If you understand the thread title, you already know that I am referring to a character from Tolkien’s The Silmarillion. If you did not understand the thread title, but have read the OP this far anyway, you should have figured that out by now.
I thought about writing a long explanation of what I am talking about here. But I’m terribly lazy, so I’ll wait to see if the first few responses are “What the fuck are you talking about, Rhymer?” or "That’s a good question, Skaldirimus. I feel the answer is <blank>.
The Children of Hurin is about Turin too right? I have the book but haven’t had a chance to read it yet.
I’m not even that far in The Silmarillion but curses in Middle Earth seem very real. So why exactly would you think his misfortunes weren’t because of the curse?
No, it’s not a stupid question, and yes, TCoH is about Túrin. It’s basically an expanded version of the story in Sil; some of the details are different, such as how Mîm the Petty-Dwarf died, and the specifics of his role in…well, never mind.
The point I always found interesting is that everyone keeps telling Turin that he can’t escape the curse by running from it and changing his name, but really, he pretty much does. Whenever he takes on a new assumed identity and starts a new life, things go pretty well, considering… Until someone finds out who he really is, and then all of a sudden things go back into the crapper.
As to the OP’s question, I don’t think curses in Middle-Earth really work in such a way that you can disentangle it. It’s not that Morgoth is causing anything, per se, with his curse: It’s that all of the possible futures where Turin lives happily ever after simply don’t exist. Everything that happens to Turin has some non-Morgoth cause or another, and sometimes the cause is Turin’s own faults, but that’s not to say that Morgoth’s curse was powerless.
I think the correct answer is splunge. Morgoth’s curse had a lot to do with it, but Turin was pretty headstrong and could be his own worst enemy. And I’m not being indecisive.
Morgoth’s curse made it all worse. In Arda the heros/villians are done in by their own tragic flaws. Without the curse, Turin would have been an annoying and arrogant jerk who brought annoyance to everyone and tragedy only to himself. With the curse he brought tragedy to everyone.
A little from column A, a little from column B, and don’t forget the Curse of the Noldor in the mix, either.
Basically the deck was stacked against Turin. The Curse of the Noldor ensured that Nirnaeth Arnoediad would not succeed, due to the mistrust between the elves. That resulted in Hurin’s capture, and the Curse of Morgoth. With Melkor’s malice focused on Dor-Lomin, Turin’s early life was destined to be difficult.
Even so, the Music of the Ainur gave Turin some good opportunities, which he squandered. He could have asked for and received Thingol’s forgiveness rather than running off into the wilderness out of pride and adolescent angst; he could have listened to Beleg Strongbow and returned to serve both men and elves, instead of running with the outlaws; he could have listened to Finduilas and Gwindor and reined in his pride, and not make Nargothrond such an obvious target. He could have hooked up with Finduilas, and who knows what might have been wrought by another offspring of Eldar and Edain?
Even so, with Morgoth throwing things at him like his own sister, conveniently naked and amnesiac, and siccing his own personal dragon on him, it seems to me that he was doomed to (at best) a nobly tragic end if he were lucky, vs. the appallingly tragic end that he came to, taking others with him.
If you read about Viking heroes, they often seem to have been very quick to take affront and to wreak violent vengeance on others for what often seem to be fairly minor slights. I find myself amazed sometimes that any of them lived long enough to sire children.
Turin seems to have been cast in this mold: very hasty to act, to pursue vengeance without a second thought. Basically poor impulse control plus great fighting ability equals nasty behavior, followed by years of regret. Most of the crappy things that happened to him seem to have been results of his own actions. He made a lot of poor choices in his life, usually in the heat of the moment. Yet between these times, he seems to have been a great man, rising within whatever society he finds himself to become the top guy, so there must have been a lot of ability there as well.
Most of his problems came as the direct results of his pride, his desire for revenge, and his haste to act. Yes, he had some bad things happen to him, but most of them were the consequences of his own actions. Being Turin’s friend was a very high-risk occupation, for example. On the other hand, there was something in him that caused those around him to love him, despite his fairly obvious flaws, and this led to his own tragedies having much greater impact. A lot of folks died because they were willing to follow Turin or associate with him. As I said before, he made a lot of lousy choices.
What I can’t say is whether or not Turin was the way he was, both good and bad, because of Morgoth’s curse, or how he was raised, or his innate character (if such a thing exists). So, yes, I think most of what happened to him was the result of his own character, but I don’t know if that character was due to Morgoth or not.
Morgoth’s curse made Túrin who he was – without it’s influence througout his life, he would have been someone far different. He became the guy whose family had gained a personal mad-on from Morgoth. That’s far different than just another guy fighting against Morgoth. Sort of defined by his enemy.
Because of who he was, he inevitably made the choices that caused woe. It’s not that Túrin’s misfortunes were his fault or not, it’s that Túrin was the instrument of Morgoth’s curse used to cause those misfortunes.
And I read the Children of Húrin. I liked it.
I also just finished “The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun” and you can see bits and pieces of Turin’s story there. Christopher Tolkien even goes so far as to link his dad’s view of Sigurd to Turin. The claim resting on some of the earlier Turin stories where he returns from the dead to defeat Morgoth and the end of the world. It echo’s, somewhat, the professor’s views of Sigurd as Odin’s secret weapon for Ragnarok.
The book gets much better once we get to the Battle of Unnumbered Tears, and absolutely rocks from Túrin in Doriath onward. It just takes a while to get going.
The pieces in Unfinished Tales are, I think, the most beautiful writing I’ve ever read. The interpolations needed to mortar those pieces together, however, are not. I thought that the end result was, on the whole, still quite good, though.
But depressing as heck. Read it only in small doses, and with liberal treatment to happy puppies, sunshine, and rainbows in between, or you’ll go suicidal.
