Several of you have mentioned Feanor, and his own pride and burning desire to never surrender, even in the face of certain death.
But what about his half-brother? Fingolfin, becoming so fed-up (for lack of a better term) with evil, and having lost most of his people in the Battle of Sudden Flame, an act that was unexpected and the opposite of chivalrous, decided to march (alone, mind you) straight to Angband to do single combat with Morgoth.
Fingolfin no doubt knew the odds that were stacked against him. He must have known that the Valar had all, at one point or another, fought Morgoth, and only just managed to hold him captive.
Any way you look at this, it is a suicidal mission. A single elf going against the most powerful creature in Arda.
And yet he went.
I don't think this is chivalry. I don't think this follows what some of you have said about the quest for glory, even though by that act Fingolfin won about as much honor as could be won. This was heroism, but it was also a sense of protection.
Fingolfin went, knowing he would most likely not come back alive. He went in the hope that somehow, he would save his people, who had already done so much for him by following him out of Valinor and into an uncertain fate.
I think the tale of Fingolfin is much better told in poetic for, as in
The Lays of Beleriand than in the paragraph form of the Sil.
This could be something right out of Beowulf:
Quote:
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...He was crushed, but not conquered yet...
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When Morgoth's foot came crashing down, Fingolfin knew he was going to die. But in a last attempt, he took up his sword and gave his foe a limp for the rest of his life on Middle-Earth.
It was this, and the seven scars that the elven-king left as well, that Morgoth would remember. Fingolfin had died, but there were more out there with the same courage, and Morgoth would remember that.
In conclusion, Fingolfin was full of
ofermod, and his actions had good effects, and did not harm anyone else but him.