Turin=Achilles?
 

In reading the Iliad (well, okay, listening to a cd lecture by Elizabeth
Vandiver) I noticed an increasingly interesting parallel between
Achilles and Turin. Given Tolkien's schooling in Greek language and
history, I wonder how much was conscious and are there other classical
parallels mto Middle-earth personages (I tend to view the valar as more
archangels then Greek/Roman gods, but still...).
Granted, Tolkien says the chief inspiration was the Kullervo, there
seem to be interesting Achilles similarities.

Consider Achilles/Turin:
1) He's the greatest warrior in archaic Greek mythology
2) They both have tempers and make rash decisions and then
stubbornly hold to them- Turin won't go back to Menegroth and
Achilles won't rejoin battle even though Agamemnon handsomely
apologizes for swiping Achilles concubine
3) Both die young, fighting as warriors and achieve great things
for their sides---Achilles kills Hector, Turin kills Glaurung
4) They both have cranky superiors who tick them off
(Agamemnon and Thingol)
5) Both have a hand in their best friend's deaths (Achilles by
letting Petroclos use his armor)
6) Both unjustly kill people due to their rash temper
(Achilles the young son of Priam-Lykaon, and Turin Brandir).
The commentary by professor Vandiver on Achilles could be easily
transposed to Turin:
7) Both Achilles and Turin's fate are largely predetermined, unless they,
in effect for their milieus (sp.?) choosing cowardice, eschew prowess in
battle: Achilles by choosing a quiet life without lasting fame and Turin by
abandoning his (granted frequently misguided) defending those he
holds dear, his family and former home and Finduilas and Menegroth.

Btw, both Agamemnon and Thingol seek to repair their relationships
with their prickly warriors and their overtures are both rebuffed.

What do you think? Any other possible Middle-earth classical parallels?

Speaking of Turin you can compare him to Kullervo from Finnish myth. They both share similar lives. Both had fallen in love with their sisters and both sisters killed themselves. Both had a huge temper. They also share similar swords and slay a powerful enemy. For Turin it is Glaurung and for Kullervo it is Untamo.

The ring itself has roots in Norse Mythology. The story of the Hobbit itself is similar to Beowulf.

Nice idea, Tuor! I always saw Túrin more as a blend of Kullervo and Sigurd the Volsung, but now you mention it, the parallels with Achilles look quite convincing, and I'd like to add another one:
8) Both show pity to an elder person they first perceived as an enemy - Achilles to Priamos, Túrin to Mîm the dwarf; in both cases after either the hero himself or one of his companions killed the elder guy's son. (Gosh, this sounds like One Thing in Common! :D)

Interestingly, Achilles and Sigurd share the trait of invulnerability except for one weak spot, but I suppose Tolkien found this mythological motif too hackneyed and therefore decided not to use it.

Other classical parallels? Hmmm... If Tolkien had ever got round to telling the voyages of Eärendil before he reached Valinor, we might have a Middle Earth Odyssey. And the story of Beren and Lúthien could be seen as a version of Orpheus and Eurydice with roles reversed (note that Lúthien touched Mandos' heart by singing before him!) and Lúthien-Eurydice succeeding where Orpheus failed.

Aragorn is somewhat similar to King Arthur and Gandalf to Merlin.

Hakon: brief but true. Let me elaborate:
Aragorn and King Arthur - the obvious parallel that comes to my mind is that both of them had a famous sword which represented their royal legacy and their right to kingdom.
(À propos, and elaborating on a side-thought in my last post: it might be interesting to consider which mythological motifs Tolkien did not use; e.g. no sword retrieved by the hero from a lake, stone, anvil, tree or other receptacle reluctant to release the blade. Might tell us a lot about the difference between Tolkien and post-Tolkien commercial fantasy.)
Also, both Aragorn and Arthur came into their kingdom after a long time in rather infamous positions (although in different phases of their lives) - Aragorn as the Ranger Strider, Arthur as Sir Ector's ward.
Finally, both of them represent an archetype of the ideal King that appeals even to die-hard democrats like myself (but that would be another topic;)).

Gandalf and Merlin - yep, the two archetypal wizards of world literature; I defy everybody to find a third! And both of them act as counselors to the Ideal King (see above). (Unfortunately, there's no Vivian/Nimue for Gandalf; but fortunately, this means he doesn't have to spend idle centuries banished into a haythorn hedge...;))

But what Tuor is aiming at in this thread is parallels between Tolkien's Legendarium and classical=Greek/Roman mythology. The Norse and Celtic influences on Tolkien are quite well known and have been discussed any number of times (not that it can hurt to rehash them once more:), especially the Kalevala connection), unlike parallels between Middle Earth and ancient mediterranean mythology, which are still largely terra incognita.

pitchwife's comments on Galdalf/Merlin are interesting.
I vaguely feel like there should be/are other parallels.

