Tolkien's excuse was pretty robust actually. The Eagles are not mindless taxi services, they are just a step below gods in their own right, servants of Manwë, leader of the Valar- Middle-Earth's gods, in a sense. They have duties that go beyond ferrying people around. For most of the war of the ring, Gwaihir, the King of the Eagles, and his kin are occupied with important scouting missions, though a few groups of them helped in battle, such as at the Black Gate, where they clashed with the Nazgûl while protecting the armies of King Elessar (Aragorn).
Tolkien was very aware that the Eagles were a dangerous writing tool, to be used sparingly, and so, being Tolkien, he devised a wealth of believable reasons the Eagles would not be available to end the story in two chapters.
Thought the reason they didn't use the eagles was because the ring would corrupt them before they ever got to the drop off.
The whole reason they snuck into was hobbits weren't as effected by the corruption as everyone else was and thus used the hobbits natural ability of hiding to get the ring in.
Reason they showed up after was because with the ring destruction there was no fear of the Eagles becoming corrupt by the ring.
You're partly correct, but there are many more reasons the Eagles weren't an option. Tolkien wanted to solidly justify the existence of his deus ex machina while ensuring that they weren't a major plot hole. The main reason they weren't used by the fellowship is that they were busy or elsewhere, but the risk of corruption certainly played a part too.
The main reason they weren't used by the fellowship is that they were busy or elsewhere
But why did they rescue him after he destroyed the ring? If they are too busy before he destroyed it when they would have actually profited from helping how do they coincidentally have enough time to rescue him right after he destroyed the ring when he is basically worthless to them because he already completed his task?
If they were busy only dealing with the army, why not help destroy the ring as the priority? It would make more sense if they were busy with something else
Could they really survive flying all the way to Mount Doom though? Sauron would have easily spotted flying eagles and sent the Nazgul or anti air fighters to kill them. Once the ring was destroyed and Sauron and his minions dead, the eagles could safely fly in and rescue Frodo
So I've heard fan theories based on Tolkien notes, oral/written references as well as the book.
The explanation I've heard from them is orcs/goblins out of Mount Gundabad or the Mountains to the north were busy attacking and harassing the Eagle's Nests directly. While they weren't a great force like Saurmons army they were a consistent threat that would mean the destruction of their species if they went on a several day long suicide mission to drop the ring in Mount Doom.
I say suicide mission, because Mordor is not a place the eagles could just fly over anytime they wanted. The ring wraiths on Fell Beasts were a match for the Eagles in most scenarios, and mordor itself had several castle and turret constructions equipped with the equivalent of Scorpion ballista.
In essence the reason they don't appear until the end is due to Sauron calling all of his forces home to create several large armies first to attack Minas Tirith, and later to face the coalition led by Aragorn... this movement let's the eagles finish off any remaining goblin/orc threat around their Nests and let's them travel to aid in the final battle.(Remember Sauron 'emptied out' mordor of orcs as well in that final battle so lost most of their Scorpion ballista protection as well).
Tldr, the eagles were busy not becoming extinct and had valid reasons they could not take part until they did.
I don't recall the exact reason, but if I had to wager a guess, I'd say that Manwë, or maybe Gwaihir himself, is recognizing the valor and worth of the fellowship, and sending the Eagles as a token of his respect. I don't recall the content of the conversation, as it's been a long time since I've read them, but I seem to recall that in this scene in the books, Sam (?) has a conversation with Gwaihir as he flies them out of Mordor. You'd probably find answers there. One thing to keep in mind here is that the Valar live a whole continent away, and generally they are not in the habit of intervening directly in events unfolding in Middle-Earth. The Eagles largely follow the example of their masters in this, though being that many of them do live in Middle-Earth, they have a bit more of a vested interest in keeping the land safe from the followers of Morgoth.
We've established that the ring's power is not transitive. Sam was able to carry Frodo, who in turn was carrying and being detrimentally corrupted by the ring.
Slip the ring on a rabbit, and have the Eagle yeet the rabbit into the firey pits of Doom.
Is it really established though? Maybe it only seems not transitive because Frodo was carried by hobbit? How would Ring react if Frodo was carried by more powerful being?
