Kraken in popular culture

• In silent films of the 1910s and 1920s, the Kraken was often portrayed using stock footage of an octopus in a bathtub attacking a toy ship. This footage first appeared in Georges Méliès' 1906 film Under the Seas and was recycled in many other films.^[12]
• The Kraken appears in the film
  Titans
  ".
  • In the
    Release the kraken", as said by Liam Neeson's Zeus, has become an Internet meme.^[13]
  • The Kraken from Clash of the Titans makes an appearance in The Lego Batman Movie.
• Even though it is not the kraken, a giant octopus menaces ships and eventually the city of San Francisco in the Ray Harryhausen film It Came from Beneath the Sea.
• The Kraken appears in Jack the Giant Killer (1962).
• The Kraken appears in Atlantis: Milo's Return (2003), where it is shown to be telepathic.
• A
  telemovie called Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep (2006)^[14]
  features the Kraken as its main antagonist.
• In the film
  Davy Jones by pursuing the souls of men who bear the black spot, a mark that appears on men who are overdue on their debt to Jones. It appears in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
  , where it has been beached and killed.
• The Kraken makes an appearance in the 2018 animated film
  Macarena.^[16]
• In
  Return to Neverland
  , the octopus which replaced the crocodile in the first movie is most likely based on the kraken.
• In the
  poachers until Godzilla
  frees it.
• The lead protagonist in the 2023 animated film Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kraken is Ruby Gillman, who is a shy fifteen-year-old teenage kraken. In the film, krakens are a race of benevolent, majestic creatures in conflict with malicious mermaids.
• The three-part Christian cartoon series Kingdom Under The Sea, produced by Spot Films, later on
  giant octopus
  covered in shadows named "Kraken". In the Brazilian dub, he is only referred to as "O Monstro (The Monster)".

• Alfred Tennyson 1830 irregular sonnet The Kraken,^[17] which described a massive creature that dwelled at the bottom of the sea
  .
• In
  cuttle-fish, to which, indeed, in certain external respects it would seem to belong, but only as the Anak
  of the tribe."
• In Victor Hugo's 1866 novel Toilers of the Sea, Gilliatt kills a giant octopus with a knife. "This monster is the creature that seamen call the octopus, scientists call a cephalopod, and which in legend is known as a kraken."^[19]
• Nautilus.^[20]
• In
  L'île des Pingouins (chapter V),^[21]
  Kraken is the name of a character that plays a monster, depicted as, among others, a dragon.
• Alfred Tennyson's sonnet. Both reference a huge aquatic creature sleeping for an eternity at the bottom of the ocean and destined to emerge from his slumber in an apocalyptic age.^[22]
• Alfred Tennyson called The Kraken (1830), which described a massive creature that dwelled at the bottom of the sea; the story itself refers to an invasion by sea-dwelling aliens. The title is a play on Tennyson's line "The Kraken sleepeth".^[23]
• Jack Vance's 1966 science fiction adventure novel The Blue World, based on an earlier 1964 novella The Kragen, depicts a world where natives must beware the kragen, giant, semi-intelligent squid-like predators which roam the ocean.^[24]
• In Richard Adams' 1980 novel The Girl in a Swing, the main female character is stalked by the Kraken to punish her for the crime of murder by drowning.^[25]
• Dwarf fortress.^[26]
• In the children's book Monster Mission (also known as Island of the Aunts) by Eva Ibbotson, the Kraken is a force for good who has the ability to clean and heal the oceans.^[27]
• The Kraken's appearance at the end of times is implied in the 1990s novel Good Omens by the demon Crowley “Great big bugger […] sleepeth beneath the thunders of the upper deep. Under loads of huge and unnumbered polypol — polipo — bloody great seaweeds, you know. Supposed to rise right at the end, when the sea boils”.
• Kraken appear in
  Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox as enormous, peaceful creatures that stay in the same spot for centuries feeding on algae, doubling as islands. They are described as being conical in shape, although there is a tubular shaped one on the coast of Ireland. In this book, Kraken shed their shells explosively, igniting a layer of methane under the old one and sending it flying. A comparison is made between the Kraken, and a barnacle (albeit one big enough to be mistaken for an island).^[28]
• In
  Homo sapiens. The krakens are the most intelligent of the space colonizers, and the ones who created the technology which made interstellar travels
  possible,
• In Michael Crichton's posthumous 2009 novel Pirate Latitudes the sailors call the large sea creature that terrorizes the protagonist's ship "the kraken".^[29]
• China Miéville's 2010 novel Kraken features a cult devoted to the worship of the creature.^[30]
• In the A Song of Ice and Fire saga, by George R. R. Martin, the sigil of House Greyjoy of Pyke is a golden kraken. Krakens are also said to be stirring in the wake of the War of Five Kings, drawn by blood in the waters.
• In
  J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings
  trilogy, the Watcher in the Water which guards the west gate of the abandoned dwarf kingdom of Moria is a Kraken-like creature.

