I think the
Silmarillion makes it more than clear that Fingolfin could see no way of defeating Morgoth from the position of the Noldor after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad.
Quote:
Then Fingolfin beheld (as it seemed to him) the utter ruin of the Noldor, and the defeat beyond redress of all their houses; and filled with wrath and despair he mounted upon Rochallor his great horse and rode forth alone, and none might restrain him.
Of the Ruin of Beleriand
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In my view, his is a failure akin to Denethor's, in that he trusts only in his own strength and that of the Elves, and seeing that broken he gives in to despair and goes to seek his own death.
Fingolfin has nothing to lose, at least in his own estimation. The ultimate hope for the defeat of Morgoth lies in the as-yet unborn Eärendil, so only faith that Morgoth would eventually fall would have sustained him, a faith that would have no clear path to that end in sight. He's blinded by rage and despair, and not thinking tactically, but no tactic could reverse the hopeless situation in which he finds himself. Then there's the possibility of victory. Fingolfin managed to inflict seven wounds on Morgoth: although he undoubtedly expected to die, he had a slim chance of bypassing his enemy's military victory by defeating him in single combat. I would never call him a fool for preferring one hopeless death-or-glory assault to a slow, creeping defeat; but inevitably he's judged by some in terms of the final outcome, known to them but not to the character. The word most commonly used by Tolkien to describe this sort of mood in his characters is
fey, in its (archaic and chiefly Scottish) sense of 'fated to die, doomed to death', and his characters are often at their most awe-inspiring when acting under it, liberated by complete certainty of failure from the fear of either defeat or death.
When showing characters acting in this way, Tolkien is at his least Christian, although his overall narrative usually places their actions in a wider context that shows their lack of faith to be the cause of their downfall. The great set pieces of Northern medieval literature are last stands: Gunnar at bay in his home against his killers in
Brennu Njals Saga; Byrhtwald and the bodyguard of Byrhtnoth on the battlefield at Maldon; even the ultimate fate of the gods at Ragnarök in
Voluspá, and Tolkien found much to admire in what is often called the 'northern heroic spirit': a philosophy of ultimate endurance in an undertaking beyond hope of success, relief or survival. Crucially this is a spirit that can only be diluted by the hope and faith that form such a key part of the Christian message, so that Tolkien is forced into a delicate balancing act between showing the certainty of defeat in the microcosm and demonstrating ultimate hope in his wider narrative. In any case, and returning to the point, I think that we are supposed to realise that Fingolfin cannot defeat Morgoth, but I also think that we are meant to admire him for preferring to face his enemy despite the near-certainty of failure rather than to hide and watch his cause gradually bleed to death.