The story of Túrin is one of the key legends around which the Silmarillion is constructed, so I can't hope to do justice to it in the time I have at my disposal. Fortunately rather a lot of what I have to say is redundant, since Tom Shippey has already dealt with it in
The Road to Middle Earth. I don't see any reason to argue with his main argument that Túrin's story is one of tension between the meanings of 'doom' as judgement and as ill fate. In the story of the Children of Húrin more than anywhere else in the matter of Middle Earth, Tolkien is exploring the balance between fate and free will as they were addressed in the early and high middle ages. Beowulf tells Unferth:
Quote:
Wyrd oft nereð
unfægne eorl, þonne his ellen deah.
Fate often spares
an undoomed lord, when his courage avails
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Gisli's Saga sums up its protagonist by extolling his virtues and wryly cursing his luck.
Quote:
Lýkur þar nú ævi Gísla og er það alsagt að hann hefur hinn mesti hreystimaður verið þó að hann væri eigi í öllum hlutum gæfumaður.
There now ends Gisli's life, and it has always been said he was the greatest champion - though he was not lucky in all things.
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Leaving aside the heroic, Boethius addresses the relationship between divine foreknowledge and predestination, and Alfred the Great expands on the idea in his translation of
De Consolatione Philosophiae by adding his own metaphor of a wagon wheel.
These are only three rather obvious examples. Old English and Old Norse writings are full of references to fate, luck and doom; just as Christian works often address the apparent contradiction that God can know what will happen despite each person's freedom to choose any path. When Tolkien approached the same issue it gave rise to his starkest and most brutal story, and the closest of any of his legends to the pagan North.
Much of what Túrin suffers is his own fault. His own pride, inherited from the equally pig-headed Morwen leads him repeatedly to choose the worst course of action in the face of good advice, and the chief points at which he does this have been pointed out. In constant tension with this theme, however, there is a persistent bad luck that causes every stroke he makes to turn awry. What causes Saeros to taunt Túrin with exactly the image most likely to enrage him? Why does Saeros fall into a chasm instead of escaping or tripping over? Why does one of Túrin's men decide to shoot at Mîm's sons? What causes Beleg's knife to slip? Why is it that Túrin meets with Níenor of all places at Haudh-en-Elleth? At times, the litany of evil coincidence comes very close to malign fate, just as Gisli's ill luck dooms him in spite of his accomplishments. To his great credit, Tolkien never gives us a straight answer to the central question: does Morgoth's curse destroy Húrin's family or do they destroy themselves? Typically the closest he comes to a conclusion on the subject is in Gwindor's comment on the nature of names: "The doom lies in yourself, not in your name". However, it is worth noting that whenever his opponents play into Morgoth's hands it is when their behaviour is most like his own.
Another interesting point is that despite his many failures, Túrin remains a hero. At several stages in the development of this story Tolkien foresaw a revenge for him at the last battle, and he is still one of "the mighty Elf-friends of old" to Elrond in
LR. Although by far the darkest of Tolkien's heroes, he never becomes as corrupt as does Fëanor; and ultimately he succeeds in his mother's ambition for him: he is never a slave.