Golem

There's nothing worse than a man-made man.

GOLEM MUST WORK. GOLEM MUST HAVE A MASTER.

— Dorfl, Feet of Clay

The Golem is a creature from Jewish folklore which was a figure animated by a holy man. It was generally unable to speak, lacked a soul, and followed orders like an automaton. The original Hebrew word can mean "an unshaped form" or figuratively "a stupid person".

The creature originated in the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, which holds that those who study the holy books and are strong in the ways of the Lord may create imitations of His miracles, but only imperfect ones. As God made Adam from clay, so may a holy man create an imitation of a man, albeit one lacking a soul. Clay remains the favored building material, but alternatives, such as wood, are no objection.

In some versions of the legend, the golem always obeyed its creator but could act as a Literal Genie; the idea of the golem deliberately rebelling was only introduced later. Note that even in the early versions, the Golem usually had to be destroyed for causing destruction or taking meaning from people's lives by making work too easy.

The most famous golem story is that of 16th century Rabbi Judah Loew, said to have created a golem in Prague to protect the Jewish community. This story, probably first heard in the 19th century, was rooted in the legendary reign of Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II, an avid devotee of magic and alchemy who had Loew in his personal circle. In German-speaking countries, the bestselling novel The Golem (1914) by Gustav Meyrink, although only tangentially related to the topic, brought it back to public consciousness and led to a series of silent films; the third film, a prequel from 1920 which shows the origin of the golem (who has the worst case of helmet hair in existence), survives today.

In some versions the golem was animated by writing the Hebrew word for "truth" (אֱמֶת ʼĕméth) on its forehead, and made inert again by erasing the first letter, converting it into the word for "dead" (מֵת mēth). However, other versions included using a "Shem", literally meaning a name and referring to one of the secret names of God. This could be put on its forehead or in the mouth.

Golem means cocoon or pupa in modern Hebrew. Both words are derived of the same linguistic root which means "holding a hidden meaning or potential". This is actually part of the original Kabbalistic aesop behind the Golem tale: the danger of creating a Golem is in its unknown nature. A human could never control or understand another mortal being the way God can.

Golems are usually created when a non-living vessel is magically imbued with life and consciousness. Depictions vary whether the golem requires magic to continue functioning after being made. The entry of the golem into popular culture as a fantasy monster is probably Dungeons & Dragons, which calls the classic version a "clay golem", and included other types such as Stone, Iron, or the Frankenstein's Monster-like "Flesh Golem". Other fantasy worlds have expanded into substances such as Lead, Wood, Lava, Blood, Mithril, and even more unlikely substances, like Glass, Paper, Wax, Junk and Maggots. And don't even get us started on the ones made of dirty laundry.

Generally, a golem's makeup is indicative of both their strength and the nature of their builder. An iron, steel or adamantine golem will likely be ungodly tough, a glass golem a literal Glass Cannon, and a flesh, blood or bone golem likely built by less than savory types.

More loosely the term can be applied to any robot that is explicitly run on magic rather than technology. Talos, a mythical Greek giant made out of forged bronze, is a good example. Do note it's not without controversy to use the term "golem" outside of its Jewish context and some works go with other terms for the general concept instead, like the aforementioned "robot", "homunculus" (which more or less are the Christian equivalent of the golem anyway), or the broader meaning of "simulacrum"/"simulacre".

Specific subtropes, distinguished by the materials or methods used to make them, include Flesh Golem, Improvised Golems and Snowlems.

See Rock Monster, Living Statue, Frankenstein's Monster, and Artificial Human. Usually a Perpetual-Motion Monster. Sentient Golems may be Nature Loving Robots, doubly so if whatever they are made of has a natural theme to it.

Not to be confused with the other Golem. Or Gollum. Or even the game of the same name.

See also Improvised Golems, for when you don't have time to make a proper golem.

