for child sacrifice from his followers.
In Dan Brown's novel The Lost Symbol (2009), the principal villain's backstory reveals that he renamed himself Mal'akh after the angel Moloch in Paradise Lost . The villain also performs a black magic ritual to allow the angel to descend and possess him, as he gains extra powers after the ritual is complete.
In Ilona Andrews' novella "Blood Heir" (2021), Moloch is the principle antagonist.
In Patrick Rothfuss' children's book "The Princess and Mr. Wiffle", Moloch is the proposed name for a kitten which is subsequently and symbolically eaten by the Princess.
In the Slate Star Codex popular post "Meditations on Moloch", Scott Alexander takes inspiration from the Moloch introduced in Allen Ginsberg's "Howl", and tags Moloch as the name for abstract, systemic, failures of coordination.^[4]^[5]^[6]

Comics and anime

Alan Moore's Watchmen features a retired underworld crime boss who once adopted the name Moloch the Mystic (real name Edgar William Jacobi) and wore the robes of a magician.
Moloch von Zinzer is a supporting character in the webcomic Girl Genius .
The cartoonist Paul Mavrides depicts a serious/comical Moloch in Anarchy Comics #1, in a piece entitled "Some Straight Talk about ANARCHY".^[7]
In Marvel Comics, Moloch was the antagonist of Marvel Fanfare #52, in which a cult of "hill-people" attempt to sacrifice the Black Knight to him.
Also from Marvel, Molek was the name of an Arabic spirit of vengeance in Jason Aaron's run on Ghost Rider .
In Yondemasu yo, Azazel-san, Moloch is the demon of violence, and is implied to be the strongest demon summoned; however, in all of his incarnations, he is exorcized or killed before he can display any of his power. His appearance is that of a bull plushy.
In "The Chapel of Moloch", Hellboy travels to Tavira, Portugal, to investigate a centuries-old chapel reputedly devoted to the worship of Moloch. In the Hellboy universe, Moloch is also portrayed as a bull-headed creature.
In the popular anime/manga Dragon Ball Super , the main villain of the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga, named Moro, is depicted as a goat-like, humanoid creature, similar to the Canaanite god Moloch.

Film and TV

In Giovanni Pastrone's silent epic film Cabiria (1914), substantially based on Flaubert, the heroine is saved from being sacrificed to the idol Molech.^[8]
In Fritz Lang's silent film Metropolis (1927), Moloch is a vision of a demonic machine. His face overlays machinery, and the hero, Freder, has a vision of workers being dragged by chains into the fires inside Moloch's mouth.^{[ citation needed ]}^[9]^[10]
"Moloch", an episode of the BBC television series Blake's 7 (1980).
Moloch is a character in Stargate SG-1 who demands all female children be burnt alive at birth. He is killed by a missile strike in the episode "Sacrifices", written by Stargate actor Christopher Judge .
Moloch the Corrupter is the name of a demon in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "I, Robot... You, Jane" (1997). In this adaptation, Moloch is portrayed as a powerful demon who charms his victims with false promises of power and glory if they devote their love to him.
Moloch is the entity after Alfie's soul in Indonesian films May the Devil Take You and May the Devil Take You Too
In the Korean reality game show Agents of Mystery (2024), the evil cult attempts to resurrect Molek in a ritual.

Video games

Moloch is an archdevil in the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game.
In Total War: Warhammer III the Chaos Dwarfs worship a minor chaos god called Hashut. This god is commonly depicted as a golden bull. Hashut constantly demands slaves and sacrifices in order to be appeased.
Moloch is an Oni demon in the Mortal Kombat franchise who was first introduced as the sub-boss in Deadly Alliance (2002).
Moloch regularly appears in the Megami Tensei series, first introduced in Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei II .

Related Research Articles

Moloch, Molech, or Molek is a word which appears in the Hebrew Bible several times, primarily in the Book of Leviticus. The Bible strongly condemns practices that are associated with Moloch, which are heavily implied to include child sacrifice.

"Howl", also known as "Howl for Carl Solomon", is a poem written by Allen Ginsberg in 1954–1955 and published in his 1956 collection Howl and Other Poems. The poem is dedicated to Carl Solomon.

Cabiria is a 1914 Italian epic silent film, directed by Giovanni Pastrone and shot in Turin. The film is set in ancient Sicily, Carthage, and Cirta during the period of the Second Punic War. It follows the story of an abducted little girl, Cabiria, and features an eruption of Mount Etna, religious rituals in Carthage, the alpine trek of Hannibal, Archimedes' defeat of the Roman fleet at the Siege of Syracuse and Scipio maneuvering in North Africa. Apart from being a classic on its own terms, the film is also notable for being the first film in which the long-running film character Maciste makes his debut. According to Martin Scorsese, in this work Pastrone invented the epic movie and deserves credit for many of the innovations often attributed to D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. DeMille. Among those was the extensive use of a moving camera, thus freeing the feature-length narrative film from "static gaze".

