Ad Metallum Purificandum

Nicholas Alexander Brown is a PhD candidate at Texas Christian University. His comics dissertation, The Rousing of Ogma: Developing Functional Methodologies for the Production of Multimodal Scholarship, interrogates the acceptance of multimodal scholarly forms in rhetoric and composition and proposes a methodology for comics-as-scholarship shaped by rhetorical theory and comics production practices. He teaches classes on multimodal and non-rational rhetorics, comics production, and writing games.

Recommended citation:

Brown, Nicholas Alexander. “Ad Metallum Purificandum.” Sequentials, vol. 2, no. 1, 2021.

Text descriptions of page images:

Page 1

Title: Ad Metallum Purificandum

Description: An architectural composition based on the burnt remains of Fantoft stave church. Images depicting scenes from the early black metal community are superimposed in the burnt frame.

Caption: The extremism of the black metal community is better than its music to many. Murder, arson, and assaults characterize the genre and shaped its public identity in early 1990’s Norway. It is easy to dismiss this community out-of-hand as radicals and extremists, but rejection impairs understanding. Condemnation may make us feel better, but it can’t explain why this community exists. This comic is multivocal:

Narrator: A fictional narrator speaks from within the black metal community

Burke: Kenneth Burke speaks largely for himself

Brown: And I synthesize and summarize these ideas into a coherent whole

Caption: This comic presents a story of the black metal community. Using Kenneth Burke’s theories of rhetoric, I seek to understand how the misanthropy practiced, portrayed, and celebrated by the black metal scene has influenced its development and expansion. This article demonstrates the insights that manifest when we avoid knee-jerk rejection of distasteful subject matter and instead pursue critical attention and understanding.

Page 2

Description: More scenes from the black metal community, but this time focused on musicians performing and different bands from the scene.

Narrator: There once was brightness in “Black Metal.” We may have sung about bloody Elizabeth Bathory, but we had fun. It was just music. That brightness faded when black metal came to Norway.

Narrator: Venom played at evil, but we were evil. Our strength came from our aggression and despair. We were children, but our messages were heard.

Narrator: We grew tired of the poseurs playing death metal. Their “interchangeable sludge” couldn’t capture death and decay. They were insulting.

Narrator: We were True Norwegian Black Metal. We thrived in the darkness.

Narrator: Some sang of the Old Gods, of Odin and Thor and Loki. Others sang of their devotion to Satan. No matter the patron, sonic and lyric violence stood center stage.

Page 3

Description: Images depicting protest and the spread of Christianity. The figures representing members of the black metal community look painfully out of place.

Narrator: Our music resonated with the “harshness of the Norwegian winter landscape.” It was not meant for the masses.

Narrator: We sought isolation and a return to tradition. We sough independence from global intrusion.

Narrator: They came from out of Jerusalem and changed the landscape with their God’s love. They made our holy places their own.

Narrator: Most cannot understand us; they call us extremists and racists. To them, we are hate personified. There are some for whom this is true, but not for all. Such broad-brushed strokes prevent us from telling our stories.

Page 4

Description: Images depicting the arson of Fantoft stave church and Varg Vikernes standing alongside Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth.

Caption: 06 June 1992: Fire scorches Bergen, Norway this morning as Fantoft Stave Church burns. Early reports suggested that electric failure may be at fault for the destruction of the beloved historical site. Authorities are investigating the possibility of arson.

Caption: 25 December 1992: Another stave church burns on Christmas Eve. Community members worry that an underground Satanic Cult may be responsible for the destruction of Norway’s historic churches.

Caption: 20 January 1993: Musician Varg Vikernes claims responsibility for burnt churches, also claims murder of man at Lillehammer. Police have arrested Vikernes and further investigations are underway.

Caption: Vikernes says he burnt churches to promote new album, record store. Satanic motivations not ruled out.

Caption: 19 August 1993: Convicted arsonist Varg Vikernes was arrested for the murder of musician Øystein “Euronymous” Aarseth of black metal band Mayhem. Vikernes is said to have stabbed Aarseth 23 times. Vikernes faces a 21-year sentence if convicted of the murder.

Page 5

Description: Kenneth Burke lectures to an audience in a dark auditorium. Each panel shows a different angle of Burke.

Burke: Orientations “are bundles of judgments as to how things were, how they are, and how they may be.” They let us speak and the determine our possible responses.

Burke: Piety accompanies orientations and “is the sense of what properly goes with what.” Pious actions maintain social cohesion, impious actions are grotesque.

Burke: Changes to our orientation must be “anthropomorphic or humanistic or poetic,” otherwise we would commit to “reversion or backsliding.”

Burke: What is needed is a “rationale of art, […] an art in its widest aspects, an art of living.”

Brown: Varg’s arsons were a protest. Launched on the 1,199th anniversary of the Viking raid at Lindisfarne, he saw his actions as a way to stoke pagan fires in the hearts of his audiences. Varg was wrong to assume the salience of his exigence; 1,198 years and 363 days is a long time. Modern audiences viewed Varg’s violence as impious and grotesque. They could not look past his blood-soaked and flame-scorched crimes to discern his emancipatory message for the people of Norway. Grounded as they were in the methods of the past, Varg’s actions could not be revolutionary.