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Example subpages:

• Literature
• Tabletop Games
• Video Games

Other examples:

Anime & Manga

• Berserk: Golems are figures made out of mud. They look cute, but they're very resilient and will regenerate any damage done to them until the little clay figurine within them is destroyed. They're used by the witch Flora to safeguard her home as well as to carry out domestic chores.
• Broken Blade: Humongous Mecha are called golems, and most (but not the titular one) live up to the name, being made of special stone and moving with the help of "magic".
• The Deuteragonist of A Certain Scientific Accelerator, Esther Rosenthal, is a Jewish mage who specializes in manufacturing golems. She's accompanied by one (made from the flesh of a dead woman) throughout much of the story and her plot arc revolves around her family's ancient mission to create a "perfect golem" that would imitate God's creation of mankind.
• The Golem girls in Deadline Summoner and 12 Beast — both series created by Takemaru "Okayado" Inui — share similar traits, in that they resemble little girls with massive robotic hands with built-in cannons, headphones, and facial piercings. In the latter, they can also pilot Humongous Mecha. They seem to be made of Magitek.
• Golems inhabit the dungeon in Delicious in Dungeon. They are humanoid monsters made of dirt created by mages. Uniquely, Senshi has three golems of his own that he uses as living gardens — since they can protect themselves and maintain the quality of the soil. He takes out their cores when it's time to harvest, plants, then puts the cores back so they can eventually reanimate.
• The Digimon franchise has Golemon. Of course, whatever the theme of a Digimon is, all Digimon are living data, but the first Golemon we met was one of many artificial Monster of the Week mon created from control spires by Arukenimon, and a few seasons later more were created from dirt by Grumblemon. As such, the ones we met really were golems, though it needn't go for the whole species. That said, the species itself is an emotionless Digimon that only attacks when ordered to, so the whole "obeying its master/creator" aspect is usually always intact.
• Fairy Tail: In a Filler saga, the villain Daphne uses Lizardman-like monsters which are stated to be some kind of Golem by Wendy.
• In Hunter × Hunter, things created through the ability Order Stamp have a lot of similarities to the golem: The user can create or find something at least vaguely humanoid in shape, and then use the Order Stamp to mark the signifier for "human" on its head to allow it to move on its own. Beings animated in this way do not have souls or personalities but will follow simple commands from the stamp's wielder.
• Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha ViVid: Corona, one of Vivio's two friends, can create these in an instant.
• Monster Soul: Touran, a sand golem. She's a Half-Human Hybrid due to having a human mother and a golem father.
• The titular RahXephon is in fact one of these, as are the monsters it fights, the Dolems.
• Rune Soldier Louie: Louie summons a golem to guard Merrill's gold, with Merrill ordering it to "not let anyone touch my darling jar". The golem then acts as a Literal Genie and steals the jar.
• Ushio and Tora: A Golem is the most powerful homunculus residing in the "House of Whispers", the headquarters of the mad former monk Inasa. It is a huge earthen humanoid with two beaked heads on his shoulders able to shoot out energy waves and seemingly created following Eleazar of Worms' method. It also has the traditional "emeth" weakness, though the author messes up in having Nadare claim that the writing is in latin rather than jew.