As to the classical, specifically Greek, influences on Tolkiien,
there are some intereting suggestions in HC's Biography:
and Someone who was so committed to the history (real or created)
behind languages might well have been more influenced by
Latin and Greek vis-a-vis Scandinavian/northern European then
is generally thought to be the case, especially since said influence
was strongest in his schoolboy years (obviously important
formulatively) then college/university years with Finnish and
such.
Just a thought.

Also with Arthur and Aragorn you have the guiding figure. For Arthur it was Merlin and for Aragorn it was Elrond early on.

Also Numenor is similar to Atlantis. Both were like the ideal societies and both got sunk into the ocean. Both had a sort of divine ruler, for Atlantis it was Poseidon and for Numenor it was Elros.

The Battle of Helm's Deep is also comparable to Troy only in this case the roles are sort of reversed. The good is defending in this case rather than attacking.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by hakon
The Battle of Helm's Deep is also comparable to Troy only in this case the roles are sort of reversed. The good is defending in this case rather than attacking.QUOTE]

Granted, from the point of view of Homer and his audience the "good"
are attacking, but I think that (other then doofus Paris) the Trojans
may be seen by most readers as the good guys. At minimum, talk
about overreaction by the Greeks! I mean, for one babe! :)

That is true. But Helen was the most beautiful woman ever according Homer and the lust of men is very powerful. The one thing that has always bothered me about Paris is that his real name was Alexander and that is my name. Sorry that I am off topic. Anyway Goldberry is sort of portrayed as the most beautiful woman in Middle Earth, I am sure a war could have been started over her.

Also it is perspective like you said with which side is good.

Turin may well be a hero in the formula of a classic Greek tragedy, however, the parallels favor Kullervo rather than Achilles as far as the story goes.

There are many Tolkien characters who are near perfect examples of heroes from Greek tragedies -- in addition to Turin, Boromir for instance. They exhibit the four principal characteristics of a tragic hero: 1. the character is of noble birth, 2. He has a tragic flaw (hamartia), 3. He has a reversal (a catastrophe), and 4. he undergoes a catharthis, or recognition, a realization of his own flaw that caused his reversal. And, as is usual in Greek tragedy, his recognition comes too late to prevent his succumbing to the reversal.

But again, Turin's story is essentially derived from the Kalevala, and the self-destructive, often berserk character Kullervo, right down to being born in bondage, unknowingly seducing his sister and dying on a sword that willingly takes his life (and says so).

Another tragic hero of Greek mythology who may be compared to Túrin is Oedipus. I vividly recall seeing a performance of both stories as drama by the Greek Tolkien Society in Birmingham, highlighting the parallels between the two* as victims of an overwhelming fate, unable to escape even when flying from it. Both unknowingly married a member of their family incestuously, a situation which resulted in their respective deaths at their own hands.

This has been noted by others previously; for a start, check out Michael Martinez' comments.


*...who were played by the same actor, thus emphasizing the parallels even more.

Hm? I never saw the Trojans as evil. :confused: It was Achilles, after all, who desecrated Hector's body, and Odysseus who resorted to underhandedness.

Also, the survivors of Troy, led by Aeneas, went on to found Rome.

The Romans were not exactly saints. I just always viewed the Greeks as good and the Trojans as evil. It was Paris that made me see them as evil and the Greeks as good.

And in a way Paris was between a rock, a rock, and a
hard place- what with the three vain goddesses starting
the whole thing. It is interesting that the theme of fated
destiny in the Trojan War (essentially effecting the actions of
both humans and gods) is only (I believe) directly used by
Tolkien with the Children of Hurin, which makes it somewhat
discordant to the general ethos of Middle-earth.

Elsewhere in the tales he seems, to me, to effectively
combine free will and Iluvatar seeing that his plan
for Middle-earth and its peoples, by allowing evil to have
the possibility to "win" for a time but eventually redress
a given situation (for example, Morgoth having a nice winning
streak in Beleriand). And I think somewhere Gandalf muses
that he will not have totally failed if anything fair lives in
Middle-earth (or something to that effect).

Rome was no more or less a villain than Athens, Sparta, Mycene, or Thebes.

