Is The Children of Hurin better than the Lord of the Rings?

[NogrodtheGreat]

Originally Posted by TheLostPilgrim

I honestly feel like while LOTR is justifiably lauded, most of the stories in The Silmarillion could eat it for breakfast if they had been turned into full length conventional narratives.

This is an interesting question - I think due to its comparatively shorter length, and its 'editorialized' publication, it hasn't received quite as much attention as it should. I like to think of the Children of Hurin as a nascent masterpiece - there are parts of the novel that are briefer than others, (for example the Outlaws chapters vs the Nargothrond chapters) but in general the story benefits from the terse nature of the writing.

Do I think it is 'better' than the LoTR? I certainly think it is completely different, and (for me at least) evokes not only completely different emotions, but it almost evokes a different kind of world - this isn't one where a kindly Gandalf figure encourages out protagonists to have faith in some higher power.

It's funny, on my last reading of tLoTR, the intimations of higher power and 'providential' guidance actually irritated me, and although I still enjoy reading LoTR, The Children of Hurin offers something new and different - a kind of catharsis and poignancy with relation to human suffering missing from the LoTR.

So I suppose it comes down to taste. But whatever your opinion, I think CoH deserves to be regarded as a central element in Tolkien's canon, and hopefully in time a more nuanced picture of Tolkien's creativity will be developed which also takes into account the less rosy picture of human suffering developed in the Silmarillion, and the Children of Hurin especially.

[Galadriel55]

I like COH, probably better than LOTR, because it's a tragedy. A full-on tragedy. I like those. Mind you, I'm also quite happy with the bittersweet LOTR ending, but it's just not the same. The story just washes away gradually. But COH is so intense in terms of its mood and emotions that it's like igneous rock to LOTR's sedimentary.

I would not say the same for all of The Sil's stories, but The Sil overall also has this quality. Individually, though, I think none of its stories beat COH in this respect.

[Inziladun]

To me, LOTR is the better of the stories.

I had read Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion long before CoH was released, so I saw (and still consider) CoH to be mainly an amalgam of stories in the two earlier books. Maybe for that reason, CoH didn't impress me in a major way. That's not to say it's a bad book, it just didn't really add to anything in Túrin's tale as I already perceived it.

LOTR is a much more sweeping tale, and I like the "all or nothing" motif: that the Ring must somehow be destroyed for the West to survive.

By contrast, CoH is more the story of a private vendetta that admittedly has a major place in the First Age history, but lacks the high stakes tension of LOTR.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

If it comes to my preferences, I would basically second what Inzil said. I don't care so much for the "high stakes", but having already read everything in the Sil and mainly UT, I was not particularly swept with the tale. It has nice things, nice interesting moments or characters (I really like the part with Forweg, Andróg and co., as well as Mim), but that is still rather episodic stuff.

LotR has, also (by definition) much more characters, therefore many more more interesting characters, and therefore also more characters you can relate to. I can't seriously relate to anyone in CoH, or: I can't relate to Túrin (seriously, I am not Paul Sartre), and all the other characters are quite minor (e.g. Sador I can "like", but I can't relate to him. The closest somebody gets to being "liked" by me is probably Aerin). And even though I have a strong dislike for the main protagonists of all stories just because they are main protagonists, Frodo actually is a person one can relate to, or sympathise with. And of course the others, much more.

LotR I like exactly because it has, apart from being a masterful tale, so many elements, so many points which actually very realistically and spot-on reflect some deeper levels of inter-human relationship or existence in our world, but at the same time inspire our ways of perceiving the world in a different way. I am not going to start here on the big themes like hope or mercy, but that is essential. Also there are so many small sub-stories with similar effects, the tale of Saruman with the pride and fall, the despair of Denethor, and so on. In CoH, I find only the despair and the brave struggle against fate, which is nice and in many ways realistic, but LotR offers very similar picture in, for instance, the tale of the Rohirrim who ride to their death - or so they think, or on the grimmer note in the case of Denethor, who gives up - they all have slightly different approach than Túrin, but the theme is there; and then also, the view is limiting. Túrin's story exactly lacks the hope. I know in many ways it gives it a different perspective, but personally, I prefer the story which offers hope - and not in some "cheap" way where everyone lives happily ever after, but exactly in the very realistic sense that there is always loss, and Saruman might still afflict the Shire, but that there is hope. Which is far more inspiring and uplifting than anything else.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

I had read Unfinished Tales and The Silmarillion long before CoH was released, so I saw (and still consider) CoH to be mainly an amalgam of stories in the two earlier books. Maybe for that reason, CoH didn't impress me in a major way. That's not to say it's a bad book, it just didn't really add to anything in Túrin's tale as I already perceived it.

