A lot of the Norse mythology had a vast influence on black metal. I finished reading a book on the history of heavy metal and the author thought it was interesting that the rise in the Norwegian black metal scene in the mid to late '80's happened almost 1000 years after the introduction of Christianity to that part of the world, squashing the previous Pagan beliefs.
You can apply the importance of literature to all the subgenres of metal. What people forget is that metal is a genre created by nerds and thus it will be influenced by literature because... nerds like to read. I have some examples, for instance "Mate, Feed, Kill, Repeat" by Slipknot is heavily inspired by a White Wolf Table Top RPG game "Werewolf: The Apocalypse". Power metal bands are also heavily inspired by fantasy authors like Tolkein. Then you have the opposite of the power metal and you have some of the more sci-fi bands like Ayreon that take inspiration from authors like Asmov and Bradbury. It just cracks me up that you get some people that are so full of testosterone and think that metal is just about lifting weights and trying to "out-man" each other, when in fact it's made by the geeks that they probably picked on in high school.
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