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choices may freely be made in response to individual situations, but circumstances will ultimately conspire against the subject so as to seal his or her fate.
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Free will is a Christian concept. The pagan North European believed in "luck" or fortune: gaefa in old Norse. Translate it as luck, fate or fortune, it is a complicated concept, and packs far more of a moral punch than the word "luck" does in our modern world picture. A man of luck - gaefumadr - does things and they work out for him. He is a man you want on your side. Meanwhile, a man of ill luck constantly causes rows and upsets wherever he goes and whatever he does, and eventually his 'ogaefa' (ill luck) becomes so overwhelming that astute and sensitive people can pick him out as what he is, even in a crowd. To me, poor Turin was very much an 'ogaefumadr', a man of ill luck. That's what I meant when I said that the Narn felt more pagan than other works of Tolkien. By bringing the curse of Morgoth into it, I wonder if Tolkien wasn't bringing a clearer moral lens to the puzzle of pagan 'gaefa.'