Curses!

[Anguirel]

Originally Posted by Formendacil

Obviously, the Curse of the Valar was a great deal more far-reaching, seeing as it covered an entire race- and those so foolish or unlucky as to get caught in it with them, most notably the Sindar under Thingol.

On the other hand, the Doom of the Valar does not have as disasterous individual actions as that of Morgoth's Curse. In the case of the latter, Morgoth is able to dominate the lives of Turin and his kin to such an extent that NOTHING they do is successful for more than a very short while, and it is all manipulated to evil. The Doom of the Noldor, on the other hand, seems to have less immediate effects. For instance, the Noldor are successful in their first several battles with Morgoth, and have the Watchful Peace, several hundred years in which to build remarkable, and memorable, kingdoms.

This makes me wonder: was the delayed effect of the Doom of Mandos compared to the immediate destructiveness of the Curse of Morgoth a sign of weakness, or overstretching over an entire race lessening its immediacy? Or-rather more interestingly-was it intended as part of the punishment of the Noldor, to allow them long years of success and glory, which would haunt them for ever after the hammer-blow came; and yet hearten them enough not to lose hope entirely?

In other words, did the Valar intend that the glory of the elder days, and the founding of the great Elven cities and realms, should occur; in order to teach the Noldor humility, and yet give them in their memories a gift of proud nostalgia which would let them continue to resist Morgoth and Sauron? An odd gift-punishment; "what might have been" etched in their minds, to encourage them and taunt them and ultimately lead them home over the Sea.

On the other hand, Morgoth's Curse was built to destroy, and did so. So each, it seems to me, served their purpose...

[Celuien]

I'd have to say that Morgoth's curse is the weakest of all.

What's she talking about? Morgoth destroyed all of Hurin's children quite successfully.

It did. Nienor and Turin both came to tragic ends, and through Morgoth. But, the ultimate cause for the worst of the curse's effects came through direct intervention from Morgoth via Glaurung. I don't see the curse working alone here, but rather the curse + Morgoth plotting to personally bring about the most crucial steps in the process that led to their downfall.

For example, let's say that Jack and Jill are feuding neighbors. Jill puts a curse on Jack for some reason (I don't want to give Jill any special powers for the purpose of this discussion). Suddenly, things start to go badly for Jack. His car doesn't start, his formerly lush green lawn dies and his dog runs away. He finally falls behind on his mortgage, loses his job and house and winds up homeless. Jill's curse seems effective, yes? But suppose the reason all of these horrible things happened to poor Jack was that Jill snuck over to his house at night, poisoned the lawn, loosened the belts in his car and opened the doggie gate. And what's more, let's say she has very good friends at both Jack’s place of employment, where the friend undermined Jack’s job performance, and at his bank where the receipt of Jack's house payments was delayed and his late notices transferred to the trash bin. Is this still a curse working, or is it Jill's malevolent attention?

In the same way, I don't see Morgoth's curse working as well as it did without Glaurung appearing to be the direct machinery involved in Turin abandoning Finduilas and in Nienor's memory loss. If Morgoth sent him to accomplish these tasks, I don't want to assign them to the independent workings of a curse. And it does appear that Morgoth was directing Glaurung's actions:

...Glaurung laughed once more, for he had accomplished the errand of his Master.

True, Turin would still have had bad luck and killed off his allies through mischance, which I see as the curse itself at work, but that would have led only to Turin's being an unhappy man with both heroism and tragic, accidental misdeeds in his background - not to his and Nienor's destruction.

The Valar's curse on the Noldor, on the other hand, worked against them without Mandos and company appearing in Middle-earth to direct the course of events. If anything, various Valar (cough...Ulmo...cough) tried to aid the Noldor.

[Rimbaud]

I've read this, just over a month late. Something clicked on the matter of curses and I remembered this , where in addition to some further brief discussion of other curses mentioned, Undé provided a brace of further links.

[Voralphion]

Morgoth's curse on the children of Hurin was effective without the action of Glaurang. I believe the curse was at least partly at work with Turin fleeing from Doriath after the accidental slaying of Saeros, the killing of his friend Beleg Strongbow when he was freeing Turin from the orcs that had captured him. Had none of these things happened, Turin would probably have never gone to Nargothrond, where his actions led to it being discovered by Morgoth and Glaurang and its ultimate destruction, and the events that followed later involving Nienor.

[Formendacil]

Originally Posted by Voralphion

Morgoth's curse on the children of Hurin was effective without the action of Glaurang. I believe the curse was at least partly at work with Turin fleeing from Doriath after the accidental slaying of Saeros, the killing of his friend Beleg Strongbow when he was freeing Turin from the orcs that had captured him. Had none of these things happened, Turin would probably have never gone to Nargothrond, where his actions led to it being discovered by Morgoth and Glaurang and its ultimate destruction, and the events that followed later involving Nienor.

Actually, that's an interesting thought to ponder: what WOULD have happened without Glaurung- assuming, of course, that Finduilas DIDN'T break Morgoth's curse on him (and although it is suggested that she would have, it is not said so definitively). In that case, Turin's curse would certainly have remained effective, if not so dramatically so as it was in the end. One wonders where it would have taken him... Nargothrond would have fallen in the end, once Morgoth learned of it. What then?

Would Turin have returned to Doriath, and wreaked havoc there, preceeding his father? Would he have gone with the refugees to join Cirdan and Gil-galad, and wrecked THAT settlement (which would really have screwed things up- more than he ended up doing). Would he have gone to Dor-Lomin anyway, and messed up Tuor's life, thus precipitating Gondolin's fall?

Hmm... now that I think about it, the chances for Turin to wreck things was pretty wide open...