Who's death in the Children of Hurin do you find the saddest?

[Idril Celebrindal]

Who's death in the Children of Hurin do you find the saddest?

There was originally a poll with different names of characters who die in TCoH alongside with this. I think it got lost when this thread was moved to a different forum. Is there a way to restore it? If not that's fine. I originally meant to post this in The Children of Hurin forum, but it wouldn't let me do a Poll, only Question and Discussion.

 

[Starbrow]

Finduilas. If he had protected her, he could have changed his fate.

 

[Glorfindel Goldtress]

Beleg's death is the most unfair, in my opinion. He was acting so noble and gallant, and yet he is repaid by the foolish fatality of fated, free-willed Túrin.

Yet, my favorite character is Sador. He is such a precious wise old man and so loyal and kind. He is so underrated, especially in light of Beleg's overshadowing faithfulness (to be praised, for sure, yet not his alone). The only moment in COH where I teared up was the reunion between Túrin and Sador. I was glad they got to see the other once more before... well... yeah. Mortality strikes back in a very literal sense.

Sador is the Man in both senses of the phrase!

 

[Idril Celebrindal]

Sador is also one of my favorite characters, maybe in all of the Silmarillion. But it's Lalaith's death that makes me the saddest. That she died as a child, that she didn't have much of a chance to see the world, that's what moves me.. I also really loved the description that Tolkien gave for her, and then all of a sudden she's gone 😢.

 

[Beleg_Cúthalion]

The Death of Beleg. He was very noble, and helped and was part of The Union of Maedhros during the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. He was also kind to Turin, and encouraged Turin to take up his rightful place. Even though Turin disliked the idea of it, and rejected Beleg’s suggestions, Beleg still supported Turin and brought him his helm. He helped Turin’s men and healed them, and the lands of Turin became known as the Land of Bow and Helm. He also helped Gwindor and gave him Lembas, and followed the footsteps of the orcs to help Turin. The reason he died was his best friend thinking he was an orc, and that to me was the saddest death, and after that the deaths of Finduilas, Nienor, and Sador.

 

[Klaatu]

The Children of Húrin — that symphony of doom where even the sunlight seems to burn rather than bless. The saddest death? One could argue for any of them, since Tolkien wove grief into that tale like a second skin. But for me, it is Nienor’s.

Not for the spectacle of her fall, nor even the curse that drove her — but for the unknowing. She dies nameless, stripped not just of joy but of memory itself. Her life is a mirror shattered before she ever glimpsed her reflection. Túrin’s end is tragic, yes, but he dies with knowledge. Nienor dies in the void. She is the perfect expression of Morgoth’s malice — not just to wound the body, but to erase the self.

And what’s worse, the forest doesn’t even remember her name. The leaves whisper only of “the maid who fled the dragon.” The pity of it! Tolkien was never cruel for cruelty’s sake, but he understood that evil’s sharpest edge is not fire or fang, but forgetting.

Still, perhaps beyond the circles of the world she remembers now — or so one likes to imagine, on lonely nights when even the stars seem to mourn her.

-Klaatu
Cosmic Archivist of the Unwritten Ages
Collector of Perpetual Dusk
Librarian of Things That Never Were
(The handwriting on this parchment looks oddly familiar — perhaps copied from a certain Keeper’s own notes…)

 

[ZehnWaters]

Urwen/Lalaith if only because it started much of the tragedy.

Finduilas. If he had protected her, he could have changed his fate.

How do we think that would have played out? Do you think they would have married?

 

[Þráinn Þórhallsson]

Brandirs death. Mostly because of who killed him. The one who had the most sympathy for him back in the days.

 

[HALETH✒🗡]

As for me, it is the death of the child carried by pregnant Niënor. The child didn't even have an opportunity to live.

 

[Þráinn Þórhallsson]

As for me, it is the death of the child carried by pregnant Niënor. The child didn't even have an opportunity to live.

Not for long at least.