Skwisgaar Skwigelf

Skwisgaar Skwigelf.

Skwisgaar Skwigelf is a fictional member of the virtual Metal band Dethklok who are the lead characters in the animated series Metalocalypse. He is voiced by show's creator Brendon Small who also writes the music for the show.

Character Biography

Of the members of Dethklok, Skwisgaar is the one with the murkiest background and not much about his past is known. Skwisgaar sometimes makes allusions to having grown up poor, for example mentioning during an interview Food that he was fed snow for breakfast as a child "when times was tough." He is the illegitimate only child of "Miss Sweden of 1956," Serveta Skwigelf; his father's identity is unknown due to his mother's promiscuity. As described by Senator Stampingston, "Her neglect helped form the world's fastest guitarist." She spends her visit during Dethfam pursuing Nathan's father rather than directing her attention toward Skwisgaar, much to the shock and disgust of her son, who diverts himself from her behavior by focusing his aggression into the practice of his guitar. He also experiences psychosomatic nausea for the duration of her visit. Skwisgaar deeply resents his mother and loathes her for her promiscuity, though he mirrors her behavior. In the interview Family, Skwisgaar responded, "I don't have anything to say about family, so I will be shuttings down now," becoming catatonic for the remainder of the interview, though he continued to practice guitar.

Character Appearance

Said to be "taller than a tree," Skwisgaar is indeed the tallest member of Dethklok, standing slightly above Nathan; incidentally, he is also the most slender member of the band. He possesses common Swedish features such as wavy blond hair and blue eyes, and the typical elongated Nordic facial structure -- a high forehead, long nose and pronounced cheekbones. He has a noticeable pallor with greyness around the eyes. He is also the only member drawn with lips. Skwisgaar has an appearance that is easily slightly effeminate in comparison with that of his band mates; he seems to be aware or self-conscious of this as he is known to mock other men by calling them "ladies" yet takes immediate offense to the accusation himself. Incidentally, aside from Pickles, who goes by a nickname, Skwisgaar's name is the only to be unrelated to violence, rather, a reference to the appearance popularly associated with elves and a jab at Swedish spelling; the letter k in this instance would not be pronounced phonetically as it is within the series.

Character Personality

Skwisgaar Skwigelf is Dethklok's renowned lead guitarist. He has been coined "The Fastest Guitarist Alive" as he exhibits a specialty in speed scales. Skwisgaar takes particular pride in his clean speed picking, and is highly critical of the guitar playing skills of others. His supposedly "godlike" abilities are apparently the result of years of literally constant practice; an element of humor throughout the series has been his ever-present Gibson Explorer. He is frequently shown practicing the guitar in odd places, such as submerged in water in the hot tub, in an elevator, during mass, and during meals both at home and in public. Skwisgaar repetitively practices finger-coordination exercises on a daily basis and in an almost compulsive manner, which can frequently be heard during Dethklok's conversations. Particularly noteworthy occurrences have been playing during his sleep in Dethklown, continuing to play shortly after dying in Nathan's dream in Go Forth And Die, and practicing naked in front of a crowd during an embarrassing situation in Mordland. His hands have apparently become so nimble that he has developed ambidexterity; he is sometimes shown playing left-handed. As shown in Skwisklok, his hands have been appraised by insurance at the value of ten-billion dollars -- one billion per finger. Not uncommon of self-taught guitarists, he cannot read musical notation, which he blames on his "music dyslex-kia." Skwisgaar is a strong musical force in Dethklok; in addition to writing songs himself, he is also responsible for the majority of the arrangement of Dethklok's songs; he writes both the guitar lines as well as Murderface's bass lines. Particularly visible in Cleanso, Skwisgaar possess very specific knowledge on music, songwriting and of course guitar; however, he is utterly clueless about most things outside this realm. Pickles once challenged him, "Name something that has nothing to do with guitar! Go, go!" leaving him speechless.

Hailing from Sweden, Skwisgaar possesses a heavy Swedish accent. He frequently adds the letter s to the ends of words, and conversely drops the letter from words that require it. He also makes frequent grammatical errors, usually involving noun-verb disagreement. His speech becomes worse when upset or stressed. Skwisgaar's poor pronunciation and general lack of fluency in the English language are a frequent comedic device within the series. Skwisgaar's English is so awkward that those unfamiliar with him are often unable to understand what he is saying at all, though Ofdensen and the rest of the band interpret him easily. During the filming of Dethklok's movie Blood Ocean, producers found Skwisgaar incomprehensible and his voice was consequently dubbed out of the film entirely, much to his dismay. A stipulation of the band's contract for the film demanded that anyone who attempted to correct Skwisgaar's speech be fired, leading to the suicide of one of the film's directors. Similar to Pickles's affinity for the word "douche bags," Skwisgaar refers to things he hates as "dildos," often using the word as an adjective. He also frequently uses the interjection "pfft," on one particular occasion sustaining the sound for five seconds straight at Toki's notion that clowns are metal.

