Number of the Beast

Geez, I wonder how many levels you should beat before this one. 665, perhaps?

Woe to you, Oh Earth and Sea, for the Devil sends the beast with wrath, because he knows the time is short...Let him who hath understanding reckon the number of the beast, for it is a human number; its number is Six hundred threescore and six.

—Book of Revelation 12:12, 13:18

You know what this is. Six hundred sixty six, the Number of the Beast, first mentioned in the Book of Revelation in The Bible, making this Older Than Feudalism. Sometimes used for that extra symbolism everyone loves, but it's usually used because it's a nifty keen way to show that something is eeeevil.

Sometimes gets truncated to 66 or lengthened to 6666 if 666 is too high or too low a number, yet still evokes the Numerological Motif.

The actual number, however, is a subject of debate among theologians and historians: many say the number is actually 616, as some of the older Latin copies of Revelation list it as that rather than 666; all the Greek ones list it as 666, and most probably the name it indicated had a different sum according to their numerological schemes in different alphabets. However, 666 is so much better known that if you try to go with 616 instead it will likely fly over the heads of most readers and viewers. Note that either way, it is the value six hundred and sixty six or six hundred and sixteen, not just three sixes in a row (I'm looking at you, June 6, 2006). In fact, back then it would have been written χξϛ/χιϛ (chi - xi - sigma / chi - iota - sigma) in Greek and the guy who wrote Revelation would totally not get the stuff about three sixes in a row.

Interestingly enough, another interpretation is 216, as some older translations define this enigmatic number as "6 by 6 by 6" or 6 cubed.

The "616" number given to the main Marvel universe (as opposed to the other alternate realities) was a bit of spite on a writer's part, using 616 as a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar.

In Mandarin Chinese Language, 666 sounds like the phrase that roughly translates as "everything going smoothly", so the number is considered lucky in China especially for commercial undertakings.

Compare with its Asian counterparts 108 and 4. For the Robert A. Heinlein novel, see The Number of the Beast. Not to be confused with 555, which is about fake phone numbers.

Examples of Number of the Beast include:

Anime and Manga

  • The Book of Darkness in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha A's has 666 pages.
  • In The End Of Evangelion, Ritsuko uses program 666 to protect NERV from being hacked by SEELE.
    • Rebuild's Mari Illustrious Makinami hijacks Unit-2 in order to fight the last Angel in You Can (Not) Advance, she activates the Eva's Berserker mode with Code: 666, named, you guessed it, The Beast
    • Ironically, the new version of The Beast has the vocals (rather, vocal, as it's only one word) of Hallelujah...which, given the use of Handel's Messiah Chorus in the original continuity, caused many fans to freak out.
  • In one Japanese Yu-Gi-Oh!! episode, we see a card with 666 ATK and 666 DEF points. The US version Bowdlerised it to 1000/1000.[1]
  • In the Eighth Child arc of Digimon Adventure, a prophecy stated that the Big Bad Vamdemonm, who was thought to be killed moments ago, will rise in his true form at the hour of the Beast. And that evening, at 6:06 PM and 6 seconds, his insanely powerful One-Winged Angel form arises. Surprisingly, this plot point survived completely intact in the dub.
    • In the broader Digimon canon, the Seven Great Demon Lords possess a series of crests, the rings of which state of a "Level 666". No defined meaning is given to the statement, but given that no Digimon is classified by numerical power levels, odds are it's only there because for Rule of Symbolism.
  • There's an actual manga called 666 Satan, which is about humans, angels, and demons hunting for magical artifacts and is loaded with Kaballahlistic imagery. For obvious reasons, it was released in America as O-Parts Hunter, though is otherwise still the same.
  • The title super-suit in Moldiver only worked for 11 minutes, 6 seconds at a time.
  • Mr. Satan and Videl from Dragon Ball often had the number 666 plastered on their vehicles. Nothing evil about them (although the former is a bit of a prick) -- Toriyama was just throwing nods to the Theme Naming.
    • In the dub, his name is "Hercule". Probably more fitting, what with his reputation as the greatest fighter and all. I don't remember whether or not they kept the triple sixes.
  • AMV Hell Championship Edition was released on June 6, 2006.
  • The Gundam franchise has two Humongous Mecha with 666 in their model numbers, the ZGMF-X666S Legend Gundam from Gundam Seed Destiny and the NZ-666 Kshatriya from Gundam Unicorn. With the Kshatriya it actually makes sense,[2] but for Legend there's really no excuse other than implying that the pilot is evil.
  • In the manga version of Matsuribayashi-hen Miyo Takano says God keeps showing her the "one" face on the dice, but she'll force all the dice to be 6 on their faces. There are a number of dice on screen for the "one" dice, but only 3 for the "six" dice. Considering the speech given an issue or two before, this wasn't likely unintentional.
  • In Berserk, the Eclipse, which heralds the birth of a new member of the demonic Godhand, happens once every 216 years, or 6 x 6 x 6.
  • In Katekyo Hitman Reborn, there are six powerful Mist-rings known as the Hell Rings. New Varia member Fran owns the one with the number 666 on it.
  • In the opening pages of the manga Biomega, we see the protagonist driving along an abandoned bridge...going 666 km/h, of course.
  • Highschool of the Dead mentions the USA's National State of Emergency Tactical Regulation 666D.
  • The Litchi Hikari Club's Artificial Human Litchi runs on a series of commands issued by a clunky looking calculator. His activation code? "The Number Of The Beast".
  • In Yaiba the Devil King Sword (Maoken in jap.) is kept in the room Six-Six-Six of Kaguya's moonbase. Probably it's called like that because of the sword inside it. It's also well guarded.
  • In the infamous Gainax Ending of Panty and Stocking With Garterbelt, Panty is sliced up into exactly 666 pieces by Stocking in her Face Heel Turn.
  • C the Money And Soul of Possibility is full of 666 references, to emphasize the Deal with the Devil theme.
  • Hayate the Combat Butler had a completely unintentional example: in the first popularity poll, Isumi got 666 votes. The chapter revealing this joked about how bizarre it was for her, of all people, to get that number.
  • Around the beginning of the Fishman Island arc, One Piece started a "Where are they now?" side story where chapter covers show what characters of varying importance are now doing after all the time that's passed. The chapters featuring characters from Impel Down, The Alcatraz where each floor is it's own special brand of Hell, take place during the 660s, and the final cover for this group is chapter 666.


