(This post contains minor spoilers for Episode 1 of Moon Knight.)
Arthur Harrow, the main antagonist in the new Disney Plus series Moon Knight, may turn out to be one of Marvel’s most unsettling villains yet. He’s a religious zealot with so much charisma that his followers are willing to put their lives in his hands, no questions asked. And he’s ruthless in getting what he wants (as Steven and Marc quickly find out when they keep Moon Knight’s scarab from him). Plus, he’s got the Devourer of the Dead backing him up, thanks to his strange scale tattoo. But how exactly does the tattoo work?
Moon Knight, the latest entry in the MCU, tells the story of Steven Grant, a timid museum gift shop employee with a sleep problem, who finds out that he shares a body with hardened mercenary Marc Spector. Together, the two serve as Moon Knight, a warrior priest of the Egyptian god Khonshu. Moon Knight will go up against Harrow as Harrow tries to wake the Egyptian goddess of damned souls, Ammit.
Now, let’s take a look at that tattoo!
The Scale’s Origins
First, a wee bit of ancient Egyptian mythology. If you’re familiar with the Egyptian Book of the Dead, then you know that when someone dies, their soul has to undergo a trial where they’re judged for all the sins they may have committed in their earthly life. The soul’s heart is placed on one side of a scale, with an ostrich feather on the other side. The scale is presided over by two goddesses: Ma’at, the goddess of justice and owner of the ostrich feather; and Ammit, a crocodile-headed demoness hungry for a sinful heart. When the trial begins, the soul recites a long list of sins they supposedly didn’t commit. If they lie about any of the sins, their heart grows heavier, and if their heart outweighs the ostrich feather, then Ammit devours it. If that happens, the soul is barred from the afterlife forever, doomed to wander as a restless ghost for all eternity.
Why Does Harrow Have the Scale?
So, is that what Harrow is up to as Ammit’s disciple? Sort of. It seems, though, that Ammit has gotten a bit impatient with waiting for people to die before she can judge them.
In Episode 1, Steven wakes up in a small mountain town to find Harrow conducting a public ritual in which he invites his followers to come up and be judged by Ammit. Harrow has each participant hold his crocodile-headed cane between their wrists, and lets it swing like a pendulum. As the cane swings, the scales in his tattoo tip back and forth. If the two sides are evenly balanced, the person passes judgment. If one side is heavier, the person dies instantly as Ammit takes their soul.
There’s a bit of confusion, though, when the second follower is judged. She tells Harrow that she’s never done anything bad in her life, and Harrow explains that Ammit can see not just someone’s past sins, but any sins they might commit in the future. Later, Harrow tells Steven that if Ammit is freed to judge the whole world en masse, she’ll be able to prevent atrocities like the Holocaust—by making sure evildoers die before they ever have a chance to sin. Has this guy learned nothing from the 2002 film, Minority Report?
The Power of the Tattoo
Although the tattoo and the cane work in tandem to judge people (and drain the life from them), it’s not clear yet how much power each component has on its own. In a clip that was released before the premiere date, we see Harrow drive the cane into the ground, where it unleashes magical power and opens up a cleft in the ground for some kind of demon (possibly Ammit herself) to emerge. That indicates that the power doesn’t just lie in the tattoo. If Harrow were to lose one of these, so that he was left with just the tattoo OR the cane, would he still be able to channel Ammit’s power? It’s unclear.
Another interesting aspect of the tattoo is that when Harrow tries to conduct the ritual on Steven, the scale can’t deliver a verdict. That might be because Steven and Marc are living two wildly different lives, so it’s impossible to judge them both as one person.
We’ll learn more about Harrow, Ammit, and their plans as new episodes of Moon Knight are released each Wednesday!
(featured image: Marvel)
