Talk:Number of the Beast/Pop culture
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[edit] In popular culture
The Left Behind series uses various representations of 666 to identify people who have pledged allegiance to the Antichrist. For example, Carpathia ordered the number 216 (6 x 6 x 6) for his office suite, for the aircraft model of Global Community One, and for the loyalty mark region number for the United Carpathian States. His relative, Viv Ivins, has a "666" name, since VI VI VI is Roman for three individual 6s.
In the short film The Backpack, 666 is used as the lock combination to contain the evils of the backpack.
Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange visually represented Alex (Malcolm McDowell) as the Beast during a scene where he is accosted by two police officers who are identified as 665 and 667.
Final Fantasy IX makes two references to the number. A character named Vivi Orunitia is a reference to it because of his name (VI VI = 66) and the fact that he is a black mage (the opposite of a white or "holy" mage). Also, two enemy characters are called "The Nero Brothers"
Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" features a briefcase that is opened by the passcode 666. The retrieval of the briefcase is one of the major plots of the movie and belongs to Marcellus Wallace (Ving Rhames), who is portrayed as a souless, evil man.
SLC Punk contains a scene in which the main character reveals the number "666" tattooed on his buttocks to a pair of fundamentalist Christians conversing about the end of times.
End of Days, directed by Peter Hyams, supposes as a plot point that the number represented in Revelation was actually seen upside down in a dream and should have actually been 999. This ignores the reality that Hindu-Arabic numerals were probably not invented until ca. 400 AD, and only reached the Middle East by 670 AD, whereas Revelation is considered to have been written in the first century AD.
The Omen and its sequels (a series of horror films about the Antichrist) have the Mark Of The Beast found under the hair as an apparent birthmark on the scalp of the character Damien Thorn. The 666 was explained to mean the Unholy Trinity: The Devil, the Antichrist, and the False Prophet. The movie was released on 6 June 1976—the sixth day of the sixth month, that is.
The Exorcism of Emily Rose, directed by Scott Derrickson, has many references to the number "666". Emily, who is supposedly possessed by demons, counts to six several times, "One, Two, Three, Four, Five, SIX!!!!". The demons inside her claim that they dwelled also within "Nero" who is presumed to be Nero Caesar.
Pi, directed by Darren Aronofsky, is about a character who is faced with a choice to sell his mathematical mind to Wall Street or to a group of Hasidic Jews, illustrating themes of materialism, numerology, and mysticism. With his elaborate home computer setup and complex algorithm the protagonist decipers a predictable pattern in the stock market, and the computer spits out a 216 digit number each time before the system crashes, in recurring epiphanic moments of Icarus-like masochism. As the character falls into madness and before he gives himself a lobotomy, he says again and again "it's not the number; it's what's inside the number." 216 is the cube of 6, or 216 = 6*6*6. The golden ratio is discussed in the movie. The golden ratio's graphical representation is a spiral spun over time with a growing radius, similar to the appearance of the number 6, if the ratio's curve is represented in a single segmented curl.
The Phantom of the Opera musical, composed by Andrew Lloyd Webber, opens with an auction, in which the lot number of the restored chandelier is 666.
The Heretic Anthem, by hard rock band, Slipknot, features the lyric "If you are 555, then I am 666." In this case, 555 refers to man as 777 refers to God. It is not meant to be satanic but a denial of being a part of mankind.
While the association is not clearly Satanic in nature, and usually is not construed to promote Satanism, a reference to the number "666" may be the cause for the controversial assignment of the "Parental Advisory" designation to the HIM album Razorblade Romance, generally considered innocuous as it contains no profanity or sexually explicit language yet contains a song called "Your Sweet 666".
In Robert A. Heinlein's book Number of the Beast, "666" is actually six to the sixth to the sixth power, which in the novel is the number of possible dimensions/universes that may be reached in one step using the main inventor's device.
The British heavy metal band Iron Maiden have made an album titled The Number of the Beast. The title track quotes from the Bible and the lyrics refer to "six six six - the number of the beast". Flotsam and Jetsam made a song called "6 Six VI". The Australian black metal band Deströyer 666 also used Satanic imagery and lyrics, though in somewhat of a tongue-and-cheek way. Entombed have made an album called DCLXVI - To ride straight and speak the Truth (DCLXVI is the Roman numeral for 666).