Card Games


Comic Books

  • Marvel Comics' main universe is Earth-616. The term was created around the time of Alan Moore's run on Captain Britain. Moore's son-in-law said that Moore intentionally used a random number with no meaning, but artist Alan Davis said it was created by the previous writer David Thorpe, who intentionally used the Number of the Beast to indicate his feelings about superheroes.
    • Earth-666 is the Fan Nickname for the Marvel Zombies reality.
  • In The DCU, there is a demonic Big Bad called Neron which, numerically, translates as 666.
  • Green Lanterns were forbidden from going to the world Ryut, where all life was obliterated by a Manhunter atrocity in the distant past. When Abin Sur crash lands there, he uncovers the prophecy of the Blackest Night, and the Anti-Monitor is turned into the Black Power Battery there. Earth is sector 2814—anyone wanna guess what sector Ryut is?
  • Kingdom Come has an Anti-Hero who's name is 666. Not only that but he has a huge "6" tattoo on his face and two more 6s on his chest. Alex Ross used Brian Azzarello as the model.
  • The address of the title character in Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is 777. A man taking a survey points this out and jokingly asks if it's the number for Heaven. Johnny growls "Does this look like Heaven?" According to the comic, 777 is the "number of the moose".
  • In the pre-52 DC multiverse, the Wildstorm 'verse had supervillains from an alternate dimension designated 666, where the bad guys won because the heroes never killed villains. They were shocked to meet the Authority, and dead shortly thereafter.
    • Wildstorm also had a Crisis Crossover called "The Number Of The Beast", featuring a logo of three sixes arranged to have one-third turn symmetry.
  • In Hellboy: Wake the Devil, Karl Ruprect Kroenen plans to usher in the apocalypse with an army of 666 golems. When Herman von Klempt points out that this is far too few golems to conquer anything, Kroenen replies "The number is symbolic."
  • This French comic 666. It has a sequel, 6666 (which is the year the story is set in).
  • Walt Disney's Comics and Stories issue #666 contains the first English printing of the story "Mickey's Inferno", an adaptation of Dante's Inferno. This being Disney, they don't even mention the number when they talk about the story in the afterword.
  • In Nemi, one of Nemi's friends tells her that if you remove all letters that are not Latin numerals in the inscription on the Pope's hat, they add up to 666, leading Nemi to ponder if the hat is there to hide the horns.
  • Issue number 666 of Batman features a grim alternate universe where Batman's son Damien was in the cowl. Discount symbolism at its finest.
  • In Judge Dredd, iso-block 666 is used to contain the most dangerous criminals in Mega-City One.
  • The X-Men snuck some of their members into a hostile installation once by pretending they were unconscious, their bodies marked with numbered tags. Dr. Hank McCoy is known as the Beast; one guess what number he put on his tag....
  • In issue number 666 of Superman, Superman dreams about killing all his enemies and taking over Hell.
  • In Flesh: "Texas", McGurk brands Gorehead three times with a symbol that looks like the number 6. This is enough for Pastor Sunday to declare that Gorehead is in fact Satan.
  • One Ghost Rider arc (Vicious Cycle, if anyone's curious) had Johnny Blaze accidentally bring Lucifer with him when pulling a Like a Badass Out of Hell stunt, at which point Lucy fragmented and possessed a number of recently-dead people. If you can't guess how many from the page you're on, there is nothing we can do to help you.
  • The first Silent Hill comic, Dying Inside, mentioned and invoked this trope, when the main character declared a door code to be her own personal Number of the Beast. She had issues.


Fan Works


Films -- Animation

  • One of the title characters from Liloand Stitch was supposed to be assigned the number "666", but the Media Watchdog complained and it was changed to "626".


Films -- Live Action

  • The origin of the "modern" use of the Number of the Beast is probably The Omen. They even released a remake of the film on June 6, 2006 nationwide. The original came out in the UK on June 6, '76... close enough.
  • The Gregg Araki flick The Doom Generation is filled with references to this number. Among other things, every purchase made by the main characters comes to a total of $6.66, and the female lead had an SAT score of 666 in high school. By the way, SAT scores end in 0.
  • Used in Route 666, which involves an abandoned stretch of highway nicknamed such after the mysterious death of a prison chain gang.
    • There was a real Route 666, which was a turnpike of Route 66. It's Route 491 now.
  • In Escape From L.A., the code that unleashes the worldwide EMP is 666.
  • Star Wars: "Order 66," which might double as a reference to WW 2 Executive Order 9066, which interned Japanese civilians.
  • The code for the suitcase in Pulp Fiction is 666.
  • In The Ninth Gate, guess what the keypad code to Satanic book collector Boris Balkan's private elevator is?
  • Played with in the 1999 film End of Days. Apparently, people who saw the number of the beast in their dreams/visions didn't realize it was shown upside down, so the number of the beast was 999 instead of 666.
    • The Devil will then try to return on the last day of the year, for every year ending in 999 (999, 1999, 2999, etc).
  • In A Clockwork Orange Alex is seen with two of his former friends, now police officers, whose uniform numbers are 665 and 667. Since Alex is between them, that makes him 666.
  • In Bedazzled of 2000, the protagonist can contact Satan (played by a Satanically untalented Liz Hurley) with a pager, using the number...
  • In Half Baked, Tommy is scribbling over a calendar page of the big inmate who's been stalking him, at one point screaming "666, the mark of the beast!!!"
  • In Reign of Fire, a ruined sign on a road states that London is 66 miles away. Aside from other things scribbled onto the sign, a large 6 is scratched in above the 66.
  • The directors of Devil were positively thrilled that their location, a real office building that hadn't opened yet, had the address number 333 (close enough).
  • In Highlander: Endgame the Watchers reveal that Big Bad Jacob Kell has decapitated a grand total of 661 immortals so far. Three guesses how many more people he'll have killed when it's all over.
  • Officer Vickers has this tattooed on him in the Psycho Cop duology.
  • The serial killer from Seed was captured after killing this many people.
  • This is used as an address in Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 and Inside.
  • In the beginning of Phantom of the Opera the chandallier that the Phantom had dropped thus starting the fire that destroyed the theater is sold on an auction under listing number 666.


