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Originally Posted by Huinesoron
The combined effect you're talking about - Morgoth's curse + Glaurung's spell + Mim's spell + Hurin's curse (on Thingol) - certainly seems metaphysically potent. Is there precendent for a powerful force like this negating an opposing force?
- Finrod's grave is said to be protected, apparently by his redemptive sacrifice. On the other hand, Finduilas' and Morwen's graves are also protected, and they mostly just moped.
- Numenor's ships lost their protection after they began their slide into the Dark, but I always thought that was a decision of the Powers, not a spell breaking in their despite.
- Beren and Carcharoth both breached the Girdle itself - Beren because his Doom was stronger than Melian's power, and Carcharoth because of the Silmaril.
I don't feel like a simple "evil spell" explanation quite fits the setting of Middle-earth, but what does fit is the idea that the Girdle was opened specifically to Thingol's Doom. If Morgoth had launched an attack at the same time as the Dwarves, he would still have been kept out; but under the pressure of all those evil spells, Thingol had chosen his Doom. He didn't know that was what he was doing, but he chose to follow greed rather than honour. When the consequences of that choice came for him, even a Maia couldn't stop them.
Which makes me think the most direct parallel might be the death of the Witch-King. He too was under a spell of protection, and from the text of RotK it was broken by a combination of a special weapon ("No other blade... would have dealt that foe a wound so bitter"), and a Doom which the victim was aware of and knowingly chanced himself against ("not by the hand of man will he fall", indicating that he will fall somehow).
But that does run me directly into the question of Doom ("Thingol's fate was sealed") vs narrative imperative ("after Thingol fell so badly from grace he had to get his comeuppance") vs the demands of plot ("the Girdle had to break so the Silmaril could end up with Earendil"). They're very difficult to tell apart. 
hS |
Is Mim's spell still a thing at this late point?
But in general, I wasn't really talking about curses, whether Mim's, Glaurung's or even Morgoth's.
Hurin strikes me as a kind of harbinger of Doom at this point: as, if he knocks at your door and you let him in freely and give him food and shelter, your fate is sealed.
I don't really know why or how the mechanics of something like that would work in Tolkien's legendarium, but it has been my impression of his character (after his release from Angband) for years.