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{{deathtrope}}
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* [[Higurashi no Naku Koro ni|Hinamizawa]]'s festival used to be about this.
** This is also {{spoiler|Hanyuu}}'s origin: she was a normal human once, but she was sacrificed to become a presiding deity over the shrine.
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* Subverted and Played For Laughs in the ''[[Ranma ½]]'' manga. After Akane enters a long-distance swimming competition, she reaches the end first, only to be grabbed by an enormous jellyfish. When Ranma hears from the officials that they have to present this jellyfish king with a young maiden once a year or it will punish them, he springs into action. As it turns out, they weren't trying to make her a Human Sacrifice. All it wanted to do was take some pictures with Akane and present her trophy. By "present a young maiden," they meant that they had to "present a young maiden for it to hold."
== [[Comic Books]] ==
* Human tribes in ''[[Elf Quest]]'' have a habit of doing this with Elves. The very first episode starts with a torture scene.
* In ''[[Spawn]]'', the cult of Urizen - a [[God of Evil]] so malevolent and so dangerous that the rulers of Heaven and Hell [[Enemy Mine|cooperated to seal him away]] - had a unique variation. The cult initially had 13 members, most of them insane rich people. Once per month, during the New Moon, one of their number was elected to be a sacrifice, and would be hunted by the others, killed, butchered, and then cooked and [[I'm a Humanitarian|eaten by the rest of the cult]] in an evil version of a formal dinner party. By their own accounts, this "blended" the
==
* The concept is lampooned in the ''[[DeviantArt]]'' comic [https://www.deviantart.com/uberis/art/The-Sacrifice-864430669 seen here] (be warned, it is ''very'' NSFW) where the summoned demon is upset that the unseen cultists are offering her a human sacrifice [[Even Evil Has Standards|(having likely tortured "the poor thing")]], claiming she has no idea if her apartment would let her keep pets and couldn't afford to feed her if they did. "Why does no-one ever tribute a Playstation or a Netflix gift card?" she complains.
* ''[[The Final Sacrifice]]'', of course. Apparently necessary to summon an invincible army of Canadian Aztecs or something.▼
== [[Film]] ==
▲* ''[[The Final Sacrifice]]'', of course. Apparently necessary to summon an invincible army of Canadian Aztecs or something.
* In ''[[Race with the Devil]]'', two families witness a human sacrifice during a Satanic ritual and go on the run to escape the cultists pursuing them. It's also implied {{spoiler|[[Bolivian Army Ending|to happen to them at the end]].}}
* ''[[Spectre (1977 film)|Spectre]]'', a 1977 [[TV Movie]] written and produced by [[Gene Roddenberry]]. Near the end the cultists attempt to perform a human sacrifice to summon the demon Asmodeus.
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* ''[[Thir13en Ghosts]]'' (a remake of the older film ''[[13 Ghosts]]'') puts a spin on this, in that the ritual requires a ''willing'' sacrifice. Initially, [[Dragon-in-Chief|Arthur]] (who is orchestrating the ritual) plans to be the sacrifice himself, {{spoiler| until he realizes he was tricked into doing so by [[Big Bad| Cyrus]].}}
== [[Literature]] ==
* Prevalent in ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' literature
** In [[Dan Abnett]]'s ''[[Gaunt's Ghosts]]'' novel ''The Guns Of Tanith'', cultists sacrifice Yael by torture.
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* In [[Edgar Rice Burroughs]]'s ''[[John Carter of Mars|The Master Mind of Mars]]'', Dar Tarus, [[Dude in Distress|captive, is brought before the altar for this]]. Ulysses Paxton saves him.
* In [[Andre Norton]]'s ''The Time Traders'', the prehistoric tribe is set to cremate their chief [[Due to the Dead|with great honor]]. Too great: they intend to kill Ross Murdock on it as a sacrifice.
* [[Terry Pratchett]]'s ''[[Discworld]]'':
** In
** Bethan would have been one in ''[[
* In [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[American Gods]]'', how Odin ended up in America. {{spoiler|And Lakeside's secret}}.
** There is also a throwaway line about car gods becoming the recipients of human sacrifice on a scale unseen since the Aztecs.
* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s ''[[Conan the Barbarian]]'' story "[[A Witch Shall Be Born]]" Salome institutes this as part of the [[Religion of Evil]].
