# Mime's role in Siegfried.



## macgeek2005 (Apr 1, 2006)

I'm curious what people think about Mime's role in Siegfried. When I first watched the opera, I felt like he honestly cared for Siegfried, and like he honestly felt pain at being rejected by him, until he began to talk about poisoning him after he kills Fafner.

If he is really just evil and malicious, why so much of "alas! this is the thanks I get! I brought you up, a little child, I gave you food, I gave you a couch on which to sleep soft, bla bla bla" (by the way, this music is FANTASTIC, though it took a while for it to grow on me). There's something incredibly erie and haunting about this whole situation, with Mime having raised him, after the tragic spiraling of events in Die Walküre.. it's just.. it's creepy, it's strange and compelling and amazing!

But, who exactly is Mime? Does he have any feelings for Siegfried at all? Or is all that stuff just malicious and fake acting on his part, to try and keep Siegfried there as long as possible?


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## rgz (Mar 6, 2010)

e: never mind, I'm dumb :lol:


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

While it's always possible to speculate on the complex, conflicted workings of the human (or dwarfish psyche), I don't think Wagner intended Mime as anything other than a malicious, scheming character. True, he raises the child, but presumably that was always with the intention of profiting from his charge's future heroics. And yes, he goes through a catalog of all the things he's done for the boy, but we may want to take this self-serving litany with a grain of salt. Siegfried himself says that he had to beat Mime just to get the dwarf to teach him to speak, so maybe the parental concern was never really all that genuine.

And in case there's any doubt on the matter, Wagner seems to underline Mime's malicious character right before the dwarf's death. Tasting the dragon's blood enables Siegfried to understand the true meaning behind his foster father's words. At this point, Mime's longing to see Siegfried dead becomes all too clear. Of course, it's still possible to feel some pity for the dwarf when Siegfried strikes him down, but I think Wagner went out of his way to prevent us from doing so.


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## macgeek2005 (Apr 1, 2006)

I feel like he's an incredibly complex character.. I don't see how all his complaints in the first act could just be a malicious act. He cared for Siegfried for years and years, he made him toys, he makes him soup... I mean, it really seems as though he's hurt by Siegfried's rejection of him. Why else would he act that way?


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

When I say that Mime is malicious and scheming, I don't mean to suggest that there is no complexity to the character. As an analogy, pick any truly horrible dictator in history. You'll no doubt find that they had their moments of suffering, compassion, perhaps even tenderness. But you still can't help but be appalled by them as pretty monstrous specimens--which I would maintain is the case with Mime.


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

Of course Siegfried couldn't have been anyone's idea of an easy child. A few manners might have gone down well.


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## waldvogel (Jul 10, 2011)

In a modern society, if Mime were to be accused of child abuse, he could always say that it was the only way that he knew to bring up a child. After all, Mime was abused by his big brother, Alberich. 

The music that Wagner uses for Mime's death seems to be both brilliantly satirical and deliberately cruel. Is Mime the only "bad guy" who dies during the Ring? I don't count Fasolt and Fafner as bad guys - I'd like to be paid for my work, and I'd be prepared to do something nasty if I weren't.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

mamascarlatti said:


> Of course Siegfried couldn't have been anyone's idea of an easy child. A few manners might have gone down well.





waldvogel said:


> In a modern society, if Mime were to be accused of child abuse, he could always say that it was the only way that he knew to bring up a child. After all, Mime was abused by his big brother, Alberich.


Siegfried might have been an easier child with a better parent than Mime. Mime might have been a kinder person with a better brother than Alberich. There's always that thorny question of where to draw the line between traumatic background and individual responsibility.


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## macgeek2005 (Apr 1, 2006)

By the way, how old is Siegfried supposed to be in 'Siegfried'? 15? It seems like he's about 15, right? Even the most bratty 20 year old would not speak the way he does, unless there's a real mental disorder involved.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

macgeek2005 said:


> By the way, how old is Siegfried supposed to be in 'Siegfried'? 15? It seems like he's about 15, right? Even the most bratty 20 year old would not speak the way he does, unless there's a real mental disorder involved.


I don't think it's specified, but that sounds about right. He's frequently referred to as "knabe" or "kind," so he can't have reached full adulthood yet.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Like others said above, I haven't noticed any goodness or redeeming qualities. It all seems self-serving and malicious, which doesn't exclude that he might have experienced some ambivalent fondness for baby Siefgried.


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## macgeek2005 (Apr 1, 2006)

Yeah, I can see how logically there isn't anything redeeming, but there just seems to be a real authenticity behind his laments in the first act. A malicious guy who raises someone just in order to be able to collect a treasure does not behave that way. In the first act, for the most part, he behaves exactly as though he were a very well intentioned dwarf who honestly cares for Siegfried and who is heartbroken that Siegfried is rejecting him.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

macgeek2005 said:


> Yeah, I can see how logically there isn't anything redeeming, but there just seems to be a real authenticity behind his laments in the first act. A malicious guy who raises someone just in order to be able to collect a treasure does not behave that way. In the first act, for the most part, he behaves exactly as though he were a very well intentioned dwarf who honestly cares for Siegfried and who is heartbroken that Siegfried is rejecting him.


