To me – needing psychiatric assistance by now on Habsburg issues – Fafner is the nationalist critique of Habsburg monarchy. The watchers around his lair are, admittedly, sociologically unconventional, as they consist of a god, two angry dwarves and a blond simpleton – but you could see Wotan as the Aristocrat, Black Alberich as the Demagogue, Mime as the Worker, and Siegfried as the hero of the dawning age who will forge a new reality through his great deeds.
