Fantasy Morality

[Mnemosyne]

I don't buy the idea that Turin's "fate" is external to him at all: as many things go wrong that are the result of his own actions (the sack of Nargothrond, which is a direct result of Turin's more open style of confrontation) as the result of the curse acting through chance (Beleg's knife slipping as he cuts Turin's bonds). The same goes for the rebellious Noldor: it is not the Doom of Mandos which made the Silmarils burn Maedhros and Maglor, but the evil of their own deeds in getting them.

Indeed, part of the beauty of CoH is that you simply don't know how much of the horrible things that happen are due to the curse, and how much of them are due to Turin himself. If you say it's all one or all the other, the work loses its nuance and subtlety. I don't think that the morality in Silm-era works is necessarily incompatible with that in LotR: the only difference between the two eras is the extent to which the gods got involved in others' affairs.