That's interesting. I've read COH before UT, and the Narn in UT had a similar effect on me as COH did on you.

Originally Posted by Legate of Amon Lanc

LotR has, also (by definition) much more characters, therefore many more more interesting characters, and therefore also more characters you can relate to. I can't seriously relate to anyone in CoH, or: I can't relate to Túrin (seriously, I am not Paul Sartre), and all the other characters are quite minor (e.g. Sador I can "like", but I can't relate to him.

I have to admit I don't really understand what the word "relate" means, not only here but in a more general way too. Is it that you don't think you'd have done the same or felt the same? Or that you don't understand the character? Don't like the character? I think that you don't have to feel close to the character to understand him and like him, even though you might disagree with him. I like Turin, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start acting like him. I was going to lead this to something else, but I lost my thought, so I'll just stop rambling...

[NogrodtheGreat]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I have to admit I don't really understand what the word "relate" means, not only here but in a more general way too. Is it that you don't think you'd have done the same or felt the same? Or that you don't understand the character? Don't like the character? I think that you don't have to feel close to the character to understand him and like him, even though you might disagree with him. I like Turin, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start acting like him. I was going to lead this to something else, but I lost my thought, so I'll just stop rambling...

This is a great point. I think the notion of 'relating' to characters tries to express a whole gamut of feelings in one concept. On the one hand there is a sense of whether or not a reader engages with the character - whether or not the character is interesting. There is also the question of how alike to the reader the character is. The more alike, the more easy it is to see oneself in the same situation. Then there is the question of whether or not a particular character exhibits likable character traits. Could we imagine having a beer with this character? I think that's what a lot of people mean when they say "relate".

There's another dimension too - a moral dimension. I think plenty of people would say that they "relate" to Frodo or Sam partly because they embody the kinds of ethical lives that we'd like to live. Not only them, but also Gandalf, Faramir, etc. They are all characters who respond to the presence of the dominating One Ring "correctly" within the moral frame of the story - that is, they either do not inhibit or actively work toward its destruction.

A character like Turin, on the other had, does not embody our sense of moral worthiness. Like the characters in Game of Thrones he exhibits impatience, petulance, annoyance, apathy and faithlessness. He is quick to anger, violent and at turns careless or self-righteous and self-pitying. He is therefore less easy to "relate" to - he grates against our moral intuitions.

At the same time, I've read elsewhere that for some readers, he is easier to relate to precisely because he exhibits these natural psychological tendencies more readily than Frodo or Sam do, who remains steadfast in their quest until it is completed (perhaps, psychologically, an unrealistic expectation for any person). Perhaps, therefore, a sense of psychological "realism" makes Turin more human and therefore more "like us".

Anyway, I am rambling, but the complexities of reader response are I would say related to the complexities of human psychology. When we say we relate or say we fail to relate to characters we are responding to a complex set of variables - likableness, moral expectations, wish fulfillment, our own moral codes, etc.

[jallanite]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I have to admit I don't really understand what the word "relate" means, not only here but in a more general way too.

I agree.

I once mentioned Tolkien in a post on a Doctor Who forum and my correspondent remarked that he found no character in Tolkien remotely believable. I didn’t follow up on this, but Pippin, for example, reminds me of several people I have known in real life, in all cases a person who is somewhat younger than those he hung around with and who tended to play the clown, probably in part because he realized that he was going to be seen as somewhat funny, and so he might as well play to that perception and was able to do it. Merry, on the contrary, is very responsible and helpful, another type that I recognize in reality.

By the way, though you are somewhat younger than most on this site, you don’t remind me of Pippin at all. You are instead awesomely intelligent and knowledgeable.

I agree with Blantyr that the Silmarillion heroes are all pastiches of traditional heroes. That may explain why I like them in a different way than I do Frodo or Aragorn because they derive from a different sort of hero to be appreciated in a different way. And that kind of hero may be appreciated in original tales, not through pastiches.

I recall as a child disliking that the ends of heroic Greek legends were usually tragic with the heroes and heroines turning into base villains: Bellerophon, Jason, Theseus, and others, these conclusions usually not told in the endings of the tales as adapted for children. But as I discovered these endings I got used to them and began to appreciate them.