• "Kraken" is a song by filk songwriter Leslie Fish, based partly on the Tennyson sonnet.^{[citation needed]}
• "Kraken" Is a song by Knife Party featured on their 2015 EP, Trigger Warning.
• "Release the Kraken" is a song by Ninja Sex Party about a comedically harmless Kraken^[31] featured on their 2018 album Cool Patrol.

Sports

• Greg Hardy, defensive end for the Carolina Panthers, is called "The Kraken" by himself and his fans.^[32]
• Filipino basketball player June Mar Fajardo of the San Miguel Beermen is often called the "Kraken" during broadcasts of Philippine Basketball Association games and the Philippines men's national basketball team. The term was first used in 2010 by members at the forum Interbasket.net.
• Gary Sanchez
  has been referred to as the Kraken (often stylized as kRAKEn) since joining the team in 2016.
• The Mazatlán F.C. football stadium in Mexico is nicknamed El Kraken.
• The Seattle Kraken are a National Hockey League (NHL) team based in Seattle, Washington that have played since 2021.^[33]

TV

• The Hakken-Kraks, sea monsters that live in a pond in the vicinity of Whoville, appear in the 1977 television special Halloween Is Grinch Night and draw their name from the kraken (their heads and long necks, the only parts of their bodies ever seen, more closely resemble sea dragons).
• The Australian television series Shaun Micallef's Mad as Hell has a kraken character (Michael Ward) who emerges from a closet on the set when the character Sir Bobo Gargle (Francis Greenslade) announces his intention to 'release the kraken!' The kraken's appearance is accompanied by Toni Basil's 1981 song "Mickey".
• The Big Bang Theory character Sheldon Cooper mentions krakens in the episodes, "Release the Kraken" and "The Date Night Variable"; in "The Hofstadter Insufficiency", Sheldon dreams of Leonard being grabbed by a kraken and pulled off the research ship he was on.
• The television series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea featured an episode called "The Village of Guilt" (1964), in which a failed experiment creates a giant octopus that terrorizes the population of a Norwegian fjord.^[34]
• In a 2015 commercial for the U.S. insurer, GEICO, a "kraken" emerges from a golf course water hazard during a televised tournament, its tentacles writhing and grasping a golfer and his caddy, as the commentators intone with characteristic understatement that the sea monster looks like a kraken.^[35]
• The kraken appears in an episode of Lost Tapes called "Kraken".
• A kraken was a reoccurring character on the show Catscratch.
• The sixth-season episode "A Wondrous Place" of the ABC series Once Upon a Time features a kraken, which attacks Aladdin and Jasmine. It is during this episode that Captain Nemo explains that kraken blood can open portals to other realms, which Captain Hook requires to return to Storybrooke.
• The Kraken is featured imprisoned by magic in the deep sea, guarded by magician whales, in The Magicians season 5 episode 6 ("Oops!...I Did It Again"). Its release triggers a time loop, similar to Groundhog Day (film).
• The Kraken makes a brief appearance in an episode of Family Guy called "Fighting Irish" when Peter Griffin thanked him for previous aid.
• The Kraken appears in New Looney Tunes
• The Kraken is explicitly mentioned in the Mickey Mouse episode "Wonders of the Deep," a giant squid subsequently appears and attacks Mickey and Donald while they're looking for Ludwig Von Drake.
• The Kraken appears as a false flashback in Our Flag Means Death as the monster which killed Blackbeard's father. It is later revealed that it was in fact Blackbeard killing his own father, saying "I am the Kraken".

