[The Saucepan Man]

Turin violated a fundamental principle of warfare in that he fought in the way that his enemy desired him to fight, and he did so knowingly. I personally believe that he did this because he let his "chivalry" and his pride get in the way of military principle and practicality.

Kuruharan, I agree that Turin’s strategy was, viewed with the benefit of hindsight, the wrong one. But I think that he chose to pursue it for very understandable and logical reasons. The logic in his strategy which I cannot fault is that which Aiwendil quoted in an earlier post:

... victory is victory, however small, nor is its worth only in what follow from it. But it is expedient also; for if you do nothing to halt him, all Beleriand will fall beneath his shadow before many years are passed, and then one by one he will smoke you out of your earths. And what then? A pitiable remnant will fly south and west, to cower on the shores of the Sea, caught between Morgoth and Ossë. Better then to win a time of glory, though it be shortlived; for the end will be no worse.

Remember that Morgoth’s force that entered the realm of Nargothrond was “greater far … than any scouts had told”. I am sure that Turin felt that he could halt the advance of Morgoth’s army, at least temporarily, while inflicting heavy losses on it. In that, he was mistaken, but only as a result of inaccurate information. Moreover, while Turin did recognise that, ultimately, resistance would be futile, he also recognised that the same result would come about, albeit in the longer term, if nothing was done to halt Morgoth’s advance save to harry his forces through “guerilla warfare” tactics. In those circumstances, it seems to me that his decision to face Morgoth’s forces head on was a fair and reasonable one.

The decisions and choices were *always* in the hands of Hurin, Morwen and their Children. They were not foredoomed to make the wrong decisions the chose to do so through lack of thought and self-mastery.

Surely, Morwen, if they were required to make the right decisions in order to escape the curse of Morgoth, then that in itself is a restriction on their free will. They did not have the freedom to make the wrong choices without suffering the consequences of the curse.

But I do think that there is more to the curse than that. If it only came into effect in the event that they made the wrong choices, then it becomes virtually meaningless, since anyone can bring about their own misfortune without any need for a curse by consistently choosing the wrong course of action. In those circumstances, the tale would become, for me, less of a tragedy and more a straight catalogue of errors, and I would not see Turin as a tragic hero at all, but simply someone who brought all his troubles upon himself.