As to whether The Children of Húrin, for example, is better than The Lord of the Rings, I think not, but I do not believe that I have any right to make such a judgement other than for myself, alone, for this time only (I might change my mind).

See http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/The_C...%BArin_reviews for reviews, more of them favorable than otherwise.

One’s taste may change depending on mood, and even a review which seems inane may provide insight, or not.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I have to admit I don't really understand what the word "relate" means, not only here but in a more general way too. Is it that you don't think you'd have done the same or felt the same? Or that you don't understand the character? Don't like the character? I think that you don't have to feel close to the character to understand him and like him, even though you might disagree with him. I like Turin, but that doesn't mean I'm going to start acting like him. I was going to lead this to something else, but I lost my thought, so I'll just stop rambling...

I would basically say that what I imagine under "relate" is more or less a summary of what NogrodtheGreat had said (seriously, I almost wrote "Nogrod" as abbreviation, that wouldn't work. NTG? NG?).

There are several levels on which I can approach characters I "like/relate to" in fictional works. I can "like" many characters in the way that I find them, let's say, "cool". In my case, for example, to use a simple example, Sauron (especially his First-Age appearance, when he is not just "phantom menace"). Very intriguing character, but obviously, I would totally disagree with his worldview (which, from the little we know about him, would seem to be concentrated on utter power-hungry egoism). They can be also characters I simply like because they are wearing cool clothes or they are Elves or whatnot. That's actually the case of most films and similar media, because the plots can't usually (by definition, if the film has two hours, unless it's a psychological drama focused wholly on a single character) explore the characters so much that it would give you more grounds for "liking" characters, certainly not to the point which I'd call "relate".

Then there are characters I "like" and I can relate to their inner conflicts, which is sort of the thing that NTG mentioned about the Game of Thrones characters. I often like these characters the most of all. There is for example Saruman (who certainly used to be THE top LotR character for me for a long time) or for comparison, Cersei in GoT. I can relate to their weaker sides and feel empathy with them in their dilemmas, I also pity them and see the moments or things that led them the downward spiral they ended up in, the opportunities wasted (Saruman's repeated chances of redemption so close, but always refused), and so on. I feel empathy with the moments where they felt "rightfully" neglected (Cersei not being appreciated enough simply because she was a woman and being basically "sold" to a random man; with Saruman, it is actually mostly his own fault because of his own pride, e.g. feeling jealous of Gandalf and therefore instead of offering his best to cooperate, becoming focused on his own ego and demands), but I do not applaud their actions or consider them good role models or such, and there are many things they do which are outright disgusting (torture, making of Uruk-hai, warmongering).

And then there are characters who can serve as role-models in some way, because they embody something that I feel awfully lacking in real world and they express those things in the form of a story, which makes it more accessible and adaptable for a human reader or listener. Mercy. Courage to stand against the odds. Selflessness, even sometimes up to the point of practically ending dead in some Mordor. They do not need to fulfil the criteria of the first two - I don't, for instance, find Frodo "cool", because he doesn't have the Black Arrow nor is he a guy who created a new race of Orcs, but the "coolness" is after all a superficial thing (I like the Uruk-hai, but if I think about it on a deeper level, what is there about them to like?). But I can find in Frodo the qualities I appreciate and he can be sort of a "role model", especially since even in LotR, no matter how epic it is, the heroes are not superhumans (mostly) and the good does not win in shiny armour, because that's not realistic, but through doubts, even despair, and that is realistic.

Nonetheless the tale is not depressing even though the doubts and despair are present, because ultimately the good wins, even though much is lost. But that does not happen in Túrin's tale, and that's why I don't like it as much. (Similarly, but that's of course personal, I don't find Túrin neither cool, neither likeable enough, and most certainly not "relateable", because he is, as the Isengarders like to say, a fool. He is not a "proper" hero because he is arrogant and basically ruins everything he touches. The part I love, however, is when he's with the outlaws - especially in the beginning, that is the most "human" part of him and where I can even relate, because he serves as the "voice of reason" among the band of, effectively, bandits. But then he follows more the Saruman and Cersei-path: he starts walking the downward spiral, even though it isn't his own fault but he is forced by the circumstances. One could however imagine a person could have acted differently, less hot-headedly, for instance.)