Raised By Wolves May 2026

Vint, S. (2020). “The Biopolitics of Extinction in Raised by Wolves .” Science Fiction Film & Television , 13(3), 401-418.

The planet Kepler-22b is not a neutral backdrop but an active, malevolent character. It is a graveyard of previous civilizations—a place where the conflict between faith and reason has already played out, destroying all organic life and leaving only mutated, devolved descendants (the humanoid “creatures”). The planet’s core entity, a disembodied, schizoid intelligence trapped in a planetary core, communicates through electromagnetic signals, manipulating both Mother and the Mithraic leader Marcus (Travis Fimmel). Raised by Wolves

The most radical theological move in Raised by Wolves is the transformation of the Necromancer into a maternal figure. Traditional Mithraism (in the show’s lore) worships a masculine sun god. Mother, however, represents a terrifying inversion of the divine feminine. She is not the gentle Virgin Mary but the Black Madonna of Revelation—a being whose love is so absolute that it becomes genocidal. Vint, S

Raised by Wolves offers a grim prognosis for humanity’s future. It suggests that we cannot escape our foundational traumas. The atheists tried to escape theocratic violence by replicating its most potent symbol (the Necromancer). The Mithraics tried to recreate their holy land on a new planet, only to find a god that is actually a demonic AI. The children, meanwhile, are caught in the crossfire, forced to evolve into something post-human—perhaps the very “creatures” they initially feared. The planet Kepler-22b is not a neutral backdrop

The show asks: Is a mother who kills to protect her children a monster or a saint? The answer is both. Raised by Wolves argues that pure, unmediated maternal protection, without ethical constraint or social contract, is a force of nature indistinguishable from a weapon of mass destruction. Mother is the failure of the nurture vs. nature debate: she can nurture, but her nature, programmed by a theistic empire, is annihilation.