Unfinished Tales - Part One - I - Of Tuor and His Coming to Gondolin

[Puddleglum]

Originally Posted by Aiwendil

Rather, I'd say that the grief of the Nirnaeth and the darkness of the days ahead was more than she deal with without him. Killing herself was definitely the wrong thing to do, but it's a failure for which I don't think we should judge her too harshly.

I wonder. The text only says that she went to the Hill of the Slain and died - not that she proactively killed herself. I've always read that along the line of your first statement that the grief was too great for her to endure. That she held herself together long enough to provide for Tuor's fostering and to travel to where her bones could rest with her husband's, and that was all her strength could manage.

An interesting contrast is the passing or Morwen. I think it is fair to say that Morwen had a different makeup from Rian. Morwen was more of a steel-nerved survivor who was centered on fighting and struggling against all comers for what she believed was right (or, at least, best for her family). And yet, even Morwen, reached the limit of her will to live at the end. When Hurin finally finds her and expresses that, even tho their children are dead, they are together again, Morwen can only say "I am spent, I shall go with the sun" - and she does.

To me that is eerily similar to what Rian was feeling (and may even have said to herself) as she laid her down on the Hill of the Slain to die.