Inquisitor 1399: Who Did What and to Whom? by Augeas

17 comments on “Inquisitor 1399: Who Did What and to Whom? by Augeas”

1. I have to broadly agree with you that this wasn’t the most enjoyable of puzzles, though I seem to remember finding the cluing more rewarding than you appear to have done. I had the same experience with 3D and assumed it was a deliberate, and cunning, red herring, which made me laugh … eventually.

   I think 13A is a reference to the way that bowling figures are presented: overs, maidens, runs, wickets (singularly, so without the esses, and missing maiden and wicket).

   16A needs ‘rarely’ removed. The word play is CA (cases) + BRAN (refuse) + (wor)K.

   Having finished the grid I found the final changes frustrating. It wasn’t clear (to me) whether it was Parsifal or Gotterdammerung – the concluding part of The Ring – and it took me a long time to spot Klingsor, which doesn’t jump out from the Wikipedia entry – also the sum of my insight into Wagner’s work.

   In the end I gave up on finding the last three cells to change, having looked for a long time if I could make a dove hover over Parsifal, so thanks to Kenmac for clearing that up, and for the rest of the blog. Thanks also to Augeus, in spite of my frustrations, as there was still plenty to admire and enjoy in here.

2. Kenmac, I’m with you on being a bit ignorant on Wagner – although I do like some of his music.
   Filled the grid with quite a lot of difficulty, and spotted KLINGSOR in the far right column. (This was only after googling for names of characters in Parsifal.) All heavy going for me, but very clever. I think this is one of those puzzles that will delight some solvers, but baffle others. Nothing wrong with that.

3. I knew that liking Wagner would come in handy one day!
   I had the same NARY/TRAM problem which held me up for a while and I groaned/smiled when I saw the answer. The highlighting didn’t take long as I was pretty sure what I was looking for and Klingsor leapt out immediately. I’m probably hugely overthinking things but it occurred to me that Amfortas spends spends most of the piece ‘laying back’ in a litter which might account for his reversed appearance. Probably not, though.

   Fun puzzle. Thanks to setter and blogger.

4. I too suffered from the misdirection of 3d, but completed the grid in the end. I identified KLINGSOR wounding AMFORTAS with a SPEAR, which Google tells us happened before the drama gets under way, but then completely failed to identify the “position at the end”. It looks as if Aureas wants the position to be PARSIFAL SLAYS KLINGSOR, but my on-line researches can’t find any reference to this. At the end of the second act PARSIFAL destroys KLINGSOR’s castle but leaves the fate of KLINGSOR himself apparently unresolved. At the end of the play PARSIFAL heals AMFORTAS with the SPEAR, but I could find no way of accommodating both names in the grid. There is also mention of the Grail, a dove, and a character called Kundy, but it was a hopeless task to find any of these either. All of this leaves me rather dissatisfied which is a shame because I enjoyed the crossword itself. Perhaps a Wagnerian scholar or Aureas himself could help.

   Thanks to kenmnac for the blog and to OPatrick@1 for explaining the parsings of 13A and 16A. A muted thanks to Aureas which may turn into a full-hearted endorsement if someone can point out why the “position at the end” is what it is.

5. Hmm..like others I found this a good solve but an unsatisfactory conclusion. I got 13A, having in my youth pored over bowling figures listed, in order O M R W. There were some nice distractions, notably NARY in 3D of course but also ACM in 39D for which I had ACE to start with.

   I came up with SLAYS as the word linking PARSIFAL and AMFORTAS (maybe he runs backwards to depict him on his back with a spear in his abdomen or wherever?)as that is the only word I can see that still leaves real words in the transformed grid. The title also suggests an action by one person on another so that’s why in the end I ruled out doves, grails etc. That still left the possibility of Parsifal healing Amfortas but I can’t see where that might fit in. The ‘slaying’ of Klingsor, if it happens at all, occurs in the middle of the drama not the end.

   Whatever, many thanks to Augeas and to kenmac for the blog.

6. Thanks to all respondents.

   As you can see, I completely missed KLINGSOR but it doesn’t seem to matter to the final solution. Having read the comments and revisited Wikipedia, I see that it was KLINGSOR who SPEARed AMFORTAS. I was hoping then to find that PARSIVAL had SLAYed KLINGSOR but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

   Now, I think I’ve had it with Richard Wagner, Robert Wagner‘s more my thing 😉

7. Not my bag at all. When someone says “Perhaps a Wagnerian scholar or Aureas [sic] himself could help” you know you’re in esoteric territory.

