Mime desires that Siegfried win the Ring for him, like Alberich, for purely craven reasons, and like Alberich, Mime now intends to subject gods, heroes, the mass of humanity, and the world, to his will. Wagner is of course saying that religious man’s (Wotan’s) impulse in seeking to control the world supernaturally is in the final analysis the same egoistic impulse which seeks practical control of the real world. Wotan’s motives, though seemingly more exalted than Alberich’s or Mime’s motives, are at bottom man’s common concern for self-preservation and self-aggrandizement, the very motives which prompt Alberich and Mime. Wotan’s exaltation of spirit, his alleged superiority over his Nibelung rivals, stems mostly from the fact that his hubris in striving to affirm man’s transcendent value makes him reluctant to admit (to anyone but his unconscious mind, Bruennhilde) that his motives are no higher than Alberich’s or Mime’s motives, a fact Alberich brought to Wotan’s attention in R.4. It is precisely because Wotan came to see himself as a moral dwarf (a Nibelung) that he confessed to Bruennhilde that he found, with loathing (“Ekel”), always only himself in all that he undertook to do, i.e., all that he did to insure the gods’ redemption from Alberich’s curse on his Ring, redemption from the end of the Gods which Erda had foretold.
Alberich accused Wotan of being a hypocrite in blaming Alberich for an act of theft which Wotan himself would have been glad to do had he not had to pay the price Alberich did. And what else was the Wotan who was prepared to sacrifice Freia for the sake of the Ring’s power, until Erda’s prophecy of doom frightened him into redeeming her, but an egoist like Mime! As Feuerbach said, the Christian acts on motives (egoistic) quite the opposite of those he supposes. However, when Siegfried finally slays Fafner and Mime in S.2.3, he will seemingly have eliminated all trace of the original egoism which motivated Wotan, and which ultimately motivates Siegfried subliminally to do Wotan’s will in taking aesthetic possession of the terrible world, Alberich’s world. In other words, Wotan seems confident that Siegfried’s creation of art, inspired by his muse Bruennhilde, will not only owe nothing to Wotan’s loathsome influence, but that it will arise spontaneously from Siegfried as an effusion of his spirit, stemming from no motive whatever but art for art’s sake, so to speak. Wotan could not be more wrong: the fact that he will look to the hero Siegfried’s and heroine Bruennhilde’s loving union (a metaphor for unconscious artistic inspiration) to redeem gods and world from Alberich’s curse, in no way absolves Siegfried from guilt in perpetuating Wotan’s sin against the real world, Erda’s knowledge of all that was, is, and will be. Siegfried’s hidden motive for producing this redemptive art is Wotan’s motive for seeking redemption from the bitter truth.
Hearing Wotan disavow any personal interest in co-opting Alberich’s means to power again, Alberich asks him in disbelief if he really means to keep his hands off of the hoard. We can’t help being reminded here of Beckmesser’s incredulity when Sachs asserts that he has no intention of singing in the song contest to win Eva’s hand, in The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, and adds that Beckmesser is therefore free to seek her hand in the song competition without Sachs’s interference. Just as Sachs can safely disavow any personal involvement in winning Eva’s hand, yet take comfort in the knowledge that Sachs’s proxy, Walther Von Stolzing, will save Eva from a tragic marriage to Beckmesser by winning her hand through victory in the song contest Sachs prepares Walther for, similarly, Wotan can safely disavow any intent to compete with Alberich directly for possession of Alberich’s Ring, because Wotan expects his proxy Siegfried will take possession of it.
Wotan’s answer to Alberich’s query respecting Wotan’s involvement, and potential use of heroes dearly descended from himself to do what he can’t do, is that he will leave the one he loves,
