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The Nibelungenlied/Volsunga Saga is interesting in that it does a turnabout in the middle: in the first half we're led to sympathize with Siegfried/Sigurd and Kriemhild/Gudrun and may tend to view Hagen/Högni as evil, but in the second half, when they're about to be butchered by the Huns, we (I, at least) sympathize with Hagen/Högni and Gunther/Gunnar and admire their bravery against huge odds.
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Probably due to the legend in the forms we have it being a composite stitched together from originally separate stories. The deaths of the Gibichungs at Atli/Etzel's court is a distant, garbled recollection of the destruction of the Burgundians by the Huns in the fifth century. The Siegmund/Siegfried legend (or legends) at some point were grafted on.