The Ring of the Nibelung/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • Designated Hero: There are some people out there who cannot stand Siegfried, whom they view as a bully and a boor.
  • Ending Fatigue: The Ring has been accused of it by some people.
  • Epic Riff: "The RIDE o' th' VAAALK'-ries, RIDE o' th' VAAALK'-ries, RIDE o' th' VAAAAAAAALK'-ries, RIDE o' th' VAAALK'-ries."
    • Or: "Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da waabit!"
  • Magnum Opus: For Richard Wagner.
  • Memetic Mutation: The expression "It ain't over till the fat lady sings" is very possibly a reference to the end of the Ring [1]. The last scene of Götterdämmerung, features Brünnhilde singing a exceedingly long farewell to the dead Siegfried („Starke Scheite schichtet mir dort!"[2]), although the very last vocal utterance of the work is Hagen's „Zurück vom Ring!"[3].
  • Music to Invade Poland To: Music from the Ring is often used as background music for scenes of Nazism-related activities; "Siegfried's Funeral March" has become almost a Standard Snippet for the fall of Nazi Germany.
  • Newer Than They Think: Wagner's depiction of the three Rhine-daughters is largely a creation of his own imagination; though wise-women appear in the Danube in the 12th century Nibelungenlied, there is no indication that they are native to it, much less the daughters of its personified god, and they never go near the Rhine at all.
  • Seinfeld Is Unfunny: Wagner's „Musik der Zukunft" ("The Music of the Future") was considered daringly, even outrageously, innovative in his own time; but he became so influential that his music is now reckoned old-fashioned and even stereotypical by some.
  1. ↑ although an even better case can be made for Tristan, which actually ends with Isolde's Liebestod
  2. ↑ "Stout timbers stack for me there!"
  3. ↑ "[Keep] back from the Ring!"
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