"The Ring of the Shadowy Bloke the Rhinemaidens call Daddy"
Laon
I was thinking about one of the essays in John di Gaetano's
dangerously titled anthology of Wagner essays, _Penetrating Wagner's
Ring_. Anyway one piece is by a lawyer who argued that the Ring (the
circular gold thing, not the operas) really is the Nibelung's Ring.
That is, it legally did belong to Alberich, even though he stole the
gold from which it was made.
The argument goes that in taking the gold, Alberich was extracting
gold from its natural environment, which he is entitled to do. His
legal position was analogous to a gold panner in a South Island river,
who is legally entitled to keep any gold he or she finds, even though
they do not own the river or riverbed from which they take the gold.
(And if a panner on the Hokitika River chooses to make their gold into
a Ring, that's their right. Of course, if they try to use their Ring
to rule the world, they may be arrested for sedition.)
I don't think that Alberich was extracting the gold from nature,
though. He was more like someone taking the gold from an earlier
prospector. (Because gold is only free to be picked up until it's been
claimed for the first time; but once it's been claimed once, it's
property in a normal legal sense.)
In Alberich's case, the rhinegold had legal guardians who were agents
of an owner, known to the Rhinemaidens as "Father". The fact that the
Rhinemaiden's father chose to store his gold on a rocky outcrop in a
riverbed is of no consequence. The gold had owners, and Alberich stole
it from them.
The lawyer's other argument was that in making the Ring from the gold,
Alberich changed its nature, from something natural and unformed into
an artificial object. The Ring was his creation and therefore it was
his.
I know next to nothing of the law on this sort of thing. Still, years
ago an ex-girlfriend of mine had a car stolen, and had it recovered by
police nearly 18 months later. It turned out that the thieves had in
the meantime tightened the steering, added two new tyres and rebuilt
the transmission. (Which sounds like an urban legend, but it really
happened. I've tried leaving my car out for the fairies, but so far
it's never worked.) Anyway, her car was worth twice as much when she
recovered it, but there was no doubt that it was still hers. And the
same would be the case if she'd left a rough diamond, still caked in
its original clay, on the back seat, and they'd had it professionally
cut and set into the rear vision mirror mounting like an upmarket
fluffy dice. It would still be her diamond.
So it strikes me that the lawyer is wrong, and so is Wagner's title.
It never was the ring of the Nibelung; it always belonged to the
Rhinemaiden's Father. And though Alberich increased the value of the
gold that went into the making of the Ring, he was never entitled to
any profit from that. Wagner should have called it, _The Ring of that
Shadowy Bloke who Fathered the Rhinemaidens, which Artifact was
Feloniously Taken by a Nibelung_. Though I can see why he didn't want
that title.
Any lawyers, or just opinionated folks, here have alternative views?
Cheers (these will not be billable hours)
Laon
A.C. Douglas
> [snipped - original post is below]
---------------------------------------------------------
Discerning man, that lawyer, whoever he is. I did a short piece making and
setting forth the very same case on poor beleaguered Alberich's behalf, although
my argument is somewhat different than that lawyer's, and deals more with the
ethical than the legal (i.e., ethical within the context of the world of the
_Ring_). It can be read at the following URL.
http://acdouglas.com/archives251B/000576.html
--
ACD
http://acdouglas.com
------------------- original post -------------------
"Laon" <pra...@presto.net.au> wrote in message
news:4f8f3beb.04041...@posting.google.com...
Richard Partridge
> The _Ring_ and the law
>
[snip]
> Any lawyers, or just opinionated folks, here have alternative views?
>
> Cheers (these will not be billable hours)
As always, Laon's post is enjoyable to read. I'd like to add a couple of
thoughts.
In common law there is the doctrine of "accession," which means that if you
take something that isn't yours and act on it in such a way as to greatly
increase its value, title -- ownership -- passes to you.
For example, if your name is "Rembrandt," and you take a piece of canvas
belonging to someone else, and in the course of a couple of weeks you paint
a beautiful picture on it, the original owner of the canvas can't get it
back. He probably has a cause of action for the value of the bare canvas,
but he can't force you to return it to him.