Comic Books

• In Adventure Time: Candy Capers, Peppermint Butler uses dark magic to create a conjoined-twins golem to replace Finn and Jake as heroes. It goes berserk.
• Elementals: Fantasia Faust, an iron golem under a permanent all-senses illusion (it looked like a sexy woman) was sent to attack the Elementals at one point. She later crossed over into Ironwood. She is far from the typical example, being sentient and normally indistinguishable from human.
• Minder from Forgotten Realms is an unusual example even for the setting, being a clearly intelligent, speaking, and even heroic iron golem rather different from the usual (A)D&D automata. The golem body is eventually revealed to actually house the spirit of an old friend and fellow adventurer of the Realms Master's own captain (and high-level wizard), Dwalimor Omen; she even survives the destruction and reforging of her physical form near the end of the series' run.
• Hawkman: In "The Statue that Came to Life", the villain is a sculptor named Boris Nickaloff who has invented plasm-clay. By carving it into human shape piece by piece and injecting it with adrenalin, the form comes to life and is loyal. Nickaloff names his first creation Czar and has him steal for him with the intention of financing a trip to South America where he'll create an entire army of plasm-clay men. However, Hawkman learns that the statue-man breathes and aims to choke him with a bolas. Nickaloff, protective of his creation, jumps in the weapon's path and is suffocated himself. The statue-man flees and Hawkman gives chase after retrieving the bolas. His next throw does strangle the statue-man.
• Marvel Universe: Drax the Destroyer was created specifically to destroy Thanos by Thanos's father and grandfather. Doubles as an Artificial Human and Our Homunculi Are Different.
• The Other Side of Doomsday: As trying to find Supergirl, Iris and Jean after they disappear, Flash and Atom are assailed by creatures resembling huge, muscular, blue humanoids. Said creatures lack eyes and mouth, and they crumble to dust when they are exposed to electricity. Laboratory tests reveal they are made from some alien dirt-like substance bonded by sheer electrical energy, and later the heroes learn those creatures were created and animated by a living planet at Morrow's behest.
• In Project Superpowers, the Boy King makes use of a giant golem to compensate for his lack of superhuman abilities.
• In The Sandman (1989), the Endless create their own golem, Eblis O'Shaughnessy, to act as emissary at Dream's death. He's basically human in most respects, but as two of the Endless are not present at his creation, he is unable to dream or destroy.
• In Seven Soldiers of Victory (2005), Don Vincenzo has an air golem, Strato, as his personal bodyguard. The golem may or may not have been created by his childhood friend, Edward Stargard, who has his own, more conventional golem as a bodyguard.
• Sonic the Hedgehog (Archie Comics): Knuckles, on a quest to retrieve what basically amounts to an Expy of Excalibur, encounters an antagonistic sorcerer who decides to ruin Knuckles' day, apparently just for fun (it actually turns out he's got the sword Knuckles is looking for). He casts a few spells and "brings forth a golem made of metal". Knuckles bitches about how they should leave the robots to Robotnik.
• In The Vigilant, young Domino has an enormous stone golem, Massif, that serves as her personal bodyguard.
• Wonder Woman:
  • Traditionally, the titular heroine is born when her mother, Hippolyta, crafts a baby out of clay and prays to the gods to give her life. This was retconned in the New 52, though, in which she is the natural daughter of Hippolyta and Zeus.
  • In the last issue of The Contest, the White Magician animates the very ground and concrete beneath Artemis and Diana as a giant humanoid fighter which dissipates and returns to dust once defeated. His giant stone golems make a reappearance later when several of them attack Widow Saiza in a failed attempt to kill the mob boss.

Eastern European Animation

• KikoRiki: Although it's never referred to as such, Dokko's creation in "The Most Important Thing" is very clearly one; not only is it made of clay, it is even animated by a piece of paper placed in its mouth as in Jewish folklore (the paper has a photo of Dokko on it rather than any text though, but it's relevant to the story). That being said, it also veers into Frankenstein's Monster territory as Dokko uses lightning to bring the golem to life.

