David, the Engineers and "Das Rheingold"

I recommend listening to Wagner while reading my topic :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=El_s9SJv9B8

In Prometheus we had the themes of Prometheus in greek mythology and Lucifer in christianity (which are the same) and it gives a perspective how to understand the background of the movie.

I think in AC RS gave us another motif - that of "Das Rheingold". At the beginning of the movie David plays a part of that opera on the piano, Weyland says that, without orchestra, it sounds anemic. At the end David listens to that same part but in full orchestra. To me that marks some kind of development with David - from incomplete (piano only) to fully developed (full orchestra). And I think Davids development and backstory ties to the story of "Das Rheingold" which is a part of "Der Ring des Nibelungen" which consists of 4 parts, with "Das Rheingold" being the first and "Götterdämmerung" (which can be translated to twilight/dawn of the gods) being the fourth.

As far as I can tell we've been talking about the engineers and RS and where the story might go and so on and so forth but I think in order to understand what RS's thinking behind AC is we ought to take a closer look at Richard Wagners "Das Rheingold".

In short: it's a story about gods, love and a device (ring in this case) that gives its owner the power to rule the world.

At the beginning the mermaids from the rhine had a treasure. Then there came a dwarf Alberich (David?) who tried to get one of the mermaids (Shaw?) to love him (Like David trying to be a human, getting Shaw to love him) but they mocked him rejected him (Maybe Shaw rejected David also because he's just a robot?). Alberich then, out of anger, renounces love, steels the virgin treasure (black goo?) and makes a ring out of it which gave him endless power (David synthesizing the protomorph or whatever from the goo?). The god Odin manages to steal the ring and Alberich curses it: whoever doesn't posses it will desire it, and who possesses it will be plagued by sorrows and will eventually be killed and robbed of it by its next owner (David being the new owner of the black goo and killing its previous owner - the engineers).

The only question here being if David represents Alberich or Odin or maybe partially both ot them. The motif is clear: there is some device which gives endless power, it was stolen and it is cursed and corrupts its owner.

Meanwhile the giants have built a Castle for the gods. To pay them Odin ultimately gives them the ring and the curse is showing. In the end the gods and the giants are fighting - and this is where "Götterdämmerung" comes into play. Here for you english guys the english wikipedia article about Götterdämmerung:

In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle, foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures (including the gods Odin, Thor, Týr, Freyr, Heimdallr, and Loki), the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water


Now, if you take RS comment that he is going for a war of worlds scenario and if you think that RS has intentionally started AND ended AC with "entrence of the gods in walhalla" - which will burn eventually (pic related) - then I think this is a good starting point for a discussion about the background of AC and where the franchise is going :)