Moon Knight's Ammit Explained

Contains spoilers for "Moon Knight" Episode 1

Both in the comics and in his namesake Disney+ series, Moon Knight (Oscar Isaac) is closely associated with the moon god Khonshu (voiced by F. Murray Abraham), who is the source of his powers. As the first episode of "Moon Knight" makes clear, the deity is also a pretty constant presence in Moon Knight's civilian identities' life, either as an overdramatic disembodied voice or as a monstrous, massive figure with a floating bird skull for a head. 

However, it appears that Moon Knight's antagonist, Arthur Harrow (Ethan Hawke), also has some deity power in his corner. Harrow is affiliated with another Egyptian god, Ammit, and is looking for a scarab that's instrumental in his plans to bring her judgement to humanity. It all sounds very ominous, but how big a threat is Ammit in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and does she have a mythological counterpart in the real world? Let's take a look at Moon Knight's Ammit.  

In Marvel's comic books, Ammit is known as Ammut, and she's a crocodile-headed judgement entity who hangs around with the death god Anubis, and eats the dead who are deemed unworthy by the scales that weigh their good deeds. This tracks with the way Harrow judges folks with his scale tattoo, and gives a chilling explanation as to what happens to the people who die in the process — the implication seems to be that Ammit eats their souls. Per Ancient Egypt Online, the real-world mythological version of Ammit-slash-Ammut is explicitly a feared goddess of "divine retribution," and the poor souls she eats are essentially damned. 

Ammit's relationship with Moon Knight in the comics is a more complex one, since her arguably most high-profile appearance comes in Jeff Lemire and Greg Smallwood's tenure with the series. In this mental hospital-themed run, the deity manifests as psychiatrist Dr. Emmet, who runs the hospital Marc Spector is locked in, and thanks to the deliberately tenuous grip on reality that's the Lemire-Smallwood run's trademark, her crocodile-headed Ammit form may or may not be a figment of Marc Spector's imagination.