Video games

• Age of Mythology (2002)^[36]
• Archon II: Adept (1984) : Features a Kraken as one of the elementals.^[37]
• Battlefield 1 (2016): In the Turning Tides DLC, the Royal Marines assault trooper has a tattoo of a Kraken on his left arm.
• EarthBound (1994): Does not resemble a giant squid but is instead a large, green snake with red hair that breathes fire.
• Evolve (2015): One of the monster classes is named Kraken.
• Final Fantasy (1987)^[38]
• Forge of Empires added Kraken to the Oceanic Future age in 2017^[39]
• God of War II (2007) Set in the world Greek mythology, the Kraken is the final barrier between the player character Kratos and the temple of the Fates^[40]
• Gods Of Olympus- It is associated with the God Poseidon
• Heroes of Newerth (2010)^[41]
• Hitman (2016): the second episode (Sapienza) contains a redacted challenge called Unleash the Kraken in which a sailing boat is consumed by a sea monster.
• Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb (2003): the 7th and last level in Istanbul "The Kraken´s Lair". This level is a boss-fight level.
• Kerbal Space Program (2015): A floating-point bug in this space flight simulator which caused vessels at high speed and/or far away places to be disassembled and destroyed was named "Space Kraken" by the community. This name was adopted by the developers, who named the fix for this bug "Krakensbane".^[42] Various other game-breaking or ship-destroying glitches have since been found, which are also referred to as the Kraken.
• Kid Icarus: Uprising (2012) features a space kraken.^[43]
• Marvel: Ultimate Alliance (2006)^[44]
• Old School RuneScape (2013): the Kraken is featured as a boss
• One Piece: Grand Cruise (2018) features the crew taking on a kraken.^[45]
• Sea of Thieves features the Kraken as an enemy which attacks player ships. (2018)
• Secrets of the Deep for Pinball FX 2 (2011)
• Smite (2013): Kraken is the name of Poseidon's ultimate ability (despite Poseidon being a Greek god and the Kraken being associated with the Norse). A game achievement involving this ability was called "Release the Kraken"^[46][47][48]
• Splatoon (2015): the Kraken is a special weapon obtainable in a match that allows the player to temporarily become a giant squid and move with reduced speed and impunity across the map. This special was not present in Splatoon 2 (2017), but a reworked version called the Kraken Royale was added to the 3.0 update of Splatoon 3 (2022).
• Splatoon Series (2015-2022): Throughout all three games in the Splatoon series, the English translation has featured a brand named Krak-On, a variant on the word kraken. In the original Japanese, this connection is not present.^[49]
• Return of the Obra Dinn (2018): A Kraken is seen in the 7th chapter of the story, the Doom, summoned by mermaids to return a sacred shell that was stolen by the Obra Dinn's crew, killing many of them in the process.
• Wonder Boy in Monster Land (1987): Kraken is a boss monster: a blue giant squid that floats.^[50][51]
• World of Warships (2015): One of the in-game achievements is named Kraken Unleashed, and is awarded to players who destroy 5 or more ships in a single battle.
• Zeus: Master of Olympus (2000): The Kraken appears as both an enemy, and a friendly, monster in some campaign missions. It can be unleashed by Poseidon for those missions where Poseidon is an opponent god (it will appear in water ways, essentially blocking trade), but where the player can build a Sanctuary to Poseidon, it will defend the player's city from attack.
• Wizard101 (2008-): The Kraken is a boss as well as a spell and pet in the game.
• Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead (2012): Introduced in the 0.G (Gaiman) update, the Kraken is a gigantic octopus mutated by the Blob, and can be found in rivers and lakes.

Miscellaneous

• In
  Cetacean
  , also deriving from Ceto).
• A set of four postage stamps displaying legendary Canadian animals was released in 1990. One stamp in the set featured the kraken.^[52][53]
• Magic: The Gathering features the kraken as a creature type. Alongside their aquatic brethren leviathans, krakens are typically among the largest creatures available to summon with blue mana.
• Dungeons & Dragons features the kraken as an end-game challenge boss.
• Kraken was the name of a marine biological supply house in the United Kingdom from 1968 to 1978. A historical website exists .^[54]
• The
  steel floorless roller coaster manufactured by Bolliger & Mabillard. It opened in 2000 and is located at SeaWorld Orlando, in the United States.^{[55][dead link}
  ]
• The Kraken Rum is a 94 proof rum manufactured in Trinidad and Tobago; it was released in the United States in 2009.^[56]
• Kraken Mare is a major body of liquid ethane and methane on Saturn's moon Titan^[57]
• Kraken Catena is a pit chain and possible tectonic fault on Neptune's moon Triton^[58]
• The Razer Kraken is a gaming/music headphone range created by
  Razer Inc.^[59]
• "Kraken" is a modern make of
  twin-hose regulator for scuba diving.^[60]
• Attorney
  widespread fraud in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election as "[releasing] the Kraken," inspiring a wave of memes and criticism.^[61]
• In Monster High, Kala Mer'ri is the daughter of the Kraken, although she keeps her heritage a secret.

See also

• Cetus (mythology)
• Colossal squid
• Giant squid
• Giant squid in popular culture
• Lusca, colossal octopus
• Sea monster
• Seattle Kraken

References