gurguliare:

Ah, my unfathomably bitchy Finrod opinions. Always nice to be reminded that I have those, not that I could ever truly forget. Uhh. It surprises me when people stress the like, self-sacrificial aspect of his Relations With Humans, because while of course that does literally describe his death + other interactions with Beren, everything about how his oath manifests seems super tied up in his own pride, grief, and frustration—some of the grief is for the House of Bëor, but even that is very… “avenge the dead” almost as much as “materially help the living.” I find the song battle and subsequent dungeon dialogue super affecting in part because it seems like just the very beginning of some important realizations about who it is he’s sitting next to and where, if anywhere, his duty lies; his breathless “our paths are sundered so I should legit say goodbye now” last words are such a contrast to his position in the Athrabeth, it’s the first awkward glimmering of spontaneous, non-affected, wholly personal fear, so to me his death reads less as like a completion or fulfillment of his arc and more a prerequisite to earning offscreen resolution. Which is why I also love “walks with his father under the trees of Eldamar,” sadly.

“Thus did he redeem his oath,” so, only after he killed the wolf did he redeem his oath, right? Kind of on a technicality. The other stuff before didn’t qualify at all!