13. Despite his religious beliefs, Tolkien’s work inspired a Satanist to burn down churches in Norway
Kristian Vikernes, like many alienated young people, felt an instinctive lure to Tolkien’s rich world of fantasy literature. There is nothing strange about that, but Vikernes’s interpretation was rather unique: ‘I felt a natural attraction to Sauron… I could easily identify with the fury of the “dark forces”, and enjoyed their existence very much because they were making a boring and peaceful world dangerous and exciting’, he explained. Unfortunately, Tolkien’s incorporation of Norse mythology and Germanic literature simultaneously fed Vikernes’s growing racist and anti-Christian ideology, with disastrous and deadly consequences for Norway and one of his closest friends.
Vikernes (above, being sentenced) formed the band Burzum, meaning ‘darkness’ in Black Speech, the language of Mordor. He took the stage-name Count Grishnackh after an orc, and set about fighting against the real-world counterpart of the heroes of Lord of the Rings, Christianity. Vikernes burned down several churches in Norway and preached hate against all non-white races, inspired by what he saw as a race war in Tolkien’s work. He also murdered his friend, Øystein ‘Euronymous’ Aarseth, because he felt this was the Germanic-pagan way of settling a feud. Poor Tolkien would have been disgusted with this super-fan’s actions.