Silmarillion - Chapter 21 - Of Túrin Turambar

[Pitchwife]

Originally Posted by G55

But I think the biggest "if" of all is, "if Turin could understand his own heart and the hearts of others..."

This! (I wish I could rep you for your first two posts on this thread - that's a lot of great insights there, but this is the best.)

Originally Posted by G55

He said himself that he casts a shadow wherever he goes, but, sadly, his solution is not to distance himself from others to avoid helping Morgoth, but rather to assume a fake identity.

I'm actually not sure distancing himself from others would have been a solution - I rather think he distanced himself from others too much for his own good (not spatially but emotionally). I've always found that verse in the Lay of the Children of Húrin that speaks of "the sundering sorrow that seared his youth" very touching, and in a way it sums up his whole character for me.

We see in the Narn that as a child he was capable of caring for others (as in his relationship with Sador), and of course he loved his family, especially his sister Lalaith. But then he lost first her, then his father, and finally his mother when she sent him to Doriath, and it seems to me that he never recovered from this series of traumatic losses - like he was hurt so much that he never let anybody get as close to him again for fear of losing them too and being hurt again. He didn't even remember Nellas when Beleg mentioned her to him a few years later (a remarkable case of amnesia that has been discussed in its own thread). He was friends with Beleg and later Gwindor, and he seems to have loved Finduilas in a way, but his adult relationships with others never went so far that he would have let them question him or tried to look at himself through their eyes. His family (or rather his idealized memories of them) always mattered more to him than anybody else, and it may not be that much of an exaggeration to say they were the only people who really mattered to him - as seen in his decision to go searching for Morwen and Nienor instead of trying to save Finduilas, as Gwindor had bidden him.