"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."
Okay I don't understand this at all. The essence of free will is freedom of choice, right? The fact that certain choices are wrong and will lead to disaster if made does nothing to negate that.
"They did not have the freedom to make the wrong choices without suffering the consequences of the curse."
Last time I looked none of us have the 'freedom' to make to make bad choices without suffering consequences - so why should the Hurin family?
But you're looking at this the wrong way around. If they made wrong and foolish choices the curse would make the consequences even worse than they would naturally have been *but* had they made the right choices the curse would have been negated - am I making any sense at all?
"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."
I wonder if maybe that's the point? The principle of self fulfilling prophecy might apply here.
"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."
Uh - I thought that was exactly what a tragic hero was; a Man who dispite his gifts brings disaster on himself and others through his own flaws of character as well as external agencies - at least that's what my English teacher said...
[ May 19, 2003: Message edited by: Morwen Tindomerel ]
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