Hello Friend. I do not understand your other friends the Ghost band. Can you explain them to me please? Thank you!
Hi, friend! I have rewritten this post about sixty times now because I cannot decide what the best way to answer this question is! Let’s try this:
Ghost is a musical project of the Satanic Church, in effort to spread the good word of the Devil to the world and, effectively, take over everything through music that fucking slaps. The project is managed by Sister Imperator, the mother superior equivalent of the church’s organization of nuns, the Sisters Of Sin. Her involvement with the church spans at least well over half a century and she is a badass, has no time for your excuses or bullshit, and wants Satanic world domination YESTERDAY.
Until very recently, the (figure)head of the church, was Papa Emeritus Zero - also called Papa Emeritus Nihil, or (most commonly) Papa Nihil. According to him (and not refuted, at least, by Sister), he comes from an unbroken bloodline of Antipopes in the church. He is very, very old and for some reason, a lot of people think he’s really evil but he’s actually the cutest person who exists, and also he plays the saxophone!
Also, Sister and Nihil are super in love with each other. People will try to tell you otherwise, but I suspect those people have not seen this gif.
Nihil became Antipope at some nebulous time that could be anywhere from the late 1950s to early-mid 60s. He and Sister Imperator met at a party, presumably thrown by the Satanic Church. By all accounts that we have, his attendance was unwitting, having been dragged there by a friend, but it seemed like everyone else at the party had been waiting for him.
After dancing/falling in love (and possibly getting married??), Sister was the one to gift the Antipapacy to Nihil, through what we can assume to be the customary rite of giving him his skull paint. She also clocked him in the left eye, turning it white.
There’s debate over what she did/how she did this. Some people are dumb and genuinely want to try to say, “Oh, she just shoved a contact in his eye.” I choose to believe it holds a higher significance and that she was granting him some sort of Special, necessary Sight.
There’s also debate over the reliability of this anecdote as fact. Is Nihil actually from a long line of Antipopes within the church? If so, then why did he seem so lost at this party before finding his way to Sister? WHAT IS THE TRUTH.
(”Not easy to define. We both have truths - are yours the same as mine?” I have a theory, but this isn’t the place for conjecture, just for what we know as true.)
It is worth mentioning here, I guess, that (presumably) at some point between now and the next significant date in Ghost history that Nihil fathered three sons, each by a different mother - none of whom were Sister Imperator.
As a musical project, Ghost first came into being in 1969 (nice), with Nihil as the frontman.
Under him, two of the best Ghost songs ever were released, but not much at all came from it and it’s his own stupid fault because he let rockstardom go to his stupid head and kissed a lot of girls in front of Sister (who may have been pregante at the time) at a concert and she was like well fuck this, we’re done here. And since she’s been the manager of the band for as long as it’s existed, she very likely shut the whole thing down prematurely.
What happened, exactly? We still don’t know. Was Sister pregnant with Nihil’s baby? Are there any other songs we haven’t heard from the ‘69 period? Did she actually leave the church when she left him? (My guess is no.) Why are they still so cute with each other if she really has hated him this whole time, haters??
The project resumed in the early 2010s, with Nihil’s oldest son, Papa Emeritus I. Opus Eponymous is a very good album, but seems very proof of concept. It is exactly what you would think of if someone said, “This is a record of metal songs by an old Satanic priest.” Too on the nose, no subtlety. Includes topics such as Elizabeth Bathory, anti-Nicene creeds, and yelling LUCIFER.
Papa I eventually passed the mic (literally, at a concert) to his middlest brother, Papa Emeritus II.
Papa II was a 50+ year old hedonist, prefers speaking Italian, and once showed off his dick in a music video. In an interview, he mentioned being very aware of the temporary nature of his position as lead singer of the band, that he’s only there to make way for someone else. (It is my personal opinion that there is a link between his awareness of this and how hard he partied and how a lot of his songs were about the hypocrisy and failure of religious institutions. During the announcement of his successor, Sister Imperator referred to him as “bitter”.) Of all of them, he probably fucked the most and was also a grumpy old bastard.
At II’s last concert, he passed on the mic to Papa Emeritus III, Nihil’s youngest (legitimate) heir, who is Papa II’s junior by THREE WHOLE MONTHS. This is a fact everyone likes to forget, they like to remember III as a twenty-something twink, but II and III are basically twins.
Up until this point, the project did not have much movement. III, however, was a game-changer. Meliora is full of songs that have a romantic tilt and he also won a grammy for “Square Hammer”, inarguably the best song ever made UPDATED CORRECTION: I’m a misremembering idiot and this kind anon reminded me that it was actually a grammy for “Cirice”! He was (to this point) also the only member of his family to have a second album - albeit a live one, but still. By all accounts, he was Perfect and pushed the band to new heights. But his prideful little ass got too comfortable and entitled in the role, which led to him also being the first of his brothers to be forcibly removed from his position.
Like, literally. He had to be dragged off stage at (what he didn’t know would be) his final concert.
For a hot minute, no one knew what was coming next. Nihil “only had” three sons and they’d all done their time and, by Sister Imperator’s account, ultimately failed. Sister believed they were in need of a more drastic change, wanted someone “more like Nihil” had been in his prime (ignoring, I guess, that III was every bit his father’s son in regards to what she said she was looking for).
