At least 30 survivors of the massacre on Norway's Utoya two years ago, including those who stayed in politics, are candidates in the upcoming election.
With a survey in Australia last month naming politicians among the country's least trusted professions, it can be hard to recall that, at times, it has been known as a higher calling.
But as Norway prepares to observe the anniversary of what's been described as the most tragic day in its history, there comes a reminder of the dreams that politics can embody.
Two years ago, Jorid Nordmelon lay rigidly under the bed, hiding in sheer terror from the monster up there.
The monster, it would turn out, was a man named Anders Behring Breivik, a man in the midst of a politically motivated mass murder that killed 77 Norwegians.
Jorid Nordmelon remembers especially the sudden realisation that she had no control over her life.
"The worst part, for me, was that it wasn't up to me to survive that day. It was up to him. And I couldn't do anything about it. It felt like I lost total control, because, if he came in, he would kill everybody. And if he didn't come in, then everybody would survive. But that wasn't up to me, you know. So it felt really awful to be there, even though it ended well for us."
It ended well for Jorid Nordmelon and almost 50 other young people hiding in a hut on Norway's Utoya island only because Breivik fired two shots at the door, then abruptly left.
But when he finally walked away from the island after his capture by police, the 77 dead in a country of five million would be almost like two 9/11s hitting the United States.
And no single group in Norway would walk away more devastated than the youth wing of the ruling Labour Party, whose annual summer camp on the island was the target.
Jorid Nordmelon, who lost five close friends that day, was one of many who eventually found she just had to walk away from her political dreams because her dreams were shattered.
"Most of the things that we did when we met up with the other people in the young group -- and, also, the Labour Party, the grown-up party -- it was sad, you know? A lot of people had lost their children, their siblings, and their friends, obviously. So it felt different to join them in politics. We didn't discuss politics much. We just were sad together. So I didn't feel the need to go there, because I wanted to start living my life again and being happy, and I didn't think that that was the right place for me to be right then."
Right then, no.
But as the second anniversary of the mass killings comes around, Jorid Nordmelon is part of a new wave -- survivors coming back and now running for parliament.
At least 30 survivors of Utoya, including those who stayed in politics, are candidates in the election, at least three of them in what are considered safe seats.
Ms Nordmelon is just 22 years old, but Norway's Labour Party has a longtime policy of running several young candidates to help draw the young vote.
She says she is particularly driven by what the anti-Islam, anti-immigration, anti-socialism Breivik stood for -- to counter it.
"I feel that I really want to work for the society that the Labor Party believes in, where we have high taxes and a good welfare system for everybody. That is the kind of society that was attacked on the 22nd of July two years ago. He said so during the trial as well. He said that he wanted to hurt the Labour Party because he doesn't believe in our values. And knowing that, knowing that he would actually like to kill us for it -- and he did -- it makes it so much more important for me to fight for, because I know that all of our friends did, and I don't want them to have died in vain. I really want to fight for what they believed in, what we believed in together."
Dressed as a security guard, Breivik began his rampage two years ago by setting off a bomb in a van beneath a tower in the capital Oslo that housed the prime minister's offices.
That first attack killed eight people and injured more than 200.
Hours later, Jorid Nordmelon told a Norwegian newspaper that she had been in a meeting on Utoya when the young political wannabes were informed of the Oslo bombing.
"Many of us had parents or relatives who worked in that building. That kind of stuff doesn't happen in Norway."
But much worse was to happen in Norway.
Within two hours of that explosion, Anders Breivik had arrived on Utoya dressed in a homemade police uniform and opened fire.
Ms Nordmelon was in the forest, trying to stop crying about the bombing so she could help the younger people on the island, when she heard the first shots.
When she reached the hut and others came running in talking of a gunman, they locked the door, put a mattress up over the window and lay down, packed in like sardines.
She squeezed under a bed, soon heard him fire two shots into the door, wondered if that was the spot where she was to die, then listened as he, inexplicably, went away.
It was only in the courtroom at his trial last year that Jorid Nordmelon heard any explanation of why she might have survived.
"It said in the trial that he didn't remember, but the police think that it might be that he was afraid that we would jump him on the inside, because he didn't know what to expect."
Jorid Nordmelon made herself attend the trial even though she did not want to be there -- originally.
She felt like she needed closure.
But she got that and more.
"After the first day, I just wanted to come back, because it was so interesting. And it was a great feeling to be in the same room as him and not feel anything. I wasn't afraid. I was just ... well, apathetic, in a way -- I felt nothing. I was just happy that he would finally get his punishment and that he looked so small, he looked so pathetic. And that was nice to see."
That was especially important for Jorid Nordmelon, because she had met the killer face to face as she was leaving the island on that fateful day two years ago.
She was running to the harbour to catch a boat, and he was standing with two police officers, under arrest, as their eyes locked on each other.
"He looked me in the eye, and he looked so evil. And I felt that he looked like a nazi. And it scared me. It scared me that he could smile and look that satisfied with himself after having killed that many people."
On the island, another 69 people had died and more than another hundred were injured, many seriously.
But those were just the physically injured.
Many more, like Jorid Nordmelon, lost many other parts of themselves that day and walked away from their dreams.
Now, some have come back, realising big-picture issues - like politics - are what they are left with.
"I don't care much for, you know, small 'youth' problems like we do when we can't afford a pair of shoes, or something like that. Before, that could be like a big problem for me. But it's not any more."
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