@Gaultheria wrote:
But as I said, I don’t think so. It was more like the hero getting an amulet from the old wizard. You know, as Sigrud got the magic ring from the evil dwarf wizard before go to kill Fafnir and rescue the “sleeping beauty” that was Brinhild from her punishment -that was sleeping into a circle of flames until a hero could arrive til her.
I love your idea of this connection between OUAT and Wagner’s great set of operas, Der Ring Des Nibelungen! OUAT draws on so many universal themes that run through classical works of mythology that we can have great fun in finding parallels with other stories, whether it’s Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, but I hadn’t thought of making the connection to Wagner’s Ring Cycle. Now that you’ve pointed it out though, I agree the imagery of Henry going through the flames to Aurora is very reminiscent of Siegfried going through the ring of fire to Brunhilde in Siegfried, as well as the fact that both Snow White and Brunhilde were under a sleeping curse..
Furthermore, Wagner’s whole theme of the world of the gods being destroyed, which comes to a climax in Gotterdammerung certainly reminds us of the near-total destruction of the Enchanted Forest in OUAT and the way the characters in Storybrooke have to adjust to life in a different world. We could start a whole new topic just to discuss these parallels. Maybe I’ll do that.