Pride: Vice and Virtue (Beren)

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Yes, that is really the pertinent question when it comes to Túrin, isn't it? I mean, Tolkien makes such a big deal about this horrible curse that Morgoth has placed on Húrin's family; why bother if they (and particularly Túrin) are just going to shoot themselves in their own feet?

[Andreth]

Ah but the how is the key. Túrin may have still come to ruin but had he made different choices maybe he wouldn't have taken so many innocent lives with him.

In regards to free will, I believe the characters make choices as we all do. But Eru will take that choice and turn it to the good. Perhaps a good not seen at the time but a good none the less.

And I very gratified to see such a good response. I on working on Beren next. Stickied some appropriate passages last night.

[axordil]

had he made different choices

That's the nitty-gritty of it. How does a curse or a doom affect an individual's ability to make choices? What is the mechanism?

[Inanna]

Maybe you always make the wrong choices? The worse ones, so to speak?

[axordil]

But why? What makes that happen? Is it just a matter of a dark impulse that wouldn't be there otherwise? Or is it an actual hijacking of free will?

Part of the issue with manifesting a diabolus is that one then has to explain how his powers of insinuation/temptation/intervention work...and how they de facto differ from those of his Creator.

[Inanna]

ah.. obviously I took your question the wrong way.

Okay, here is what I think might be happening. Each one of us makes X number of key choices in our life... each ith choice leads us down different paths. And thence are created parallel universes. In one universe, Túrin might not have been cursed and made different choices, in another he was but made better choices and in yet another, he is Túrin we know.

Does that make sense? The Creator gives choices to each Túrin - and then depending on the choice, each follows a different universe. Bifurcating paths on each step, by the end you 2^x universes.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I can't really agree with that, Mahima. In my view, the curse itself determines what choices Túrin made.

[Primula Baggins]

Is it possible to reconcile curses with free will by looking at it from the other end? Could a curse be a prophecy, an accurate foretelling of the choices the person will make, rather than the mechanism that makes the choices come about?

I guess it depends on how it's phrased.

[Inanna]

Aren't you removing the character of Túrin from that method, V? If Túrin was a different person, with less pride, for example, could he have not made different choices under the same curse?

Thats interesting, Prim.

Hmmm, if the curse if "you are doomed", and you always make choices which will lead you to that doom... considering it as a prophecy you could make different choices at times, but eventually you cannot escape the curse. Considering it as a mechanism - its what V says - you always make the worst choice. Assuming that worst choices lead you to the doom.

Am confused now.

[axordil]

Or that, perhaps, no matter WHAT choice one makes it turns ill. That would be more classically a curse. But it implies a degree of control, or at least (as Prim notes) foreknowledge, that I am reluctant to ascribe to Morgoth at that stage of his being. If it had been Huor instead of his brother in the seat, and Tuor was under the curse, what would have been the result?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

That's not what the Music provided for.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

But wasn't Tolkien always ambiguous as to whether evil was an interior or exterior force? So many things may be read either way that the ambiguity seems intentional. And it means that we can't win in trying to decide which is the important mechanism.

[Alatar]

I can't help feeling that some of these discussions move into the realm of "He who breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom". I can't believe in the music as full predestination simply becuase to do so removes all joy, wonder and tragedy from the tale.

[axordil]

The Music does not bind Men as it does Elves. JRRT is explicit on that point. It occurs to me that the clashing of the different relationships to Fate between the First and Secondborn is the source of much of the tragedy, and some of the joy, in the tales of the First Age.

[MithLuin]

Agreed, Alatar. If you want to know how Morgoth's curse works...well, that's a dangerous question. Be very careful how you go about finding the answer .

One obvious way Morgoth makes his curse play out is by sending the Easterlings to Dorlomin and Glaurung to Nargothrond. These are his "agents" and they work his will.

Ulmo sends swans and Voronwë son of Aranwë to Tuor. (And then there's Gelmir and Arminas(Faramir)...)

Both Tuor and Túrin were able to escape the North, though Tuor did so secretly while Morgoth had to eventually learn that Túrin was in Doriath. Morgoth could not reach Túrin in Doriath. So...why did Túrin end up not-in-Doriath? A man died, and he refused to stand trial. He was too proud to accept the king's judgement, or feared it would be unfair. But why did the man end up dead? Saeros insulted Túrin's mother. Why was Túrin so sensitive to such a baseless taunt? (After all, his mother was renowned for her nobility and beauty) Because he felt abandoned by his mother, who would not come to Doriath....