The Greek progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child made a concept album 666 based on the Book of Revelation.
The band Saviour Machine created the Legend album series about the end of times, in which numerous references occur in both lyrics and background vocals (such as readings from the Bible). The fifth track of the album Legend part II is particularly named "Mark of The Beast".
Industrial rock band Marilyn Manson released its album Antichrist Superstar on June 6, 1996 (the 6th day of the 6th month).
ESPN, Sports Illustrated, and Yahoo! give the Slovakian-born ice hockey player Miroslav Šatan the ID number of 666 in their databases, likely as a joke about his last name, which is similar to Satan.
The relatively popular, and controversial Xenosaga video game series thus far features three characters named Albedo, Rubedo (Jr.), and Nigredo (Gaignun), and as U.R.T.V. are the 667th, 666th, and 669th clones of Dmitri Yuriev respectively.
It is often quipped that 667 is "the Neighbour of the Beast" although this is possibly country-dependent as 668 (and 664) would be next property on the same side of the street in most, but not all, countries (assuming that the neighbours referred to are next-door neighbours). There are also at least two filk songs on this topic. Additional quips suggest that 1-888-666-6666 is "the Toll-Free Number of the Beast", $665.99 is "the Retail Price of the Beast", 00666 is "the ZIP Code of the Beast", 0.666 is "the Number of the Millibeast", Route 666 is "the highway of the Beast", 6.5013 is "the natural logarithm of the Beast", 333 is a devil doing a half-assed job, the root of all evil being √666 = 25.8068, etc
Canadian comedic band Corky and the Juice Pigs has a song, on its eponymous 1993 album, titled "666-6666". The song is about dating the devil's daughter, with the main lyric being "666-6666... that's the [phone] number of the daughter of the beast."
6.66, One Hundredth of the Number of the Beast is the name of the only song by the fictional Australian rock band Salmon Hater. Adam Spencer and Wil Anderson, then hosts of the Triple J [1] radio breakfast show, invented the band as a joke one morning. A fan of the show soon composed this song for the pretend band, and a video clip was also made later. Now with the speculation that the number 616 is the real number of the beast, it has come to light that 616 used to be the country number and area code of Canberra, the Capital of Australia, and home to the nation's Government. However the area code was changed from 6 to 2 in 1997. 666 AM is the frequency for ABC local radio in Canberra. Comedian Andrew Denton once noted on The Money or the Gun that the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's contact address (GPO Box 9994), when turned upside down read "666... and some kind of upside-down cross." The GPO Box number was actually named so as a tribute to Don Bradman who retired with a career average of 99.94.
The third and final book in the Before They Were Left Behind series is scheduled to be released on June 6, 2006, or the sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year.
In The Pixies song "Monkey Gone To Heaven" the lyrics state that "If man is 5...then the devil is 6...then God is 7" suggesting that man is represented as 555, the devil as 666, and God as 777.
In the role-playing game In Nomine, rolling three dice in one go and getting a six on each one produces a result that is favourable for a demon character and detrimental to an angel character. Some Christian organizations and persons who viewed Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy RPGs as harmful games (see RPG controversy) objected to any rules where rolling 6+6+6=18 on three six-sided dice lead to the most benefical results. (For example, classic D&D uses 3d6 for rolling ability scores, and 18 is the best possible score.)
-2·Sin(666°) evaluates to (√5 + 1)/2 which is the Golden Ratio.
New Zealand pizza company Hell Pizza plays on the number of the beast for its phone number, which is then followed by a 111, which is the emergency phone number in New Zealand. It is commonly quipped that the number means "go to hell for an emergency."
In John Carpenter's Escape From L.A., the code that will shut down the world's power and in the end civilization is "666".
In Kingdom of Loathing, an item called the 668 scroll summons the Neighbor of the Beast (see above), who then grants the player a random boon or bane (for example, it might give or take money or experience, among other effects)
WARNING: Plot spoilers follow
The American TV series 'Seven Days' is about a government-based team who can go back in time by one week only. In the episode 'Revelation' they encounter a man claiming to be their successor from seven years in the future. This distant time-traveller (Major Michael McGrath, played by Robert Picardo), has a time-traveller's barcode tattooed in his arm -- the number 666. McGrath has come to assassinate an outspoken Muslim peace activist in an effort to spark World War 3.
