"But of Men in that day the prophecy speaks not, save of Turin only, and him it names among the Gods" (Shaping of Middle-Earth). This line is a bit ambiguous. It could mean that Turin is simply said to be fighting alongside the Gods, but it also can mean that Turin is listed as one of the Gods. This second seems less likely, but it is actually supported very strongly in the immediate precursor to this text, the Tale of Turambar and the Foaloke in BoLT 2: "Yet now the prayers of Urin and Mavwin [Hurin and Morwen] came even to Manwë, and the Gods had mercy on their unhappy fate, so that thoses twain Túrin and Nienori enterd into Fôs’ Almir, the bath of flame, even as Urwendi [Arien] and her maidens had done in ages past before the first rising of the Sun, and so were all their sorrows and stains washed away, and they dwelt as shining Valar among the blessed ones, and now the love of that brother and sister is very fair; but Turambar indeed shall stand beside Fionwë in the Great wrack, and Melko and his drakes shall curse the sword of Mormakil."
In other words, here it is explicit that Turin is a God, and not just a man named among the Gods, in the coming of the End.
Of course, in the end, this doesn't matter. The role of Turin in the Dagor Dagorath seems to have disappeared from Tolkien's writings slowly. In the early 1950s, in the Annals of Aman, there is still a reference connecting Menelmacar, Turin, and the Dagor Dagorath, but a few years later Tolkien wrote the note which ends the published Quenta SIlmarillion, which illustrates that the Second Prophecy of Mandos has essentially disappeared.
[ November 07, 2003: Message edited by: Westerly Wizard ]
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"He was sent by a mere prudent plan of the angelic Valar or governors; but Authority had taken up this plan and enlarged it, at the moment of its failure."
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