[tumhalad2]

Originally Posted by Morthoron

How is the plight of the House of Hurin any different than the House of Feanor? The dire consequences of Feanor's oath lasts into a third generation (if you consider Celebrimbor to be the grandson of Feanor). Maedhros commits suicide, Maglor ruefully roams the shores of the Belegaer for eternity, and the rest of Feanor's sons die in battle as traitors and kinslayers (including infanticide). Maedhros and Maglor's sorry ends happen concurrently with a eucatastrophic event: the coming of Eonwe and the armies of Valinor and the final defeat of Morgoth. The House of Feanor's doom is no less dismaying than that of Hurin or Turin. The only difference is that CoH is a bit more developed, and follows the formula of a Greek tragedy more consistenly than in the case of the House of Feanor, although there is certainly hamartia in the making of an unbreakable vow, and anagnorisis, the sudden awareness of the tragic hero's folly, in the final actions of Maedhros and Maglor.

Contextually speaking, the fall of the House of Hurin is completely compatible with the long defeat of the Elves...The Valar, the angelic intermediaries of Eru (whose hands-off attitude towards his creation is completely at variance with the Judeo-Christian god of the bible), simply do not interact with Middle-earth save for extraordinary circumstances. The Valar's seeming indifference causes untold suffering for nearly an entire age of Middle-earth, and Hurin's family, just like countless other families, are left to the diabolical whims of Morgoth, including captives the Dark Lord released to cause further pain to both those he had freed as well as the relations they returned to.

Therefore, to say that CoH is incongruous or better as a stand-alone tale separate from the rest of the history of the 1st Age is spurious.

I pretty much agree with all of this, but I would reiterate a difference between the LOTR and CoH again: while it is certainly true, and clear, that neither Eru or the Valar intervene much in Middle-earth, the narrative of the Lord of the Rings is nonetheless resplendant with a sense of providential purpose. This is something that is not only lacking in the Children of Hurin, but the possibility of it is mocked by Turin, and the conversation between Hurin and Morgoth ends ambiguously. The wider Silmarillion too is repleat with much suffering, of course, but the Valar are nonetheless shown to be active participants in thought or deed. In the novel, the Children of Hurin, they are distant, amourphous and almost entirely unkown entities, especially to humans. For example, when Turin asks Sador where his deceased sister ends up, he has no answer. Now, we know that the Valar don't either, but the point is that neither Sador nor anyone else has any authority to turn to. In the Lord of the Rings, by contrast, characters appear to have faith. Turin has no faith. Sador has no faith, precisely because there is nothing to have faith in, except the drive to defend one's family and House. This is, after all, Turin's motivation throughout the novel. There is a diabolical force to the north, with which his people are at war; Turin perceives it as his duty to defend his family and the free realms against it. Unlike Frodo, he is not on a divine quest, and unlike Feanor, he has not held personal recourse with the Valar. As Morgoth asks Hurin: "Have you seen the Valar? Or measured the power of Manwe and Varda?" to which Hurin replies "I know not." He guesses, perhaps, that should they will it they could protect him and his family, and he asserts the primacy of Manwe, but Morgoth scoffs at this, and names himself the Elder King.

For all Hurin knows, and for all we should care, Morgoth is telling the truth. Manwe doesn't deign to intervene until the very end of the war, when the Noldor are utterly defeated and Hurin and his family have all died. Yes, the War of Wrath constitues a eucastraphe, an underserved episode of grace. But still, I'm uncomfortable with the notion that we should be complicit in it. As Nerwen pointed out, it is completely acceptable to see the suffering of Turin's family in the context of a final victory against Morgoth without diminishing it. However, I think where I'm getting at is that CoH, in its novelistic form, seems to undermine this construction; it seems to make eucatastrophe gratuitous. Now, I'm not saying we should take this interpretation because our own lives are bleak and nasty; I don't have such a life either, but I am saying that to my eyes the text itself seems to lend weight to such an interpretation. Now, we then have the issue of interpreting it along side its peritexts, the Silmarillion and the Lord of the Rings.

Should we then, treat Middle-earth as a kind of ontologically consistent history? Or should the novels absolutely stand on their own? Well, I think a balance is required. Certainly, CoH is set in the same world, as Nerwen points out, in so far as names, places and people are familiar. But it is this qualitative difference, this much terser, less aesthetic use of langauge that characterises CoH that worries me. It is entirely unlike either the LOTR or the Sil. It brings to bear its own style, and thereby its own unique tone and atmosphere. How is this to be understood?