Turin Turambar & Aragorn Elessar: Mirror Images & Opposites - Lord of the Rings VS Silmarillion Who's Hero is Greater?
In the Lord of the Rings, there’s an important point in the chapter that depicts Elrond’s Council, one where Turin Turambar is mentioned. Frodo is mentioned as being an Elf-Friend of equal value to him and a few others.
Now while many would not exactly qualify Turin as the greatest of friends to have given his particular history.
For those unfamiliar with it, Turin was the son of Hurin who lived in the First Age, he was a man who was raised for a time by Elu Thingol, the King of Doriath. Turin at the end of his fosterage was to cause the death of one of Thingol’s councillors, then fearing judgement he fled to the wilds, where he became a bandit for a time, until Beleg Strongbow came along to fix him up, and reprimand him and guide him back to righteousness.
After this Turin took to preying only upon Morgoth’s forces, took refuge with the petty-Dwarf Mim, who later betrayed him. Turin was thus captured by Orcs, was rescued by Beleg but as the Elf’s sword nicked him, he grew afraid in the darkness wrestled the sword free and slaughtered his friend.
After this he fled to Nargothrond, where he served Orodreth father of Gil-Galad, really, really badly with his advice leading to the destruction of Nargothrond, wherefore he failed to save Orodreth’s beloved daughter, fled into the wilderness and in time ended up meeting a woman with amnesia who was really his sister, married her and then later ended up killing his draconic tormentor Glaurung.
After Glaurung revealed to his sister-wife the truth she threw herself off a cliff, and Turin was to in the end commit suicide. Honestly his story is probably the most depressing of all the stories in the whole of the Legendarium.
And yet, there are some striking similarities to the adventures of another great hero, one whom fans of the movies and fans of the Lord of the Rings novel will know and recognize immediately; Aragorn.
Aragorn like Turin was raised in an Elvish court, in his case it is his ancestral-uncle of sorts Elrond who raises him as a foster-son. So that Aragorn’s father figure is Elrond. Elrond like Thingol evidently comes to love his charge a great deal and does not wish him any harm.
Rivendell and Doriath are both protected realms that evil dares not enter, and are probably the safest places in the whole of the world for our heroes. The chief difference being that Aragorn embraces that protection, mostly for the sake of the Hobbits he has come to love in the short time he has travelled with them.
Turin and Aragorn both left the protection of their father figures at an early age, and took to a life of hardship and fighting, as rangers of sorts. Both were to experience extreme loneliness, darkness and sorrows during their time in the wilds. Both men being capable of incredible melancholies as shown in their respective tales.
Though there is a difference; Turin was at his core an insecure figure, while Aragorn was always firmly confident of his place as King, and never doubted that. He knew he had to become King and in this he did not hesitate, it was only when his Hobbit friends were in danger that he hesitated and hemmed and hawed.
Both men were to face rescue of a sorts by an Elf hero of some renown; Beleg and Glorfindel respectively. In the case of Aragorn though Glorfindel thankfully lived to tell the tale.
Both men in their tales took refuge then with the Elves, with the main difference being that Aragorn’s counsel was much more level headed and more well-thought out than the terrible idiotic advice of Turin son of Hurin who had advised engaging Morgoth’s forces in open combat rather than in Fabian tactics that had proven so successful hitherto then.
Both men go on to do battle in a battle which sees a King perish, in the case of Turin it is Orodreth, in the case of Aragorn it is Theoden.
And this is where the story splits off; Aragorn gathers his men and what forces he can and makes for the gates to Mordor, meets the Mouth of Sauron reprimands him and sends him scampering back to his Master.
Turin on the other hand faces defeat and humiliation, and would even in victory over Glaurung face defeat on a spiritual level and collapse onto his own sword.
Both men lived in the shadow of another hero, who was a relative of theirs; Aragorn lives in the shadow of Isildur, and Turin that of Beren and also Hurin. The difference is that where Turin was overcome by this and the shadows within, Aragorn embraced it and sought to redeem the name of his amazing heroic ancestor.
And this gets at the heart of the difference between the two of them; Turin is a man predisposed towards suspicion of others, and a certain melancholy that doesn’t allow for him to embrace others, while Aragorn is the opposite. He loves the company of other men and enjoys friendship and treasures it above all other things. He’s not cold by nature like Turin is, he’s warm and genial.
Personality wise Aragorn as has been pointed out before is much more like Conan, than Turin. Like Conan he succeeds by virtue of his heroism, his goodness and his chivalry, while also relying on his innate cunning and the friendship of others. Turin is destined for failure because he only relies on himself and cuts himself off from others.
So this gets at the heart of why Aragorn is ultimately greater; he doesn’t let defeats, mistakes and distractions stop him, or slow him down. He has the drive to keep on pressing forward, to obstinately never accept defeat all while relying on the talents of others and on the opinions and counsel of others.
He succeeds and is the greater hero because he is bold when he must be, and wise and patient when he also must be. He surpasses Turin quite easily as the greater hero, which is a bit of a shame. As Turin had enormous potential as a hero, he could well have been the greatest with a little more sense, a little more patience, a little more willingness to heed the counsel of others, and a little more emotional fortitude he could have come out of things a wiser, greater man than he had been previously.
But he always chose the worst path presented before him, because he lacked faith in others and in some ways he lacked it in himself also.
Excellent work. Last year I read the Children of Hurin for the first time (whilst listening to Christopher Lee's amazing audiobook and when I finished I realized. "Holy shit, that was depressing as hell." It truly is the most depressing story and anytime Martin (And I like his books) says some derogatory comment on Tolkien I think, one: Tolkien finished his magnum opus and two: he wrote one of the most tragic stories I read, so shut up Martin and quit procrastinating.
Sorry for the rant. Peace
One does have to note that Aragorn was not laboring under a curse of Sauron's.