# Wagner's Ring--who is the real hero?



## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Who do you view as the real hero of Wagner's Ring?


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## WaterRat (May 19, 2015)

Loge, one of my true inspirations and role models. The fiery lad is too cool for that school.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Loge caught my attention as one slick fellow and I really envied his ability to talk his way though various difficult situations, and he did tell Wotan more than once to give the ring back to the Rheinmaidens, but he failed as a hero because he just let it be when Wotan refused. He was too passive over the whole thing. But then he was only half as much a god as was Wotan and so I think Wotan ultimately had sway over him.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Brunnhilde has a strong lead! I like it. She's who I voted for. Somewhere I saw a post where Brunnhilde was likened to Leonore (a.k.a. Fidelio) of Beethoven's famous opera. A fascinating comparison that is worthy of more analysis.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Siegmund and Sieglinde. Without them my Winterstürme friends, the great protagonist Siegfried wäre nie geboren worden.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

I was going to vote Brünhilde but I changed my mind and voted Siegfried. He have his own opera kills a dragon and is sung by a hero tenor. I have never heard of a heroine soprano.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Absolutely no heroes in the Ring in my book. Generally disagreeable characters. You'd put the shutters down if any of them were coming to lunch! Mind you, The Ring is not unique among operas for having disagreeable characters as 'heroes'!


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Absolutely no heroes in the Ring in my book. Generally disagreeable characters. You'd put the shutters down if any of them were coming to lunch! Mind you, The Ring is not unique among operas for having disagreeable characters as 'heroes'!


Nobody is perfect.


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## WaterRat (May 19, 2015)

Florestan said:


> Loge caught my attention as one slick fellow and I really envied his ability to talk his way though various difficult situations, and he did tell Wotan more than once to give the ring back to the Rheinmaidens, but he failed as a hero because he just let it be when Wotan refused. He was too passive over the whole thing. But then he was only half as much a god as was Wotan and so I think Wotan ultimately had sway over him.


I have seen references to Loge as the evil puppet master who manipulates the major developments in The Ring. Should Loge care if Valhalla goes up in flames..?

https://gardenezi.com/2014/01/11/loge-the-rings-evil-genius/


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Erda - not really a hero but she is the only one who 'survives', was not corrupted by the ring and has retained a modicum of respect.


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## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Becca said:


> Erda - not really a hero but she is the only one who 'survives', was not corrupted by the ring and has retained a modicum of respect.


Heroes dies in operas.


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

Cynics might say that the real heroes are those hardy souls who can sit through 14+ hours of the Ring! I couldn't possibly subscribe to that way of thinking though. :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Barbebleu said:


> Cynics might say that the real heroes are those hardy souls who can sit through 14+ hours of the Ring! I couldn't possibly subscribe to that way of thinking though. :tiphat:


Heroes or masochists?


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## Barbebleu (May 17, 2015)

No, no. Masochists are those who sit through interminable Mozart recitatives without flinching just to get to the good stuff!:lol:


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## Reichstag aus LICHT (Oct 25, 2010)

I'm going for Wotan. He realised he screwed up, and did the noble thing. All that "you shall not pass" stuff with Siegfried at the foothills of Brünnhilde's rock was just him going through the motions, and I'm sure he could have zapped Siegfried if he'd wanted to. Wotan is certainly the most three-dimensional character in the entire _Ring_.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Becca said:


> Erda - not really a hero but she is the only one who 'survives', was not corrupted by the ring and has retained a modicum of respect.


A fresh perspective, to be sure. Erda may be the only hero who meets the challenges of an epic saga by sleeping through most of it. And yet she predicts the outcome while everyone else except Loge and the Rhinemaidens is busy getting stabbed or incinerated. Do you suppose she planned it all from the beginning and hired Loge to do her dirty work and the nixies to clean up afterward?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Reichstag aus LICHT said:


> I'm going for Wotan. He realised he screwed up, and did the noble thing. All that "you shall not pass" stuff with Siegfried at the foothills of Brünnhilde's rock was just him going through the motions, and I'm sure he could have zapped Siegfried if he'd wanted to. Wotan is certainly the most three-dimensional character in the entire _Ring_.


Yes, it seems Wotan was in far greater control than it appears. Either that or he could see the future. As I recall, he predicted that Siegfried would kill the dragon and go get Brunnhilde. So, knowing that, his opposing Siegfried seems silly, but that he was going through the motions. I think though that I remember reading in the libretto somewhere (maybe when he set her in the ring of fire) that the hero who gets her has to get past his spear also.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Florestan said:


> Yes, it seems Wotan was in far greater control than it appears. Either that or he could see the future. As I recall, he predicted that Siegfried would kill the dragon and go get Brunnhilde. So, knowing that, his opposing Siegfried seems silly, but that he was going through the motions. I think though that I remember reading in the libretto somewhere (maybe when he set her in the ring of fire) that the hero who gets her has to get past his spear also.


That's right. His last line in Die Walkure is "Whoever fears the tip of my spear shall never pass through the fire!"

Wotan knows this will be "Das Ende," as he says to Brunnhilde earlier in that opera. But that isn't to say that he doesn't feel a very human grief and sadness, even fear, at what he knows to be inevitable. In the scene preceding his final confrontation with Siegfried, he awakens Erda from her sleep to ask her "how to stop a rolling wheel," and "how can the god conquer his cares?" But he concludes his conversation by reaffirming that it is his will that his reign should yield to a race of redeeming heroes:

_Though in fury and loathing I flung
the world to the Niblung's envy,
now to the valiant Volsung
I leave my heritage.
He whom I chose,
though he does not know me,
the bravest of youths,
whom I have never advised,
has gained the Niblung's ring.
Rejoicing in love,
innocent of envy,
his nobility will quell
Alberich's curse
for fear remains foreign to him.
Brünnhilde,
whom you bore me,
will awaken to the hero:
on waking,
the child of your wisdom
will do the deed that will redeem the world.
So now sleep on,
close your eyes:
in dream behold my downfall!
Whatever now befalls,
to the ever-young
the god gladly yields._

I wonder if anyone else has noticed the resemblance between this last appeal to the fount of wisdom and the ambivalence of Christ in the garden of Gesthamane when he prays to God the father, "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as thou wilt." Ultimately Wotan, like Christ, must will what is foreordained.


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

Florestan said:


> Brunnhilde has a strong lead! I like it. She's who I voted for. Somewhere I saw a post where Brunnhilde was likened to Leonore (a.k.a. Fidelio) of Beethoven's famous opera. A fascinating comparison that is worthy of more analysis.


Brunnhilde is the only one who really figures it out, other than Wotan (but he's way too much of a sleazy operator to be hero).


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## Heck148 (Oct 27, 2016)

DavidA said:


> Absolutely no heroes in the Ring in my book. Generally disagreeable characters. You'd put the shutters down if any of them were coming to lunch! Mind you, The Ring is not unique among operas for having disagreeable characters as 'heroes'!


Right you are...as a whole, the Ring characters are a pretty disagreeable lot!!...kind of like the "Godfather" flicks...great movies about pretty obnoxious characters!!


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

DavidA, in fairness I wouldn't have you over for lunch either.


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