Literature

  • Used in the Robert A. Heinlein novel The Number of the Beast. One of the protagonists builds a device that makes it possible to move arbitrarily through a six-dimensional space-time to multiple universes; the number of possible destination universes is (6^6)^6 (10,314,424,798,490,535,546,171,949,056), which when written sloppily one of the characters mistakes for the traditional 666. This prompts a discussion over whether biblical prophecy actually refers to the 6-dimensional space-time geometry and the bad guys they've already encountered. (The conclusion is that there are enough similarities to at least be cautious about it.)
  • In Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Aziraphale is able to pick the Antichrist's phone number out of a list because it is "Tadfield six double-six". And they were going to name the sequel (which was never finished) 668: The Neighbour of the Beast.
    • Charles L. Grant (writing as Lionel Fenn) beat them to it in 1992 with a novel of that title.
    • 668 Elm Street, Ankh-Morpork, is the address where Discworld's all-undead Fresh Start Club holds its meetings.
  • In War and Peace, Pierre Bezukhov calculates the Hebrew number equivalent of Napoleon's full title (L'Empereur Napoléon) to be 666, shoehorns his own name to yield the same number (L'Russe Besuhof), and thinks that he's destined to kill Napoleon or at least for something great. In reality, the scheme he used yields 661 for Napoleon, not 666, rendering all his actions based on this observation bunk.
  • In Book the Sixth of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, The Ersatz Elevator, the address of the Baudelaires' new home is 667 Dark Avenue. In addition, it has sixty-six floors.
  • The short story "Neighbors" by Robert Borski discusses the number 666 from the points of view of nearby numbers.
  • John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise includes a list of (North American) phone numbers beginning with the prefix "666" including "a bunch of Satanists who got lucky" and "the author's home phone number".
  • Nightmare Academy, by Frank Peretti has a rather contrived situation near the end of the book in which a row of buildings is being demolished and one of the characters needs to stop it by putting in a code that corresponds to... some technical detail. Anyway, it ends up being 666 (or 666.0 if you want to be picky, and the computer did). Lampshaded by the kid stopping it when he figures it out.

"Twelve times 55.5 is... Really?"

  • In Robert Rankin's Apocalypso, every dimension is assigned a Greek letter and a number. Hell is Omega 666.
  • In Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone book, Nicholas Flamel dies willingly at Six Hundred and Sixty Five Years old, which was intentionally spelled out to hide the reference.
    • Not really. The book Hermione reads that piece of info from is described to be a very old and worn book. Thus, he was six hundred and sixty six years old one year after the book was published, something of at least a century ago. Even in the movie the book is seen as an old piece of parchment.
  • Conservative shock commentator Ann Coulter released a book called Godless on 6/6/06. She said it wasn't coincidence.
  • Surprisingly averted in the Left Behind series. Nicolae Carpathia is the aforementioned Beast himself, but the obligatory references to 666 are all subtle: a fixation with the number 216, an assistant named Viv Ivins, and the numerology of his full name. Nobody brings any of this up directly; they have other, less coincidental, ways of knowing he's the Antichrist.
  • In Regina Doman's The Shadow of the Bear, the villain uses "666" as the keypad code for his apartment.
  • Hell in The Devil's Carnival has 666 rules. All six-hunded sixty-six rules are policed, all six-hundred sixty-six rules you must heed. There are... consequences, otherwise.