Applying this principle to Alberich's case, I guess the question would be
the relative value of the gold when it was just a pretty plaything compared
to the value of the ring Alberich made. On the one hand, gold is pretty
valuable in itself, not like a scrap of canvas. On the other hand, Alberich
would argue that he made an enormous sacrifice in foreswearing love --
something which, as Loge said, hardly anybody would do. I think a court
would say that Alberich must pay to the Rhinemaidens' father the value of
the gold -- what it would cost to buy another lump of gold like that -- but
he can keep the ring. So it is the Nibelung's ring.
And if a gold prospector in a South Island river finds some gold on land he
doesn't own, he may be entitled to keep the gold, but I think the owner of
the land could sue him for its value. If you go to Texas and sink an oil
well into your neighbor's land and take some oil, you're probably taking
your life in your hands and I think you'd have to at least pay for the oil
if you got caught.
Dick Partridge
Mike Scott Rohan
from Richard Partridge <r.par...@verizon.net> contains these words:
Well, my criminal law is rather out of date, but as far as I remember
accession was considered to have very rare applications, and mostly when
by natural justice returning the original was impossible -- removing a
number of stolen bricks from a building was one example. Removing them
would destroy the building, but on the other hand handing the whole
thing over to the brick-owner is disproportionate. Taking them is still
a crime, nonetheless, and the deprived owner would certainly have an
action both for the value of the bricks and the consequences of being
illegally deprived of them. Or a court might order compensation as part
of the sentence, which can often be done. In that case ownership of the
stolen property does not strictly pass to the thief until all legal
requirements have been satisfied -- and you can in any case be deprived
of it a) if you don't pay fine and compensation, if any; b) by a
settlement of such a suit, or by a court order if you don't pay it; or
c) by criminal bankruptcy orders, where such things apply. In that case
the ring can't ever have been said to have "belonged" to Alberich --
especially as it passed out of his possession very quickly. In such
circumstances I don't think the courts would entertain an action for the
return of stolen property to the original thief!
The Rembrandt is a more arguable case, because it would depend on the
perceived artistic and monetary value of the result, and its
irreplaceability -- all sticky points when you're dealing with a living
artist. There could then be a case for destroying the painting in order
to return the canvas. And if the painter who's done it is a dead one a)
he'd be beyond human jurisdiction anyway and b) I don't want to know.
The question there is what improvement and increase of value represents.
After all, if the canvas has been cut from your tent, painting on it can
hardly be said to represent improving it, and its value is in one sense
greatly lessened. It was doing a useful job before, now it's just modern
art! I'd suggest the same reasoning can be applied to the Ring. What did
Alberich actually do to the Ring? He shaped it into an instrument not
only of personal ambition, but of immensely anti-social potential, whose
sole purpose was to perform illegal actions at the expense of the law
and those under its protection. Furthermore, it was not in any sense an
unused natural resource, but a thing of some use, providing light and
recreational facilities to the daughters of its ultimate owner. Changing
it into an instrument of world domination, therefore, hardly counts as
an improvement, or even an added value, since the worth of any such
device is extremely questionable. Whatever efforts or sacrifices the
accused claims to have made in obtaining his ill-gotten gains can hardly
count, either; one does not reward the burglar for the effort of
climbing the wall, or compensate for the jemmy he broke on the
window-frame.
And since the gold can be returned to that original useful state very
much more easily than the bricks or the canvas, there seems to be little
reason why that should not take priority over any question of accession,
as natural justice in fact requires.
Alberich has no claim over it, therefore. And in addition to theft he
can be held liable for trespass; attempted seduction of minors (well,
the Rhinemaidens are still a] under their father's guardianship,
evidently, and b] maidens); menacing behaviour and assault (credible
threat of violence); attempted rape; conspiracy for criminal purposes
(the Tarnhelm); aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon
(flogging Mime and the Nibelungs); and various charges of enslavement
and forced labour.
