Turin the Hopeless?

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Raynor

Up until this moment, the world as it was known was at the risk of total enslavement to an evil of mythological proportions, or even total annihilation. You might say the sword of Damocles was removed from the world; surely that ought to improve the overall quality of life.

Not sure Tolkien would've agreed with you on this one. More to the point, I'm not sure I can agree with you on this one: there are still enough nukes on the planet to obliterate all human life, what, 100 times over? Ecological destruction, climat change anyone? Tolkien never thought that there was any 'real' danger of a Sauron enslaving the world, but used Sauron to encapsulate what he saw as a very 'real' and human threat to the world. Those threats are still around and, if anything, even worse than when Tokien wrote LotR 60 years ago.

[Puddleglum]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

Not sure Tolkien would've agreed with you on this one. More to the point, I'm not sure I can agree with you on this one: there are still enough nukes on the planet to obliterate all human life...

I think here you are mistaking what Tolkien was addressing in LOTR. Tolkien did not believe (nor was he trying to say) that the "Good Ending" was only possible when all evils were finally removed for good and all. In that case, fairy stories (as he used the term) would be impossible.

Instead he wrote ("The Last Debate", Return of the King)

If the ring is destroyed, then Sauron will fall... and so a great evil will be removed.
Other evils may come... Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succor of those years wherein we are set,

uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.

What weather they will have is not ours to rule.

Tolkien's story was essentially about (from the view of) Hobbits. The "Good Ending" of Tolkien's story was that, as Frodo said, "I Tried to save the Shire and IT HAS BEEN SAVED."

There was sadness mingled in, but that adds richness to the good that was gained. It is human nature to appreciate more that which costs more. Tolkien understood this and folded it into his story - from one end to the other. It makes the story MORE meaningful and full, not less.

Recall what else Gandalf said at The Last Debate

If Sauron regains the ring, his victory will be so complete that none can forsee the end of it while this world lasts.

That was the danger - a Tyrant worse than Hitler, Stalin, Genghis, Atilla Nero, and all the others rolled into one - a Tyrant who not only has demonic power, but one with immortal life. One who would stiull be holding us under his boots even today.

Remembering that the story is from the vantage of the Hobbits, Tolkien sums up the GOOD ENDING in Frodo's words to Sam in this way ("Grey Havens")

You are my heir: all that I had and might have had I leave to you. You have Rose, and Elanor; and Frodo-lad will come, and Rosie-lass, and Merry, and Goldilocks, and Pippin... You will be Mayor as long as you want, and the most famous gardner in history;

You will read things out of the Red Book, and keep alive the memory of the age that is gone, so that people will remember the Great Danger and so love their beloved land all the more.

And that will keep you as busy and happy as anyone can be, as long as your part of the story goes on.

And with that sentence, Tolkien gives us HIS version of "and he lived happily ever after."

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Hey man, I'm not saying anything so daft as, "LotR doesn't have a happy ending" as it most palpably does. I'm just disputing the premise of the book review that begins this thread that "The Children of Hurin" is diametrically opposed to LotR along simplistic binary lines of "hoplessness" vs "hope" -- I just don't see LotR as ending "hopefully" in the sense that we are presented with a world that is now going to get better and better (which is, I think, the false sense of the book that the reviewer is working from) in opposition to CoH in which the reviewer sees a more 'realistic' view that the world will, at best, stay pretty much the same in terms of good and evil...which is what I see at the end of LotR. You are right, Sauron the super-baddie, the one who is as bad as all the worst human tyrants put together, he's gone. But soon, so too will Aragorn be gone (the epitome of all good humans), Galadriel, Elrond, Frodo, Bilbo, Gandalf are leaving too...so the superbad and the supergood are gone leaving just the bad and the good. The situation is the same, only diminished.

[Galadriel55]

LOTR didn't end good. It's not a waht you'd call a "happily ever after" story. I mean, I love the end, but the characters might not.
In Children of Hurin the ending is pure dramatic irony. It does fit the story very well, though. Turin's doom is anready planned out. The most interesting thing there is that everyone knows a little more about Turin than he knows about himself.