Live Action TV

  • In Doctor Who, the atmosphere readings of "The Impossible Planet"/"The Satan Pit" are 66.6, the gravitational field is "6^6 every 6 seconds", and the name of the base, "SB6" is seen gradually melting into "666". The two-part episode was episode was even aired over the week of 6 June 2006, or 6/6/06. Also, the Ood go to work to the sound of Ravel's Bolero, which Torvill And Dean famously skated to in the 1984 Winter Olympics—and received perfect 6s for artistic impression.
    • As an extra metatextual touch, the official web site's Fear Forecasters gave "The Impossible Planet" a Fear Factor score of 3/6/6/6 -- on a scale that usually only goes up to 5. ("The Satan Pit" got straight 5s.)
    • Another Doctor Who example: the coordinates for The Void—the Whoniverse equivalent to Hell—are all sixes, as seen in "Doomsday".
    • Also invoked in "Midnight": When Mrs Silvestri starts repeating what everybody says, the teenaged Jethro says "six six six" to get her to repeat it.
    • The prevalence of 666 in the Doctor Who universe has lead observant fans to come up with theories to explain it.
  • In the Twilight Zone episode "Dealer's Choice", a group of gamblers find themselves playing poker against the Devil. Every hand the Devil receives includes three sixes. When one of the players ends up playing for his soul, he attempts to use this to his advantage by invoking dealer's choice and chosing Low Ball as the game.
  • Reaper: Sam's house number is 667. In one episode, he hits the snooze button on his alarm clock and the numbers turn red and read "6:66".
  • One episode of The X-Files ("Orison") had Scully's alarm clock read 666 twice, warning her about the evil man after her. It proved to be surprisingly effective as a piece of mis-en-scene.
  • An episode of Friday the 13th: The Series did a more "realistic" twist on this by having some bad stuff happen at exactly 3:33 AM.
    • Possibly a reference to Jesus's Crucifixion, which had Him die at 3:30 PM.
  • An episode of QI had Stephen Fry asking the teams what the number of the beast was (Johnny Vaughan fell for the 666 trap). After Fry had revealed that 616 was the actual number, one of the panel concluded that 666 must be his fax number!
  • In the Quantum Leap episode "The Boogieman", Sam and Al visit a home with the house number 966. As Al crosses the threshhold, the top 6 becomes loose and spins around to reveal a 666 because Al has been supplanted by the devil, who has hijacked this leap.
  • Stargate SG-1 visits a planet whose designation is P3X-666 in the two-part episode "Heroes". Dr. Frasier dies there.
  • In Point Pleasant the mark on the protagonist's eye is a series of three six-figures, overlapped and rotated in a particular pattern. It's probably a Shout-Out to the 666 mark on Damien's head in The Omen, which is three sixes with their tails in the center. The mark of Point Pleasant's heroine is a circle with three tails curving outward.
  • Supernatural: There was a rather reviled Season 1 episode called "Route 666", and then there were the 66 out of 600 possible seals that needed to be opened in order to set Lucifer free from his prison.
  • The Mighty Boosh episode Nanageddon features a demon going on a rampage at a bingo night. As she reveals herself, the bingo caller announces the number: "All the sixes - 666."
  • An episode of Frasier showed Frasier's old agent Bebe staying in a hotel room numbered 666.
  • The third episode of Babylon 5: Crusade has a religious fanatic setting a timebmb at 666 seconds. Rather unlikely for a "God-fearing" nut to use the Number of the Beast.
  • The Glass House reported the discovery that 616 might actually be the number of the beast, and noted that, by international dialling, Canberra's former area code was + 61-6.
  • One of the threats of the week for the Big Wolf on Campus team was a wrestler who would cause the apocalypse once he got to 666 victories.
  • One episode of Criminal Minds had a Satanist whose name was Floyd Feylin Ferrell. F is the sixth letter of the alphabet.
  • An episode of That '70s Show had Laurie, Eric, Hyde and Kitty playing cards with their youth minister. Laurie ends up having three 6 cards(and this is after she tried to come on to him). The minister promptly gets up and leaves.


Music

  • "Number Of The Beast" by Iron Maiden, which even begins with the above quote from Revelations.
  • Slayer planned to release an album on 6.6.06, but due to problems they could only release a single. The album? Christ Illusion. By amusing coincidence, 6.6.06 was also bassist/lead singer Tom Araya's 45th birthday.
    • This was successfully done however by AFI who released their album "Decemberunderground" on 6.6.06
    • Ditto for Lordi, who released their Eurovision Song Contest winner Hard Rock Hallelujah as a single in the UK on 6.6.06.
    • Metallica played a concert in Berlin on 6/6/06.
  • "666" in metal in general is very common due to its satanic connotations. Bands that have made songs with the number include Helloween, Anvil and Burn to Black as well as many others.
    • Danzig's album 6:66 Satan's Child.
  • The death rap group Three 6 Mafia (aka Triple Six Mafia), once notorious for their Satanic lyrics and references to the occult. However the group has since stated that the name is just a reference the fact that their group started out with three members and ended up with six. That, and the fact that back when they were just starting out, they needed to put out something that would draw attention to themselves.
  • The album 666 by Aphrodite's Child.
  • Alluded to by the Christian Post-hardcore band Underoath's DVD which has "777" in its title due to their religious beliefs.
  • Parodied (somewhat) in the song "665: The Great Bean" by The Enid.
  • Parodied by Green Jelly with their 1994 album 333.
  • Death Metal band Deicide released the album "The Stench of Redemption" on June 6, 2006. (6/6/06)
  • Blackened Thrash band Destroyer 666. They take it to extremes, portraying themselves as Australian anti-Christs.
  • Soundgarden's songs "665" and "667", which are parodies of other metal bands' Satanic imagery.
  • Heavy metal band Loudness has an instrumental titled "222" and (more recently) a song titled "#666".
  • The German trance band 666.
  • Not a true example, but I just had to put this here: "He give those with him 666, there was a little toolshed where he made us suffer, sad Satan..."
  • The song "Six Sixty-Six" by Christian-folk singer Larry Norman, covered by his fan Frank Black, is a straightforward retelling of the prophecies about the Antichrist in Bible fanon.
  • Murdoc Niccals, the fictional bass player of Gorillaz, was born on June 6, 1966 (6/6/66) and is a Satanist.
  • Steve Vai was born on June 6, 1960 (6/6/60) and has skills that could very well be described as not of this world.
  • Slipknot's song "The Heretic Anthem" featured the chorus: "If you're 5-5-5 then I'm 6-6-6", though the lyrics feature no real Satanic overtones and the use of the number was really just for shock value.
    • Since 555 is commonly used as the exchange for phone numbers in movies and television, the line could be interpreted to mean that if you're trying to fit in and be acceptable, he's trying to be edgy and unacceptable.
  • Christian Rock group DeGarmo and Key's 1984 album "Communication" included a song titled Six, Six, Six. It gained attention as one of the first CCM music videos to appear on MTV. It also became infamous for MTV ordering an edit removing a scene where a man kicks a burning trash can down, briefly setting the man representing the Antichrist on fire.
  • "666 - The Enemy Within" by Hammerfall.
  • The Pixies reference this in "Monkey Gone To Heaven", with the lines "man is five", "the devil is six", and "god is seven."
  • "Disconnected 666", a spooky audio collage by Cop Shoot Cop, has an excerpt from a prerecorded disconnection notice repeating the number 666 over a backdrop of busy signals.
  • Mentioned in The Wicked End by Avenged Sevenfold.
  • (665) Hell Neighbour by Italian band Menace. It's about "livin' just a span from hell".
  • "The Devil Went Down to Georgia", arriving via Route 666, according to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9uk9IcoQ0w.


