Human Sacrifice - in Fiction

In Fiction

Human sacrifice has a history as a topic in literature, opera, video games, and cinema. A recurrent theme in the Classics, it returns to prominence in European imagination with the Spanish accounts of the Aztec rituals. Derek Hughes in Culture and Sacrifice traces the topic's iterations through the works of Shakespeare, Dryden and Voltaire, and its central position in the operatic tradition from Mozart to Wagner and into 20th century works such as those of D.H. Lawrence.

"The Lottery" is a 1948 short story that caused controversy in the United States. The Wicker Man is a 1973 British film on the topic.

In Rosemary Sutcliff's 1977 historical novel Sun Horse, Moon Horse, the main character accepts a duty as a sacrificial king and lays down his life for the redemption of his people, while inaugurating the creation of the Uffington White Horse.

Most of the plot of The Beatles' film Help! deals (in a humorous way) with a group that practises human sacrifice trying to kill Ringo Starr because he is wearing the sacrificial ring.

In Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun the Inca leader comes close to sacrificing Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus on a pyre to be set alight with parabolic mirrors. This was for Calculus having committed sacrilege for wearing the bracelet of Rascar Capac.

In the 1984 film Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, high priest Mola Ram sacrifices men by magically removing their heart with one hand and lowering them in boiling lava. One sacrifice is shown, in which the victim's amputated heart spontaneously combusts when the victim hits the lava. In Mel Gibson's 2006 film Apocalypto, human sacrifice is done to appease the gods.

In the Dan Brown novel The Lost Symbol, the book's main antagonist Mal'akh, prepares himself for the human sacrifice throughout the story, believing that it is his great destiny to lead the forces of evil.

In the two fantasy series the Belgariad and the Malloreon by David Eddings, human sacrifice of a type similar to that of the Aztecs is practiced by men of the Angarak race in devotion to their god Torak.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Human Sacrifice is a recurring element in several side quests involving the infamous Daedric Princes. The most infamous of these is a quest given by the Daedric Prince Boethiah where the Dragonborn must sacrifice one of his or her followers in order to progress further into the quest and the Daedric Prince Molag Bol requires the player to sacrifice a corrupt priest by murdering him with a rusted mace once he is caught in one of Molag Bol's traps.