Enter Nihil’s right-hand man, Cardinal Copia. Holder of the second most Employee Of The Month awards!
Yep. Nihil was skeptical, too. But Sister had full confidence in Copia and Nihil had full confidence in Sister, so he agreed to make Copia the lead singer - but did not grant him the antipapal title or paint. Think of when Anakin was allowed to be on the Jedi Council, but didn’t receive the Jedi Knight promotion. Only Copia didn’t throw a fit and kill everyone, he’s genuinely just happy to be here!!!
For not nearly the first time in his life, Nihil was wrong and Prequelle is a fucking amazing album and was also nominated for two grammys (they didn’t win, which is absurd). There are tons of whiny manhchildren who will bitch about Ghost “not being metal” and “sucking” now, but those people sound like garbageboy stinkmen and belong in the toilet. The entire album is themed around the Black Plague and, honestly, it should be the only soundtrack anyone’s listening to right now.
Copia also objectively has the best Ghouls (I don’t take criticism) and, actually, I guess maybe now would be a good time to explain Ghouls, too.
The musicians who play in the band are Nameless Ghouls. They wear masks and used to wear robes to conceal their identities and shroud themselves in darkness because they just…were not that important. They were members of the church, serving their Papa(s), that’s all. III let his Ghouls have a little more agency and this, for him, turned out to be a mistake. Each of III’s Ghouls was designated by an elemental sign, essentially giving each of them “names”, despite being Nameless. Like their leader, they all kind of got too big for their britches over this and decided this somehow gave them importance and they caused a lot of trouble and are no longer part of the church.
The current lineup of Ghouls, meanwhile, may or may not be actual demons. Copia is the first to have two Ghoulettes (female Ghouls) in his band and they are perfect and have never done anything wrong in their lives. Officially, the Ghouls are still Nameless, although they have been allowed to be present enough that their very distinct personalities are observable and fans have given all of them nicknames to distinguish between them. (I, too, have given them “names”, but mine deviate from popular fanon.)
Also Copia may or may not be in love with at least one of them.
Shortly after Copia was officially named head of the band, Papa I, II, and III were…ah, put down. Many blame Nihil for killing his children, but while I personally believe he did sanction it, it is very obvious that it was Sister Imperator’s call to do away with them. (Lots of people seem to vehemently hate both of them for this.)
Interesting, though, right? Almost like Sister has a vested interest in no one else being able to get in Copia’s way. The last line in a song called “Witch Image” on Prequelle comes to mind: “Like a mother would save her own child from digging a grave…”
Perhaps karmically enough, not long after I, II, and III were put to rest, Sister Imperator almost face death herself, in a terrible car crash (look, sometimes things just happen and you’re jamming too hard to the sax solo in “Miasma”, I get it) and was laid up in the hospital for many months.
This was a very trying time for her as Nihil is terrible at phone sex. Fortunately, as of my birthday in 2019, she is fully recovered and hasn’t had any issues since!
2019 was a pretty rad year, overall, and I think Copia made us all very proud, despite riding his tricycle into a wall and some questionable merchandise choices. (Not featured: me hugging my hideous Copia plush, every single day of my life, and carrying it around like it’s a baby.)
Ghost’s last concert for the Prequelle cycle happened on March 3, 2020, and it was literally life-changing. For all his hard work and effort, Copia was finally granted the title of Antipope and is now henceforth officially known as Papa Emeritus IV. A lot of people didn’t expect him to last this long, to make it this far. Some expected him to die or at least fuck up so bad that he’d be replaced.
…Sadly, despite the boy’s success, Nihil remained one of these people and EVEN SADDER, Nihil did not live long enough to see himself corrected, as this motherfucker straight up DIED on me, on stage, after his last performance at the same concert. (I have not recovered, nor do I expect to.)
WORSE, everyone keeps trying to spread rumours that it was Sister Imperator’s doing, that she wanted to get Nihil out of the way, too, so that nothing could deter Copia’s ascension, but these people who say so are hateful and probably their makeup is terrible. Sister killed I, II, and III, of course, but she LOVED Nihil and wanted him to see how right she was about Copia.
My heart goes out to her, as I can only imagine how devastatingly conflicted she must be right now.
Since that night, we have heard nothing from the Clergy. No reports, no updates, nothing. Given the association with Pestilence that Copia has always carried, however, I imagine things must be going (mostly) very, very well for the Satanic Church right now.
…And if you made it that far, here’s the boring version of the answer: you know how we call Panic! At The Disco a “they” but it’s just one Brendon in a tuxedo? Ghost is basically that, except metal and a tiny Swedish genius named Tobias, serving us music accompanied by an engaging, vaguely Arthurian storyline about some goofy, old Italian Satanists. Generally just a very cool band that hits all my buttons at once.Sorry and thank you for letting me yell about Ghost. I’m here all week and my askbox is always open to further yell about Ghost or to elabourate on my infinite, overwrought headcanons or to provide sneak peeks at my fifty page outline for a jukebox musical that fills in most of the gaps in the story.
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