# The misconceptions of Siegfried (the character)



## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

Hey everybody this is my very first post here on talkclassical and I hope it goes well. I am a relative newcomer to Wagner's overwhelming Ring cycle but over the past few 6 months have been investing a lot of time really getting to know and understand it. It has been an incredible experience. So with the good timing of the Met's new production of Siegfried and and the upcoming production of Gotterdammerung (can't wait to see how Lepage's 'machine' depicts the final 5 minutes) I thought I'd share my thoughts on the character of Siegfried.

Siegfried seems to have a pretty poor reputation. Most books/forums I read say he is anywhere from downright stupid and dull to just plain annoying. Yet he is a pivotal character in the overall drama of the Ring and to me he seems very misunderstood. Here are my very amateurish thoughts on Siegfried. To me Siegfried is the embodiment of 'Nature' as 'Man'. Almost everyone would agree that the manipulation of nature is one of the key themes of the ring. From the tranquil waters of the Rhine comes the theft of the gold and the cycle often depicts characters destroying the natural beauty of nature and bending the laws of Mother Nature. To me this is why Siegfried is such a powerful character. Because he has been forced to grow up surrounded by nature with only Mime to guide him (insert joke here) he is pure unadulterated 'at peace with nature' Man. He loves animals and looks for friends among them. He sings to birds, etc. People say he is 'stupid' but he's not. Hes a vision of what people could be like if they were totally immersed in being one with the world. He also represents very strongly the masculine characteristics of heroism and boundless energy. He seeks knowledge constantly, reflects on the 'Hows' and 'Whys' of the world and does this all with a zest for life that none of the other characters display. He is in wonder of all things, naive yes but not stupid, he is pure energy and the light of Nature. 

Wagner goes to great pains to depict all this and then send Siegfried on his collision course with all the sins of modern bureaucratic society (concepts of amorality that Siegfried can't even begin to understand) as depicted by the Gibelungs in Gotterdammerung. We, as viewers and participants in this warped/harsh society laugh at Siegfried for not understanding how people aren't always what they seem and manipulate others for personal gain. But through this he continues to demonstrate his admirable qualities he has learned from Mother Nature herself. I think we are so jaded we see these as negative qualities but his innocence is not unlike a childs wonder. 
To complete Wagners views on the destruction of nature, Siegfried, of course, has no chance standing up to this society and of course will fall. But in it comes the metaphor of our own destruction of the forces of nature and our loss of touch with the things that would have been wondrous and beautiful to elemental man. The destruction of Siegfried is not comic or stupid but a powerful display of how far we have been twisted in our ways of power. Siegfried cares not for the power of the ring, he sees it only as a token of his love. 

I hope all this rambling will mean something to some of you and maybe start a discussion of Siegfried. I think he has gotten a lot of 'bad press' and is a character that deserves more respect and admiration.

Dave


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Welcome to the Forum, Dave! A very impressive first post!

I too have felt, for many years, that Siegfried gets something of a bad rap, and I think you ably summarize how Wagner wanted him to be perceived.

Nevertheless, there remains the interesting question of why so many people look at this character more critically. Are they all lacking in perception, or did Wagner perhaps miscalculate somewhat in his portrayal of an ideal hero--maybe even taint it unwittingly with some of his own less than admirable qualities? 

I think it would be interesting to hear from people who are put off by Siegfried, so that we can consider the character's attributes--pro and con--in even greater detail.

In any case, once again welcome, and thanks for giving us this intriguing topic!


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

bam. I'm not even sure what I can contribute. very well said and well covered. I wonder if I'm the only one here familiar with scholar Simon Williams and his book "Wagner and the Romantic Hero" it is a seriously great read.


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## rollerphant (Oct 11, 2011)

My problem with Siegfried is that he is ignorant. I would expect no less of someone raised in the forest by a Dwarf, but it is still a less than attractive quality in a hero. I understand that the innocence of the character is what is really important to the drama, but the character's ignorance is irritating (to me). 

In Wagner's defense though, it is hard to imagine how to portray a character as naive and innocent, without having them cross over the line into ignorance.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

rollerphant said:


> My problem with Siegfried is that he is ignorant. I would expect no less of someone raised in the forest by a Dwarf, but it is still a less than attractive quality in a hero. I understand that the innocence of the character is what is really important to the drama, but the character's ignorance is irritating (to me).
> 
> In Wagner's defense though, it is hard to imagine how to portray a character as naive and innocent, without having them cross over the line into ignorance.


I think you touch upon a central difficulty Wagner set for himself. He intended Siegfried's ignorance as a positive quality, to the extent that the character is uncorrupted by the false conventions of society. In a sense, then, Siegfried's reveling in his own ignorance *is* his main heroic trait--with all the ambivalence that that entails.

We see something of the same thing in his father Siegmund ("Whatever I thought right / seemed bad to others; / whatever seemed wrong to me, / others approved of"). But there, the character's pained awareness of his plight lends him a tragic poignancy. Siegfried, on the other hand, though he makes some effort to learn (particularly about his parents or the meaning of fear), in other respects blithely forges ahead secure in his own limited world view (witness his belligerent dismissal of the Wanderer).

