Interviews

THE ASGARD SAGA and HAGEN VON TRONJE

The vision of THE ASGARD SAGA is to create the biggest, most spectacular fantasy adventure of our time. THE ASGARD SAGA is based on Norse mythology featuring legendary gods Odin and Thor. The creative minds behind it, bestselling fantasy author WOLFGANG HOHLBEIN and acclaimed metal rock band MANOWAR, envisioned an utopia for kindred spirits all over the world. A place with its own rules and values, without the boundaries and restraints of our daily lives.

Wolfgang Hohlbein has already published some bestsellers on his favorite topic, Norse mythology, including "MIDGARD" and "THE RING OF THE NIBELUNG" ("DER RING DER NIBELUNGEN") and HAGEN VON TRONJE.

You will find an interview to THE ASGARD SAGA on www.asgard-saga.com within the next weeks. Here an interview of Kevin Richard.

KR: I have read that "Hagen von Tronje" was your own personal favorite, until you started with THE ASGARD SAGA. I am interested in your decision to write the book, and especially in taking on the image of Hagen and Siegfried and fleshing out their characters for more dramatic effect. It reminded me a lot of Hebbel's plays in the way that you both extracted more emotionally dramatic and complex scenes from the source material. So, the question is...why Hagen?

WH: The answer is actually quite simple: From my point of view, Siegfrid as a character is by far not as exciting as Hagen, I personally find him even utterly boring. Someone, who is unbeatable, a heartthrob, respected in the entire realm - to portray him as a shining hero, was for me not a justifiable approach. Hagen, complex, pushed to the side by the circumstances and by Siegfried, that, in my eyes, makes him a more interesting character. In addition to this, the question of motivation for Hagen inspired me, and I wanted to basically get to know him better through my work.

KR: "Der Drachentoeter" was one of the books that you wrote using a pseudonym - and it is quite different from the other three I have listed and its intended audience is younger. For me, the most intriguing figures in the book are the donor figures - the coal-miner, the dwarf, and to some extent the giant - along with the allegory of the Waberlohe on the eve of the fall of the wall. Is there any credit to reading the book as being influenced by the current events in 1989 and were you wanting to create a new tale that would reflect those?

WH: It is, in fact, a matter here of a children's book that pursues a completely different approach than Hagen von Tronje. Here, it was important for me to play with different expectations and try to let very different personalities appear in a story than one would expect from the title to be a retelling of the myth. I did not let myself be inspired by the fall of the wall here.

KR: "Der Ring der Nibelungen" was the first of two books you co-authored with Thorsten Dewi. How did you work together to create the book, and why did you decide to come back to the Nibelungen material in 2004? The book seems to be questioning the role of the "Gods" and the role of "fate" - how do you see these questions relating to a new Germany?

WH: Thorsten is a very successful German scriptwriter, and this was the way that we got to know each other and conceived different stories, one of which just happened also to be in the Nibelungen field. From my side, current political issues played no role, for Thorsten, as well, these were not the center of focus. He had studied the materials very thoroughly and gave deciding impetus, and again it was another perspective that I enjoyed the most and had brought me to participate in the book project.
Incidentally, we are currently planning the third part and this above all is because the story is not yet finished.

KR: "Die Rache der Nibelungen" is a sequel to the aforementioned "Ring" and goes well beyond adapting the source material. I read the other books as negotiating the past, and yet this book is very different in that it first begins to tell a new story, and in so doing, is reflecting a new direction, not only for the saga, but for Germany as well. Is this a response you wanted to elicit, and how do you see any future narratives that do or do not correspond with the course of the Nation?

WH: As stated, I don't consider myself a political author. Still, naturally, current viewpoints are incorporated, as they are also here. Europe stands - once again - at a crossroads, and where the trip will lead to is uncertain. In such a time, I find it especially exciting, to consider other points of view. As such, I don't consider, by the way, the Nibelung saga to be typically German, its origins are not connected with Germany, that did not exist at the time, but rather with north and middle Europe. In respect to a merging Europe on the other side of narrow national conceptions, I discovered in this old perception an amazing number of modern aspects.

KR: I would like to ask one final question about the gender roles of warriors and how these relate to the conception of the soldier today. Hagen, Brunhild, and Siegfried have exemplified different virtues of the warrior in your books - which of these virtues do you believe to still be relevant today and which are no longer?

WH: I am convinced that there are warriors now as there were before - or better said: fierce people that are very similar to the three warrior types. Brunhild, the strong woman, has just as much archaic as well as modern about her. Today there are very few stories in blockbuster format, in which there is a strong fighting woman, in the old days that was rather the exception. Or Hagen: complex like Macbeth, hesitant like Hamlet, and even in spite of his weaknesses never really weak. This types of "Warriors" one finds today often in a boardroom or also in politics. Siegfrid is ego-centric and narcissistic, an unscrupulous demagogue like many contemporary dictators.

Therewith I also come to your important question on values. Personally, in all of my work it's a matter of values that I consider universally valid and that always form themselves as good against evil. Still, is someone that gets labeled "evil", really evil? Are there not reasons to try and understand him?

That is, for example, a value: to understand other people, to try and accept others. But also clearly recognize, whenever others don't cooperate and become a threat, and to confront these threats. I believe, this value is as contemporary today as at the time of Der Drachentöter.

Also other values like love, faith, honesty I consider just as current today as they were then. And precisely those are the themes, out of which I forge my stories: not up to the minute news, not from the concrete contemporary political situation, but rather the values, that mark our lives together - no matter, whether we live in a small mountain community, or in a global village.