onehandedly:

There is an interesting parallelism that can be drawn between Finrod’s and Galadriel’s ends: both of their lives in Middle Earth end with them realising they are not what they tell themselves they are.

Galadriel is prideful and sees herself as utterly blameless, she flat out states that she will not go back as a repentant exile when her house has no apologies to make, despite the fact that she too went against the Valar’s wishes. It takes her the temptation of the ring near the end of the Third Age to face her flaws fully and be able to realise she does crave power and she would be destructive should she grasp for it. Only then she can go back.

Finrod’s realisation is subtler, but no less devastating. In the Lay he falls when Sauron’s song shows him that the image of himself he is painting with his own melody, the blameless flawless hero that is merely a protector of justice and goodness (which he does identify with the legacy of Valinor himself), is not exactly what he is. He did defy the Valar to wear his own crown, he wanted and would have boarded the stolen ships, no matter how they had been acquired. He is not the symbol of ultimate goodness he paints himself as. Only when he realises that, after his very perception of himself has ‘fallen before the throne’,  he can help Beren and gain back his place in Valinor.

Under this perspective both brother and sister have to face their own faults, see what they truly are under the image of themselves they have painted for themselves, before they can fully play their part in a plan to banish evil and be allowed back in their homeland.