[Thingol]

It seems that as men, elves, hobbits, dwarves, etc... get closer to death they become more powerful. The characters just seem to get a boost of energy when they are in hopeless situations. Take Fingolofin when he rides out to challenege Melkor for example; he is compared to Orome. Maybe it is just the fact that he is really angry, and the anger sets his spirit in motion, not his closeness to death. But when reading the fight between Shelob and Sam and it says that Sam sees his death in Shelobs eyes. He reaches for the phial and his spirit blazes forth. Its tough to describe, its just that when Tolkien's characters are faced with death they become more grim and powerful. Tolkien uses the word fey several times when describing Eomer during the battle of Pellanor Fields. Subsequently he does not recieve a single wound. Again perhaps this is more because of anger than closeness to death. When Glorfindel fights the Balrog he is desperate and I'm sure Ecthellion felt the same way. They both probably knew they were going to die. I'm not doing a very good job of explaining it, but when reading the passages where characters fight a desperate battle it seems that they gain a boost of power. I've always attributed this boost of power to the characters getting closer to death.