Reading "The Children of Húrin: Chapters 16-18"
As the novel comes to a close, both Túrin and Niënor have to confront the terrible realities of their true relationships to one another, with tragedy for all involved.
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At last we’ve come to the end of The Children of Húrin. It has certainly been a wild, and somewhat depressing, trip through this underappreciated gem of Tolkien’s bibliography. While it can make for bleak reading at times, there’s also a stark and grim beauty to this book that I think sets it apart from much of the rest of his work. Sometimes, there just isn’t much to hope for, and thus The Children of Húrin is one of those books that really does seem to speak to our present moment.
As the novel reaches its conclusion, Túrin finally manages to destroy the horrible dragon Glaurung. However, in doing so he ultimately brings out his own doom for his sister, still in her haze, comes and binds his hand as he is in a stupor, only for Glaurung to lift the veil from her mind. Realizing the horrible thing she’s done, Niënor throws herself into the river. When he awakens, Túrin causes yet more damage and death before throwing himself on his own blade. In a further twist of the knife, Húrin reunites with his wife, Morwen, at the site of his son’s tomb, only for her to die in his arms.
It’s really quite heartbreaking to read of Niënor’s breaking revelation, as Glaurung’s malice manages to claim one final victim. This is one of those moments that is truly straight out of Greek tragedy, with a bolt of lightning that destroys everything and everyone it touches. One can just imagine this poor young woman’s horror as she grapples, in an instant, with the fact that she has not only married her brother but is also pregnant with his child. Small wonder that she ends up throwing herself into the river and drowning rather than confronting a bleak future. After all, what else is there for someone who has been violated so grievously? No less than her brother, her own fate and her own life has been taken out of her hands. Despairing as it might seem, her decision to take her own life is her last act of reclamation, though it ends in her own oblivion.
It’s also hard not to feel sorry for Brandir, who has repeatedly found his wisdom and his very leadership undermined by Túrin, the man he brought into his home and who has done nothing but supplant him. Indeed, the son of Húrin is a right dick to his host right up until the moment that he kills him in a rage. The fact that he is so unwilling to give Brandir the benefit of the doubt–and then cuts him down in cold blood–is an ironic counterpoint to his love and caring for the lame Sador. Not only has Brandir been ignored and shunned by his own people; he’s ultimately betrayed by the very man that he gave a haven.
And how are we to view Túrin, now that all is said and done? On the one hand, he’s clearly a tragic hero, in the sense that he does try to fight against the great enemy of Morgoth, the monstrous force that tries to destroy and blight everything in Middle-earth. At the same time, there’s also no question that this hero has wrought so much damage, and taken so many lives, that we can’t help but also see him as a villain in his own right. Certainly, some of these killings were done when he wasn’t in his right mind but others, such as Brandir, are undertaken in cold blood. Because of his pride and his overweening sense of his own rightness, he has inflicted terrible damage on anyone who has been foolish enough to offer him a kind hand, let alone shelter.
At the same time, it’s not nearly that simple. It all comes back to Morgoth and his desire to punish Húrin for being willing to stand up to him. What chance did our hero have, when it comes down to it? How could one Man, no matter how mighty he was, no matter how skilled he was with his enchanted blade, ever hope to beat something so powerful and so hellbent on destroying him and his entire family? This may not be quite enough to make us like him, let alone approve of the many unjust actions that he takes during the course of the novel, but it does at least allow us to feel some measure of sympathy for him and to understand how it is that he could come to such a bad end. Like his sister, he ultimately sees nothing for himself but the oblivion of death, leaving behind a shattered legacy.
As much as Túrin displays some elements of villainy, it’s still Glaurung who is very much the primary antagonist of this book, for all that Morgoth continues to loom in the background as a motivating genius of sorts. It takes a pretty horrible creature to enact this last little bit of petty revenge even as he hovers on the brink of death. Of all of the servants of Morgoth that we meet in Tolkiens’ various writings, Glaurung is certainly one of the most terrible and the most insidious, capable of wreaking tremendous destruction simply by preying on the insecurities and weakness of humans.
All of which brings us to the postscript, in which Húrin comes to the place where his children are buried, only to come face-to-face with Morwen. It’s tragically fitting that they should meet over the tomb of their son, a mound of earth that bears witness to their reunion and Morwen’s subsequent death. Just as there is really no future in which the children of Húrin can ever grow into maturity or have a peaceful and functional life, so there is also no real hope that Morwen could ever hope to regain what’s been lost. Even her body bears the marks of her time wandering in the wilderness. Like her husband and her children, she has been reduced to the abject and, through her death, Morgoth’s revenge against his human victim is complete.
I think it’s safe to say that this is one of the darkest and most pessimistic things that Tolkien ever wrote. There is almost no hope to be found in these pages, for by the end all of our main characters are dead, except for Húrin, whose life is nothing but a ruin. This is a story all about the ways in which people, for all that they try to do the right things–or, at the very least, to fight back against oppression and darkness–often find that they are unable to fundamentally change the fallen world in which they live. Perhaps it’s because we’re currently living in a world in which a tyrant is solidifying power each and every day–and inflicting his terrible vision on all of those who have the misfortune to be living under his rule–but for some reason this book hits harder than I did when I first read it a decade ago. There are indeed days when it’s hard not to feel as if nothing we do matters, that the tide of evil and darkness will only continue to grow, turning all of our efforts to dust and sorrow.
At the same time, there is a larger truth, one that may not be optimistic but nevertheless shows us just how abjectly horrible Morgoth was as a being. This was a creature who wasn’t just content to rule all of Middle-earth and the people in it. He had to make sure that he brought absolute ruin to anyone who dared to raise a hand against him. It’s hard to imagine even Sauron going to such remarkable lengths to inflict pain and torment on those who have fallen into his clutches. It’s no wonder that, in the end, there was no hope of redemption for him and that, when it finally came down to it, he was banished into oblivion.
It’s a fitting reminder that justice may be delayed, but it will ultimately triumph.