>>103640859It's kind of a Nietzchean thing about vigor and weakness which hearkens back to how a "villein" originally just meant a peasant and "hero" is a member of the aristocracy.
Basically the usual enemy of noble knights is noble knights in stories but the usual enemy of saints is demons in stories.
Greatness isn't about doing good and evil but how you best cope with the cruel and random world and your own personal demons.
I don't know how best to explain it but I think it is very important to that ancient point of view that Heracles is both a tragic monster tormented by madness and a great hero.
I guess Wagner is a bit inconsistent here too in a way similar to the Nazis and the simultaneous power and weakness they projected onto the Jews.
If you bring a Nietzchean ideology to its full conclusion then you should celebrate, honor and love your greatest and most hated enemies (not that Nietzche himself was necessarily able to do that.)
I think in Wagner's version of the story both Fafnir and Siegfried come to horrible and tragic ends but one is a god and the other a villain because one knew no fear.
Like Arjuna is counselled in the Bhagavad Gita he did his duty without care for success or failure.
I think the story is more about strength and weakness than good and evil so using it to attack your ideological enemies comes across as sour.
People just don't work like that though so of course its natural to turn the enemy into a devil
