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noWizardme
Half-elven
Jan 29 2013, 2:48pm
Views: 1624
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I've just realised we never "see" the eagles fighting
[In reply to]
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The Eagles turn up at the climactic point of the climactic battle in both the Hobbit and Return of the King. But in each case, the arrival of the Eagles is just causing a lot of excitement among our brave lads when our point of view character gets knocked out. And in both cases that is the end of the description of the fighting. So I don't believe we get any description of what the Eagles actually do by way of tactics. I wonder whether there is a reason for that?
It certainly leaves the field open for anyone to "wargame" it any way they want - are the Eagles fairly feeble fighters, only able to seize and injure individual warriors in the manner of an eagle hunting? They would be readily injured by an archer or a warrior with a spear. Or could they potentially "bomb" with rocks or other projectiles? Or some other tactic? (In The Tales of Narnia films, eagles fly over the battlefield carrying dwarf bowmen, which I thought was ..........interesting.) Depending upon what you imagine, eagles might be horribly devastating, or barely effective. And so it's either a plot hole that they won't get involved, or it barely matters. There's probably no way of coming to any conclusion!
Or, maybe as the eagles are associated with the chief Valar, their role is to symbolize that the Valar are now lending their force or blessing to one side in a metaphysical way. In that case the Eagles represent a manifestation of divine help rather than them being Middle-earth helicopter gunships.
Disclaimers: The words of noWizardme may stand on their heads! I'm often wrong about things, and its fun to be taught more....
Feel free to meddle in the affairs of noWizardMe by agreeing or disagreeing (politely...) with my posts! I may not be subtle, but at least I'm usually slow to anger...
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