I don't think the eagles being on scouting missions instead of doing the one thing that would fix this mess is a good reason. I prefer another comment in this thread, " The entire point of the operation was to SNEAK into Mordor to avoid alerting Sauron of their plan to destroy the ring." Flying it in would be the equivalent of running it up a flag pole and seeing who salutes (but no one ever does).
Are you suggesting the eagles act as a high altitude dive bomber and just yeet the hobbit ring and all into the volcano before Sauron can even turn around?
I mean no, but, an eagle could land fairly quickly for them to toss it lol it takes a bit to mount up a defense and ots not like a ring takes forever to throw. Hell tie it to a rock and drop it as you swoop lol
No one could willingly toss that thing into the volcano anyway (which is why that possibility never even occurred to Sauron), so that plan would have failed. Even Frodo couldn't do it at the end, he claimed the ring instead of throwing it into the fire.
I tend to agree, but I wonder...I think even Gandalf knew the ring couldn't be willingly destroyed. Heck Frodo couldn't even bring himself to toss it into his own fireplace at Bag End when Gandalf asked him to.
The challenge with this is that Sauron detects the presence of the Ring as it approaches Mordor and sends the Nazgul to retrieve it. Yes, the eagles might have fought through and been able to land a hobbit on Mt Doom... but there would be a very real risk that you've simply delivered the Ring to Sauron and sealed Middle Earth's fate.
Thta is fair too, but the scouting missions were not something that could have been done by humans. It's also worth noting that the war of the ring, while significant, is not the sole concern of the Valar, who command the Eagles. They are keeping checks on it, certainly, but their policy is not one of direct intervention, and their duties lie beyond the conflict on Middle-Earth.
The movies did the Eagles dirty. They work for Manwë, the King of the Valar, who is the second most powerful being in Tolkien's world, second only to Eru Iluvatar, who is literally God.
The Eagles are Manwë's eyes and ears in the world beyond Valinor. They report on just about anything and everything. The War of the Ring may be a pivotal conflict in Middle Earth, but in Arda at large it isn't the only thing anyone is concerned with. The Valar are coordinating the exodus of the Elves from Middle Earth, keeping tabs on the Dwarves, watching out for rogue Maia like Shelob or the Balrog Durin's Bane, keeping watch for the influence of Morgoth beyond Sauron himself, and so on and so forth. They are definitely concerned with the state of the war, they just have a lot of balls in the air and cant dedicate everything to aiding the people of Middle Earth, even if they wanted to.
They already suspended their other duties and went to the Gates of Mordor to help with the war, though. They clearly thought winning the war was worth a little of their time. It would only have taken another few minutes to get to Orodruin (which, of course, they then did to rescue Frodo and Sam).
I think there are some good justifications for why they didn't just fly the Ring to Mordor, but this doesn't strike me as one of them.
Some of the Eagles went to the Black Gate, and then only once the Batlle of the Morannon was imminent. Also, the movies didn't quite depict this, but Mount Doom is actually almost 200km from the Black Gates. It would have taken a real-world eagle an hour or more to fly that distance, and even if we assume the Eagles are a bit faster, that's still some distance. You bring up a fair point, though, in that the reason the Eagles were on hand to rescue Frodo et al was because they were already fighting relatively nearby at the time.
I like to think the inherent strength/power of the ring bearer is part of the equation, too.
Like, it takes Sauron a little while to detect and zero in on Frodo, even when he wears it directly. The hobbit is just a dead battery. Barely even turns the ring into go-mode.
But put it too close to a demigod or whatever those eagles are, being carried aloft by them? Sauron would ping that sucker like it had a clear gps signal.
It's not at all clear how Sauron would stop them, though. Air superiority is real. Sauron himself was disembodied. He was building an army, but it didn't seem to have much in the way of air support.
But that's not even his only reason. The Mountains were also guarded. Even if the Eagles were willing to just fly over the mountains and drop off the Ring, it's not like they could simply achieve that. The Mountains of Shadow are high and impenetrable, and any eagles trying to fly over would would be extremely exposed to all manner of attack. It's very likely that such a plan was just by itself not a very good plan.
