He resembles us in every way. He is the sum total of our present consciousness. They are all important to him. He has carefully seen to it that his son is completely free of all the old treaties that he is bound by. A free agent, an outlaw, this son will steal the Ring back for his father, and this time the father will incur no guilt.
Blood always tells in mythic stories.
However much we love the son when, like his father, he draws his weapon from a great ash tree, we soon see that he is, also like his father, self-destructive and doomed. Siegmund can't understand why he is always at the center of trouble. Siegmund falls . . . Wotan cannot see to his own self. . . . Back to Table of Contents.