I would respectfully submit to the court that although the accused
claims to be the father of a young illegitimate child by a married
woman, an appropriate sentence would nevertheless be a millennium or two
of community service at the premises of elderly or distressed persons.
One such, compelled to live almost exclusively indoors by an apparently
disfiguring skin condition and an agoraphobic obsession with
safeguarding his property, lives in the nearby woodland area, which
would provide the healthful open-air existence the accused has so far
been denied by his upbringing in a severely underdeveloped area.
Cheers,
Mike
P.S. The plot of Gotterdammerung was actually set as a problem question
in one law exam in my college days -- not one I sat, unfortunately.
Can't remember whether it was criminal or family law, but of course
you'd be expected to comment on both.
Karl Wee
I think you're absolutely right in rebuffing your lawyer. The only
law in effect is engraved on Wotan's spear. Since he is the sole
adjudicator (plus enforcer) of this law, your lawyer would have to
argue his case in front of Wotan, who has just seized the ring from
Alberich's finger. The result, fair or not, is predictable, but
that's the law of the land. Just witness how judges and justices were
exercising this power in selecting the president of the US in 2000.
Karl
Pavel314
"Richard Partridge" <r.par...@verizon.net> wrote in message
news:BCA2151E.248E%r.par...@verizon.net...
> For example, if your name is "Rembrandt," and you take a piece of canvas
> belonging to someone else, and in the course of a couple of weeks you
paint
> a beautiful picture on it, the original owner of the canvas can't get it
> back. He probably has a cause of action for the value of the bare canvas,
> but he can't force you to return it to him.
Canvas would be considered a fungible good in law, i.e., one piece of canvas
is exchangable for another of similar size and quality. If taken to court,
Rembrandt could reimburse the original piece of canvas with one of equal
value, civil case closed. As to the criminal charges, I believe they used to
hang canvas thieves in the olden days.
> Applying this principle to Alberich's case, I guess the question would be
> the relative value of the gold when it was just a pretty plaything
compared
> to the value of the ring Alberich made. On the one hand, gold is pretty
> valuable in itself, not like a scrap of canvas. On the other hand,
Alberich
> would argue that he made an enormous sacrifice in foreswearing love --
> something which, as Loge said, hardly anybody would do. I think a court
> would say that Alberich must pay to the Rhinemaidens' father the value of
> the gold -- what it would cost to buy another lump of gold like that --
but
> he can keep the ring. So it is the Nibelung's ring.
Here we move into non-fungibility. Had Alberich stolen ordinary gold, he
could have replaced it with any other lump of gold and called it even. In
this case, the Rheingold had special properties, to wit, a ring made of it
empowered the wearer to rule the world, a quality not found in regular gold.
Hence, Alberich couldn't just hand over an equal quality of plain old gold
and call it even.
Analogy; if you steal one of the postage stamps from my desk drawer and
replace it with another postage stamp, it's fungible. If you steal my rare
upside-down-biplane air mail stamp and replace it with a common, current,
first-class stamp, not fungible.
Paul
Chernobog
Pavel314 <Pave...@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:q4mdnQDwj5M...@comcast.com...
>
> Here we move into non-fungibility. Had Alberich stolen ordinary gold, he
> could have replaced it with any other lump of gold and called it even. In
> this case, the Rheingold had special properties, to wit, a ring made of it
> empowered the wearer to rule the world, a quality not found in regular
gold.
> Hence, Alberich couldn't just hand over an equal quality of plain old gold
> and call it even.
>
> Analogy; if you steal one of the postage stamps from my desk drawer and
> replace it with another postage stamp, it's fungible. If you steal my rare
> upside-down-biplane air mail stamp and replace it with a common, current,
> first-class stamp, not fungible.
>
>
DRAT! You've just foiled my fiendish scheme to steal your rare
upside-down-biplane air mail stamp and replace it with a common, current,
first-class stamp. CURSES!!!
--
Chernobog
Idiot
I would agree w/ you ataements. That lawyer absolutely should have
argued the case in front of wotan, and that spear is friggin great w/
its engravement. I reallyh ated that practice the judges were
excersing in 2000, it sucked.