Húrin's family is too proud to accept help, and so all the offers to get them out of their curse are rebuffed. Therein lies their culpability. Túrin has a helm that should protect him from Glaurung's eyes, but he takes it off anyway, losing his protection.

But there is still a heavy sense of "fate" hanging about these events. Túrin has extrordinarily bad luck. Why does he sit in Saeros' seat when he comes into the hall? Why does he have hands free and no light when Beleg nicks his foot? Why is he the one to find the body of Niniel on Finduilas' grave? Circumstances conspiring against him is a sense of greater...malice, but also of greater power than we are generally willing to assign to people in a story. Most villains can't do that - but can Morgoth? He does not know everything, and he does not control everything....but he probably knows and controls more than his enemies give him credit for.

Why did Bilbo Baggins of the Shire find the One Ring? Divine providence. Why did Túrin slay Beleg? Diabolical 'providence'? Is such a thought blasphemy? Melkor = He Who Arises in Might. "Doubt not the power of Morgoth Bauglir. Is it not written in me?" Finduilas is warned by Gwindor. The curse could mean that the world conspires against Túrin. Circumstances will never go his way. He cannot trust to luck. And yet...that is not all that happens. He brings it upon himself, too. And Morgoth did not plan it all. Gwindor was not released to lead Túrin to Nargothrond. Gwindor and Túrin should never have met - Morgoth was trying to have Túrin brought in as a prisoner, so he could torture him personally. But it still wasn't just an accident, any more than it was an "accident" that Gandalf invited Bilbo to join the Quest of Erebor. Morgoth poured his malice into the very world before the creation was made to be. If he hates someone....who knows what curses he can bring home to them?

[axordil]

Perhaps a curse is wasted on the meek, and only the proud can truly be brought low.

[MithLuin]

Isildur curses the Dead (well, I suppose they weren't dead yet...) as cowards. Does that count as meek?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

I don't believe that the Music is "full predestination" but I do believe that it sets the basic pattern that the Tale of Time must follow. And while it is true that Tolkien made it clear that Men are not as bound by the Music as are the First Born, they are still within the Tale of Time, which they can not alter. Thus, one can talk about Tuor being under the curse instead of Túrin as a matter of speculation, but I don't believe that it is a real possibility (I know that many would disagree with me, and urge that there are infinite possibilities).

I would add that the assertion that Men have greater free will than the Elves applies least to Túrin and Tuor. Túrin is bound by Morgoth's curse, and thus destined whatever choices he makes to find darkness. Tuor, on the other hand, has been chosen by Ulmo to be his instrument in his seeming opposition to the will of the other Valar. But, as he tells Tuor, that is the part that he was appointed to ere the making of the world (e.g., in the Music). Whatever choices Tuor makes, he cannot avoid that destiny.

It occurs to me that the clashing of the different relationships to Fate between the First and Secondborn is the source of much of the tragedy, and some of the joy, in the tales of the First Age.

Yes, I agree. As Verlyn Flieger says:

The interactions of Men and Elves, then, are to involve and embody the interplay of free will will and destiny. Tolkien clearly intended both to be powerful albeit not always complementary forces in his world and may well have envisioned each as the necessary function of the other. For there can be no freedom in willing unless there is something from which to be free. The destinies of Elves will affect the free choices of Men, while the free choices of Men will have the power to alter the destinies of Elves.

Cross-posted with MithLuin (twice) and Axordil

[Inanna]

Perhaps a curse is wasted on the meek, and only the proud can truly be brought low.

Interesting. By "meek" do you mean people who will give in to it, not fight evil, not try to change their destinies - not exhibit free will? And hence, they go to their "doom" without a fuss, and it does not become a tale.

The proud, fight it, do not give into it, make bad choices (exhibit free will?) and become tales.

So, the meek don't face those choices at all?

[axordil]

Not the morally meek so much as the socially meek, those for whom ambition or lordship isn't even on the table as a possibility. What you don't have you can't lose.

OTOH, that's getting close to the description of hobbits, isn't it?