Newspaper Comics

  • The Far Side got in on it with Satan glowering at a confused painter, and "999" over the cave leading to Hell.


Pro Wrestling

  • There's a small and odd federation in Japan called 666. One notable character is President Ramu, a demonically-possessed wrestler with super strength for her size. Which is good, given that she'd fit under Cute Bruiser. Note she is NOT the least likely champion they've ever had....


Tabletop Games

  • In Dungeons & Dragons, according to most editions' Dungeon Master's Guide, one of the planes, the Abyss, has supposedly infinite layers, but "conventional wisdom" says the bottom layer is the 666th.
  • The secret Grey Knights chapter of Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000 is Chapter 666. They are an all-psyker, elite-among-elites group serving under the aegis of the Inquisition's Ordo Malleus and dedicated to combating Daemonic threats.
  • Also in Warhammer 40,000, Zarakynel, the Keeper of Secrets model produced by Forge World, costs exactly 666 pts to field. (This is because Slaaneesh's magic number is 6. Ann'grath (Khorne) has a points costs of 888, similarly.) Interestingly, Slaanesh is the only Chaos God in the backstory who does not exist before far into the future.
    • As explained in the Daemon codex, due to way time flows in the Warp (that is, very erraticly) despite being created about 30 000 years in the future, Slaanesh has in a way always existed, and never existed. Warp is confusing like that.
  • In Sanguine Productions' Ironclaw, the use of Black Magic can have dangerous side effects when three sixes appear in any dice roll involving it. This includes skill rolls, resistance rolls, and difficulty rolls. Just to maximize this effect, the Difficulty Dice for Black Magic are, uncharacteristically, almost all d6s.
  • In Nomine is an RPG system where players take sides in a demon vs. angel battle between hell and heaven. The game system uses d666 (3 six-siders for all rolls). Bad things happen to angelic characters whose players roll all 6's, conversely good things happen if you roll all 1's (the Trinity).
    • This is reversed for demonic characters.
      • Basically, how it works storywise is three 1s mean God intervenes, and three 6s mean Lucifer does.
  • In Role Master, a roll of 66 indicates a very unexpected result.
  • Hero System uses three six-sided dice for skill rolls and "to-hits". A roll of three sixes always fails, no matter how many bonuses the character has. (However, it's referred to as a roll of 18, or 6+6+6, not a roll of 666.)
    • Inverted in older editions of Shadowrun, in which rolling three consecutive sixes on the same die means you automatically beat a target number of 19, and possibly higher.
  • Hunter: The Vigil features the Lucifuge, a secret order made up of people who have inherited the powers of Hell from demonic parents. The head of the organization (also known as the Lucifuge) has spent centuries keeping track of them, and knows exactly how many are on Earth at any one time. Take a guess.


