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The Middle-Earth Prophecies - Page 4

© Michael Martinez

Melkor's compulsion of other wills may have been reduced to mere influence, as in the influence he appears to have exerted in the choices made by the children of Hurin. When Melkor imprisoned Hurin upon Thangorodrim, he said, "Yet I may come at you, and all your accursed house; and you shall be broken on my will, though you all were made of steel....Behold! The shadow of my thought shall lie upon [your children] wherever they go, and my hate shall pursue them to the ends of the world." Since Turin was fostered in Doriath under Melian's protection, it's unlikely Melkor could have had much influence upon Turin's life there. But Saeros, in his pride, opened himself up to evil. Melkor may only have needed to deduce that wherever Turin went, he would meet someone who had some taint of darkness upon him. In such a meeting, Turin's choice might be pre-influenced to distrust what was right. Such a small seed might fail to flower 100 times, but need reach fruition only once. That is, the tale of Hurin's children could be loaded down with many cases where they were tempted to choose poorly, but did not. In the end, only the choices which led them to the fate Melkor wished upon them comprised the key elements of the tale of Hurin's children. This is about as close as Tolkien comes to imposing anything like predestination upon his characters. And though Hurin revealed the general location of Gondolin to Melkor's spies, Melkor nonetheless had to rely upon deceit and seize upon circumstance in order to achieve his goal. He could not simply decree that Hurin would betray Turgon. Such a betrayal would have come sooner and with less intricate arrangements. Melkor's curse, like the curse of the Valar upon the rebellious Noldor, was therefore not prophecy, and certainly imposed no limitation upon free will. These were the actions of powerful beings, possessed of great knowledge and understanding, and capable of considerable insight into the motivations and probable choices of the creatures with whom they were dealing. True prophecy occurs in a few places, but it is overshadowed by foresight. If we can distinguish between, we must conclude that foresight only intuitively acknowledges that something may or will happen. For example, when the Company of the Ring are debating what course to take in Eregion, Aragorn warns Gandalf against choosing the path through Moria. Aragorn has no clear idea of why he feels compelled to warn Gandalf against such a path. And Gandalf certainly senses no such doom. But Aragorn's premonition proves to be accurate: they encounter the Balrog and Gandalf is lost to his companions.

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