Fan Works

• All Things Probable Series: "A Friend in Darkness" features Maze and Monkey Fist creating an army of these creatures from statues and petrified people to take over the world.
• The Cadanceverse: The protagonist ponies must battle and defeat a warrior golem in order to reach the Elements of Harmony. As it turns out, they already know another golem — Princess Cadance, who was created by Celestia and Luna to mediate between them.
• Dungeon Keeper Ami: Ami hates to put her minions, er, employees in danger. Thus her forces are composed mostly of Ice golems. Later, she adds the stronger and more imposeing (but also more costly) 'Reaperbots', basically remote-piloted mini-mecha that use magic. Ami uses a similar device in her duel with a horned reaper.
• Elementals of Harmony: Sideboard of Harmony: In "Fast, Fine, Fierce", when Ditzy Doo turns from a pony into a human, she references golems when describing her appearance in a Description in the Mirror scene:
  Ditzy looked up and found herself looking into a mirror. She examined her reflection. "Huh." It was her complexion more than anything. It was one thing to have grey hair. It was quite another to have grey skin. "I look like the scrawniest golem ever," she muttered. "That, or an underfed earth elemental, however that works." As she'd been warned, she seemed younger, too. Late teens if she had to guess. "Weird."
• The Dresden Files fanfic Enemy Mine features an OC named Tam Veda. Like Harry, (s)he's a magic-user for hire. Unlike Harry, (s)he makes ultra-realistic golems for clued-in clients — No Questions Asked.
• In Fantasy of Utter Ridiculousness, Alice Margatroid and the residents of the Scarlet Devil Mansion initially mistake Megas for a gigantic puppet or a statue given life. Considering the low tech level of Gensokyo and Coop's control of Megas, it was a fair assumption to make on their part.
• Metamatronic's Monster AU depicts Peko Pekoyama as a Golem — seemingly of a more Frankenstein flavor than clay one, given the stitches on her body — who was created by the Kuzuryu family to protect their heir, Fuyuhiko.
• In Moon Cats: The Further Adventures of Luna and Artemis, a Sailor Moon fic, there is a girl that can make golems. The senshi end up fighting some of them at one point.
• The Palaververse: Legends shows that rhinos use golems to do presumably menial tasks like paddling "paddle-wheels".
• One episode of Simpson Moon R, a The Simpsons/Sailor Moon crossover, features Origami Golems as mooks.
• Story Shuffle: "Take-Home Assignment" talks about the creation process of golems in Equestria. They can be made from a variety of materials, but volatile or formerly living ones are explicitly prohibited.
• Sunset, a grimdark My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic, posits that Twilight Sparkle is actually an extremely lifelike golem created by Celestia specifically to defeat Nightmare Moon, and deals with Twilight's discovery and reaction to the truth of her origin.
• Swords and Sorcery: The Einzberns make use of golems, most notably seven Guardian Golems based on the seven Servant classes: Saber (Siegfried), Lancer (Cú Chulainn), Archer (Karna), Rider (Lü Bu), Assassin (Brutus), Caster (Medea), and Berserker (Heracles). An eighth Golem also exists, Avenger, the rage, hatred, and bitterness of generations of Einzberns given physical form.
• Under the Northern Lights: A mokkurkalfe, called an ice golem in Equestrian, is a type of construct created by reindeer worshippers of Luna. They're large, powerful, mindlessly obedient, and can repair themselves by absorbing ice and snow that they walk upon. They're assembled from the butchered remains of living glaciers in a ritual involving clay from frozen rivers and the heart of an enemy. They're named after Mökkurkalfe, a giant clay man built by giants to fight Thor in Norse myth. Twilight mentions faceted golems from the Crystal Empire, although those don't require sacrificing anyone to make them.
• Vow of the King: Eien-ō can summon copies of itself in shikai with an ability called Yūrei no Ken, which Ichigo can control with his mind. In bankai, he can summon up to five full duplicates of his bankai which are fully autonomous but have an unspecified cooldown before he can summon more.

Films — Animation

• An American Tail: The Giant Mouse of Minsk is a thinly veiled reference to the golem legend. While a machine rather than an animated statue, it was created, just as the Golem of Prague was, to protect an oppressed Jewish community.
• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: Atlantis's Deflector Shields are projected by several massive golems who stand at set spots around the border of the city.
• The Real Shlemiel: A major character is a golem created by an evil sorcerer.

Films — Live-Action

• Císařův pekař, pekařův císař (Emperor and the Golem for foreign distribution) is a 1951 Czechoslovak historical fantasy comedy where the original Loew's Golem is the MacGuffin. The plot switches between the Emperor Rudolf II and his obsession with the Golem and his Identical Stranger, Matěj the baker, who is mistaken for the Emperor. Meanwhile, the alchemist Magister Kelley, an agent of the Emperor's brother Matthias, tries to usurp Golem's power for himself.
• The Dark Crystal: The Garthim appear to be made of a dark metal, and upon death/deactivation, they fall apart to reveal that they are merely shaped plates surrounding a hollow interior.
• Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla: King Caesar is a shisa-like kaiju-sized golem who acts as the sacred guardian of an Okinawan family. He spends most of his time sleeping in an inanimate state inside a mountain and can be awakened with a song, which the family uses just in time to wake him up so he can help Godzilla fight his mechanical double. He later reappears in Godzilla: Final Wars under the control of the Xilliens, forcing Godzilla to fight him as well as Anguirus and Rodan.
• The Golem is a silent German film from 1920, telling the story of the Golem of Prague.
• The Golem (2018) takes inspiration from the Golem of Prague and moves the story to 17th century Lithuania, giving it more of a horror spin.
• The Scorpion King: The fifth movie, Book of Souls, features a clay golem named Enkidu in ancient Mesopotamia charged with protecting the Damsel in Distress from anyone who would harm her. It's also never clarified if his creator was a Jewish rabbi.

