Why sending the eagles to Mordor to destroy the One Ring would have failed. And it is quite foolish!

[Tolkien]

Why sending the eagles to Mordor to destroy the One Ring would have failed. And it is quite foolish!

“Don’t Fly, You Fools!”

“Don’t Fly, You Fools!”

BY JEB SMITH Jeb Smith returns to the subject of his article with Lloyd R. Hedberg, “Getting A Grip on Tolkien, Or: Fly? You Fools!” and considers whether the heroes of The Lord of the Rings could …

fellowshipandfairydust.com

 

[Prince of Spires]

Interesting article. Personally, I never wondered why they didn't just fly to Mordor. The obvious 2 answers to me are that flying in without a distraction would leave them horribly exposed. And that Manwe would not allow it, since the Valar wanted Middle Earth to take care of its own problems (which is also why the wizards weren't allowed to use their full power and Gandalf had to work mainly by persuading others to do the right thing).

A couple of comments: I think the Council of Elrond and the Fellowship weren't aware of the flying nazgul until they actually showed up at the end of the Fellowship. So while they are a reason not to fly in, they didn't know they were a reason.

I also think that trying to calculate the size of the eagle from a drawing is useless in the sense that it's just a drawing, where Tolkien probably went for what looked right, not what the actual dimensions of the eagle and the hobbit in that drawing were.

Hobbits weren't really chosen to bear the Ring. At least not by the council. Frodo chose himself (though it's of course hinted at that it was "fate" that got him the ring).

And for me, Frodo is the hero of the story. Yes, Sam helps him along the way and without Sam, he wouldn't have gotten to the end. But the same goes for many others. He also wouldn't have gotten there without Gandalf or Elrond or Faramir or even Boromir. But that doesn't make them the hero of the story. Frodo is the one carrying the ring. He's the hero, and he fails at the end.

 

[Karlin]

It would have made the book short and boring. So of course it couldn't work.

 

[Mad Swede]

Tolkien himself explained why, but I can't remember the reference. I'll have to look it up.

 

[pmmg]

Maybe cause Morder had their own way of dealing with them. Frodo would still have had to land and get off to do it. He'd have not survived that. If he had Wonder Woman's invisible jet though...

I think, the most likely outcome of Tolkien thinking, 'hey, why not have them do this?', is he would have made the Fell Beasts more numerous, and lethal, and that's why.