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Shin Megami Tensei II is a post-apocalyptic role-playing video game developed and published by Atlus. It was originally released for the Super Famicom in 1994 in Japan, and has since been ported to multiple platforms. It is the second game in the Shin Megami Tensei series, which is a subset of the larger Megami Tensei franchise.

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References

↑ Lives of Victorian political figures: Volume 2, Christine Kinealy, Michael De Nie, Carla King - 2007 "370, L 5: Moloch: in popular mythology, an idol who devours his followers' children".
↑ In Ginsberg;s annotations for the poem (see especially Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions).
↑ Burbank, Richard (1984). Twentieth Century Music. New York City, USA: Facts on File Publication, New York City, NY. p. 28. ISBN 0-87196-464-3.|
↑ Sotala, Kaj (2017). "Superintelligence as a Cause or Cure for Risks of Astronomical Suffering". Informatica. 41: 389–400. Archived from the original on 20 February 2020.
↑ Foley, Walter. "ESSAY // Killing Moloch: Early Pandemic Reflections on Sobriety and Transcendence". RQ. Archived from the original on 9 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020. The rationality blog Slate Star Codex uses the brutal Canaanite god Moloch, depicted in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl,' as a metaphor for humanity's repeated failure to coordinate toward a better future
↑ Ord, Toby (2020). The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5266-0022-6. OCLC 1143365836. A second kind of unrecoverable dystopia is a stable civilization that is desired by few (if any) people. It is easy to see how such an outcome could be dystopian, but not immediately obvious how we could arrive at it, or lock it in, if most (or all) people do not want it... Meditations on Moloch is a powerful exploration of such possibilities...
↑ "Anarchy comic" (PDF). libcom.org. Retrieved 2020-01-13.
↑ Cf. Juan Antonio Ramírez (2004). Architecture for the Screen: A Critical Study of Set Design. p. 115: "The 'Temple of Moloch,' as recreated for Cabiria (1913), an influential Italian 'super' production of the period. The horrific portal to the temple, a gigantic mouth with shark-like fangs, clearly establishes the voracious character of a merciless, pre-Christian god requiring endless human sacrifice." (online)
↑ "'Moloch!' clip from Metropolis 1927". YouTube .
↑ "Metropolis: The Moloch Machine".

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[1] Lives of Victorian political figures: Volume 2, Christine Kinealy, Michael De Nie, Carla King - 2007 "370, L 5: Moloch: in popular mythology, an idol who devours his followers' children".

[2] In Ginsberg;s annotations for the poem (see especially Howl: Original Draft Facsimile, Transcript & Variant Versions).

[3] Burbank, Richard (1984). Twentieth Century Music. New York City, USA: Facts on File Publication, New York City, NY. p. 28. ISBN 0-87196-464-3.|

[4] Sotala, Kaj (2017). "Superintelligence as a Cause or Cure for Risks of Astronomical Suffering". Informatica. 41: 389–400. Archived from the original on 20 February 2020.

[5] Foley, Walter. "ESSAY // Killing Moloch: Early Pandemic Reflections on Sobriety and Transcendence". RQ. Archived from the original on 9 September 2020. Retrieved 9 September 2020. The rationality blog Slate Star Codex uses the brutal Canaanite god Moloch, depicted in Allen Ginsberg's 'Howl,' as a metaphor for humanity's repeated failure to coordinate toward a better future

[6] Ord, Toby (2020). The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 978-1-5266-0022-6. OCLC 1143365836. A second kind of unrecoverable dystopia is a stable civilization that is desired by few (if any) people. It is easy to see how such an outcome could be dystopian, but not immediately obvious how we could arrive at it, or lock it in, if most (or all) people do not want it... Meditations on Moloch is a powerful exploration of such possibilities...

[7] "Anarchy comic" (PDF). libcom.org. Retrieved 2020-01-13.

[8] Cf. Juan Antonio Ramírez (2004). Architecture for the Screen: A Critical Study of Set Design. p. 115: "The 'Temple of Moloch,' as recreated for Cabiria (1913), an influential Italian 'super' production of the period. The horrific portal to the temple, a gigantic mouth with shark-like fangs, clearly establishes the voracious character of a merciless, pre-Christian god requiring endless human sacrifice." (online)

[9] "'Moloch!' clip from Metropolis 1927". YouTube .

[10] "Metropolis: The Moloch Machine".

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