Live-Action TV

• Grimm has the episode "Dyin' on a Prayer". A rabbi who happens to have clay that once belonged to the Golem of Prague prays that his sister and her son David will be protected, and is shocked when it results in the golem coming to life and attacking anyone who makes David feel threatened. Oddly, the way to defeat it was putting a scroll with "shem" written on it inside the Golem's mouth (even though traditionally this is what brought the golem to life in the first place).
• The Jews Are Coming, naturally, deals with the OG Golem (or rather, Golems) of Prague in one skit, where Rabbi Loew kills each Golem and replaces it with a less intelligent one as soon as the last Golem he made starts questioning the tenets of the Jewish faith.
• Jack's roommate Clay in The Order is revealed to be one of these. Like the myths, golems in the show are brought to life by creating a construct from clay, mud, or metal and inscribing אֱמֶת on the forehead, and rendered inert by erasing the full word. Metal is said to be a double-edged sword, as it would be difficult to engrave but even more so to erase.
• Supernatural: Used as the One-Man Army of a Nazi Hunter organisation in "Everyone Hates Hitler", though in appearance he's a Giant Mook rather than a clay figurine. Unfortunately, the Jewish college student who finds himself inheriting the golem smoked the instruction manual as rollies for his dope. The golem isn't happy about him either.
• Super Sentai/Power Rangers:
  • Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger: Bandora's mooks, the Golem Soldiers, and their Elite Mook version, the Dokita Golems. They are better known as the Putty Patrol in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. They are actually a more accurate example of Golems, as they're made from clay to none-too-brightly go about the makers' bidding (of course, since the Monsters of the Week are made in the same way, it goes for them as well).
  • In GoGo Sentai Boukenger, Gaja's Mooks are stone, created from small stones that grow when thrown, and are often compared to the Golems. A Jewish style golem is the Monster of the Week for the Christmas Episode. It's even defeated in the traditional way when DaiBouken drills away the first letter on its forehead. In Power Rangers Operation Overdrive, they are referred to as Chillers and are ice-based, with still little difference to golems beyond that.
• The X-Files:
  • The Monster of the Week in "Kaddish", raised either as a Replacement Goldfish for a murdered Jewish man or to avenge him.
  • Although described as a Tulpa, the Ubermenscher in "Arcadia" resembles a golem made of landfill grime.

Myths & Legends

• The above-mentioned Talos from Classical Mythology, a mythical Greek giant automaton made of bronze to protect Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders, may be the oldest example.
• The Trope Namers are the golems from Jewish folklore, mentioned at the top of the page.

Pinballs

• Magic Girl: A golem is one of the selectable player characters.

Podcasts

• Dice Funk: Something that sounds an awful lot like a golem bursts up through the ground. The party flees so fast that they don't actually know if it was one or not, although they refer to it later as such.
• Trials & Trebuchets has two types of golem employed as physical laborers and custodians by Wildcliff: stone golems known as the Jeeds who (with at least one exception) lack individual personalities and desires, and the much more uncommon clockwork golems, who have individual names and personalities.

Visual Novels

• Blessing of the Campanella: A golem named Golem is one of the secondary characters. Even if he is made of stone, he's owned by the comic relief Tortilla sisters, and gets into as many hijinks as they do. Witness him fall prey to gravity, wear an apron and blush over Leicester.
• In My Magical Divorce Bureau, Lexis was created to be the guardian of a secret society, but outlived the society and is now on her own. She isn't very good at communicating what she wants to do with her life, which is why she's in a divorce bureau.

