Brute Norse Podcast Ep. 27: World on a Wire, Norse Cosmology, and Heroic Death (Valhalla interlude)

Brute Norse goes to the movies in this spoiler saturated interlude to the series on Valhalla. What are the gods, and how do they see us? With its unsettling depiction of a simulated reality, Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s 1973 sci-fi masterpiece «World on a Wire» (Welt am Draht) is an oft cited example of a film way ahead of its time. In this episode, we’re going to turn that claim upside down and let the mythic merge with the cybernetic, using the film as an opportunity for a Scandifuturist reading of Norse Pre-Christian cosmology, and notions of heroic transcendence.

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Mentioned works:

- Fassbinder, Rainer Werner (1973). World on a Wire: www.imdb.com/title/tt0070904/

- Fragasso, Claudio (1990). Troll 2: www.imdb.com/title/tt0105643/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

- Heide, Eldar (2014). Contradictory Cosmology in Old Norse Myth & Religion - But still a system?

- Neckel, Gustav (1913). Walhall: Studien über germanishcen Jenseitsglauben.

Brute Norse Podcast Ep. 26: Valhalla Pt. 1 - Fight for your right to party

In the midst of the crumbling Yankee Empire, Eirik plots to evacuate New Jorvik and relive the Migration Era by conquering the Mosel. But if he dies trying, where will he go? What is Valhalla anyway, and what do we know about Norse mythology's most iconic afterlife location?

In this episode we wade through storms of blood and iron to look at the research history of this extravagant warrior paradise. It's a meandering road through source-critical pitfalls, deadly ancestral cliffs, and the grotesque aesthetics of Norse warrior poets.

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Some sources for this episode:

- Bergsveinn Birgisson (2003). Å elska med øyreløs hund og skummel død. Nordica Bergensia 29 - 2003. University of Bergen

- Nordberg, Andreas (2004). Krigarna i Odins sal. Dödsföreställningar och krigarkult i fornnordisk religion. University of Stockholm

- Sundqvist, Olof & Anders Kaliff (2006). Odin and Mithras: religious acculturation during the Roman Iron Age and the Migration Period. In: Old Norse Religion in Long-Term Perspectives. Nordic Academic Press: Lund

Brute Norse Podcast Ep. 25: Valhalla (prologue) - The Temple of Reluctant Gods

Myth speaks of an exclusive community of dead warriors, whose sacrifices in service for their divine monarch granted them access to live in a grand hall, where they would be served and entertained by young maidens, and continue their fight on a cosmic scale from the spectral realm in perpetuity.

In this episode we explore the development, consequences, and controversies of the idea and location of Yasukuni Jinja, where 2,5 million of Japan's military dead are enshrined and venerated as gods. We trace its humble origins as a war memorial, circus venue, and pacifying ground to soothe angry warrior ghosts, to its more infamous stage as a spiritual meat grinder of the State Shinto Military Industrial Complex, able to transform young men into national deities on an industrial scale.

A cautionary tale against romanticizing death and martyrdom, this episode explores how the Imperial State manipulated aesthetics and indigenous beliefs for immediate military gains. We meet the Christian existentialist kamikaze pilot Ichizo Hayashi, and tour the shrine grounds with the ghost of Eirik's great-uncle Ingolf, all the while making phenomenological comparisons to the Norse concept of Valhalla.

Support and follow Brute Norse!
www.Patreon.com/Brutenorse
www.teespring.com/stores/brute-norse
www.instagram.com/brutenorse
www.twitter.com/brutenorse

Some sources for this episode:
- Hardackre, Helen (2017). Shinto: A History. Oxford University Press.
- Kolstø, Janemil (2007). "Rethinking Yasukuni: From Secular Politics to Religious Sacrifice". University of Bergen.
- Ohnuki-Tierney, Emiko. (2006). Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers. The University of Chicago Press.