As it stands, it seems as though while some are trying to build a better world, the cycle of history may be too hard to break, and the teens may find themselves tossed out of their kingdom too if they don't get their act together soon enough.ĥ. The writing on the wall is a message that invokes the question of whether history will repeat itself or the next generation will learn from the previous generation's mistakes - which is the exact scenario we watch the teens of New Ham play out. Belshazzar, in contrast, didn't learn anything from his father's example, and after he blasphemed God his kingdom was given away to others. In the Bible, Belshazzar's father Nebuchadnezzar had become arrogant and was thrown down by God until he learned his lesson, was humbled, and got his kingdom restored.
Belshazzar's Feast: Before the kids get on the buses that take them away from West Ham in the series premiere, they see this graffiti on the church wall: "Mene mene tekel upharsin." The phrase is known as the writing on the wall from Belshazzar's Feast in the Book of Daniel, and it means "you've been weighed in the balance and found wanting." It's incredibly ominous even without context, but once you dig into the story of Belshazzar, the writing on the wall may actually reveal the motives behind taking the kids to the new universe. If you only knew the most popular version of this story, you might think that means the kids are doomed to stay in New Ham forever, but knowing all the different variations really opens up ways for the writers to potentially play off the tale of the Pied Piper more in the future.Ĥ. Although the cave is the most common answer, there are versions that say he led them to a beautiful new land, or that he led them to the river where they drowned like the rats, or even one that says he eventually returned them after he received his overdue payment. Pfeiffer is a clear stand-in for the piper in The Society (his name literally means piper in German), but what makes this connection more interesting is that there is some variation as to where the piper led the children. The mayor then refused to pay the piper the agreed-upon fee, so the piper played his pipe once more, only this time he lured all the town's children away and into a cave where they were never seen or heard from again. In the original tale, Hamelin had been overrun by rats, and so the mayor hired the piper to remove the rats, which he did by playing his pipe and leading the rats to a river, where they then drowned. The Pied Piper of Hamelin: The basic premise of the show's mystery - parents renege on a contract with a man who helped the town get rid of an unwanted nuisance and the man gets revenge by taking away the children - is obviously drawing from the myth of the Pied Piper of Hamelin. It's a super dark outlook, but there's always the chance that Keyser will pull a Haunting of Hill House and flip the expectedly bleak ending for tales like this on its head to give us a message of hope in the end.ģ.
But as long as people like him are the few and not the many, the fate of humanity doesn't look too cheery according to book, given that Simon is eventually killed by the other boys. Lord of the Flies also suggests people can resist these dark impulses, as seen through the morally pure character of Simon. This is something we see explored through Allie ( Kathryn Newton), who wants so badly to do the right thing but establishes an eye-for-an-eye cycle of violence when she executes Dewey (Seth Meriwether). But even though the women in The Society aren't as quick to succumb to these violent, primitive desires, Lord of the Flies implies that the potential for cruelty and evil is inherent in all humans. The connections to The Society are obvious, but it is interesting to note that Lord of the Flies featured all male characters, and just like in the book, it's largely the men of New Ham who give in to their more savage impulses. The book is largely concerned with examining the competing impulses within humans: the desire for order and civilization and the desire for personal gratification and power. Lord of Flies: The entire set-up of The Society is playing off Lord of the Flies, William Golding's 1954 novel about a group of boys stranded on an island and their descent from civilized students into a more primitive state.