Web Animation

• DSBT InsaniT: Sand Snake transforms into a version of this at the end of "Beach Brawl". A proper golem doesn't appear until episode 7 with Bentley.

Webcomics

• Golems are possible to create in Dominic Deegan, but it takes a lot of effort and resources. Among others, we've seen a Golem of Law (Acibek, made from his creator's followers... whose first act was to expose his creator's crimes), a Leaf Golem (Leaflette, the (first) Forest Oracle), a Miscellaneous-Forest-Creature Golem (Dirk the Mighty), and a Flesh Golem (Quilt).
• In El Goonish Shive, Urteroncs are ancient golems created by Uryuoms. In fact, their name is literally translated as "Algolem", as in "ALien GOLEM".
• Erfworld contains golems that, true to their fantasic roots, are named after what they are made out of. As a side note, some of them are made to look like people from the genres from which they are also named, like soft rock golems, hard rock golems, acid rock golems, metal golems; and cloth golems look like stuffed animals. Oh, yeah, guess what the crap golems are made out of.
• Not a strict example, but in Godslave, Heru's Blacksmiths in their true forms suggest that Golems were the inspiration for their design.
• Grrl Power: According to Dabbler, the first succubus was a "flesh golem", powered by mana, and eventually wizards/sorcerers/mages built and refine further 'models' into the race as it's known today.
• In Impure Blood, some of the attacking forces are machinery, but the smaller ones are just dirt.
• One of Beisaru's many tricks on Juathuur, shown here.
• Hieronymus Grubwiggler in The Order of the Stick creates flesh golems and bone golems, including one made from the corpse of Roy Greenhilt.
• Pure Light: Golems are artificial constructs created by purple dragons, who can imbue inanimate matter with life by projecting their will and belief into it. The desires used to focus this will determine the nature of the golem; the Dark Masters, who desire domination and destruction, create golems whose nature is to ravage and destroy, which has resulted in all golems being viewed as dark and evil things by the survivors of civilization.
• In Reversed Star, there are robotic mindless servants called galas that seem to invoke this trope.
• Calamitus's giant metal golem in Rusty and Co..
  Rusty: Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue Eat statue???
• Gwynn from Sluggy Freelance creates a golem out of all the clutter in the apartment. She dubs the creation "Clutter Monster".
• Golems made of rock appear several times in Tower of God, as traps, training props and escape vehicles. They are held together by a single blue, big, thumb-tack shaped device in the middle of the chest.
• Whither: Technically, a good part of the cast consists of these, made of paper and guardian witch's magic.

Websites

• Mortasheen has some very esoteric Bio Punk takes on this.

Web Videos

• Tales From My D&D Campaign features the Warforged, a race of sentient wooden golems created by the ancient Ytarrans. Also, in more modern times Vistria relies heavily on more conventional golems for defense against the evil Kua-Toa.

Western Animation

• Batman Beyond: In "Golem", a geeky high school student gets mental control of a construction robot called a Golem (short for Galvanic Lifting Machine) through lightning.
• The actual Golem of myth and legend shows up in Gargoyles in the Avalon World Tour episode of the same name, with surprisingly accurate Hebrew incantations being used to both animate and control it, although the word 'Jew' is not spoken in the episode, referring only to 'our people' and the Golem as a protector of Prague.
• In Huntik: Secrets & Seekers the Golem of Prague legend is focus of the fourth episode, revealed to be a Titan called Metagolem and bonds to main character Dante Vale becoming the go to muscle for the heroes. Later we see other golem Titans, there's Ignatius, which looks to be completely composed of rocks and fire. The name could be a play on "igneous" which is volcanic stone. We also see illusionary Coral Golems as part of a test in Atlantis and the Big Bad of the season one, The Professor, has two Undergolems.
• The evil Warlords of King Arthur & the Knights of Justice were made of stone to do Queen Morgana's bidding.

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Do golems dream of ceramic sheep?

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