Cursing In the Books

[Pitchwife]

Good question!

Who brings about the events laid out in a curse? Who decides what curses are just, and which are not?
Isildur, though he certainly was wronged by the Men of Dunharrow when they broke their oath to him, was a mortal Man. He had no power to hold the souls of the Oathbreakers to the earth after their lives ended. So who did it? Who is the judge of whose curse ought to be fulfilled, and whose should not?

As far as the Dead Men of Dunharrow are concerned, there was, for all we know, only One who could (at least temporarily) deny them the Gift of Ilúvatar. So we should probably read Isildur's curse as an appeal to Eru, and suppose that Eru, judging that the appeal was justified, decided to grant it by fulfilling the curse.
I wonder, however, what part, if any, guilty conscience on the side of the Oathbreakers themselves played in this. If they felt - as well they might - that they had deserved Isildur's curse by breaking their oath, they may not have felt free to move on as long as they had unfinished business in this world. Again, Eru probably agreed with their judgement of themselves, but what if He hadn't?

Mîm's curse, I think, is quite another matter. Implicit assent by the cursed person doesn't seem to have played any part in its fulfilment: even if Andróg felt any guilt about the slaying of Khîm, it's hard to conceive how this could have affected the manner of his own death. And as for intervention by Eru in this case, this is hard to reconcile with his portrayal in the Silmarillion as a remote deity who doesn't meddle with His creation except in special cases after a special appeal from the Valar. (Yes, I know, somebody's going to tell me that He pushed Gollum over the brink at Sammath Naur, and I concede that this reading is possible but would argue that it's not necessary.) So either Eru isn't quite as remote from His creation as we are led to believe, or there's something else at work here.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Well the basis for this reasoning is the "causal" reasoning of the ... (well, I originally wanted to write "pre-Christian", then I decided that from the overall perspective it won't be true so I wanted to write "ancient", and then I realised that some "enlightened modern" people operate under such thoughts even up to now, so whatever), where of course there is some basic supernatural chain of effects and the supernatural has as much power as the natural. It works on similar mechanics as let's say simple physics, with the only difference that it's not "seen".

Fundamentally, we could say that - however Tolkien denies it - there was something like "magic" in Middle-Earth working exactly in this sense. (I think "magic" is the best word for that anyway.)

There is also this famous quote from Thorin from the beginning of the Hobbit:

We still mean to get [our gold] back, and to bring our curses home to Smaug - if we can.

Although of course we can just speculate as to what did the author mean by this in particular.

Basically I think the thing is that it has to be "meant seriously", and also, it probably needs to have some "logical grounding". The first thing, in my opinion, would disqualify the quote presented by Inzil about Thorin, as there it was definitely spoken in affect and Thorin did not really sort of mean it. Or: he would probably say it differently had he not been in affect. Whereas many curses of course are spoken in affect - looking into old tales, that's actually when they are usually spoken - however I would think that at least in M-E, they might be disqualified if the person who spoke them would not say the some thing after it has calmed down. I.e. Mim would still want Andróg to die, but Thorin won't probably want his beard to wither (if nothing else then also for that it won't be a very effective punishment. If Thorin really hated Gandalf for what he did, he'd probably wish to Gandalf to get an apprentice who would prove as useless as Bilbo did to him, or something like that).

That's of course pure speculation on my part. But I am trying to find some logic in that. I am stemming also from the fact that we don't know to what extent these curses could be misused. I mean: if it was easy for any random Mordorian to say "may Gondorian crops die this year", it probably would add quite a complicated dimension to the overall struggle, wouldn't it? That makes me think that there is something to the thought of "just" curse, so that it's not there just for the sake of it, but it is somehow "in tune with the karmic balance", to use a term which I hope would make clear what I mean In other words: Mim died, so in fact, it was "fair" that his murderer was punished - so if somebody actually wanted to have him punished, it was more likely to happen. Similarly with Isildur. There is also this quite clear "eye for an eye" or "compensatory", we might say, character to the curses - Mim's curse is fulfilled when Andróg dies just like his son did, Oathbreakers are freed when they "compensate" for their cowardice. Of course, this compensatory mechanic seems really strictly mechanical - mere causal law, not much chance of avoiding it by simply being sorry for what you did. You have to compensate (e.g. Andróg - with his own life for Khim's life). I would dare to propose a daring statement, that had Andróg for example saved a life of another of Mim's sons, he would have been saved from the curse (eye for an eye, life for life, again this compensatory mechanic). Of course, the problem was that there were not many chances remaining to save some sons here.

