Avenged Sevenfold The Stage Rhetorical Devices

The American heavy metal band, Avenged Sevenfold, released a music video on October 13, 2016 on YouTube, for their newest single, “The Stage”. As a whole, this video is a warning to global civilians that they are being controlled by the elite. Between the 4:00 - 7:19 mark, the video depicts every war in continuation from World War I to today as a marionette show. The video oscillates between the war scenes and the enthusiastic audience until the audience is captured by the tank smoke and turned into marionettes themselves. The camera then pans upwards to show the audience’s strings being controlled by puppet versions of major world leaders. The video conveys this warning through the appeal of fear through death and war, displaying the drastic

Appealing to the fear of death and war is an effective rhetorical device to persuade an audience. The beginning scene of World War I when “No Man’s Land” is depicted uses this device. On the stage’s surface, the Axis and Allies’ tanks are firing while the scene presents the soldiers in a dark trench as debris falls on them. The soldiers are on the front lines and death is prevalent and unexpected. This appeals to the viewer in that they can picture themselves or a close family member in a similar situation. It is common knowledge that the trench soldiers were easily disposable as they were kept there in order to hold the front line. This builds on the idea that the elite do not view their citizens as individual lives, but instead as pawns to do their bidding. During the climax of the video, the scene oscillates between historical death scenes and the tank traveling through

During the World War I scene, the leaders of both sides sit in a safe, separate room, while having a drink and acting festive. Even though the powerful create the wars, they never actually participate in them. Therefore, war continues to happen because the elite do not fear it. This contributes to the general theme of the video that the civilians are pawns. The civilians are the ones losing their lives for these wars, while the elite do not show remorse. Further exemplifying this idea is the scene when the puppet world leaders are controlling the strings of the audience. Controlling every move of the audience through the strings, shows the immense power the elite have over the public and how they continue to control them. Another key visual in this scene are the leader’s grouping and appearance towards each other. Some of these leaders are on opposite sides of the political spectrum, however, they intermix with each other. This scene shows their pairing against the common people. The reason the elite still have power over civilians is because of the ignorance the public continues to have in