Arnold Whittall, A Tale of Two Sisters: Brünnhilde, Waltraute and the Fate of Valhalla

In Act III of Die Walküre, the Valkyries literally try to hide Brünnhilde from Wotan by surrounding her and telling her to ‘cling to us and keep quiet’. The ruse fails, and Wotan, alliteratively and chauvinistically deriding the ‘weichherziges Weibergezücht’ – the ‘soft-hearted brood of women’ – drives the sisters away before turning his wrath on the now-isolated Brünnhilde. After that, Brünnhilde has nothing more to do with sisters until the episode with the Valkyrie Waltraute in Act I of Götterdämmerung, a scene which offers the only extended dialogue between two fully individualised female characters in the entire cycle.

To emphasise that Brünnhilde and Waltraute are sisters, or half-sisters, could promote a reading of the episode as part of a protracted family squabble in an essentially naturalistic piece of fiction or drama. The sister who has stayed obediently at home attempts, with a mixture of sorrow and anger, to persuade the sister who has fled the nest to show proper filial piety, and do as her dictatorial but now ailing father desires.