The Curse of Seeing All

"'You shall see and you shall confess that I do not lie,' said Morgoth. And taking Hurin back to Angband he set him in a chair of stone upon a high place of Thangorodrim, from which he could see afar the land of Hithlum in the west and the lands of Beleriand in the south. There he was bound by the power of Morgoth; and Morgoth standing beside him cursed him again and set his power upon him, so that he could not move from that place, nor die, until Morgoth should release him.
'Sit now there,' said Morgoth, 'and look out upon the lands where evil and despair shall come upon those whom you have delivered to me. For you have dared to mock me, and have questioned the power of Melkor, Master of the fates of Arda. Therefore with my eyes you shall see, and with my ears you shall hear, and nothing shall be hidden from you.'" (Tolkien, J.R.R. The Children of Hurin. p. 65)

One of the lesser known stories of J.R.R. Tolkien is set in the First Age of Middle Earth (The Lord of the Rings, to give context, is in the Third Age). The work The Children of Hurin is technically put together by his son Christopher Tolkien, although the story was his in fragments that he never quite put together. We encounter in this narrative an evil greater than the Dark Lord Sauron of The Lord of the Rings; a helpful way of thinking about it would be to say that Sauron is like a demon in Judeo-Christian mythology and Morgoth, the Dark Lord of the First Age, is comparable to Satan.

This quote occurs at the end of a fateful battle poignantly named "The Battle of Unnumbered Tears" when a great hero of men, Hurin, is captured by Morgoth. Morgoth attempts to convince Hurin to worship him, but Hurin refuses, knowing that Morgoth betrayed and tried to enslave his ancestors in the past. Hurin mocks Morgoth instead of worshipping him, building up the Dark Lord's wrath. This mortal Hurin must be punished for his impudence.

But the punishment of choice was not death, nor was it physical torture. Morgoth didn't maim him or starve him to death or transform him into an orc (as he did elves in ages past). The torment of choice was eyes to see the whole world and ears to hear all that is to be heard. Rather than killing Hurin, Morgoth cursed him with immortality and omniscience.

What the torture came from, though, I think, is his combined impotence. He could do nothing about what was happening in the world. He simply had to sit and watch. What the book The Children of Hurin becomes after this exchange is an account of Hurin's children and the tragic course of their lives. I think Morgoth's ultimate torment for Hurin was watching his children slowly fall to a tragic end.

I got to thinking: what would it be like to be cursed like that? I quickly dismissed the idea that knowing all that happens and living forever would be great; after all, what is the use of eternal life if you can't do anything? And sometimes knowledge can be only a burden. When we face darkness and despair that we can't do anything about, knowing about that evil only torments us. It is very difficult for the human being to know, to really know and understand and watch it play out, evil and to simultaneously know that he or she cannot do anything about it. In such cases, it would be better for the person not to know what is going on.

On a more practical level, what does Morgoth's torment of Hurin show us? How can it affect the way we live? I think what it emphasizes is that sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing when evil and injustice reign is torture to ourselves, whether we realize it or not. If we see evil and do nothing, then we not only allow it to happen, but we allow ourselves to experience the ultimate form of torture that the Dark Lord could devise. And in that case, it is self-inflicted.

I'm not talking about those instances when we really, really can't do anything about a situation (although trusting in God could be something effective that could be done). I think most of us regularly face evil that we can fight but choose not to. We wrongfully believe that we are small and insignificant or, like Hurin, stuck to a chair unable to do anything. But the fact is, we are not cursed to an all-seeing chair; we are alive and in the middle of the great web of choices that is life. Unlike Hurin, we can choose to act, and that is really what we need to do, from a human standpoint. The human spirit is only content when it is in motion, when it is actively seeking the better (because this life will never be perfect, the closest thing to happiness we can reach is a state of perpetual motion toward unattainable perfection). In fact, I would argue that we are better not knowing all the factors and still acting than with knowing all the factors and being unable to act. We need to make a choice, even if it ends of being the wrong one, because not making a choice is the ultimate form of torment.

I think that we have a choice (as we are not held captive in Angband): we can choose to be stuck like Hurin (seeing without doing; living without being alive) or we can choose to do the opposite (to truly live). I hope that I can foster the kind of courage to act on what I see, not just sit in my chair and watch some more. Vision is important, but more important than the scale of one's vision is the degree to which one acts on his or her vision. These are the lessons of Hurin and his torment.