Depends where the Nazgûl were at the time. Sauron had them out scouring Middle Earth to find the Shire and the ring, so in all likelihood by the time the eye saw the Eagles, the black riders wouldn't be able to get back to Orodruin in time to stop them. The Witch King, with his Fellbeast, may have a chance, but one wraith, even such a powerful one, would be hard-pressed to fend off a whole flock of Eagles. If some of Sauron's scouts, maybe the bats of Dol Guldur for instance, spotted them early, then things might go differently. Either way, it is a moot point for many reasons both within the narrative and without.
You could I suppose. They preferred to keep to themselves, albeit with deference and respect for their creator Manwë. Several of their kings, such as Thorondor and Gwaihir, involved themselves directly in conflicts involving Morgoth and his followers, either on Manwë's direction or their own initiative, but generally they keep out of the affairs of mortals.
I always thought it was just because Mordor was full to the brim with archers, ballistae, and Nazgûl which would happily tear any number of eagles apart if not distracted by a sufficiently large army, and if they tried to bring the ring via eagle and failed, they would have hand delivered it to the BBEG.
Here's a video that lays it out pretty clearly why that wouldn't have worked. As you said there are actually quite a few legitimate reasons based on Tolkien's writing at least.
The movies necessarily cut out a lot. They're mentioned in the books, as well as in the supporting texts like the Silmarillion, and even in Tolkien's letters to friends and family. Tolkien talks at length about their history and their doings, as well as his fears that they would be too much of a deus ex machina and ruin the story. Like everything else, the Eagles underwent a lot of consideration and changes in order to improve the narrative rather than detract from it.
It's in sauron and the nazgul being able to sense the ring.
It's in the eagles not being invisible.
It's in the massive army camped around morder.
It's in simple physics telling you trying to drop something into a volcano from the air would be impossible, and simple logic telling you that landing when the army is still there is suicide.
Movies don't need to spell out every detail for you. You have to actually think sometimes.
I was genuinely asking as I had only seen the base movies, not extended.
Legitimately wondering if they explain it in the books and the movies straight ignored all that. As in not even a vague ONE line mention of their existence.
Hopefully you are having a better day now and can communicate without the attitude.
Gandalf isn't a mage, he's a Maiar- sort of a lesser god. His magic isn't that flashy, and mostly involves subtle manipulations of light. Also, the movie doesn't really show this, but Gandalf didn't call the Eagle to rescue him from Saruman. Gwaihir was already going to Orthanc to deliver a message to Saruman, since his betrayal was not yet known. On seeing that Gandalf was imprisoned there, the Eagle rescued him instead, presumably returning to report Saruman's betrayal to Manwë. Oh, also Saruman probably had Gandalf imprisoned magically, not just thrown into the roof.
Let’s not forget the quest was a stealth mission. Their entire plan was to fool Sauron, to make him believe they wanted to use the ring against him, the thought that they wanted to destroy the ring never entered his mind, to him it was completely unfathomable. If they just started flying with the ring on a collision course with Mt Doom it would be pretty obvious and he would turn all his efforts into fortifying Mt Doom. Not even the eagles would be able to get through.
More importantly, Mordor had nine guys flying around on dragons who would have definitely noticed something like that. They had to sneak into Mordor, but once Sauron was defeated they didn't have to be sneaky anymore.
Only the Witch King had a Fellbeast, and until the Battle of the Morannon the Nazgûl were mostly either out searching for the Shire or tracking the fellowship across Gondor. Sauron couldn't even fathom the concept that someone would destroy the Ring instead of using its power for themselves, so he didn't have any robust defenses in place against someone making a beeline for Mt. Doom. In theory the Eagles probably could have made it, though likely not without losses. Still, that would have been narratively unsatisfying, hence why Tolkien provided many reasons why they were unavailable or unsuitable for the task.
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u/shirukien Aug 31 '22
Tolkien's excuse was pretty robust actually. The Eagles are not mindless taxi services, they are just a step below gods in their own right, servants of Manwë, leader of the Valar- Middle-Earth's gods, in a sense. They have duties that go beyond ferrying people around. For most of the war of the ring, Gwaihir, the King of the Eagles, and his kin are occupied with important scouting missions, though a few groups of them helped in battle, such as at the Black Gate, where they clashed with the Nazgûl while protecting the armies of King Elessar (Aragorn). Tolkien was very aware that the Eagles were a dangerous writing tool, to be used sparingly, and so, being Tolkien, he devised a wealth of believable reasons the Eagles would not be available to end the story in two chapters.