What do you fight for?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

Today, with the starting of this thread, I am celebrating my 5555th post anniversary.

First, congratulations

Second; very interesting thread. I don't have much time to post right now, but I would definitely like to amend it in the future. For the time being, let me just add two short comments (ha, ha. Who ever heard that *I* wrote short comments... see? It begins), first on what you wrote about Beren-

I always thought that Beren’s role in the main story is a bit overcredited. Luthien gets the disguises, Luthien disposes of Carcharoth, Luthien tricks Morgoth and casts all of his court into a sleep, and Beren cuts the Silmaril. When looked on from the POV of the rationale behind the fight, the main fight here is in the daring – that certainly deserves whatever praise it got. Overall, too, Beren’s deeds are not so spectacular, and only his daring can be praised.

I definitely agree about this. To tell the truth, Beren just happened to be "in the right place at the right time" to fight against the great Evil, but his "big deed" wasn't really so special. If I wanted to be provocative, I could say "had Beren's oath involved instead stealing an earring from the leader of a group of highwayman, he wouldn't get such a praise for his big heroic deed". On top of that, it is indeed Lúthien who does most of the work necessary to pass all the dangers on the road and get inside Angband. It is a wonderful credit to her love for Beren, which is probably one of the main points of the story, but as for Beren's heroism, one has to give her more credit for the actual deeds (that's not to say that Beren didn't show similar dedication and also bravery by taking the quest).

In conclusion, I do not consider the Quest for the Silmaril to be a fight against Morgoth, and, disregarding that, I think Beren gets too much credit. What he does deserve the credit for is his bravery (but ohhh the lack of actions to match it!) and for his deeds before Doriath, which also happen to be a fight against Morgoth.

And yes. It is obvious that Beren's tale omits the "minor skirmishes in the woods" stuff, which was THE fight against evil ("morally", or how should I say it), but his quest was purely personal. In fact, from the material we have, Barahir should be the one praised more than Beren: here we have a heroic story of a heroic fighter against evil, complete with heroic ending with terrible betrayal.

I think especially the "old legends" suffer a lot from the "looks like 'the good guy in the story', but he is not, he is just a hero"-type syndrome. Another example I just have to point out (mostly just in relation in your point #1) is Túrin. Compared to Beren, his good deeds come to similar kind of stuff - being a guerilla fighter against Morgoth. But in fact, maybe he is even more of a good guy than Beren (even though in general I dislike Túrin, but he has quite a few noteworthy moments). Such as, he is the one who "tames" the originally wild group of random raiders into real fighters of good (AND the first thing he does is not only making them kill Orcs, but first to stop stealing women from local villages, which is another, subtler, but nonetheless important form of "fight against evil"!). Otherwise, Túrin also has the "luck" (in his case, totally) of being thrown into the midst of events where he has to fight back, or die. So it is not really his choice. But I think if we compare the material we have about Túrin and the material we have about Beren, in this respect, I would say Túrin leads. (But of course, he has more "bad reputation points" to compensate for other things, such as killing Mim and Brandir and all that, but that's another angle of view, and I am not going to start an elaboration on that now.)

PS: finally I spend an anniversary post on something long and meaningful! Hurray!

And once again congratulations