Theater


Video Games

  • Beelzebub from Ragnarok Online has a starting HP of 6,666,666 HP. And he looks like a Steel Chon Chon. Changing to his true form gives him more HP.
  • Beelzebub (human form) in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne has 666 HP.
    • Evil Land gives 666 damage to demi-humans at LV 6.
  • In Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Death is level 66, the vampire Olrox and the Succubus have 666 HP, and the Malachi (which was supposed to be called Cthulhu Mythos) and the Fire Demon gives 666 experience points.
    • Actually, the number shows up all over the place in the monster stats throughout the series. Dracula in particular.
  • Magus, the leader of the Mystics in Chrono Trigger, has 6666 Hit Points and 666 Magic Points as a boss.
    • In addition, Bashers and Lashers, two minor enemies in the Ocean Palace, have 666 Hit Points.
    • Don't forget about the sword that always deals 666 damage! (667 occasionally)
  • One of the Chemist's mixes in Final Fantasy V is a "Dark Potion" which deals 666 damage.
  • Secret of Mana has the Dark Lich, who has 6,666 HP.
  • The Pain Doubler spell under Zamza's Evil Magic library deals 666 damage...which sucks quite a bit since the average damage in SaGa Frontier is four digits. Of course, when used on the player, it can be a death sentence, since max HP tops out at 999.
  • In Pikmin 2, there's a creepy doll's head that's worth 670 pokos; in the Japanese game, it's worth 666.
  • Tsukihime features a villain called Nrvnqsr Chaos who controls 666 animal familiars. And Nrvnqsr is numerically equal to 666.
    • The reference is even more direct. Look real close at "Nrvnqsr"—it's a variant of "Nero Caesar" as discussed above!
  • In the old Ultima II computer game, the Earth was located at coordinates (6,6,6) in the solar system.
  • SNK vs. Capcom SVC Chaos has an overall cast of 33 characters, with 663 pre-battle dialogues for each of them... okay, not each, because Athena and Red Arremer have no dialogues between each other or their clones whatsoever. If they would be, though, it would result in a straight 666. May be excuseable. Or maybe not.
  • Instead of Doom "version 1.6", the producers went with "version 1.666".
    • In the Ultimate Doom, E1M1 has 666 sidedefs.
    • Doom also uses UDP port 666.
    • Sector tags 666 and 667 are used for actions that require certain monsters to be killed. (instead of crossing a specific linedef)
    • In Doom 3, there are lockers scattered around that contains items. One of them, however, contains an Imp. The locker's number goes without saying.
  • In Devil May Cry 4, Dante gets a weapon called Pandora, which is a demonic briefcase that can transform into 666 evil forms...which all seem to be big guns.
    • Big guns along with its original purpose of containing all the world's evil and still holding onto hope, as its debut cutscene seems to imply.
  • In Bayonetta, there's Route 666, a dangerous place where the heroine can be flattened by oncoming traffic (suffering a One-Hit Kill) if she's unlucky enough to end up on the wrong side while fighting enemies.
  • Max Payne had a level where the access code for a different part of a lab was 665, which Max snarkingly comments as the "neighbor of the beast". In the sequel, the code to access the suites in Max's apartment is 667, and the "neighbor of the beast" line is echoed.
    • Both mentions are based on a recurring joke in the developers' native country of Finland. Of course, with street numbers the neighbor would be 668, but apartments need not be numbered the same way.
  • Kingdom of Loathing spoofs this with the 668 scroll, allowing you to summon the neighbor of the beast.
  • In Killer7, Emir Parkreiner's locker is #666. Looking in locker #616 leads the player to Mask's final mask.
  • The original Quake features a powerup called the Pentagram of Protection, which puts a red 666 on your armor counter, although that's just for symbolic and aesthetic purposes—your health will not go down while this powerup is active, and anything that tries to spawn at your position will be reverse telefragged. Note that your armor will still take damage if you have any on.
  • The demon morph Super Mode from Painkiller is activated by Daniel's absorption of 66 souls. At least, without a powerup that reduces the number to 50.
  • In Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice, Mao calculates that it will take exactly 666 Nether hours (after Mao hijacks his "Hero" title) until Heroic Wannabe Almaz becomes a full-fledged demon.
    • And Maritsu Evil Academy has 666 bathrooms.
  • In Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories, Marluxia's final form has a sleight that is activated by using three six cards (looking like 666 when it shows up on the screen). This forces Sora to have to break all his cards or else instant death.
  • 666 is the phone number for Hell in Sam and Max's second Season Finale.
  • The page image is from Lemmings. It's not even close to being a level from hell, though—actually more of a Breather Level.
    • Several ports of the game replace "All the 6s" with a completely new level—whether because of the Number of the Beast reference or just because it's the ultimate Breather Level is difficult to say.
  • Galm Team from Ace Combat Zero is the Ustio 6th Air Division, 66th Squadron. By the way, "Galm" is a mistranslation of "Garmr", a hellish wolf in Norse Mythology that kills Tyr during the Ragnarök. And the Galm 1's callsign is "Cipher", in case you still didn't catch any symbolism.
    • The final mission of Shattered Skies, appropriately a Scrappy Level with tunnel-flying, has Mobius One start at 6666 feet.
  • Diablo himself has 1,666 HP in the first game.
  • Rubedo from Xenosaga is URTV #666.
  • In World of Warcraft, Hogger has 666 health.
    • Also in that game, a regular level 11 NPC (same level as Hogger) can be known to have 222 health. Guess how much health three of them could have.
    • There are 666's in many places in the game, barely disguised. For instance, there is a statue of a serpent in Zangarmarsh with 666 in it's scales. However, it was far more common during The Burning Crusade and Wrath of the Lich King expansions than it is now. In fact, there was a warlock spell that did 666 base damage, but that has since been changed. There were also icons for warlock and demon spells with stylized 666's in them, these have all been removed.
  • BlazBlue has Ragna, Nu-13 and Hazama give the line "Restriction 666 released" when activating their Azure Grimoires.
  • In the English version of Snatcher, the date of "the Catastrophe" was moved from June 6, 1991 (6/6/1991) to June 6th, 1996 (6/6/1996).
  • Eternal Darkness places great significance on 3:33 times on both digital and analog clocks.
  • In Final Fantasy XIII, the Tonberry staggers at 666%.
  • In Digimon World Dawn and Dusk, the Digivolution requirements for VenomMyotismon are level 66 with 6666 Beast experience (the game puts it, BST 6666). This is also a shout out to the anime.
    • Slightly more subtle, in Digimon World DS a requirement for the character is 99990 EXP, which, if viewed upside-down, reads 06666.
  • In Luminous Arc 3, the first stage of the final boss will have 666 HP. However, the final boss is an evil god....
  • In Endless Ocean: Blue World, of all places, the Pandora's Box salvage item with net the player 9,666 pelagos (the in-game currency). Notably, the only treasure to not have a multiple of ten (or a multiple of ten minus one) for its price.
  • Asheron's Call featured an event boss, Bael'zharon, who when inspected, was level 666. There is also the White Rabbit, who has 666 in every stat (and instant-kills you when you inspect it.)
  • The Very Definitely Final Dungeon in Purple has a prominent 666 on its entrance which you can freely break. The game in general uses Satan motif shamelessly.
  • Several inferno units in Heroes of Might and Magic V utilize this: Nightmares and Hell Stallions have 66 HP, Pit lords and Pit spawns cost 1666 gold, Devils, Arch Devils and Arch Demons all have a maximal damage of 66, and cost 2666 gold (devils) or 3666 gold (the other two). Additionally, Devils have 166 HP (and Arch Devils have 199, turn that upside down).
  • Although unintentional, Giratina from Pokémon is depicted with six legs, six neck spikes, and six wing spikes in Altered forme, and six wings, six leg spikes, and six tail spikes in Origin forme.
  • In chapter 5 of Alice: Madness Returns, a wall in the Dolltown Cellar[3] has 666 affixed to it.

Web Comics


Web Original

  • Both used and subverted in the SCP Foundation. SCP-616 is a hellish door with a strong Brown Note effect and vaguely specified "bad things" happening when it opens, but SCP-666 seems slightly more benign.
  • In v4 Open Blue, the date of the foundation of the Axifloan Coalition is June 6, 1666. In v5, that day is when Princess Elizabeth of Avelia is assassinated, prompting the three largest members of the Coalition to secede and declare war on one another. Most people in-universe consider it the day the Coalition ended (even though it still exists if weakened).
  • 666 causes Nightmare Fuel-y things to happen to YouTube.
    • What the Hell this video is stupiTHAT'S OKAY I DIDN'T WANT TO SLEEP TONIGHT ANYWAY
  • In The Number 24, a trailer spoofing The Number 23, one of the professor's random associations is: "Two plus four is six. What's the number between two and four? Three. Three sixes, the sign of the devil!"
  • In Mr. Plinkett's review of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, when he got to talk about Order 66, he pretended to be George Lucas and decided that the Kill E'm All code phrase should be "an evil-sounding number". At first he considered "666" but rejected it because he thought it was "too obvious."
  • The halloween episode of Bowser's Kingdom was titled episode 666.
  • Global Guardians villain 666 is super-strong and Nigh Invulnerable, and puts on a good game of being a "demonic force for evil", but the truth is he's just a thug in a costume who uses some special effects to put the "demon" angle across to the rubes.