8. The crossword represented the beginning of Parsifal well enough but not the end and I think the preamble was misleading in this respect. It should have called it a subsequent development or similar. I spent time looking for a dove. And only the bottom right corner represents the theme. All the rest of the grid is just padding.

9. Very easy grid-fill, I found; the common stumble over 3d (NARY/TRAM), and head-scratching over 13a OVERRUN & 16a CAB-RANK, for which I had the same wordplay as OPatrick @1. (Although in 16a, the removal of ‘rarely’ leaves the defn. as “Where taxis locating” which seems ungrammatical to me.)

   Despite being a Wagner virgin, I spotted KLINGSOR which confirmed PARSIFAL as the story/composition, which in turns leads fairly soon to AMFORTAS (thanks to Google). So, grid truly filled and after a while noticed that PARSIFAL replacing AMFORTAS< leaves real words, but only has 6 changes, not 9.

   Stuck. Big time. The summaries I read refer a lot to a LANCE as the weapon, and Kundry and the dove at the end, but searching the grid led nowhere. After spending as much time on the endgame as on solving the clues, rather fed up I turned for help, rewarded by "there's a weapon joining KLINGSOR & AMFORTAS" and that was when I saw SPEAR. ("Klingsor spear Amfortas": not a great answer to the question posed by the title.) And then there came a suggestion of SLAYS, which makes up the additional 3 changes, but I thought "Is that it?"

   I'm with RobH @5 (and others?) on this: Parsifal slays Klingsor part way through, if at all, and not at the end (when Parsifal has replaced Amfortas).

   Anyway, thanks to Augeas (I have now at least quadrupled my knowledge of Wagnerian material) & to kenmac – not at all envious.

10. For what it’s worth, at the end of act 2 the libretto says

    “[Parsifal] swings the spear in the sign of the Cross: the castle collapses as if through an earthquake. The garden rapidly shrivels to a desert; Kundry falls with a shriek. Parsifal, hastening away, pauses on the height of the ruined wall and turns back to Kundry.”

    Klingsor kinda just vanishes with his magic garden.

11. HG, I would guess with ‘rarely’ removed from 16A the intention was that the clue as a whole would work as a definition, which it more or less does.

12. We found the gridfill pretty straightforward and learnt some interesting new words (e.g. PETAFLOP, YARFA, YESK) but spent far too long on the endgame for it to be enjoyable. We were convinced for a long time that there had to be a dove in row 2 and also wasted a lot of time trying to find a way to get the (holy) grail in somewhere. We’re not opera fans so would never have finished without assistance, but the printed and online sources we used suggest that the final grid is not really an accurate representation of the end of the opera. Well done to kenmac for tackling this tricky one.

13. Although knowing next to nothing about Wagner, I enjoyed this, even though I didn’t finish. As well as falling into the ‘nary’ trap at 3d, I was also briefly misled into thinking 8d was Goa (Indian Territory).

14. Managed the bulk of the gridfill myself with this one (first time in weeks), but the assistance of Kippax Sr (Terrier@12) to understand what was required to finish.

    I enjoyed the clues, but could someone please explain 40a to me? I had originally circled ‘Percy’ as the redundant word.

    Cheers Augeas & kenmac.

15. Kippax @14 – I meant to put it in the blog. It’s a reference to Percy Shelley.

    If you look up UNAWARE in Chambers, you’ll see:
    (adj) not aware; unwary (Shelley).

    Then look up UNWARY and you’ll find:
    (adj) not wary; not aware of danger; unexpected.

    Then turn around three times while standing on your head … !

16. Aha, thanks kenmac.

17. I was surprised when Kenmac’s fine blog showed PARSIVAL in the “position at the end”. Maybe his Chambers, like mine, did not have AIF as an abbreviation ? But I now see in the official solution version that AIF is shown rather than AIV.

    I also agree with what other opera-virgins have written. I too relied on Wikipedia for help, and thus, having read what was going on on-stage at the end of the last act, concluded that a WHITE DOVE hovering over PARSIFAL was the most likely description of “the position at the end”.
    “Parsifal SLAYS (present tense) Klingsor” is surely nonsensical, when Klingsor and his empire have been disintegrated long before, and are thus totally absent from the final scene ?

    Lucky for John Green that this wasn’t a Listener ?

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