** In the [[Backstory]] of "[[The Devil in Iron]]"
** In "[[
{{quote|''When I was a child in Stygia the people lived under the shadow of the priests. None ever knew when he or she would be seized and dragged to the altar. What difference whether the priests give a victim to the gods, or the god comes for his own victim?''}}
** In "[[The Vale of Lost Women]]" Livia runs into this.
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* In [[Poul Anderson]]'s ''[[Three Hearts and Three Lions]]'', a water spirit reveals she has no soul by her idle comments about the human sacrifices that a barbarian tribe offers her annually; she says only that it's not that useful because she's not a cannibal, but they do wear nice clothing.
* A renowned anthropologist in ''Pastwatch'' by [[Orson Scott Card]] postulates that slavery - our heroes' motivation to meddle with the past in the first place - actually emerged as a relatively benign alternative to human sacrifice. (This is relevant because the Tlaxcaltecs, who never got that cultural meme, may well have taken over the world in another timeline.)
* As in its [[STALKER|more famous]] [[Adaptation Displacement|adaptation]], getting to the center of the [[Forbidden Zone|Zone]] in ''[[Roadside Picnic]]'' allows for your wishes to be granted. However, there's a Meat Grinder anomaly blocking the only path. It'll go away for a few minutes if something is thrown into it—something large and organic
* The first part of ''[[Special Circumstances|Princess of Wands]]'' features a cult that sacrifices people to first summon then feed an [[Eldritch Abomination]] they worship.
* In [[Keith Laumer]]'s ''[[Retief]]'' short story, "The Brass God", the Hoogan Pope wants to sacrifice the entire Terran diplomatic team for consorting with demons (actually another unrecognized alien species), but when it's pointed out that this might make the Terrans reluctant to keep funding his theocracy, he decides he'll be satisfied with sacrificing Retief alone.
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* Practiced by some of the cults on the Street of (the) Gods, which appears in a couple of [[Simon R. Green]]'s novel series. It's widely regarded as unsavory, but it's not ''technically'' banned as long as it doesn't endanger the tourists.
== [[Live
* ''[[Kolchak the Night Stalker]]'' episode "Legacy of Terror". An ancient Aztec cult is performing Human Sacrifice to bring back their deity.
* Several demons in ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' and ''[[Angel]]'' are after human sacrifices.
** In "When She Was Bad", the blood of the four people who were nearest to the Master at the time of his death is needed to bring him back - those people being Jenny, Giles, Cordelia, and Willow.
** Subverted, however, in "Doomed". Buffy and Giles ''think'' the demons are hunting for human victims to throw into the Hellmouth in order to blow it open; {{spoiler| in truth, the demons intend to sacrifice themselves. Spike almost causes a disaster by accidently helping them by throwing one of them into it.}}
* An episode (or two? or more?) of ''[[Gilligan's Island]]'' had the Headhunters wanting to perform a human sacrifice.
* It was just a staged production number, but an episode of ''[[The Muppet Show]]'' had Janice offered up as a sacrifice to some stone idol that she stalled by singing "A Little Help From My Friends" until she could be rescued.
* In ''[[Caprica]]'', this is one of the services offered in the illegal virtual nightclubs that Caprican teens frequently visit. Since it's all VR, no-one actually dies for real, but the idea of ''teenagers'' creating human sacrifice clubs ''for fun'' shows just how decadent Caprica is under all the richness.
* ''[[Doctor Who]]'':
** In the
** In [[Doctor Who/Recap/S14/E01 The Masque of Mandragora|"The Masque Of Mandragora"]], Sarah Jane is nearly sacrificed by Cult of Demnos.
** And [[Doctor Who/Recap/S1/E06 The Aztecs|"The Aztecs"]], naturally. Barbara, posing as the god Yetaxa attempts to halt the Aztecs' human sacrifice, but it doesn't take.
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* The show ''[[Myth Quest]]'' had an episode where the male protagonist went to the Aztec empire and almost became a sacrifice.
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
* [[Chained to a Rock|Chaining-to-a-rock]] sacrifices are fairly common with dragons and other monsters anyway, and the ur-example was probably Andromeda with the sea monster from Greek mythology. The monster was killed when Perseus showed up to rescue her and turned the beast to stone with Medusa's head.
