Divided We Fall is the one with no mythology in it. It is the second single by VARGA, the Nordic duo behind Neo Viking Rock Trap, released on Nordlys Recordings as NR002, and it stands outside the saga on purpose — two people, one microphone, an empty concrete room, shot in black and white.
Every other chapter has weather in it. This one has a room.
There are no ships here, no cliffs, no serpent, no oath. There is a concrete floor and a vintage microphone on a stand and two people who have to share it, because there is only one, and the song is about division.
That is the whole staging, and it is the best idea in the project. You cannot sing a song about being divided into separate microphones. You would just be two people singing. The argument only becomes real when they are close enough to hear each other breathe and still on opposite sides of it.
The black and white is not a style choice. It is a subtraction. Everything else VARGA does is cold blue and ember gold, storm and firelight and mist — and all of that is beautiful and all of it is a place to hide. Strip the colour and the weather and the mythology and there is nowhere left to stand except in front of the thing you are actually saying.
The saga is a way of talking about how people hold together. Divided We Fall is the same subject with the costume off.
It is also, by a distance, the most-played thing VARGA has made. Which is worth sitting with.