Originally Posted by FSF 5, Chapter 14: Gold and Lions IThough abandoned, forgotten, and scorned as out-of-date dolls, they continue to carry out their mission, unchanged from the time they were designed.
Machines do not lose their worth when a newer model appears.
Their worth (life) ends when humans can no longer bear that purity.
Surtr becomes Fafnir by virtue of being the greediest person in the entire world at that point, yes. It also comes up even earlier in one of Siegfried's interludes, I think?
In any case, the basic idea seems to be that if anyone is overcome by greed to the point of being the greediest person in the world then they can literally start to become a dragon. This has happened at least twice in history, with them being killed by Sigurd and Siegfried respectively, and maybe more. I'm not sure if it's still a thing that can happen now that the Age of Gods is dead and buried, but maybe?
Ah, cool, thanks. That's an impressive amount of mental gymnastics to make Siegfried be real.
I'm aware, but that's not what was in dispute.
There being treasure in the Rhine did actually come from the Nibelungenlied actually. After Siegfried's murder, his vast wealth goes to Kriemhild as part of her dowry. But Hagen, fearing retaliation via her amassing an army to avenge Siegfried's killing, steals the treasure whilst she is out riding one day with King Gunther and then proceeds to hide it by sinking it to the bottom of the Rhine.
There's a certain sense of irony in that despite wanting to use it later for themselves, Hagen and his co-conspirators never retrieved it as they swore an oath that they would only do so together so that no man would greedily take it all for himself. Thus since they all died the secret location gold became lost to everyone. I guess there is "honour among thieves" after all.
"Here's a bangin lil' tune about takin' on The Man!"
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Whether a heroic spirit was "real" is pretty irrelevant due to how humanity manipulates reality
except when it actually is relevant when you need them to have 'really' been a big tiddy gf all along
かん汗ぎゅう牛じゅう充とう棟
Expresses the exceeding size of one's library.
Books are extremely many, loaded on an oxcart the ox will sweat.
At home piled to the ridgepole of the house, from this meaning.
Read out as 「Ushi ni ase shi, munagi ni mitsu.」
Source: 柳宗元「其為書,處則充棟宇,出則汗牛馬。」— Tang Dynasty
damn that's actually a great idea
There is actually someone who learns the location of the treasure who survives in the myth iirc. A handmaiden with a child of Hagen.
Unrelatedly the Einzberns are apparently the “only pure/real homunculi” or something.
also Hagen in Apo the anime has elf ears for some reason, and the heavens feel is similar to how elementals work.
now that has interesting connotations to the origins of the Einzbern’s creators perhaps.
Not my observations. Some stuff from a friend.
Looking it up, that apparently is drawn from the "Þiðreks Saga" whereby Hagen isn't fully human but fathered by an elf with the Queen whilst the King was away.
The only thing I remember particularly from that Saga was that despite being a Norse oral tale, the written copy was translated from German and so the dragon-slaying hero is referred to both as "Sigurd" and "Siegfried" rather confusingly.
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Alternatively, it could be another Wagner-ism in which Hagen was fathered by the dwarf Alberich instead. In which case it would be dwarf ears and not elf ears. I dunno, do dwarves typically have pointy ears?
Last edited by Skull; January 19th, 2021 at 05:50 PM.
"Here's a bangin lil' tune about takin' on The Man!"
(Check out my Super Special Awesome Servant Compendium here)
"He beheld such store of gems, as we have heard said, that a hundred wains might not bear the lead; still more was there of ruddy gold from the Nibelung land. All this the hand of the daring Siegfried should divide. As a guerdon they gave him the sword of Nibelung, but they were served full ill by the service which the good knight Siegfried should render them. Nor could he end it for them; angry of mood [6] they grew. Twelve bold men of their kith were there, mighty giants these. What might that avail them! Siegfried's hand slew them soon in wrath, and seven hundred warriors from the Nibelung land he vanquished with the good sword Balmung. [7] Because of the great fear that, many a young warrior had of the sword and of the valiant man, they made the land and its castles subject to his hand. Likewise both the mighty kings he slew, but soon he himself was sorely pressed by Alberich. [8] The latter weened to venge straightway his masters, till he then discovered Siegfried's mighty strength; for no match for him was the sturdy dwarf. Like wild lions they ran to the hill, where from Alberich he won the Cloak of Darkness. [9] Thus did Siegfried, the terrible, become master of the hoard; those who had dared the combat, all lay there slain. Soon bade he cart and bear the treasure to the place from whence the men of Nibelung had borne it forth. He made Alberich, the strong, warden of the hoard and bade him swear an oath to serve him as his knave; and fit he was for work of every sort."
To sum things up: while the poem doesn't explicitly describe a supernatural curse upon the gold, every time it shows up in the story, it's associated - directly or indirectly - with acts of violence or treachery. I don't think it's a stretch to describe it as a cursed treasure even in the Nibelungenlied, particularly considering the common motif in medieval literature of treasure bringing ruin to the greedy and foolish.
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Atli is actually his name in the Norse sources. In the Nibelungen, he's Etzel.
And in the Nibelungenlied Kriemhilde is killed in front of Etzel by Hagen's former teacher Hildebrandt after beheading Hagen with Balmung, so she couldn't have assassinated Etzel... Unlike Gudrun?
Had he also been Hagen's teacher? I think he was only Dietrich's old teacher.
What is the size of alaya-universe of awareness/observation?