@lesbiansforboromir sorry I fell asleep but!!
Amlach of the house of Marach appears very briefly in Chapter 17 of the Silmarillion. He speaks at a council of men trying to decide whether or not they trust elves, and argues very persuasively not to, saying that the elves are liars, there is nothing beyond the sea, and no need to fight Morgoth… and then turns up a few days later, saying he’d never been at that council, and he never said that. Lots of people are like “but fake you made a good point tho”, and go hide from Morgoth, but Amlach gets mad.
Amlach repented, saying: ‘I have now a quarrel of my own with this Master of Lies, which will last to my life’s end’; and he went away north and entered the service of Maedhros.
Because it says “a quarrel of my own” lots of people take this as somewhat petty, like Amlach is just mad that Morgoth used his form and wants revenge on him for that? And I’ll admit that it does sound like that, but I’m going to do what I always do when I disagree with something in the Silmarillion and say that since Pengolodh wasn’t there (he was already in Gondolin) he misinterpreted or badly translated the situation.
To me, Amlach realises in that moment that Morgoth wants them to say that only elves have a quarrel with Morgoth, to stand down and not fight him. That’s why he immediately rides to Himring, the literal frontline against the forces of evil, despite the fact that he doesn’t know or trust any elves: he’s had the same realisation as all Tolkien’s heroes, which is that to fail to stand against evil is the same as opening the door and inviting evil in. It’s the same as Tuor and Beren fighting Morgoth even though they’re just lone outlaws in the woods, or Aragorn doing all he can as a mercenary even when he’s not ready to embrace his destiny yet, or Fingolfin deciding to do single combat against a god, or Glorfindel taking on a balrog, or Gondor desperately holding the border against Mordor, or Frodo choosing to be the ringbearer.
Because, if you choose not to fight, you end up as Grima Wormtongue, or the Sackville-Bagginses, or Maeglin, who choose their own comfort or greed over what’s right and cause massive damage. It’s not enough to just look after yourself, you have to actively fight!! And you have to have solidarity with people who are different to you, and recognise that you have a common cause - Amlach goes to Himring, an elf stronghold, just as later the most important battles are fought by all the ‘free peoples’ together in the Union of Maedhros, the Last Alliance, all of the War of the Ring. (Also, this is early enough in Edain-Eldar relations that I’m pretty sure Amlach is the first human Maedhros ever meets? I think he’s a good introduction to us :).)
TL;DR: Amlach is kind of the first and simplest example we have of Tolkien’s central moral message, which is INACTION IS COMPLICITY: STAND TOGETHER AND NEVER STOP FIGHTING.