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At a press conference announcing that the suspect in the shooting of Charlie Kirk had been detained, FBI director Kash Patel ended his speech with a personal message to his “brother,” saying: “We have the watch, and I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
Many people commenting on the press conference reacted to this confusing reference to Valhalla with a mixture of amusement and disdain, with some pointing out the contradiction of eulogizing a Christian nationalist with reference to the pagan afterlife.
For scholars of the Vikings, Patel’s reference to Valhalla looked like something far more sinister. To understand why, we need to know both whatValhalla meant to the Vikings, and what it means in political discourse today.
The Norse p
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