V for Vendetta

The first half of Book 1 establishes the overwhelming influence of the Interconnected Tools of Fascism used by England’s Norsefire government, which forcibly took power after widespread nuclear apocalypse. V for Vendetta was written throughout the early 1980s; as such, Moore and Lloyd’s vision of the dystopian near future is animated by fears about the potential fallout of the Cold War, which lasted through the larger part of the latter 1900s. The early 1980s were a high point for nuclear threats between the United States and the Soviet Union, exasperated by the election of conservative Western political leaders such as Margaret Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Ronald Reagan in the United States.

The novel images a future in which the Cold War resulted in physical, nuclear warfare that escalated to World War III. Evey recounts her memory of the 80s, telling V that she heard the radio say something “about Poland and the Russians” (27), and a resultant bombing by the American government that obliterated the continents of Africa and mainland Europe. During the comic’s creation, Moore and Lloyd imagined that Britain would adopt a Labour Government in reaction to conservative Thatcherism; in the comic, “the only election promise that [the Labour government] kept was getting rid of the American missiles that were stationed over here” (2). Because Labour removed nuclear weapons from the country, the British Isles were preserved from destruction but experienced environmental fallout. Lloyd’s corresponding illustrations are in shades of black and yellow, showing the darkness and toxic gases that characterize nuclear winter. Moore’s narration details the famine, flooding, illness, and political instability that result from nuclear war.

Evey’s description of the chaos and destruction of post-nuclear war Britain cues the entrance of the heavy-handed, militant Norsefire government, which takes advantage of this instability to implement its regime. In Umberto Eco’s famous antifascist tract “Ur-Fascism,” he lists several key components of fascist regimes, many of which manifest in Norsefire. Foremost among these is the “fear of difference”—Eco writes that fascism “is racist by definition” (Eco, Umberto. “Ur-Fascism.” The New York Review, 22 June 1995), and racial purity was a key tenet of the most infamous fascist regimes of the 1900s.

The government’s name, “Norsefire,” references the long-standing appropriation of Norse mythology by white supremacist groups, who “find what they want to find in Norse myth—violence, ruthlessness, an existential war that will lead to the rebirth of a new world—and they read no deeper” (Daley, Beth. “Far-right extremists keep co-opting Norse symbolism—here’s why.” The Conversation, 16 June 2022). Far-right groups erroneously look to medieval Norse and “Anglo-Saxon” cultures as a time of fabricated white racial hegemony. As such, words like “Norse” and “Anglo-Saxon” have come to denote whiteness, and in particular, white supremacist ideology (Rambaran-Olm, Mary. “Misnaming the Medieval: Rejecting ‘Anglo-Saxon’ Studies.” History Workshop, 4 Nov. 2019).

Evey describes how Norsefire began “taking people away” (28) to craft a racially and ideologically hegemonic society. They seize “all the Black people and the Pakistanis…White people too, all the radicals and the men who, you know, liked other men” (28), including her father, who was a socialist. Members of the Norsefire government pride themselves on using the tools of fascism to create a white ethno-state; they naturalize these attempts by tying them inextricably to the country’s Christian religious structure. Signs throughout London in the backgrounds of the illustrations read “strength through purity, purity through faith” (11), tying together concepts of national strength, white supremacy, and Christian fascism.

V uses anarchy to fight back against Norsefire. As opposed to the Leader, who “will not hear talk of individual liberty” (37), V thinks that “everybody is special” (26). His Shadow Gallery is characterized by the Perseverance of Ideas and Symbols: It holds relics of cultural and intellectual diversity, such as a library full of banned books and a jukebox stocked with reggae and Motown music, which Norsefire sought to eradicate in their pursuit of ethnic and cultural sameness. Though V collects these artifacts as a form of rebellion, he also uses violent rebellion, such as blowing up Parliament and murdering agents of the state, like the Fingermen who try to rape Evey. He commits these acts in pursuit of justice, equality, and individual freedom.

When V talks to the statue of Justice, he details his childhood admiration for her and his eventual realization that justice itself isn’t an ideological principle but, instead, can be manipulated to suit various ideological principles in contradictory ways. He tells Justice, “You are no longer my Justice, you are his Justice now […] [Anarchy] has taught me that justice is meaningless without freedom” (41). While V sees himself as an aid to England’s liberation, the Norsefire government calls V a terrorist for his anti-state actions, leading to questions about The True Nature of Anarchy.