Page 6 and 7

Description: On the left, we see black metal musicians wearing corpse paint. On the right, two priests carry out an exorcism on a woman yelling in pain. A nurse and a doctor look on.

Burke: Inhabiting a new orientation requires that we shatter the old; we may achieve this through perspective by incongruity wherein we practice “methodical misnaming.” We cast out demons through misnaming, by “calling them the very thing in all the world they are not: old coats.”

Brown: Perspective by incongruity allows the introduction of new elements into the closed system of an orientation. These novel pieces allow us to articulate the shortcomings of out current orientation. Whereas the priest misnames the devil to weaken it, black metal musicians adopt names that allow them to transcend their mundane lives. This misnaming is an upward conversion that positions the musician externally and provides them with the opportunity to critique the modern world not afforded to most. Misnaming allows them to strengthen their extremist identities through the simultaneous acceptance and disavowal of the scene’s criminal actions, generating the cultural capital needed to find success in the music industry.

Page 8 and 9

Description: Circular composition. A woman wearing corpse paint stands in front of a pentagram in the middle of the pages. Scenes depicting the daily routines of a member of the black metal scene and “normal” people are arranged in panels around the edge.

Narrator: We recount the tales of those who came before us. It’s not always accurate, but it is through these tellings that our community exists and finds a sense of belonging.

Burke: “A is not identical with colleague, B. But insofar as their interests are joined, A is identified with B.”

Brown: The identity of the modern black metal community develops through the repetition, embellishment, and misremembering of the crimes of the early 1990s. These actions amplify the division that Burke asserts exists naturally between humans.

Narrator: We see the fantasy and most do not fight for immoral ideologies.

Burke: “A doctrine of consubstantiality, either explicit or implicit, may be necessary to any was of life {…} in acting together, men had common sensations, concepts, images, ideas, attitudes, that make them consubstantial.”

Brown: Black metal musicians and fans use the performance and memory of violence to assert their differences. These performances heighten natural divisions and impair communication.

Narrator: Through the violence of others we set ourselves apart and seize an identity all our own. We incent an identity to remove ourselves from society.

Burke: “Identification is compensatory for division. If men were not apart from one another, there would be no need for the rhetorician to proclaim unity. If men were wholly and truly of one substance, absolute communication would be of man’s very essence.”

Brown: Piety leads to consubstantiality; identification relies on the vocabulary of the orientation.

Narrator: We may not approve of the violence of our forebears, but our identity is founded in these origin myths.

Burke: Absolute communication would not be impaired by materiality, “it would be as natural, spontaneous, and total” as the speech of angels.

Brown: The black metal community creates cohesion through its separation and members are valued for how well they reflect shared values. These shared values foster consubstantiality amongst adherents and create identification predicated on division.

Narrator: Our bonds strengthen as we set ourselves apart.

Burke: “In pure identification there would be no strife.”

Brown: Here, identification and division work in concert, developing ambidirectional rhetorical vectors that challenge theories of Burkean rhetoric and suggest inventional possibilities for purposeful division.

Brown: Here, division creates a community and a refuge from general society.

Page 10

Description: The page is organized around an inverted cross. We see scenes inspired by imagery from the black metal community.

Brown: The bonds forged between black metal and violence are unbreakable; extremism is embedded in the genre’s identity. Even now, Norwegian diplomats become conversant on black metal to field questions while abroad.

Brown: Understanding black metal requires that we understand violence as an act of invention. The ambivalence of the black metal community’s criminal past makes it easily misunderstood. As scholars and rhetors, we need methods to understand topics and communities that we might find distasteful.

Brown: The continued influence of National Socialism in black metal is troubling and warrants further investigation. We must suspend judgment, however, and learn how this ideology manifests (if at all) within the wider community.

Brown: Black metal is not for everyone; it is cold, misanthropic, and antagonistic to outsiders. Despite this hostility, we must understand the genre and the community before we condemn them. This lesson applies more broadly, too.

Page 11

Description: We see a metal band performing, a group of neo-Pagans engaged in a ceremony, and the mugshots of different people connected with anti-social crimes.

Brown: We may apply these lessons to other communities that have been historically maligned… such as other heavy metal subgenres that have been subjected to unfair scrutiny for many years based on unfounded accusations of Satanism.

Brown: Or neo-pagans attempting to reclaim elements of their ancient pasts who are reflexively lumped in with white supremacists doing something similar.

Brown: More importantly, we can understand the copycats and the rightly condemned, without also condemning the unfairly accused.

Brown: Condemnation is easy. It helps us to reaffirm the shared values and ideals of our communities. It also shuts down conversations before they can happen. Our world is too complex for blanket statements. We must understand what we find to be distasteful so that we can help others to do the same.