#like hope is hubristic if you're cursed by the gods! Unless it's Finrod's kind of hope

[galadhremmin]

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad being named after Mandos’ curse -- ‘tears unnumbered ye shall shed’ -- reads like this is when the Noldor finally give up and realise they cannot defeat it. It is an acknowledgement of the vanity of the hope that caused them to fight, a final defeat by the Doom. Fingon had his moment of hubris; he assumed being shown mercy once meant there was reason for him to hope in general. He was sadly mistaken. The Doom always wins.

But the fact that he tried at all says a lot; it shows either misplaced confidence in the Valar making an exception for him again or being convinced by Maedhros’ Feanorian ‘fighting against Fate’ idea. Neither make him look particularly deserving of intervention to the Valar, I suppose. His father’s body, at least, was saved, if not his life. Fingon is trampled into the mire. 

But then Fingolfin was not fighting Morgoth with the hope to win, or any idea that he could; it’s a suicidal charge, full of rage but utterly devoid of hope. 

His nephews had just died, the Feanorians have been driven back and so, 

“Now news came to Hithlum that Dorthonion was lost and the sons of Finarfin overthrown, and that the sons of Feanor were driven from their lands. 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.”

I suppose it is Fingolfin’s lack of hope, the loss of the attitude that drove him onwards over the Ice-- that is rewarded in death.

And then, of course, his body is brought to Turgon, not to Fingon. I’m very tempted to interpret this as a show of preference by the Valar; the Eagles might be independent creatures but they are certainly Manwe’s birds. It is to Turgon’s tolerated little Valinor imitation he is brought, a mountain city almost as isolated as Valinor itself had been, and founded through obedience to one of them.

Not to Fingon, who had only just lost his father and was trying to claim the High Kingship (none too succesfully, it seems; Finrod names Finarfin High King immediately after Fingolfin’s death, and the Nirnaeth is remembered as fought by the Union of Maedhros).

Anyway, this leads me to wonder; why wasn’t the body bought to Fingon? It could have strengthened his claim to High Kingship by imparting some sort gesture of approval by the Valar. Fingolfin himself had succesfully contested Feanor’s Kingship at least in part through claiming his being appointed rulership by the Valar in Tirion still held.

Instead Thorondor brings tidings to both Gondolin and Hithlum, but leaves the body on the mountain near Gondolin.

Turgon gets his warnings, which he ignores; for the Nirnaeth Fingon receives none at all. 

Perhaps it was his renewed ‘ancient friendship’ with Maedhros that had drawn him too close to the Feanorians, who after all were the most heavily affected by Namo’s Curse of all; “On the House of Feanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East, and upon all that will follow them it shall be laid also.”

Either way Fingon gets no warning, no rescue; not even his body is saved. No eagle comes for him this time, and they trod into the mire of his blood.