Western Animation

  • In the Futurama episode "The Honking", Bender sees the binary number 0101100101 written on the wall and is unfazed, calling it "gibberish" (it's 357 with an unnecessary leading zero). Then he sees it in a mirror and realises it's 1010011010, which is 666.
  • Parodied in Courage the Cowardly Dog, when the characters book a room at Hotel Katz, they are given room number 666½.
  • In Gargoyles, the Illuminati have exactly 666 members, although you have to work it out.
  • An episode of Rocko's Modern Life ended with the character Peaches playing with a paddle ball. He says, "664, 665" and then he misses and has to start all over.
    • Furthermore in the episode "Hef in a Handbasket", the number to apply for Peaches' game show is "555 and THEN A BUNCH OF SIXES," the show is broadcast on channel 66, and Heffer needs to score 666 points to "win."
  • Treehouse of Horror part of The Simpsons once had Lisa and Bart going through the occult section of a library. Dewey Decimal System designation? 666.
    • For the curious, the actual designation would be 130 or 133. 666 is assigned to "ceramic and allied technologies".
  • In the Looney Tunes short A Pest in the House, hotel bellhop Daffy Duck continually disturbs a tired guest in his efforts to get some shut-eye. Guess what the unfortunate patron's room number is?
    • It was probably chosen not for symbolism, but because it has a lot of "s" sounds for Daffy to lisp.
  • In the first episode of The Boondocks, Huey tries to convince Ed Wunsler's garden party that Ronald Reagan is the devil by pointing out that Ronald, Wilson, and Reagan each have six letters in them. Therefore, 666. However, this just makes him even more adorable to the guests.
    • The comic strip had a similar joke about Santa Claus. Huey evidently went through several possible "proofs" before landing on the fact that the date of Santa's annual errand, December 24, adds up to 36 when expressed numerically. 36 = 3 6's!
  • Wakfu episode 4: In the flashback showing the backstory of the Ugly Princesses, there is such a long line of princes wanting to woo them that they use a "Take a Number" device. Then comes the god Osamodas, who picks number 666 before laying a curse on the disrespectful princesses.
    • In episode 9 of season 2, some of the protagonists are trapped in the Shushu world. They are forced to invoke the Rush, the favorite pastime of the Shushu, in order to avoid immediate execution. The Rush pits them against 666 pyralshus until they fall. And to make sure they fall, Rushu also sends his Dragon Anathar into the fray.
  • The South Park season 1 episode "Damien" manages to sneak in a couple of visual refrences. At the very start of the episode, a group of number magnets on the wall have three red sixes next to eachother, and the chalkboard has a sum that adds up to 666.