* Also from Greek mythology we have Agamemnon, who offended the goddess Artemis and was forced to sacrifice his daughter Iphigenia to appease her (though sources differ on whether the girl was actually killed or taken off to be a priestess of Artemis). His wife Clytemnestra did not take this well, setting off a cycle of bloodshed in true Greek tragedy fashion.
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* Every single [[Aztec Mythology|Aztec]] god ([[Token Good Teammate|except Quetzalcoatl]]) demanded some form of this, often in very specific and highly inventive ways. See [[Real Life]] below.
== [[Tabletop Games]] ==
* ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'':
** In ''The Book of Vile Darkness'' (the
** From the [[Forgotten Realms|Kara-Tur]] setting; This is also one of the most notorious parts of [[The Dreaded|yikaria (aka yakfolk)]] culture. Their dark elemental god demands ''four sacrifices per day per community'', and each of the four corresponds to a different element. One victim is thrown off a mountain (air), another is drowned (water), a third is burned alive (fire), and a fourth is [[Buried Alive| buried alive]] (earth).
** Special mention goes to Lolth, the dark goddess of the drow. While her priestesses certainly sacrifice captured members of other races, Lolth actually prefers her own subjects as victims. And drow who disobey her or rebel against her are ''not'' considered "her own subjects". She actually prefers her own loyal priestesses who fail to stand out among or one-up the others in her twisted theocracy. Her [[Social Darwinist]] dogma and Machiavellian rule over them makes this a useful tool.
* Many of the rituals carried out by sorcerers in Geoffrey McKinney's recently released pulp fantasy-inspired ''Carcosa'' setting for OD&D involve some form of human sacrifice in order to summon powers granted by alien gods. The level of explicitness in the rituals is similar to the supplement ''The Book of Ebon Bindings'' for ''Empire of the Petal Throne'', and the rituals in question involve some seriously nasty violence, with four of them involving sexual assault. Not surprisingly, most sorcerers in the Carcosa setting are [[Complete Monster]]s, with the only ''good'' ones in the bunch being the ones who stick to the banishment rituals, which do not require anyone to be sacrificed.
* ''[[Warhammer 40,000]]'' All sorts of Chaos rituals call for it.
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* Likewise, ''[[Geist: The Sin Eaters]]'' allows a Sin-Eater to regain [[Mana|Plasm]] if they kill someone in a way resonant with their Threshold. A Torn (death by violence) might just beat someone to death, a Silent (death by deprivation) might strangle them, and a Prey (death by nature) might sic a mad dog on them. Doing so to gain Plasm usually dings their [[Karma Meter|Synergy]], though.
* In ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'' the [[Lizard Folk|Lizardmen]] are incredibly fond of blood sacrifice, and their god Sotek appeared after the death of thousands. They manage to be one of the nicer races all the same though, because they mostly sacrifice the [[Exclusively Evil]] Skaven and Dark Elves. And most of the humans they kill are ones who mistook themselves for Conquistadors.
* ''[[Call of Cthulhu (tabletop game)|Call of Cthulhu]]''
** ''Worlds of Cthulhu'' magazine #3, adventure ''The Golden Scorpion''. The [[PC]] ''will'' be sacrificed by the Aztec descendants they encounter. The only question is, what will they decide to do afterward...
* The ''[[Fighting Fantasy]]'' gamebook ''[[What Do You Mean It's for Kids?|House of Hell]]'' features a demonic cult that carries out human sacrifices. One of the illustrations in the original edition of the book depicted cultists ready to sacrifice a nude woman upon an altar; this got yanked in subsequent printings.
* The Sarrukh of the ''[[Forgotten Realms]]'' practiced ''Sarrukh'' sacrifice. This was not actually truly evil - the sacrifices were honoured volunteers, and the deity they were sacrificed to wasn't evil, he just had made a "you sacrifice to me, I help you" pact with the Sarrukh. Then they started to want to sacrifice slaves of ''other'' races, the deity took measures to accommodate them, and the Sarrukh rapidly slid into deep evil, dragging some fragments of their deity with them.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* ''[[Black and White]]'' allows you require them from your followers, if you wish to be an evil god.
** And at least in the second game, you can do it yourself by throwing followers into the giant fire in the temple to quickly gain mana.
