So far, all of the heroes we have read about have been extremely interesting, for they all have the same motives to be heroes. They all are heroes because they are stronger and more powerful than the other men were, however, they had just as many flaws as any other man. No matter how strong, the hero has to have a flaw, and many of them have lots of flaws. They are selfish, narcissistic, and too confident. All of those traits can bring a hero to victory, as well as, bring their downfall. Sigurth is one of the many heroes that start off bad in my mind, for we were first introduced to him while he was trying to disguise himself in order to marry, Brynhild. This is where his downfall came about. All of these myths about heroes seem to involve innocent women that pay for the problems of the men’s lies or jealousy. He is a very complicated man, for he is a hero, yet he still deceives people. Not only that, but while he deceives people, his biggest flaw is that he trusts people too easily. It is clear that oaths were very important to all the men at the time, for they had all made a brotherhood oath that protected Sigurth from dying at the hand of one of his brothers-in-law. However, what he did not expect was for the youngest brother-in-law to stab him in the back.
His most memorable fight was the one against the dragon, Fafnir, this seemed to be his most important fight, for it was the one that gave him the power to speak to birds. Sigurth was a very faithful and loyal man, for he believed everything people told him. However, when a bird told him that Reign would betray him, he went ahead and killed Reign, so that he would not be betrayed. Then, he went to get married to Brynhild, and when she finds out, she gets angry. She gets so upset, that she tells Gunnar to kill him, even though Sigurth married her to hold his place. Regardless, Gunnar felt obligated to do what his wife told him, or they would lose all their riches and possessions of the kingdom. They set up a plan to murder Sigurth and give the youngest a potion to kill him. This was the ultimate betrayal, for they succeeded in killing him while he was unarmed and did not expect it.
Overall, I think Sigurth is one of the better heroes we have read about in this class, for he was genuinely loyal and cared about other people. Those that he put his trust in, truly had his trust, and he gave his oath and stuck to it, which is a very noble thing to do. He defeated the dragon, then killed Reign because of an accusation of betrayal. Little did he know that his own oath was going to kill him in the end. He is a very complex hero with a huge weakness, which is the trust and oath that he puts in others. He truly believed that everyone will keep their oaths and will stay on his side until people proved him otherwise.