 But see, in "real time" there isn't much time spent between the first and third acts, so, how do you reconcile everything he's been saying with his clear death wish on Siegfried just a few hours later?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

macgeek2005 said:


> In the first act, for the most part, he behaves exactly as though he were a very well intentioned dwarf who honestly cares for Siegfried and who is heartbroken that Siegfried is rejecting him.


His thoughts in Act II are pretty explicit to the contrary:

_"from love I reared you not,
you nuisance:
the treasure in Fafner's keeping,
the gold was what I toiled for._

He puts on the same lamentful facade with his _spoken_ words to Siegfried in Act II as in Act I, but his completely malicious thoughts behind them are now revealed by the dragon's blood.


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## MAuer (Feb 6, 2011)

amfortas said:


> I don't think it's specified, but that sounds about right. He's frequently referred to as "knabe" or "kind," so he can't have reached full adulthood yet.


The "jung Siegfried" always struck me as a teenager -- mouthy, rebellious, and hormones in high drive!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Almaviva said:


> But see, in "real time" there isn't much time spent between the first and third acts, so, how to you reconcile everything he's been saying with his clear death wish on Siegfried just a few hours later?


It's actually even less "real time" than that, since Mime dies near the end of Act II and doesn't make it to the third act.

As for his laments in Act I, they may well be genuine and heartfelt, but they are also extremely self-serving. "How can you treat me this way? I've given you the best years of my life! After all I've done for you, this is the thanks I get?" When that tune gets played over and over again, it sounds less and less like love and more like a parasitic dependence.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

Darn, I had it as Act II in my original post and when Couchie said Act III I was - "whoa, I need to re-watch a Ring version urgently, I'm getting rusty" - and changed it to Act III, and now I need to change it back to Act II. You guys are getting me all confused. [Alma rushes to his DVD rack and pops Siegfried into the player - no not really, no time for this now, LOL]


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## GoneBaroque (Jun 16, 2011)

"alas! this is the thanks I get! I brought you up, etc." would certainly be words spoken by a manipulative person seeking only his own ends to elicit sympathy and hopefully trust in his goal to an agenda. I agree tha the jung Siegfried as a very young man without the experience to recognize such deception.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

GoneBaroque said:


> "alas! this is the thanks I get! I brought you up, etc." would certainly be words spoken by a manipulative person seeking only his own ends to elicit sympathy and hopefully trust in his goal to an agenda. I agree tha the jung Siegfried as a very young man without the experience to recognize such deception.


But he *does* recognize it--at least to the extent of realizing that Mime is a loathsome cretin.

People understandably talk about how stupid Siegfried is, but if we take his situation literally--brought up in near total ignorance other than what Mime tells him--he's surprisingly perceptive.

When he sees his reflection in a pool of water and realizes that he can't be Mime's child, since he doesn't bear the resemblance to the dwarf that all young forest animals bear to *their* parents, we might be inclined to think he's drawing an obvious conclusion. But for a child raised in his severely deprived circumstances, it's a pretty impressive intuitive leap.

Same thing with his reforging of the sword--no one tells him to do it, or how to go about it, but he presses ahead with the task on his own volition and succeeds where the dwarf had repeatedly failed.

Wagner may have miscalculated and made his "heroic" Siegfried less admirable in many respects than he intended. But a lot of the criticism of the character comes from not fully acknowledging the circumstances of his life.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Almaviva said:


> Darn, I had it as Act II in my original post and when Couchie said Act III I was - "whoa, I need to re-watch a Ring version urgently, I'm getting rusty" - and changed it to Act III, and now I need to change it back to Act II. You guys are getting me all confused. [Alma rushes to his DVD rack and pops Siegfried into the player - no not really, no time for this now, LOL]


My bad, I clicked on "_Scene 3_" to get that libretto quote, I guess my brain was stuck on the number 3.
:lol:


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## mamascarlatti (Sep 23, 2009)

amfortas said:


> Wagner may have miscalculated and made his "heroic" Siegfried less admirable in many respects than he intended. But a lot of the criticism of the character comes from not fully acknowledging the circumstances of his life.


You are assuming here that a child's upbringing is what shapes his personality. We cannot take this as a given. In his book "The Blank Slate", based on meta-analyses of studies of the subject, Stephen Pinker states that, of the 50% of variablity in personality not accounted for by the effects of genes, less than 10% is due to the effects of upbringing.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Oops! Posted prematurely . . .clumsy fingers on the buttons!


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

A post that touches a bit on the topic of Mime can be found here.

And (wait, there's more) a few _more_ thoughts here!