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* One of Kotal Kahn's Fatalities ("Totem Sacrifice") does this to his opponent in ''[[Mortal Kombat 11]]'', complete with an altar.
== [[Web Comics]] ==
* ''[[Ow, My Sanity]]''{{'}}s introduction ends with a summoning ritual that requires a human sacrifice (possibly made bit-by-bit if the amputated arm is to be believed). Then [[Everybody's Dead, Dave|more sacrifices happen]].
* The Mobian Inquisition of ''[[Exterminatus Now]]'' spends a lot of its time fighting [[Cult]]s, so the protagonists have found themselves interrupting an anthro-sacrifice a few times.
* ''[[Exiern]]'': [http://www.exiern.com/?p=10 The plan]
* ''[[Dork Tower]]'' [http://www.dorktower.com/2006/06/21/comics-archive-798/ Selecting]
* In ''[[Anti HEROES]]'', [
* In ''[[Thistil Mistil Kistil]]'', [http://tmkcomic.depleti.com/comic/ch05-pg14/ at the Viking funeral] (see [[Real Life]] below).
* In ''[[American Barbarian]]'', [http://www.ambarb.com/?p=347 the lottery winners are sent to a man-eating god].
* In ''[[Our Little Adventure]]'', [http://danielscreations.com/ola/comics/ep0158.html one is accidentally prevented in the labyrinth.]
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In the ''[[Justice League]]'' episode "The Terror Beyond", Hawkgirl mentions that her home planet, Thanagar, used to worship the [[Eldritch Abomination]] Icthultu and sacrifice people to it in exchange for knowledge. They eventually decided this was a bad idea. Dr Fate tries to perform the Thanagarian ritual sacrifice to prevent Icthultu from gaining access to our universe. Since his subject is the zombie Solomon Grundy, he would have just resurrected eventually (and in fact does during ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'', though it's shown that he [[Came Back Wrong]]), but either way, [[Nice Job Breaking It, Hero|the Justice League interrupts the sacrifice before it can be completed]].
* In the TV special ''[[Garfield]] in Paradise'', a native princess (and her cat) are nearly sacrificed to a volcano.
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* This is what supposedly happens in the ''[[South Park]]'' episode "Britney's New Look."
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Many human cultures have
** Which explains a great deal about [[Mayincatec]].
*** It should be added that the "flower wars," as any scholar of pre-Columbian Mexican history will tell you, were conducted at a high level of protocol, at least by the standards of the civilization that
**** Often times. Unfortunately for many, this was not exactly the case, as those who did not go alone were simply slaughtered outright, and those who couldn't comprehend probably didn't have it any better. Not to mention the strains of having a hundred or so of your people- and keep in mind that this is on a continent that had been technologically surpassed in most ways by Eurasia for about a two thousand or so years and so had very low population densities- who were almost always fit and valuable members of society getting jumped off in these wars for sacrifice had on everybody else. There was a good reason why by the time the Spanish came, the locals were ''very'' eager to help them.
* With the possible exception of the Ancient Semitic cultures. The Bible mentions human sacrifice on many instances, and archaeology has confirmed the Biblical claims.
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* Adolfo Constanzo and his cult committed an unknown number of human sacrifices, for what appeared to be vaguely religious reasons, and because they believed it would help their drug trafficking prosper.
* The Norse would tie a slave to the slipway of a newly launched ship to be ritually crushed. As some of their ships were intended for [[Pirates|distasteful activities]] it kind of figures.
** [[Viking Funeral]]s for chieftains also had a slave sacrifice as part of the ritual to send the chieftain's soul to Valhalla. Modern depictions, of course, leave out this little detail, focusing instead on the awesome image of a flaming ship being sent on its final voyage.
** Modern Asatruar<ref>aka Heathens, aka Germanic Pagans, aka believers in [[Norse Mythology]]</ref> [[Averted Trope|sacrifice mead, food, or significant-to-them items to the Gods and/or Goddesses]]. For obvious reasons, [[Captain Obvious|sacrificing other people]] [[And That's Terrible|is frowned upon]].
* Human sacrifice -- called ''muti'' -- is still practised today among certain Nigerian peoples.
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{{reflist}}
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]▼
[[Category:Rituals and Ceremonies]]
[[Category:Evil Tropes]]
[[Category:Religion Tropes]]
[[Category:Older Than Dirt]]
▲[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]]
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