Leviathan in popular culture
The Leviathan of the Book of Job is a reflection of the older Canaanite Lotan, a primeval monster defeated by the god Baal Hadad.
Parallels to the role of Mesopotamian Tiamat defeated by Marduk have long been drawn in comparative mythology, as have been wider comparisons to dragon and world serpent narratives such as Indra slaying Vrtra or Thor slaying Jörmungandr,[1] but Leviathan already figures in the Hebrew Bible as a metaphor for a powerful enemy, notably Babylon (Isaiah 27:1), and some 19th century scholars have pragmatically interpreted it as referring to large aquatic creatures, such as the crocodile.
This relationship is explicitly seen in Blake's two pictures showing Admiral Nelson and William Pitt [(1759–1806), Prime Minister of Great Britain (1783–1801 and 1804–1806)] included in this display.
A Rabbi tells his Catholic opponent in a debate (the "Disputation") that every day of the year, but one, the God of the Jews plays for an hour with the fish at the bottom of the sea.
In the Dungeons & Dragons novel Darkwalker on Moonshae, set in the Forgotten Realms world, the author, Douglas Niles, presents the Leviathan as a giant sea creature that fights the forces of evil on behalf of the Earthmother, an aspect of Chauntea.
In Steven Brust's 1994 novel To Reign in Hell, Leviathan (female in this case) is one of seven elder inhabitants of Heaven who conspire to prevent Yahweh from creating the Earth as a sanctuary for himself and those loyal to him.
Leviathan is a horror comic series created by Ian Edginton and D'Israeli about a mile-long cruise liner which, on her maiden voyage to New York, disappeared and has spent the last twenty years lost in an endless and lifeless ocean.
In the 4th book of the series, Captain's Fury the main characters attempt to trick their enemy by swimming past their ship when leviathans are nearby.
The webnovel Worm features an Endbringer, a city-destroying monster accidentally created and continually maintained by the powers of the superhero Eidolon, named Leviathan.
In the gothic soap opera Dark Shadows, the Leviathans are an ancient race of beings who ruled the Earth before mankind came into existence.
In the 2001 Disney animated film Atlantis: The Lost Empire, the Leviathan is a gigantic and terrifying Atlantean war machine which looks like a giant lobster a hundred times the dimension of even the largest man-made sea vessel.
In the television series Supernatural, the Leviathans are an ancient race of monsters that were freed from Purgatory when the angel Castiel absorbed its entire population.
In the Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu episode "The Last Voyage", Zane's father is revealed to be still alive and trapped on a prison surrounded by water and guarded by a squid-like creature known as a Leviathon.
In the television series Agent Carter, which also set in Marvel Cinematic Universe, Leviathan is a callsign of the possible head of the enemy operation.
In the 2016 television series Legends of Tomorrow, Vandal Savage uses a giant robot created from Palmer's technologies known as the Leviathan to crush rebellion forces.
Job 41:12-34 appears in the beginning of the epilogue of the movie's official novelization, in reference to the physiological similarities between Godzilla and Leviathan as described by the passage.
In Hellbound: Hellraiser II - The entity Leviathan — in the shape of a gigantic, elongated diamond — rotates in space above the Hell labyrinth, shooting out black beams which make Channard remember some of the atrocities he committed.
In the game Dishonored, it is hinted that the original form of the Outsider, a mystical figure who grants the protagonist Corvo magical powers, is a leviathan.
In Mega Man Zero, one of the main characters is a Reploid named Fairy Leviathan, who is a member of the Maverick Hunter organization of Neo Arcadia.
In Destiny, the Leviathan is a massive undersea creature who tries to prevent one of the game's main antagonistic races, the Hive, from becoming corrupted, but ultimately fails.
In the light novel and anime Gosick, Leviathan is the name of a famous alchemist whose true life and fate is one of the main mysteries on the story.
The creature, which resembles an archipelago when viewed by sailors at sea level, lives in the South Atlantic Ocean and "possibly" the Drake Passage, and was responsible for the Bloop.
[9] In the 3.5 edition supplement Elder Evils for Dungeons & Dragons Leviathan is one of the abominations profiled, described as a colossal sea monster so huge it encircles the entire world.