Paris may have started the whole mess between the Greeks and Trojans, but if you read closely I think you'll actually find more admirable traits among the Trojans.

-Agamemnon was a thoroughly deplorable man, who killed his own daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the goddess, Artemis. You see, Artemis was angry about some slight and was preventing the Greeks from sailing from Aulis. Agamemnon just had to get this ball rolling and he wasn't going to let anything silly like his daughter's life get in the way of conquering Troy, by thunder. So, a quick knife to his daughter's chest, Artemis was satisfied, and the Greeks set sail.

-Achilles had a grand mal hissy fit over Agamemnon keeping the woman, Briseis, after Achilles had won her as a war prize. So, like any good commander with victory in mind, Achilles withdrew his men and sulked- for a year, if I remember correctly.

-I've already mentioned how victory over Hector wasn't enough for Achilles. When you kill the (ahem) "special friend" of an invulnerable, manic depressive Greek warrior, even if it's mistaken identity, you can apparently expect to have your corpse desecrated as further revenge.

-Odysseus was actually the one who defeated Troy, and he had to use skullduggery instead of good old-fashioned brawn and elan.

"Good guys"? I think not.

I still view them as the good guys. Sorry. Yes they did bad things, but the way the Iliad is written is so that you view them as the good guys in the war. It is just something that is always going to stick with me. I cannot view the Trojan's as good. They had a terrible royal family with the one exception of Hector. Although with the Trojan War both the Greeks and Trojans have good and bad people on their side. I would have to say that many of the leaders on both sides are the worst.

If I remember correctly Troy's symbol was a horse. That is another parallel between Helm's Deep/Rohan and Troy.

I don't see the Iliad as the story of a conflict between good and evil. Both sides are portrayed as human, with human virtues, flaws and shortcomings distributed more or less evenly.
And let's not forget that the conflict was ultimately caused and fed by the Gods, who participated in the war on both sides.

That is true. It is just that as humans we tend to call one side good and one side evil no matter what.

Priam was evil? Andromache? Cassandra? Polydorus? I don't know if we've read the same Iliad.

I'm not sure what that had to do with who was or wasn't on the side of evil in the Iliad, but that could well be entirely coincidental.

Actually, in the Medieval worldview, Hector was acclaimed one of the Nine Worthies -- one of three from Pagan lands (also Alexander and Julius Caesar) -- who were accounted as paragons of chivalry. In no sense were Trojans 'evil'; on the contrary, the Greek fleet was decimated after their horrible sack of Troy, and many heroes were drowned. Also, for their affronts against the gods, Odysseus was forced to wander 10 years before finally being allowed to return home, and Agamemmnon was murdered by his wife, Clytemnestra.

By the way, have any of you read Kassandra by Christa Wolf (in case it's been translated into your respective languages)? She paints the Greeks as the bad guys in darkest colours - for example, she invariably refers to Achilles as 'Achilles the Beast'; one-sided, of course, but an interesting attempt to re-tell history/mythology from the perspective of the losers.

But all this is taking us miles away from Tolkien. Interestingly, the conflict between good and evil, which is so prominent in Tolkien's Legendarium, seems to be conspicuously absent in classical mythology - as it is in most of the mythological or heroic literature which inspired or may have inspired our Professor (Kalevala, Nibelungenlied/ Volsunga Saga, Icelandic Sagas in general, Mabinogion, Tain Bo Cuailnge, Fenian cycle, you name it). The only possible exceptions that come to my mind at the moment are Beowulf (which is the work of a Christian author) and the conflict between the Gods and Giants in the Norse Edda (which I tend to see as authentically pagan with a thin Christian veneer). But there's no figure of archetypal evil like Morgoth or Sauron anywhere in the old myths - except for ancient Jewish mythology (otherwise known as the Bible;)).
Possible conclusions from this observation:
1. The conflict between good and evil is a specifically Christian (or Judeo-Christian-Islamic) theme, which Homer and most of the other pagan authors didn't find interesting (though they cared about such issues as chaos and order - as in e.g. Zeus vs the Titans, but with no moral values attached);
2. The conflict between good and evil as the crucial point of the story may also be viewed as a specifically modern element which Tolkien introduced into mythological literature inspired by his experience of 20th century history.
Truth, as I see it, is a mixture of both.

One of the main reasons that there is no real big war between good and evil in classical mythology is, it is humans mostly. There are gods but if you just focus on what the main race is, then you see why. There is no divine good race like the Elves of Middle Earth, or a race that is pure evil like the orcs.

