Chapter 15, "Of the Noldor in Beleriand."

[Fat middle]

Originally posted by Attalus
Finally, and seemingly randomly, the Chapter ends with an odd little pair of paragraphs, detailing the visit of Galadriel to Nargothond to attend a feast of all of the family of Finarfin. Finrod has no wife, she notes, after the immemorial manner of sisters. Why? He replies, "An oath I too shall swear, and must be free to fulfill it, and go into darkness. Nor shall anything of my realm remain that a son should inherit." [...] It was then noted that "Not since that hour had such cold thoughts ruled him,"

Sorry for coming back to this point, but I've just read the thread. While reading this, I recalled these two LOTR passagges:

All of them, it seemed, had fared alike: each had felt that he was offered a choice between a shadow full of fear that lay ahead, and something that he greatly desired: clear before his mind it lay, and to get it he had only to turn aside from the road and leave the Quest and the war against Sauron to others.

and

`Boromir, O Boromir!' he cried. `What did she say to you, the Lady that dies not? What did she see? What woke in your heart then? Why went you ever to Laurelindórenan, and came not by your own road, upon the horses of Rohan riding home in the morning?'

I found it curious that in both cases, Galadriel's presence brings to her partner a capacity for foreseeing. And in both cases the foreseeing is about the Doom of oneself.

So, following the parallel, we could suppose that, as in the case of the members of the Fellowship, Finrod too saw two possible roads behind him and he need of choosing. The shadowy road we already know, but what coud be Finrod's "something that he greatly desired"? I don't know, and that makes me think that we know very little of Finrod's heart.