So we end up reacting to him the way we do to many earnest teenagers. While we may have a nostalgic admiration of their uncorrupted idealism, we can also find their lack of nuance and real understanding to be exasperating.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

I think you have made some great point WAWilson, and your argument is very persuasive.

But as a female, I have one MAJOR problem with Siegfried and it is his wllingness, no, his eagerness, to dupe Brünnhilde, to capture her by force and deliver her up to Gunther. This is basically the behaviour of a big bully, not a hero as we are supposed to believe, and is effectively rape by proxy. You might justify it by saying this represents the attitude of men towards women in this time,or that Siegfried doesn't know any better because he has been raised by Mime, but it's still morally repulsive to me.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Here's another problem with the character's ignorance. Wagner intended Siegfried as the "free" hero Wotan required. But ignorance isn't freedom; just the opposite, in fact. Siegfried's ignorance makes him a continual dupe for Mime, Gunter, Hagen, and in a larger sense Wotan himself.

It's the fundamental problem of equating ignorance with freedom and heroism. A truly free hero (as close as one could come to it, anyway) would be someone who understands all sides of a complex issue and makes difficult moral choices, knowing the potential consequences. A character more like, say, Brünnhilde (at least in _Die Walküre_).


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## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

Wotans original plan of a 'free' hero really only applies to Siegmund though. It is only at the end of Die Walkure that he realizes that Siegfried has been born. The only real 'plan' Wotan has, as far as I can see, is to spawn the twins and leave the sword in the tree. What happens from there: death of Siegmund, the birth of Siegfried, is a series of collisions that occur because of Fricka's interference. Siegfried is not the original hero Wotan imagines, Siegmund is. He just barely gets out of the starting gate before his death and then Wotan goes with a mostly hands off approach (except goading Mime into letting Siegfried forge the sword) towards Siegfried. It is only because of Wotan's wrath that Siegfried ends up becoming a child of nature, not because of his planning. So although Wotan still conceives the idea of a 'true free hero' it could be argued that it is because of Wotan's flaws (his temper) that Siegfried is raised in isolation which then leads to both his connection with nature and the flaws that lead to his downfall. 

To respond to the earlier post about Siegfrieds being directly tied to Wagners flaws in planning the dramatic arcs, I definitely think that creating the cycle backwards (text at least) cause some of the problems with his character. I think he smooths out much of it but some of the traits of Wagner do shine too strongly in Siegfried. His bullying nature for instance, the confrontation with Wotan (Wanderer) is one of the hardest to reconcile.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

I have to disagree about Wotan's plan for a free hero. I think the point is that he tried to come up with one in Siegmund, but failed precisely because he involved himself too much in that process. The need was still there, though, and it was precisely *because* things got so out of Wotan's control that Siegfried was eventually able to step in and fulfill that free, heroic role. This is what Wotan means, at the end of _Die Walküre_, when he refers to the yet-unborn Siegfried as "one freer than I, the god."

Think about it. According to Wotan's plan, Siegmund's primary purpose is to slay the dragon and acquire the ring--something Wotan himself isn't free to do because of his contract with the giants. This is exactly the role that Siegfried later steps into and fulfills, under Wotan's watchful, approving eye.

Consider also the main heroic implement, the sword. It is because Wotan gave Siegmund the sword (or at least left it for him to claim) that the hero is tainted with the god's influence and therefore fails. And it is only because Siegfried reforges the sword anew, files it down to shreds and complete remakes it, that he escapes this taint and is able to act as the free hero his father could never be. That's really the whole point of the lengthy forging scene.

It's also the point of the question-and-answer session between The Wanderer and Siegfried. Wotan quizzes Siegfried about his adventures thus far, going back in reverse chronological order to trace the initial causes behind it all. When the Wanderer finally asks who was the original maker of Siegfried's sword, the youth impatiently replies: "How do I know? / I only know / that the fragments would have been useless / had I not forged the sword afresh." The Wanderer laughingly agrees, pleased that Siegfried has been able to separate himself from earlier influence and establish such complete independence.

The irony is that, even as Siegfried is belatedly fulfilling Wotan's plan requiring a free hero, Wotan himself is undergoing a change of plan. No longer intent solely on saving himself and the gods, he gradually comes to an acceptance of his own inevitable downfall and a willingness to step aside for the next generation. Thus Siegfried, initially no more than a means to an end, becomes an end in himself--Wotan's hope for the future. Ultimately, then, Siegfried's real freedom lies in transcending the very plan that called for a free hero in the first place.


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## rollerphant (Oct 11, 2011)

I think that the casting of the drama in a world informed by the Norse mythos created a paradox that is resolved only in a limited manner. The paradox too me is that none of the actors in this play truly have free will. They are either constrained by fate (at least till Gotterdamerung), or they lack enough knowledge to be truly free actors. Perhaps this is an indication of the limitations of humanity in dealing with a world still inhabited by the gods, or it is a way to show that only through the demise of the gods can humanity truly be free. Considering Wagner's philosophy, it is probably the latter that is intended.

