The Second Prophecy of
Mandos was abandoned.
"Here ends The Valaquenta. If it has passed from the high and the beautiful to sadness and ruin, that was of old the fate of Arda Marred; and if any change shall come and the Marring be amended, Manwe and Varda may know; but they have not revealed it, and it is not declared in the dooms of Mandos." JRRT,
Morgoth's Ring
"The Second Prophecy of Mandos (V. 333) had now therefore definitively disappeared. This passage was used to form a conclusion to the published Silmarillion (p. 255)." Christopher
Tolkien
And the
Quenta Silmarillion Dagor Dagorath becomes a
Mannish Myth (see below).
Túrin is no longer named among the gods (1930), no longer given a place among the "sons of the
Valar" (1937) and is seemingly coming back to slay
Ancalagon rather than Morgoth (according to Andreth's prophecy anyway), and during the
War of Wrath. Author's Note 7 to Athrabeth
Finrod Ah Andreth (in Morgoth's Ring) reinforces that the Second Prophecy is out, and the
events it describes become part of a Mannish Myth.
"It is noteworthy that the Elves had no myths or legends dealing with the end of the world. The myth that appears at the end of the Silmarillion is of Númenórean origin*; it is clearly made by Men, though Men acquainted with Elvish tradition." JRRT
*note 19
"... in so far as this reference is to any actual written text, this is the conclusion of QS (V. 333,... ) the Prophecy of Mandos." CJRT
Will Túrin be part of a Mannish Myth that deals with the End of Days? Who can say for certain, what we do know is that in the latest version of Túrin coming back from the dead, again it's according to a Mannish
prophecy which does not concern the end of the world, and where it is said he will return at the Last Battle at the end of the Elder Days
and before he leaves the Circles of the World forever will deal Ancalagon his death-stroke.
Interpret that as you like with respect to the Dagor Dagorath, but let's imagine that Túrin still has a role in an End of Days battle, according to
Mannish Myth.
To my mind, we don't know in what state Túrin will be after returning from the dead. I would argue that the
Numenoreans don't know either, but as
Alcuin notes, it could be imagined that, returning from the dead, he is much greater than his former mortal state . . . or, in my opinion one could look at it this way: it arguably doesn't matter to the Numenoreans.
Why? Because if a
Mannish Myth arises in which
Melkor will be defeated, then the idea is arguably self-fulfilling: if Melkor must lose, Túrin must win, and thus a
Man avenges the machinations of Morgoth.
In other words, it doesn't matter how strong (or great in battle) Túrin might be when he returns from the dead, what matters to the myth-makers is that Túrin was a mighty warrior when he was alive, and considering the tale of
The Children of Húrin, it's fitting that he should have a part in killing Morgoth.
Or in other, other words: why would a mannish myth arise in which Melkor defeats Túrin?
That might be an
Orkish myth, rather.
Túrin will win because the myth "needs" him to win, but I don't see this as a measure of his strength or battle prowess compared to
Fingolfin or anyone else. If it was an Elvish myth (
"It is noteworthy that the Elves had no myths or legends dealing with the end of the world" aside for a moment), perhaps it would be Fingolfin who slays Morgoth in some End of the World encounter.
Mandos' second prophecy supports that
Turin both killed ancalagon in the war of wrath and also killed melkor in dagor dagorath.
source;
middle-earth.xenite.org (I viewed the text with the cache and copied and pasted it.)
J.R.R. Tolkien did not write the published
Silmarillion, which was his son Christopher’s dedicated attempt to publish something that resembled his father’s work but which was reasonably complete and sensible. Nonetheless, in the Foreword to the book Christopher warned readers not to look for consistency between that book and
The Lord of the Rings or even within
The Silmarillion itself. In the 12-volume
History of Middle-earth series he explained in meticulous detail what the sources for the published book were and why he made the choices he made.
As for the Second Prophecy of Mandos, many people wrongly believe that J.R.R. Tolkien “finished” it in the 1930s; in fact, Christopher published a much later version of the prophecy in
The Peoples of Middle-earth, the twelfth volume of the
History series, in which he explained the passage’s long and complex history.