To address the good and evil of the Iliad, I just view the Greeks as good. I always have. There are several reasons for that. One I lack morals, two I saw what the Greeks were doing as good, three I tend to view groups of people through specific people. I always viewed the Trojans through Paris and the Greeks through Achilles.

In some ways Hector is not unlike my favorite LOTR
character (Faramir) -and don't get me started on PJ's
TTT :mad: ) in that Hector would have preferred a
peaceful life but, as the crown prince of Troy felt it his
duty to engage in combat. Recall that he proposed,
and Achilles rejected, the proper Trojan War protocol
of returning the slain hero to the others family for proper
burial. And he had a rather immature brother (in Hector's
case a younger one) causing problems by emotional
impulses.

Hector does seem to be the most balanced, and likable,
character in the Iliad. In a way he's Homer's real hero.

Hakon, most of the old epics tell the story from the perspective of one side and naturally make us sympathize with this side (e.g. Väinämöinen & co., not the people of Pohjola, in the Kalevala; the British, not the Irish, in the Second Branch of the Mabinogion, etc.). This is not to be confused with the issue of good and evil in a moral sense (as you realized).
I think the greatness of Homer lies in the fact that he tried to do justice to both sides (as did the author/s of the Tain, for example).
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.

Nice observation, but don't let davem see that;)! Point being: if you look at the Elves of the Silmarillion, they are, as far as moral ambiguity is concerned, much closer to the heroes of classical mythology than the Elves of LotR (Feanor, Celegorm, Curufin, Eol, Maeglin, Saeros - heck, even Thingol in his dealing with the Dwarves!). And as for the Orcs - but that is another thread altogether.

EDIT: x-ed with Tuor. Good point about Hector and Faramir, couldn't agree more!

:eek: :confused:

Contradiction...?

Here's the first difference between Turin and Achilles that comes to my mind: the issue of the characters' fates is crucial in both stories, but in the case of Achilles, there seems to be more of a conscious choosing of one path over the other, whereas I don't think the choice is ever quite as clear to Turin. My impression is that he is more chased and haunted by his fate and he doesn't face it in quite the same way as Achilles.

Well,I am impressed!However,I would like to point out a few things about Greek history and mythology:(if anything is mentionned before,forgive me for repeating it)

-In Iliad and in Greek mythology,in general,there is no typical evill vs good in the way Tolkein describes it.In fact,even in "Kosmogoneia",none of the gods,even Uranus, is perfect.In fact,the point of mythology is to point out the value of ballance,of divine order,that when it is broken(ύβρις),it makes the one who did it an awful sinner,even if he didn't mean to do anything bad.So,that is the reason why there is a balance of good and evil characters in Iliad(ex.Nestor )

-No hero has only one dimention.Achilles was not as cruel as they say.He looks pretty much like the true Medieval knights.Rutheless at fist,when Priam visits him so as to request Hector's body,Despite his hard attitude,inside him Achilles breaks and gives it at last to Priam.Aso,he didn't permit Patroclu to take his place easily,but after one year of watching his people being slayed bue to his not so weird anger(former disputes with Agamemnon are implied)
Neither Clytemnystra is just a mother avenging her daudhter's/niece's death.She had a young lover and Agamemnon's relative,Aegistus,and seeked to rule Mycenae by herself by using her wak lover as apuppet(Sauron-Saruman parallel,perhaps)

-Αgamemnon hasn't killed his daughter.Firstly,according to the myth,A rtemis took her and placed a deer in her place.Secondly,Ifigeneia's true parents were Helen and Theseus.

-Concerning Odesseus,there is an amazing tragedy,"Filoktitis",that shows what he really represents;the inventing and clever merchant and mariner,the enemy of the traditionnal farmer-lords,as the rest of the kings,the warriors and the Trojans.

-As for the question whether the Greeeks or the Romans were the worst,Ivote for Romans;yes,we made great slayers and civil wars too,but they took all massacres to a much higher level.

Having just finished a Classical Mythology class in college I thought I would pop into this thread.

As has been mentioned Turin is quite similar to Oedipus, though I do see some similarities between him and Achilles as well, Beren and Luthien are kind of similar to Orpheus and Eurydice, and some of the valar are similar to the Greek gods (for example Aule is like Hephaestus/Vulcan both being craftsman, and Ulmo is kind of like Poseidon/Neptune being the guy in charge of waters).

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.

Also it is interesting that the city of Gondolin had seven gates and the city of Thebes had seven gates. Perhaps this is another place where mythology had influence in Tolkien's works.