Hurin and despair

[Lalaith]

Funnily enough, Morwen feels very real to me. I suppose that she is very like one of the saga heroines so she presses some cultural recognition buttons. And I really must defend her against comparisons to Morgoth!
She and Hurin clearly had a very good, close marriage. "Hurin, knowing her courage and her guarded tongue, often spoke with Morwen of the designs of the Elven kings, and of what might befall..."
Yes, she was a stern, cold woman, but I have a lot of sympathy for her - like I said earlier, hard times make hard people. She had grown up with great loss and hardship, her people, the house of Beor, had been near-destroyed. And while Rian gave up and died, Morwen stayed on to fight and protect her children as best she could. And the main reason she didn't go straight off to Doriath was that she was heavily pregnant with Nienor.
The part that always sticks in my mind as heartbreaking was when she is sending Turin off to Doriath- she says nothing, but 'clutched the doorpost so that her fingers were torn.' It was the last time she saw her child.