The attention and respect he receives as the world's fastest guitarist has resulted in a great deal of pride. Skwisgaar has a personality that is more arrogant, haughty, and uptight in comparison to that of his band mates, and is a classically airheaded character. He is oblivious to his own ignorance and often indignantly defends himself in scenarios in which he is blatantly incorrect. Contrary to the confident image he maintains publicly, he is occasionally shown having emotional breakdowns in private, particularly featured in Skwisklok, and quickly masks his vulnerable state when caught crying by Ofdensen. As expressed when talking to himself in the mirror, the title of The Fastest Guitarist Alive also comes with tremendous pressure and expectation; Skwisgaar privately fears failure and rejection, also shown during his dream sequence in Dethlessons. However, his band mates are apparently not unaware of these insecurities, as they are easily able to intentionally trigger his neurosis in Dethlessons and repeatedly refer to him as a "basket case." Although the five men all display a discomfort with closeness, Skwisgaar is particularly aloof and emotionally-detached, rarely making kind or positive comments and expressing affection only when speaking for the band as a whole.

Skwisgaar is referred to as the band's Lothario and is depicted as the most sexually-active member of the band, though he lacks discerning taste. His particular attraction to the overweight, the elderly, and MILFs is a common comedic device within the series, and an occasional source of ridicule from his band mates, as seen at the breakfast table in Mordland. In the episode Dethtroll, Toki compared Skwisgaar's vice with women to an employee at a candy factory being oblivious to his own candy addiction; Skwisgaar once claimed to have "you-know-whatted" approximately five-hundred women during a single visit to Finland. In contrast, the filming of his sex scene for the Thunderhorse music video is particularly awkward and uncomfortable; he remarks that the voluptuous and healthy-looking model resembles an emaciated Tom Hanks in the film Cast Away. His lack of paternal influence and unusual relationship with his mother, a former beauty pageant model, appear to be the origin of much of this behavior. He displays criteria of sexual addiction; for example, in the episode Dethwedding he regretfully admits he would have sex with two strippers immediately after making fun of them for being possibly STD-infected "skankies." He abhors marriage and fatherhood, and apparently is not adept at dating as seen in the interview Women. In an IGN interview he confesses that he has no individual recollection of any of the women he has slept with aside from those who have filed paternity suits against him, which are null as his sexual partners must sign a "fatherhood waiver" prior to performing the deed.

Skwisgaar exhibits a codependence on band mate Toki Wartooth. He is often bossy and controlling toward Toki, and frequently disparages Toki's guitar-playing; however, it has been made increasingly apparent throughout the series that this is done to quell his own feelings of insecurity. In the episode Dethlessons he has a symbolic nightmare regarding his situation with Toki. Though Toki has received guitar lessons from Skwisgaar in the past, they are shown to be ineffective to an intentional extent. The mere idea of Toki improving his guitar abilities is so upsetting to Skwisgaar that he attempts to ban Toki from Dethklok when he discovers him with a guitar teacher, though this also appears to have been partially influenced by jealousy. Despite his frequent rudeness and sarcasm toward Toki, Skwisgaar seems to have an attachment toward his friend. For example, though he suggests they kill Murderface in the following episode, he frowns immediately at Pickles's suggestion that they kill Toki in Dethkids, saying, "Oh, I... That's maybes a little too hards for mes to handle." In Dethrace, he berates Mr. Gojira for getting verbally abusive with Toki for not pulling out into traffic. Skwisgaar is a self-described nihilist and atheist, denying not only the existence of God but that of religion itself; however, in The Metalocalypse Has Begun he tells Toki he will see him in Valhalla when they believe they are about to be killed.

Skwisgaar designs custom guitars in his free time, and owns a collection of bizarre and exotic guitars, as seen in Skwisklok. These include the Swiss Armytar, the Ant Farmitar, the Gibson Excaliburtar, and a guitar supposedly made of wood from the True Cross. Skwisgaar asserts that he hates playing acoustic guitars, which he and Toki refer to as "Grandpa's guitars." As listed in the Skwisgaar Skwigelf Advanced Fast Hand Finger Wizard Master Class, his Gibson Explorer features EMG 81 and EMG 85 pickups, and his hardware includes Krank Revolution and Krankenstein amplifiers, multiple Krank Krankenstein guitar cabinets, along with Toki, a directly connected Line 6 PODxt effects processor, a Dunlop Crybaby wah-pedal -- Dimebag Darrell signature model, a Digitech Whammy Pedal, and some unmentioned MXR pedals. As told during Snakes 'n' Barrels, Skwisgaar has been in a large number of bands prior to joining Dethklok, including Agnostic Priest, Gangagar, Eldele'el-Alele, Gognog Mug Alugdug, Fuckface Academy, Sausage Assassin, Financially Raped, and Smugly Dismissed, to name a few. He claims to have been in "pretty much every band." In an interview Skwisgaar mentions two side projects, a Harry Potter tribute band called 10 Points to Gryffindor, and a nudist Civil War styled band called Depantsification Proclamation.

Skwisgaar bears a racism toward the Danish though he confuses them with the Dutch. Skwisgaar's bedroom is the only room in Mordhaus that is not decorated in a very dark neo-Gothic style; his all-white, sparsely-furnished room reflects the Swedish Modern aesthetic and an IKEA Orgel Vreten floor lamp can be seen in the corner. In the episode Skwisklok, he experiences a severe angioedemic allergic reaction to an ingredient in Nathan's barbecue sauce, cilantro.

Origins

Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha created Skiwsgaar as a blond Swede — a handsome guy who thinks he's the greatest thing in the world, with a little bit of Yngwie Malmsteen in his attitude. He also seems based on Thor Von Clemson a character played by Brendon Small in the short film The Thor von Clemson Advanced Fast-Hand Finger Wizard Master Class.