Religion in HBO’s Raised By Wolves
Raised by Wolves is definitely an extremely weird show by all accounts.
When the show begins it seems to have a normal premise. Earth is destroyed by a war between Atheists and the Mithraic (who believe in a deity called Sol). With Earth on the verge of collapse, the Mithraic send out an arc full of humans to repopulate a planet that is habitable for life, Kepler-22b. Unbeknownst to these Mithraic, the atheists send their own small vessel containing two androids: Mother, a necromancer android originally built to destroy humans but reprogrammed to be a mother, Father, a generic service android, and a couple of frozen human embryos.
The show begins with this simple backstory but quickly picks up pace as the episodes progress. The show definitely gets stranger and stranger. By the end Mother somehow births a giant snake creature, one of the children, Paul, gets possessed and attempts to murder his mother, and Mother and Father end up in some sort of “tropical zone” with a now-enlarged snake creature.
What does this all mean? Why is the show so damn weird? What the hell is going on!?
Usually when I watch shows I am confused because I am not looking at the show in the right frame of mind. For me at least this means there is a deeply religious component to this show that I don’t understand. Most of the time I don’t bother with understanding religious references as it requires an involved backstory, but I figure with Covid and everything I could take some time and try to understand some religious references.
Note I am no religious scholar by any means. Most of the info presented here was found by others more knowledgeable, namely from this reddit post:
The purpose of this post is to summarize their findings in laymen terms for those of us who want enough religious context to appreciate the show and what it is trying to say, but don’t necessarily care about all the specifics. Nevertheless, credit is due to the reddit post above who first reported on this analysis.
With that out of the way let’s dive in. Once Constantine legalized Christianity, it could be practiced without fear of religious persecution. As a result, the new religion incorporated ideals from various “mystery religions” which were more popular at the time (the extent or existence of this integration is arguable by modern scholars but nevertheless is a possible interpretation). One of these “mystery religions” that existed in the Roman era was Mithraism. Ring a bell?
The religion centers around a god Mithras potentially inspired by the Iranian Zoroastrian divinity Mithra. Everything known about the religion is hotly contested, but some recurring iconography gives a basis in which we can understand the show. Mithras is often depicted as being born from a rock, emerging with a dagger in one hand and torch in another. In some depictions flames are being shot out of the rock from which Mithras was born. This is strikingly similar to the dodecahedron temple in the desert found in the show which can also shoot out flames. Moreover, later on the show we see a similar, smaller dodecahedron surrounded by cult like worshipers. On the top of the dodecahedron we see a head that moves as if something from the dodecahedron is being born. The similarities go even deeper. In Mithraism there is a sun god Sol, yes just like the sun god Sol that the Mithraic worship in the show.
Short aside: crazy fact for those interested! Did you know that the bible does not mention Dec. 25th as the day of Jesus’s birth? Instead some scholars argue that when Christianity was young, they saw how Mithraism and other popular mystery religions celebrated the 25th of December due to the winter solstice and ideals about the Sun. In order to attract more followers, Christianity essentially incorporated this idea into their religion, arguing Jesus was born on the 25th to allow any newcomers to not have to change this holiday in their conversion, except simply celebrate for an alternative reason. If we take this a step further, could Sol have also influenced the Christian perception of God? Not sure, but religion is definitely fascinating.
Okay, now that we have established the similarities between the Mithraic in the show and the ancient religion Mithraism it is time to go back into show lore. As the show goes on we quickly realize that Keplar-22b has a deep expansive history. At one point, Father and Mother kill a creature following them and find that the creature was exceptionally humanoid, except in a devolved state. Case in point, the creature was carrying a Neanderthal skull in a backpack, a skull not from Earth but from Keplar-22b. Wow. Is Keplar-22b humanity’s original home?
Now it’s important to remember the religious Mithraic from Earth were not winning the war against the atheists. What ultimately helped them win the war was technology that they were able to discover from ancient scriptures. These scriptures helped them build androids like Mother and Father and harness “dark photon” energy though it seems humans had limited understanding of this technology. In fact, the very decision to go to Keplar-22b was influenced by the scriptures as the scriptures talked of Kepler-22b and said it was where humanity was ultimately destined to go. Moreover, Mother and Father were not androids invented by humanity, but rather, from a more ancient, potential sinister origin on Kepler-22b. With this in mind the ending of the show makes more sense.
Near the end, Mother realizes that the head on the top of the small dodecahedron mentioned earlier was actually the head of a necromancer android just like her. She realizes just as she is about to birth a child, the past inhabitants of this planet must have used necromancers like her to birth this Snake deity or Mithras. Mother realizes this too late and births Mithras (reminiscent to the giant Snake skull we see near the original camp).
Okay Mithraism has taken us far, but now we must look at some other religious texts to understand other aspects of the show. The Book of Enoch is an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic text that describes the events leading up to the great flood. The text describes how before God brought forth the flood that wiped out the world except for the life in Noah’s ark, there were a group of angels called the Watchers whose job was to watch over the humans. Some of the angels became enamored with God’s creation. They became so enamored that they mated with humans creating Nephilim. Moreover, these angels teach humanity a wide variety of technologies and arts that they were supposed to discover in their own time. As a result, God decided to bring the Great Flood to reset his creation and banished these angels.
John Milton wrote an epic poem called Paradise Lost. The Poem beings with the banishment of Satan and other rebel angels to hell after their defeated by God and his armies. In Pandæmonium, the capital of Hell, Satan devises a plan to corrupt God’s creation, Mankind. Satan enters the Garden of Eden and tempts Eve to eat from the Tree of knowledge of good and evil though God explicitly told Adam and Eve not to do this. Upon realizing Eve’s sin, Adam also eats from this tree and the two have lustful sex. Adam and Eve quickly realize their mistake, but it is too late, they are cast out of Eden and now have a more distant relationship with God. Satan upon returning to Hell in celebration for his success, is quickly turned into a snake by God as punishment.
Okay now with this background we can go back to the show and understand it yet again. Clearly the Snake born is a manifestation of Satan and the “tropical zone” of the planet is the fabled Garden of Eden. Mother and Father are Adam and Eve in this scenario as they end up in the tropical zone with the snake. The show is heading toward an interpretation of John Milton’s paradise lost. The Book of Enoch comes in with the humanoid creatures that are found all over Kepler-22b and used as food. These creatures are actually the Nephilim. The voices that drive various characters insane are the fallen angels, the Watchers, that inhabit Kepler-22b. The scriptures that the Mithraic used to create the technology that ultimately destroyed Earth in the show is a call back to how the Watchers gave humanity technology prematurely dooming them until God reset all creation with the flood.
I will stop here for now. There are definitely more religious references in the show, but these are the most interesting and widely used. So is this it, is Keplar-22b where these epic clashes between good and evil took place as told in religious text? If so, why is humanity destined to return to its point of birth? Are we destined to destroy each other and return to where we started only to be pawns yet again in the epic battle of good and evil that seems to pervade all of existence?
These are interesting questions that I don’t have the answer to yet. However, what I do know is Raised by Wolves is an incredibly thoughtful introspection into religion not as a system of belief, but rather a window into understanding our own human nature and begin answering questions that subconsciously haunt each and every one of us. Who are we? Where did we really come from? What does it mean to be human? Why are we here? I am excited to see the show’s potential answer for these questions since in the face of a potentially infinitely vast universe and multiverse it is clear that the future of humanity in this show and in this world depends on finding the answers to these questions.