Real Life

  • Scholars contend that the number in the Revelation was a code for Nero. When treated as Hebrew numbers, the letters of "Nero Caesar" add up to 616, and "Neron Kesar", the Greek version of his name, to 666.
    • The scholarly theory is that Revelation is written as "prophetic allegory"—writing a prophesy-style piece as social commentary on then-present conditions. Relatedly, there are those that believe the code stands for Gaius Caesar (which can also add up to 616) instead. Most scholars find that it's hair-splitting, however: Nero is the Trope Namer for While Rome Burns, and Gaius is better known by his nickname, Caligula.
    • One theory relies on the assumption that 666 is purely symbolic, not some code: basically, the number 6 is supposed to represent man ("a human number"), because man was made on the 6th day. Also, the fact that there are three 6s is meant to stand for Satan, the Beast of the Sea, and the Beast of the Earth being an evil mockery of the Holy Trinity. This theory is total hogwash; as noted above, the number would have been written in Greek numerals, and the idea of "six-hundred-and-sixty-six" having anything to do with "three sixes" is a bit of a stretch (place-value notation would only have just been invented in India at the time, and it would not arrive in the Middle East until transmitted by Muslim Persian mathematicians in the 9th century).
  • It was a joke in Real Life during Ronald Reagan's presidency because "Ronald Wilson Reagan" is 6 letters, 6 letters, 6 letters. (Furthermore, Ronald Reagan had his house, 666 St. Cloud Road, renumbered 668, from superstition.)
  • A totally serious chain email in the late '90s claimed that Bill Gates was the Antichrist and that the Internet (which... he owned?) was his Mark, by adding up the ASCII for "Bill Gates" (66 + 73 + 76 + 71 + 65 + 84 + 69 + 83) and adding 3 as in William Gates III. It went on to say this method also worked for "Windows 95", and that "WWW" represented the Number because of its resemblance to "VI VI VI".
  • Speculation ran rampant the week before the 6th of June, 2006, over speculation that Armageddon would occur on 6/6/6. It didn't. Maybe it was the fact that the date was actually 6/6/06, or that if the theory held water then the world should have already undergone divine judgement two thousand years ago.
  • B3TA had a helpful announcement in 2005: "Satanists! This is the last week to conceive if you want you child born on 6/6/06!"
  • Comedian/Nerd/Metalhead Brian Posehn stands 6'7, but he likes to refer to himself as 6'6.6 or "the height of the beast."
  • The A666 runs from Pendlebury to Langho in north-west England and there are many local jokes about its number. Often in conjunction with its high accident rate.
    • US Route 666, from Gallup, NM to Monticello, UT was re-numbered US 491 in 2003, but retains the "Devil's Highway" nickname. A very dangerous road for many years and once known for hairpin turns which were unsafe at any speed, it was the subject of various superstitions as well as a target for sign theft.
  • Another highways example. On northbound Interstate 29 just north of North Sioux City, South Dakota, there was a sign that used to read "Elk Point 6 / Sioux Falls 66." At some point in the mid-00s, the sign was changed to read "Elk Point 7 / Sioux Falls 66." Either the small town of Elk Point moved a mile to the north, or people got uncomfortable about the 666 associations and asked to have the sign changed.
  • There's another theory that this was just a way to express "a large number" in Roman numerals—either DCLXVI or DCXVI, one each of several Roman numerals. Of course, this doesn't lend itself to numerologists, conspiracy theorists, televangelists or other lunatics.
  • The P.O. Box address for This Is True—who also has Get Out Of Hell Free cards to keep up—is 666. According to the owner, he had had box number 668 for a while, then noticed 666 was free. When he inquired about it, he learned it was not to be offered to avoid people being offended. Since he specifically asked for the number, though, the post office figured it safe to give him the box.
  • SF and computing journalist Dave Langford once wrote a computer program that could prove that any name adds up to 666. You just have to assign numbers to the letters correctly (and there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to do that), then manipulate the numbers the right way (and there are more hundreds, if not thousands, of ways to do that).
  • A problem for Intel; back in the 1990s—when computers were still running at the megahertz level—the company would release speed increases every 33 MHz (for example, all of their 400 MHz-range processors would be rated for speeds clocked at 400, 433 and 466 megahertz). The number combination they would hit when they reached the 600 MHz range was therefore fairly obvious. When the long anticipated processor hit the market however, it was clocked not at 666 MHz, but rather 667 MHz. AMD also followed suit with this convention, and all subsequent processors in the hundreds of megahertz used the "number-6-7" convention.
    • Not that it's still avoiding the trope, but Intel could get away with it by fudging with the numbers. The increment suggests the clock speed was divided by 3 somewhere. 2/3 is 0.6666... Which at any given point you decide to chop off how many 6's you want, you could round up the last one to 7.
  • A church was "lucky" enough to get 666 as part of its phone number. They quickly changed it. On the other hand, the University of San Francisco, a Catholic medical college, had 666 as one of its proprietary prefixes throughout the '90s, mostly for dormitory rooms.
    • Telephone exchange 666 (or, as a named exchange, MOhawk 6) is in use in many North American area codes. Conversely, area code +1 666 will not be issued. (If it existed it would overlay Canada's rarely-used +1 600 non-geographic code, but only 622 633 644 655 677 688 are reserved in this manner. 666 is conspicuous by its absence. Not even Satan wants to brave a Canadian winter; it's warmer and more comfortable in Hell.)
    • A drop-in centre Nightlight Canada (with a Christian cross as the 't' in 'nightlight') had a main street address of "666 Princess St." They kept this 666 address, instead of disguising it as "664A Princess" the way a long list of prior storefront occupants (including a short-lived Labour Ready franchise) had done.
  • Here's one for the oddity department: Yahoo! Sports lists athletes and assigns them an ID number in the URL. For hockey, guess who gets 666? Miroslav Satan (though it's pronounced Shuh-tan, and spelled Šatan in Slovak).
    • Although, that's how they pronounce Satan (as in the devil not the player), this goes for most Eastern European languages.
      • If you plug in athlete number 616, you get Richard Smehlik, a player for the New Jersey Devils. I seriously think that Yahoo! employees are just fucking with us.
  • The UN leaves seat number 666 free at meetings.
  • The ABC's Canberra radio station is numbered 666. Being that the ABC is government-funded, Epileptic Trees ensued.
  • Interestingly, if the number is actually 616 and not 666, several places have been afraid of the wrong number all along. Examples include: The USA, who changed highway 666 to highway 491 ion 2003, the UN, who always leave seat 666 free at any meetings, and most especially the Moscow transport department, who changed the 666 bus route to... 616
  • The first Apple computer (the Apple I) went on sale in July 1976 at the price of $666.66. This was due mostly to a collection of mundane coincidences: Steve Jobs setting the price at $500 (plus a 1/3rd markup), because Steve Wozniak "liked repeating digits" and both Steves' general ignorance of the significance of the number.[4]
  • Up until 1999 there was a bus # 666 in Moscow. At the request of the local Christian folk it was changed...into 616. I kid you not.
  • Toronto motorist Daniel D'Aloisio *had* vanity licence plate 'VI6SIX'... for 15 years. The Ontario government took it away from him as VI (Roman numeral 6), 6, six yields 666, the number of the beast.
  • POSIX file modes being represented by 3 bytes (owner-group-others) and 6 being 2nd and 3rd bits set, there is (per one of Nancy Buttons) "rw-rw-rw: The file protection of the beast" [5].
  1. ↑ In the real-life game, the Attack and Defense stats for nearly all cards are some multiple of 50, before modifiers. Except the two cards Castle of Dark Illusions, which is 920 ATK/1930 DEF, and Reaper of the Cards, with 1380 ATK/1920 DEF. There are three others that break the "multiples of 50" rule, King of Yamimakai (2000 ATK, 1530 DEF), Barox (1380 ATK, 1530 DEF), and Dark Chimera (1610 ATK, 1460 DEF). It probably was no coincidence that all of these monsters were used in one duel, one before the rules for the Real Life version of the game came out, implying that they may have been planning to break that standard increments pattern further.
  2. ↑ It's a descendant of Gundam ZZs NZ-000 Queen Mansa and Chars Counterattacks NZ-333 Alpha Azieru
  3. ↑ in the room with the glass floor with hazards underneath
  4. ↑ This was before the Internet.
  5. ↑ actually it should be "rw-rw-rw-", of course. or "-rw-rw-rw-"
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