Fate

Yes, Østen has said that this is about a suicide bomber. I think the last stanza is about his final thoughts, and perhaps his doubts, if he's really going to do it. The valley of the living dead, perhaps it means that everyone he sees will die, but he can prevent it. "Didn't count the tears I shed", he feels sorry for them. Just an idea :)

Very impressive song. Less powerful in music than the normal Tristania song, but the lyrics and way of singing do it all.

Could this be a suicide attacker?

First of all, anything I'd say here is fruits of my own experiences and is thereby entirely entitled to my personal opinion.

I totally LOVE the band Tristania! Their lyrics vary from the occult, religious problems, to states of mind and etc. And qua music, they are just genuine classic Gothic metal!

This partucilar album: Illumination, sticks out most to me with a repetitive theme of depression, loss & dealing with all those kind of issues that follow them, such as: anger, despair, regret, etc. Kind of a quick flashback to Dead Locked theme, but now developped to a whole album. Tristania in here show an amazing ability to understand people who'd been dealing with those kind of issues, and in it offer a sense of understanding. A depressed person doesn't need to be cheered up. He needs to be shown that he's understood what his feelings are, what he's going through. What the band does here, is to describe in a very cryptic, yet very poignant, very deeply-meaningful manner what's happening behind the eyes of a suffering-from-depression person, how he sees the world around himself and how he feels himself about himself... In that sense, they drar a very beautiful picture to the despairing soul, and thereby encourage to find hope, in a rather unexpected manner, by describing the desperatedness of the situation of that poor soul; the last becomes inspired thereby that there have been others who háve been there, that there háve been others who have seen what it is like to be on the 'Other side'. And that they also had the intellectual strength to comprehend and thereafter to also describe it, in their own, unique artistic way. This song, in praticular: Fate, is one of my favorite ones in the album. Mainly due to its lyrics, but the music doesn't come anywhere behind. In fact, if I weren't captivated by its tune first, I wouldn't have even bothered to delve deeper in studying its lyrics.

Here the lyrics talk about what it is like to be on 'the other side' of things, on the 'plane of depression', and how the world looks like from that point of view.

It's literally: depressing. I've been trying to participate in masquerades – The throne's been empty for too long

You áre the King of the Masquerade. But also, your throne’s been empty – for far too long. Which makes it a real ‘Paradise for those who play along’: for the clowns, for the fools, who go through the motions, and yet always achieve (seemingly) far more than you, no matter how hard you try. Cause your calling wasn’t to go for mediocrity. You are from royal blood. You were born to be King! And that throne up there waits for you to go on it and sit. Cause no one else has the courage to raise up and shine. So, it is your responsibility to do it – get out of your comfort zone, and sit upon the King’s throne! It calls to you: “Come! Come here, sit!” For only the one who truly dears to do so, will be its true master! (The throne is really the calling that you have in life.) “I've been listening to the voice at night And he is right – I am the chosen one! And my shepherd, he has paid my ride: I will go with a smile…”

Each night, before you go to bed, you face the end of your day, with myriads of questions on mind. But you feel one thing for certain: you’re special. You know you’ve been called for much, because you’re dealing with much. And that voice is calling you not to give up! You feel comfort in that thought, and also because you know that your “Shepherd has paid [your] ride” (a very surprising Christ-like metaphor for otherwise pretty anti-Christianity/non-religious group). Which means that no matter what you’ve done wrong so far, or how many opportunities you’ve missed in life, to go up there, and get on that empty throne, He’s paid for all that, in order for you to be able to have another chance! So, why not go with a smile?  “I've been begging for the public eye Now watch me fly” When you’re in depression, you might want to disappear from the world, but you still crave for those moments when you have been in your heights. You hope that one day, after you’ll have overcome your depression, you’ll outreach your previous self – and even any other self you might have been – because you’ll have dealt with one of the most powerful enemies there is to battle! And if you win in the end that battle, then it doesn’t matter what would have been, or how it should’ve been etc. Because you’ve made it – and that’s what will matter the most! Then you will be proud of yourself: “Can you see what I've become So expose me – I shall be released” For the next line, taken outside the real context of the suicidal bomber, “I shall be released, when flesh paints the streets”, I interpret it more symbolically than literally. The flesh represents the carnal mind and all the desires and appetites that come with it. In that sense, “I shall be finally made free when the end of all that’s carnal comes” – because depressive people (at least judging from my own experiences) usually hate the fact that the spiritual in people’s lives becomes ever more suppressed by the carnal, and thereby they gradually lose the human in themselves, giving the animal in themselves more & more power. So, when all that ceases, when the flesh finally & once and for all gives a way to the spiritual, then, yes, all those who have been struggling with depression, will be released.

“I was walking through the valley of the living dead – Did not count the tears I shed Always chasing those elusive dreams A drop of blood in the stream” When depressed, you see all the world, and with that including, all the people around you, of little significance. In thát sense they are like dead to you, and not so much like lifeless. Not that you don’t appreciate them. In fact, it is more of a paradox – you feel both that you can’t help much anyone, and even if you could, people are nowadays so closed up that kind gestures are often misunderstood. And that another reason what causes you to want to disappear ever more from this unkind, cold world, because everyone is like dead to each other anyway.

“Did not count the tears I shed…”

The tears here, to me, represent all the missed opportunities you see you’ve missed to raise up and shine, to help, serve others – to tell them, or to show them in your own way, that you appreciate them, that you love them, that you care about them. So, you try to escape in your own imaginary world, “Always chasing those elusive dreams” of yours, for a better world – for a better ‘’you’’, who would finally have found the courage to express his genuine love for the people around him. But, the song concludes with the conclusion & the lesson, that if you never get to overcome your inner depression and your anxieties, then all you’ll become will be only “a drop of blood in the stream” of life – just a life, who has passed along the lives of many others…

In short: The song describes pretty much what would happen, if you choose not to follow your real vocation in life: it will go through much pain, sorrow and disappointment, which may result in a more permanent depression – which, nevertheless, you still must fight till the end, if you don’t want your life to pass like another “drop of blood in the stream”.

Note: The interpretation of the lyrics is strongly personal, and it’s focused on its metaphorical meaning far more than its literal one; though both have one thing in common – they two deal the issues depressed people have.