It had been thought that the Palette either depicted the unification of Lower Egypt by the king of Upper Egypt, or recorded a recent military success over the Libyans, or the last stronghold of a Lower Egyptian dynasty based in Buto. More recently, scholars such as Nicholas Millet have argued that the Palette does not represent a historical event (such as the unification of Egypt), but instead represents the events of the year in which the object was dedicated to the temple. Whitney Davis has suggested that the iconography on this and other pre-dynastic palettes has more to do with establishing the king as a visual metaphor of the conquering hunter, caught in the moment of delivering a mortal blow to his enemies. John Baines has suggested that the events portrayed are "tokens of royal achievement" from the past and that "the chief purpose of the piece is not to record an event but to assert that the king dominates the ordered world in the name of the gods and has defeated internal, and especially external, forces of disorder". The Narmer Palette is featured in the 2009 film "Watchmen". The Australian author Jackie French used the Palette, and recent research into Sumerian trade routes, to create her historical novel "Pharaoh" (2007). The Palette is featured in manga artist Yukinobu Hoshino's short story "The temple of El Alamein". The Palette is also featured in "The Kane Chronicles" by Rick Riordan where the actual palette is fetched by a magical shwabati servant instead of just a picture to Carter's utter horror. In Ubisoft’s 2017 release of Assassins Creed: Origins, the Palette is a quest item and minor plot point toward the end of the main quests storyline.