Hurin and despair

[Findegil]

originaly Posted by davem:

Just to go back to Hurin's defiance of Morgoth. Are we really saying that Morgoth, with techniques of torture & brain washing, & Magic REALLY couldn't have gotten any information out of Hurin he wanted?

There is no question at all that Húrin could do that and that Morgoth did know he could. The fea of any individual was in its will unbrakeable it could be dominated by fear especialy when incarnated in a body by the fear of bodily damage and could be deluded. But both ways were not effectiv with Húrin. All that information can be found in Ósanwe-kenta.
But of course your argument is not void. Morgoth delighted in the play with Húrin otherwise he would have killed him yust on the spot, because the chance of geting information form Húrin was very small even when it turned out that Húrin in the end did give Morgoth all the info he had about the location of Gondolin.

originaly posted by Guinevere:

Almost all of those things that Tolkien wrote (in "letters") are relating to the LotR.

That's not to be wondered about. JRR Tolkien published in his lifetime (only considering books that deal with Middle-Earth) The Hobbit; The Lord of the Rings; The Adventures of Tom Bombadil and The Road goes ever on (oh! I nearly had forgotten the reading of The Fall of Gondolin that he made once for a aditory).
All the rest of his lifelong writtings on the matters of Middle-Earth are posthum publications. So it is clear that nearly noboddy could ask him any questions about the Narn î chin Húrin and the other storys in the First and Second Age. And thus we can not expact him to give answeres to unasked questions his letters.

Respectfully
Findegil