So, in effect, I've just let Siegfried off the hook for a good chunk of his actions, as he is not able to be morally culpable due to his lack of knowledge.


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## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

Amfortas, all good points. Again I'm a relative newcomer to the Ring and one of the things I realize and I think Wagner himself came to realize is that it is so philosophically massive and at times very ambiguous that it is overwhelming trying to make it fit into one perspective or idea. While I still agree completely with my initial post to start the thread, once you start backtracking further and tie Wotan in and his ideas things become insane. While on the one hand Siegfried embodies Nature to me, is this contradictory to his original purpose as set by Wotan? It's so complicated and deeply shaded it can't really be 'understood' in the tradition sense. Which is why I am in total awe of it.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

rollerphant said:


> I think that the casting of the drama in a world informed by the Norse mythos created a paradox that is resolved only in a limited manner. The paradox too me is that none of the actors in this play truly have free will. They are either constrained by fate (at least till Gotterdamerung), or they lack enough knowledge to be truly free actors. Perhaps this is an indication of the limitations of humanity in dealing with a world still inhabited by the gods, or it is a way to show that only through the demise of the gods can humanity truly be free. Considering Wagner's philosophy, it is probably the latter that is intended.
> 
> So, in effect, I've just let Siegfried off the hook for a good chunk of his actions, as he is not able to be morally culpable due to his lack of knowledge.


I agree that there is a real paradox here. On the one hand, as you say, the mythological source material (and perhaps Wagner's later Schopenhauerian dabblings) provide a sense of impending doom (going all the way back to Erda's warning in the _Das Rheingold_, and certainly present throughout the dark musical fabric of _Götterdämmerung_). From this standpoint, none of the characters is free, and none is fully culpable.

On the other hand, Wagner's initial political impetus for writing the Ring in the first place was to present a free hero, the emblem of a new and better social order.

So we are left with an odd disconnect. On the one hand, Siegfried is repeatedly presented and celebrated as a hero (take the magnificent Funeral March, for example). At the same time, though, we can't escape the feeling that he has never been all that heroic, but has just stumbled through the drama, never understanding the first thing about what's really going on.

Thus it's entirely fitting that, in the end, he is stabbed in the back. As with so much else in his short life, he never saw it coming.


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## rollerphant (Oct 11, 2011)

In case there are others who are thoroughly absorbed by the Ring as I am.......I recommend this site when you have a few months free to read: Wagnerheim http://www.wagnerheim.com


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

WAWilson said:


> Amfortas, all good points. Again I'm a relative newcomer to the Ring and one of the things I realize and I think Wagner himself came to realize is that it is so philosophically massive and at times very ambiguous that it is overwhelming trying to make it fit into one perspective or idea. While I still agree completely with my initial post to start the thread, once you start backtracking further and tie Wotan in and his ideas things become insane. While on the one hand Siegfried embodies Nature to me, is this contradictory to his original purpose as set by Wotan? It's so complicated and deeply shaded it can't really be 'understood' in the tradition sense. Which is why I am in total awe of it.


Yes, the Ring is tremendously complex; there's no way to fathom all of its mysteries. Of course, once you get me started pontificating, I'll certainly try!


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## WAWilson (Nov 8, 2011)

Rollerphant, WOW. Thank you very much that site looks incredible. I just browsed for 10 minutes and think I'll be coming back to it for years to come.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Your comments show amazing insight for a newcomer to the Ring, in fact, a lot more than many so-called "experts". Siegfried is not stupid ,just naive. Which is understandable 
given the circumstances of his birth and upbringing. 
He's also not "cruel" to Mime, as some have assumed. He kills the dwarf to save his own 
hide. However, under Brunnhilde's influence and guidance in Gotterdammerung, he does mature considerably . All throughout the last two parts of the Ring, he is surrounded by treachery . I've known and loved the Ring for over 40 years since I was a teenager. It's a work of endless fascination, and no one will ever learn all its secrets in a lifetime of listening.
There's always more to learn about it, more insights which will come with repeated hearings. It's all things to all people. But it has been terribly misunderstood for so long . One thing it is not is a work which glorifies Hitler's insane Nazi ideas about it. 
It is NOT a glorification of blonde aryans, Germanic chauvinism or anti-semitic propaganda . Far from glorifying Nazi doctrine, it shows how Wotan and the Gods 
are destroyed by lust for power and riches . 
The Ring takes place in a mythical Germanic world in which Jews and Judaism 
are non-existent . Unfortunately , Hitler read his own insane philosophy into 
Wagner, something which is simply not there .
Yes, Wagner was an anti-semite . But he did not share Hitler's belief in genocide.
As the old cliche goes, some of Wagner's best friends were Jews ! This is not to condone his anti-semitism, which was reprehensible of course. Only to show that he should not be held responsible for the horrors of WW2 . This is like blaming Jesus for the Spanish Inquisition .


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

You can find a little more Siegfried-specific talk in our own 'Wirtual Wagner Guild,' the *TC Wagner Society*.

Find us here (but please note that the 'groups' link is only accessible when you're signed on).


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