The power of a curse

[Anglorfin]

I think the nature of a curse in Tolkien's world can easily be confused with prophecy, or foresight or whatever. There are people (excluding Valar) who obviously have great foresight whether from general wisdom or something more divine. Gandalf, Galadriel, Aragorn's mother, Elrond; are a few that come to mind.

Also, a few curses can be explained without taking into consideration a divine presence or outside influence. In other words, coincidential dialogue and foreshadowing. Minus the whole Morgoth cursing Hurin thing, there is also the case where Eol tells Maeglin that he will die in the same way he does. And it happens. Nothing really special had to happen there.

As for the Valar, besides having an almost unlimited amount of prophetic wisdom, I would assume that their "magical" type curses/blessings would be very potent. But I do think that the invocation of any curse by the Valar (other than Melkor) was a rarity, if there ever was such a case. I think, because of their "no direct interference" policy, there was very little that they did to aid someone according to their own wishes. So I do not think the words of Mandos after the Kinslaying was a curse at all.

I do think tho that if the Valar are petitioned then they will and can use their power to bind an oath or grant a blessing/curse/protection, but often enough most beings in Middle Earth have either huge reverence or fear of the Valar, so I think that the Valar don't have to lift a finger as often as it might seem. Such is the case when Frodo cries for Varda in Shelob's lair. Just the words seemed to frighten Shelob away.


Anyway to sum most of this up I think there are few instances where a curse was applied. Even in the case of the Valar and Morgoth a lot of it was either "non-magical" or circumstantial. That isn't to say that all of it is non-magical, but a good portion is. After reading all the previous posts, I like the whole moral authority thing because I think it fits well to explain the rest of the curses/blessings that can't be just prophecy or coincidence. Moral authoirty would be recognized by the Valar, and would be the only time a Vala would intervene on a divine type of level.


Forgive me if I just restated a lot of stuff, but it's late (early??) and writing a lot may have given me the illusion that I had something important to say somewhere. Owell, sry if it's all redundant.

[Valandil]

*bump* (especially for those involved in LOTR Discussion Project)