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The One Ring Forums:
Tolkien Topics: Reading Room:
The eye would have been enough, but there's also more to consider.:
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InTheChair
Nargothrond
Aug 10 2020, 3:15pm
Views: 3462
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The eye would have been enough, but there's also more to consider.
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Besides, it wasn't as practical as some like to think. If the Eagles (in The Hobbit) thought the bows of men defending flocks of sheep made it too dangerous to fly over the southern plains, what about the thousands of Orc archers stationed all over the plains of Gorgoroth? Eagles may be able to carry loads for a certain way, but Mordor is quite far away and there are no good rest places in between. And they'd have to fly over the closely watched passes of the Ephel Duath. And there were flying Nazgul on top of that. And we haven't even mentioned the Eye watching.
It wasn't practical worth a damned. The window of opportunity to use the Eagles is very small. The company sets out from Rivendell in December, and though I think Eagles are still active in winter, already before the company enters Moria both Frodo, Gandalf and Aragorn sense the first of the winged Nazgul above, rendering any future approach by air clearly impossible. Gandalf I think would have ruled out the air route for more or less the same reasons he ruled out going by the Gap of Rohan. To dangerous, by far.
Gandalf himself does not appear to have considered it at all. preferring from the start to go below the mountains, and after Moria he is temporarily out of the game, though someone else like Galadriel might have called on the Eagles help. It is she who asks Gwaihir to find and rescue Gandalf. Afterwards Gandalf ask Gwaihir to keep an eye on the River and report back to Gandalf, which he does, and so Gandalf learns that two Hobbits have been captured and are being carried westwards by Orcs. That it is not the Ring-bearer Gandalf knows already because of the events on Amon Hen.
This is possible the last and best moment for Gandalf to ask the Eagles to aid in the quest. For instance by taking him eastwards and drop him off somewhere where the Ring-bearer might have reached to, but it is not done. There not even a mention that Gandalf ever even considered it. Instead he asks to be taken to Fangorn I think. Perhaps he sums it up best himself while looking eastwards. No, it has gone beyond our reach. Of that at least let us be glad. We can no longer be tempted to use the Ring.
And for certain had they ask an Eagle to drop Frodo of at Mount Doom, Frodo would inevitably have claimed the Ring as his own, but then there would have been no Gollum around.
The structure of events makes the idea of flying the ring to Mordor by Eagle completely impossible, though perhaps it takes a certain familiarity with the story and dangers presented to understand it, so it is not very surprising that the question of the Eagles gets brought up again and again.
(This post was edited by InTheChair on Aug 10 2020, 3:17pm)
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Edit Log:
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Post edited by InTheChair
(Nargothrond) on Aug 10 2020, 3:17pm
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