Magog

Magog
Appearances	FAITH: Chapter III

Magog is a large statue that only appears in FAITH: Chapter III. Although nobody in the game refers this statue as anything, the filename for it is called "Magog".

History

This statue's backstory is vague. It's found in Garyland in a room where there's two cultists trapped in cages and, according to John, an unsettling table. This statue doesn't do anything significant.

October 30th, 1987

Waking up after an intense hallucination trip, John travels deeper within Garyland. To gain access to Below Garyland, he has to put three artifacts in a Moloch figure to unlock a door. During his trip, he comes across a cultist that turns into a fleshy creature when repelled by his crucifix. Avoiding its lengthy arms, he banishes it. In another room, before getting into a fight against the Mirror Demon, this statue is in the middle of the room with two cultists trapped in cages. There's also a lone table nearby one of them. John gets a bad feeling about the table so he doesn't stay there for too long. Banishing the Mirror Demon and walking out, it's the last time we see this statue.

Trivia

• The name "Magog" doesn't relate to a demon or spirit, it's actually a country. Although Gog and Magog are associated as a pair of individuals, in the Hebrew Bible, the word "Gog" is a prince/individual and "Magog" is the land/country the prince controls. Unfortunately, the exact origins of the word "Magog" is unknown, and "Gog of Magog" was mistakenly translated into "Gog and Magog".
  • With this in mind, in the Hebrew Bible, Gog is categorized as an archetypal figure that will bring an apocalypse onto Earth close to the End of Times, renaming the new land it controls as Magog. With this, there's many views in Medieval or Roman Times that people from Magog are demons or evil spirits that will take over the world. In general, this kind of evil is an archetype and there's no real 100% figure that is or represents Gog or what Magog looks like. However, this didn't stop people from those eras trying to associate what civilization was Magog or what ruler was Gog.
  • In the Quran and pop culture, Gog and Magog are categorized as two separate evil entities that would either cause mischief or bring an apocalypse onto Earth by releasing monsters in varying degrees, it could be zombies, beasts, skeletons, demons, and so on.
  • With these two in mind, there's no accurate depiction of what Gog or the country of Magog would've looked like. What I can see, a good description of the Gog and Magog pair is an illustration by a Persian scientist named Zakariyya' al-Qazwini around the 13th-Century. He used his own depiction in a manuscript he wrote titled "Wonders of Creation".
  • Fun fact: There's conflicting arguments that Magog is modern-day Russia or Turkey. However, understanding and literalizing biblical material is tough, so please don't take this association too seriously.
• This statue is a reference to the Magog costume Peter Gabriel wore when performing the song "Supper's Ready" as the lead singer of Genesis

Theories

• Gary has a hidden third goal that he did not disclose with John; bringing a zombie apocalypse by testing/using his cultists for this Magog statue.
  • Before diving into this, what we do know for a fact is that Gary has two main goals:
    1. Perform the Second Death ritual on a vessel to bring the Antichrist onto Earth.
    2. Bring the UNSPEAKABLE onto Earth by having the entity possess a vessel.
  • With these two in mind, Gary was trying to groom/prepare Amy as the perfect vessel when he found out about her unstable mother and a (temporarily) absent father back in 86'. He has also been trying to summon the UNSPEAKABLE onto Earth by having the entity possess Lisa, with the Peekaboo Demon assisting in return of getting sacrifices. When that failed (or successful if John never saves her), he tried to have John's body and mind ready for the UNSPEAKABLE to possess by injecting him with a needle. However, with this statue, it gateways into another goal: zombie apocalypse.
  • The cultists with those big fleshy heads are file named "Plagas Cultist", which may be derived from plaga, Late Latin for "plague," or in this case a "zombie plague." They're riddled throughout Garyland. In the room with the Magog statue, there are two immobile cultists that don't react to John walking around. There's a weird, "off-putting" table next to a cage as well. What I'm thinking is that, with the Profane Sabbath being the one day where demonic activity is at its peak, Gary has been performing experiments onto his cultists to turn into deadly zombies to be released from the Daycare Center onto the world. To get guidance on conducting these experiments correctly, he built a Magog statue that will give him support to bring this apocalypse, which is why he has a table nearby a cage; it's an operating table. The cultists in the cages are likely dead and are ready to be operated. However, Gary's highest priority is performing the Second Death since the Profane Sabbath is drawing near, police officers are stationed outside and are waiting to ambush, and Amy has not woken up from her coma after falling out of her attic ever since Sept. 21st of that year. He doesn't have time to manage his zombified cultists, so he lets them loose in an attempt to slow-down or kill John while he scrambles to perform the Second Death ritual, using his mother as a last-ditch effort after getting shot in the head by Father Garcia.

Gallery

Full room.

An unsettling table.

An illustration titled "Monster of Gog and Magog" by Zakariyya' al-Qazwini c. 13th Century. This is the best depiction I can show as to what Gog/Magog would've looked like.