The prophecy originated as part of Tolkien’s pseudo-pagan “Mythology for England”,
The Book of Lost Tales, which he never completed or published. The English mythology and many related elements “fell away” from the
Legendarium as J.R.R. Tolkien reshaped his themes and characters into the original “Silmarillion” mythology (which spawned a number of sub-mythologies that were ultimately brought back together in what I usually refer to as “the [published] Middle-earth mythology” as represented by
The Hobbit and
The Lord of the Rings).
Through the numerous changes to the stories and characters Turin lost his divine future — instead of being reborn as a
god (much like Hercules was in Greek mythology after he burned himself on a pyre) Turin was simply to return for a brief time at the end of the
First Age to help defeat Morgoth before dying a final death.
In other words, Tolkien decided that Turin and
Beren would experience special fates among Men without being changed from Men into something else. In the original stories (from
The Book of Lost Tales) Beren was an
elf. So both Beren and Turin were to be given special reprieves from death, but neither would be allowed to remain among living Men or to continue to participate in the affairs of mortal men.
Only
Eärendil, Elwing, and their sons were eventually given the special grace of shedding their mortality and joining a different
race (the Elves).
Elros chose to remain a mortal man and became the first King of
Numenor. Eärendil and Elwing were forbidden to return to Middle-earth after they were admitted to the ranks of elven-kind, but
Elrond elected to stay there for many thousands of years. His children (Elladan and Elrohir and
Arwen) were given the same choice as their father, contingent upon making that choice when he finally left Middle-earth. We only learn Arwen’s choice (to become mortal like
Luthien).
Tolkien did not fully abandon the idea of having some of his characters change
races, but he isolated the transition to a single family line within the descendants of Luthien; hence, I think Turin had to become mortal because he did not share in that bloodline and could not surpass it. Even
Tuor (the uncle cousin of Turin) is not clearly shown to have been made immortal (and in one passage Tuor apparently remained mortal in J.R.R. Tolkien’s final conception).
These conflicting traditions regarding the fates of important characters in the cycles are proof that J.R.R. Tolkien really did not have a firm idea of how to finish up his First Age legends. He clearly set himself the task of “cleaning” up many of the ideas originally held over from the mythology for England. But somewhere in the process he began to feel that his mythology was completely unsustainable — that its apparent contradictions about what science has learned about Earth’s history could not be easily explained away.
The Elves, students of the Valar and
Maiar, should have had a much clearer understanding of the nature and age of Earth and the universe. The
Dunedain, students of both Maiar and Eldar, should also have had a much better understanding of the “facts” of the natural world, but Tolkien tried to frame an argument for the Dunedain — who apostatized in their rebellion — to have become the source of corrupted legends and memories. And yet this tradition fails to work under close scrutiny because the rebellious Dunedain not only eschewed the
Elvish languages and traditions, they were succeeded by
the Faithful Numenoreans as the arbiters of Elvish history among men.
Hence, Turin’s story becomes too complex and contradictory to reliably include the second prophecy of Mandos in
The Silmarillion, at least as Christopher tries to explain its history. Some people have suggested that given the amount of editorial intrusion Christopher exercised (including writing “The Ruin of
Doriath” for
The Silmarillion) that he could have justified including Turin’s return at the end of the First Age.
But to restore Turin and the Second Prophecy of Mandos would have diminished the story of Eärendil, which was already greatly impacted by a lack of detail for the War of Wrath. The two great tasks of the war were the overthrow of Morgoth and the defeat of the winged
dragons. Without a clear outline for the War of Wrath Christopher Tolkien struggled to produce a coherent ending for the story; and he apparently felt that so much editorial decision-making had occurred by this point that a quick exit rather than further fabrication would be more faithful to his father’s memory.
Ultimately,
The Silmarillion fades out in what amounts to sanctioned fan fiction. Christopher had an understanding with his father that, should J.R.R. Tolkien die before completing the work,
The Silmarillion would become Christopher’s responsibility. He had, in my opinion, two reasonably clear choices: to try to preserve as much of his father’s work as possible or to produce a posthumous collaboration. He seems to have striven to walk a middle path, but his effort was so confusing he felt compelled to publish the twelve volumes of
The History of Middle-earth to explain what happened and why he made the choices he made.
Christopher does chastise himself in a few
places, and eventually concedes in
The War of the Jewels that he probably could have achieved a much more faithful adaption of his father’s work with far less editorial intrusion; but he makes that concession with the benefit of hindsight produced by many years’ research and analysis.