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> A post that touches a bit on the topic of Mime can be found here.
> 
> And (wait, there's more) a few _more_ thoughts here!


It may be a bit superfluous now, but I hope you don't mind receiving "likes" for posts written in 2007 and 2009, respectively.


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## AmericanGesamtkunstwerk (May 9, 2011)

Personally, I always felt that there was a successful effect and also Wagner's intent for both Mime's arc and the arc of the audience's feelings for him. In act I he is hardly reprehensible, if a little conniving, while Siegfried is being a total brat, but the kind of brat that you can admire, somehow. Also, i think it should be noted that given Wagner's own personality maybe he didn't associate that kind of heroism with treating people nice. Anyway, I feel that the dynamic between Siegfried and Mime in act I can be boiled down to "f- you dad, i want to play outside!". Which, by my reckoning, is an effective and accurate quasi-microchosm if you will of the whole opera, and isn't betrayed once you see how he treats his one-eyed grandfather. 

Act II begins with mime starting to hint his true colors, and by the time of his death his actual intentions are clear for the audience. Overall my point is that I feel it was intended that we may have some sympathy for him early on, but as he develop we see the more accurate side of him that makes it seem heroic and true for Siegfried to kill him (albeit, still bratty, but I feel at this point Wagner associates heroism with childishness)

I always saw Siegfried as about 16 years old.


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## Almaviva (Aug 13, 2010)

AmericanGesamtkunstwerk said:


> Personally, I always felt that there was a successful effect and also Wagner's intent for both Mime's arc and the arc of the audience's feelings for him. In act I he is hardly reprehensible, if a little conniving, while Siegfried is being a total brat, but the kind of brat that you can admire, somehow. Also, i think it should be noted that given Wagner's own personality maybe he didn't associate that kind of heroism with treating people nice. Anyway, I feel that the dynamic between Siegfried and Mime in act I can be boiled down to "f- you dad, i want to play outside!". Which, by my reckoning, is an effective and accurate quasi-microchosm if you will of the whole opera, and isn't betrayed once you see how he treats his one-eyed grandfather.
> 
> Act II begins with mime starting to hint his true colors, and by the time of his death his actual intentions are clear for the audience. Overall my point is that I feel it was intended that we may have some sympathy for him early on, but as he develop we see the more accurate side of him that makes it seem heroic and true for Siegfried to kill him (albeit, still bratty, but I feel at this point Wagner associates heroism with childishness)


Interesting but hindered by the fact that nowadays with the ubiquitous synopses even a novice to the Ring will likely know about Mime's evil intent before the first note since most people read their synopses in the program while they wait for the lights to go off and the opera to start (or read their liner notes at home before popping the disc into the player).

I guess the lucky people who were present as the first audience at the premiere (Tchaikovsky was one of them) were the only ones to experience this arc without prior knowledge of what was supposed to happen in the next act. Still, their expectations might have been spoiled anyway by Rheingold, where Mime is already presented as a despicable and cunning person.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

For me, Mime's true, conniving nature is apparent right from the very beginning of _Siegfried_. Wagner gives the dwarf an opening monologue, in which Mime makes it clear that he wants the ring, which means that Fafner the dragon has to die, which means that Siegfried has to kill him. Mime gives no indication that his adopted child is anything more for him than a means to an end--so that anything he later says to Siegfried about his loving parental care rings hollow.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

How I regret now not having registered earlier, when this and other similar discussions were alive and not every word has been said on them!


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

Mime is intended to be funny. He has ill intent, but doesn't have the balls to pull it off. He thinks since he is closest to Siegfried that he has the inside track to using Sieggie to win the gold for him... As long as he keeps the kid in the dark about what's going on. But he's such a bungling fool, he ends up buffeted around by the Wanderer and Alberich. Since the lNguage is antique German, the humor doesn't always come through, but you have to laugh when Siegfried gets a bear to chase him around the room and the Wanderer ties him in knots with the questions and answers.


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## bigshot (Nov 22, 2011)

mamascarlatti said:


> You are assuming here that a child's upbringing is what shapes his personality.


Regardless of what current science has to say about it, people in Wagner's time didn't believe that at all. They thought you were born good or born bad. Siegfried was born to a specific destiny, and even dropping him into the middle of the forest with a dwarf as both his mother and father couldn't change that.


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## AndyS (Dec 2, 2011)

amfortas said:


> Wagner may have miscalculated and made his "heroic" Siegfried less admirable in many respects than he intended. But a lot of the criticism of the character comes from not fully acknowledging the circumstances of his life.


That's the beauty of the ring - there are very few completely sympathetic characters in the whole cycle

For me, Mime is a truly pathetic character, who sees rearing Siegfried as his opportunity to get the ring and get his revenge on those who he feels have wronged him (Alberich) - for me that's the only reason I can believe that he would take the baby Siegfried in from the dying Sieglinde, as doing that out of compassion seems against the character


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