Google| Subject | Hurin, Beren or other - Who is the thoughest man in Tolkien's works? |
| From | Mallron |
| Date | 01/21/2002 11:50 (01/21/2002 11:50) |
| Message-ID | <a2grs2$2jee$1@news2.ipartners.pl> |
| Client | |
| Newsgroups | alt.fan.tolkien |
| Followups | Milton (4h & 30m) Conrad Dunkerson (4h & 46m) > Mallron Boris Badenov (10h & 41m) paulh (15h & 26m) > Mallron The American (1d, 8h & 55m) |
I have recently started to wonder - who was the toughest man in Tolkien works. I don't mean the breavest, strongest, wisest - but toughest. Toughest in the matter of the strong spirit. A spirt (character) so strong that it can put that man amongst the higher beings - perhaps even Maiar or Valar spirits?
One of the characters I have thought off immediately was Beren. Not the Beren who volunteers for a 'certain-death' mission. Not the Beren who fights and walks ME the way his fortunes guide him. This wouldn't be tough enough. We can learn of the toughness of Beren's spirit when he dies. His stays in the Halls of Mandos even though men were supposed to live this world after death. He doesn't leave waiting for Luthien - that is certainly a proof of strong and tough spirit. We don't know this explicitly, but perhaps he refuses to leave against the will of Mandos himself thus withstanding the power of a Vala whose rulings where final even for Manwe and Melkor. Perhaps his spirit is even stronger - as Beren is changing (or at least postponing) the will of Iluvatar himself - after all it was Iluvatar who gave Men the gift of death to free them for the bonds of this world. This I agree is somewhat speculative - but perhaps not thoroughly unfounded.
But was Beren the only one to stand against a Vala? We don't even know for sure if he did do that against the will of Mandos, but we do know of another human who was withstanding the power of a Vala. And that would be my choice of the toughest man in ME - Hurin. For 29 years he was facing Morgoth who was set to break his spirit. Here we do explicitly know that Melkor's intention was to break Hurin's spirit, break his will - and Melkor failed! 29 years of spiritual torture and Hurin walked off - perhaps shaken but not broken. He eventually couldn't live any longer when he learnt the fate of his family - but the strength of his spirit was already proven (perhaps when his family was gone he felt no bond with this world anymore and thus decided to leave).
So - is it Hurin? Or have I missed anyone?
M.
Conrad Dunkerson (4h & 46m) > Mallron
Boris Badenov (10h & 41m)
paulh (15h & 26m) > Mallron
The American (1d, 8h & 55m)
01/21/2002