[skip spence]

I think from an inside perspective to the story there's really no telling what the curses were all about. Except perhaps that they are connected to the Great Music - in the Elder Days more accessible than later on one might assume - and that characters in a moment of epiphany might get a clear vision of the (always so ironic) future through a glimpse into the Great Music. Such as when Glorfindel prophets the end of the Witch-King. This fore-seeing is mostly associated with Elves but one might assume that some mortals also have this latent ability to hear the Music so to speak.

But really, I think these curses and prophesies (that always come true) would be better understood from an outside perspective. After all, Tolkien's inspiration for these stories - the Nordic, Old English, Classic and I don't know what mythologies - are ripe with these kinds of things, and that they should pop up in his own books is understandable, no? I suppose they also help to give the books that flavour of Old Tradition Tolkien is looking for.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by skip spence

I think from an inside perspective to the story there's really no telling what the curses were all about. Except perhaps that they are connected to the Great Music - in the Elder Days more accessible than later on one might assume - and that characters in a moment of epiphany might get a clear vision of the (always so ironic) future through a glimpse into the Great Music. Such as when Glorfindel prophets the end of the Witch-King. This fore-seeing is mostly associated with Elves but one might assume that some mortals also have this latent ability to hear the Music so to speak.

Well while I agree with your interpretation of prophecies or something, I firmly stand against that you could say anything similar about curses. It's not that Mim would see how Andróg is going to end - the less to say that he was connected to the Music, come on! - and also there's the obvious cause-effect relationship, the similarity between what's been done (breaking of the oath, killing somebody with a bow) with what is going to happen/has to be done (fulfilling the oath, being killed and/or lacking a bow in need). And you certainly cannot explain the case of the Oathbreakers with any "moment of enlightement" from Isildur's part: because if it were so, it would mean (by how you put it) that the Oathbreakers would become cursed in any case, even if Isildur did not have this "prophetic moment". I fundamentally disagree with that: the way curses work - in all these old mythologies you mentioned - is that somebody makes a curse, and then it works. I think this is something which should not be even questioned. And so I don't see a reason why it should work in any different way in M-E.

(Otherwise, see above in my post.)

[skip spence]

I won't argue against your objections. It was only a far-fetched, flash of the moment, pot shot-theory to be honest. My main point was that there is no fully logical or even probable in-story explanation to these things. The curses work because that's the way it has to be. Tolkien wrote them in because it rocked his boat, because he though the theme fitting. But from an in-story perspective, Mim did not make a formal request to Eru's Ministry of Curses and Prophecies, who later deemed it appropriate, or knew the curse spell at level 3 or something. Mim just did what he did.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Yes, in that case of course yes. Indeed - well, I think the closest we can get to deciphering it from the "inside" is thinking that it's a "principle" which works there, for some reason, just as much as the laws of gravitation or whatnot. "Law of curses". () That's just "how it works". And observing it, we can come to figure out how it might, and if nothing else, how it cannot work (which can be equally valuable).

[skip spence]

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

Yes, in that case of course yes. Indeed - well, I think the closest we can get to deciphering it from the "inside" is thinking that it's a "principle" which works there, for some reason, just as much as the laws of gravitation or whatnot. "Law of curses". () That's just "how it works". And observing it, we can come to figure out how it might, and if nothing else, how it cannot work (which can be equally valuable).

Yeah, I suppose you're right and I get what you are saying. In addition to our natural laws, Arda has additional natural laws, or magical laws as you might say, and we can explain why they exist as little as we can explain why own own natural laws exist. They are there but we don't know why.

Or how about this for an in-book perspective: not all curses work, but spectacular ones that do come true make it into history-books such as the Red Book. As far as we know there might have been thousands of treacherous Petty-Dwarwes casting all kinds of nasty curses but with little or no effect. But you don't get a story with curses that don't come off. Even from an in-book perspective.

[Mnemosyne]

Somewhat tangential, but I think the fact that Tolkien never exactly specified what constituted a working curse and what didn't really helps with the essential ambiguity in his greatest Curse Epic--the Narn i Chin Hurin. Melkor's one of the characters you can make the strongest argument for "his curse works," especially if you ascribe to the "Morgoth's Ring" theory stating that Morgoth put his power into the world itself and thus had control over what it did to people.

But you never find out how much of what happens to Turin is because he is cursed, or because he's a jerk. And I think maybe to have Tolkien delineate what exactly makes a curse work might take away some of the mystery of that.

Not that we can't dig into it, though!