In 2011, Norwegian gunman Anders Breivik orchestrated a real-world apocalypse in Oslo and on the island of Utøya. What’s chilling — almost absurdly so — is the music he chose to soundtrack it: not some sinister death metal, but Lux Aeterna, the soaring choral piece composed by Clint Mansell and later made famous through the trailer of The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.
By Breivik’s own account, the track’s hymnal grandeur helped him “suppress fear” amid the bloodshed and gave him a self-anointed “sense of mission.” As the strings climbed into their goosebump-inducing crescendo, he likely pictured himself as some heroic figure striding through a battlefield — rather than what he actually was: a coward with blood on his hands.
The irony is almost comically dark. Music can elevate the soul, sure — but in the wrong skull, it becomes a high-octane combat drug. Breivik tried to sanctify cold-blooded slaughter with an epic score. Yet no matter how holy the melody, the moment his iPod’s battery died, all that remained was the pale, nauseating reality of what he had done.
