Family Guy had a good point....

[Gatsby]

Why DIDN'T they just fly the great eagles to Mount Doom?

Before someone says they would have been caught or shot down, did you SEE how many of them there were, and it wouldn't be that hard to fly at night and get past any defenses they may have had. plus if you just fly to Gondor, load up all the great eagles with archers and rocks, now you got yourself a nice little air raid, and all you need is to get 9 or so (the ones carrying the main party) past the defenses and you've pretty much skipped the WHOLE defensive ground perimeter of Mordor.

[The Satyr]

Because practicality and common sense makes for short crappy books/movies.

If they did that it would've probably all been in 1 book and far less exciting then the 50+ battles that happen on their 3 part journey.

(p.s. 50+ is an exaggeration)...

[scarletsquig]

It's not the first time a parody has been made.

I remember the fighting fantasy book "return to firetop mountain" where the book starts by giving you a taxi ride via giant eagle straight to the mountain. Very subtle reference, but enough to make me smile.

[Middenmordheimer]

well its just not that easy. To start with the eagles are very stubborn creatures who dont really like anything to do with other races gandalf has very rarely even got to us them him self the only reason they prolly helped fror and sam was that he destroyed the one ring. And if they went to gondor to get archers and stuff they wouldnt have made it out as the ring wouuld have curropted every one into taking it.

Plus if there was no story to lord of the rings warhammer would have lost about 60 percent of its characters and fluff lol

[Lord Inquisitor]

I think the excuse is that anything like that would have been obvious enough that the Eye of Sauron would see it and stop it, the only way was to try and sneak in and be subtle about it.

[Gatsby]

thats what air raids are, quick and subtle.... until the first few rounds are fired then its anything but subtle. But then it ends almost as quickly, just as soon as they ditch the ring, they get out, i mean with access to great eagles, stubborn or not (i mean in the end they showed up to help, would it have been so hard to get them to lend a few like minded eagles who were willing to take the risk,) you effectively have a SpecOps strike team equipt with little birds (literally.)

And it wouldn't have been any more obvious than the 9 walking to mt doom and stirring up trouble every mile. in fact by the time they got wind of it (even with the eye of sauron) they would probably already be landing at mt doom (and lets face it, legolas would knock out any air power they could send to try and counter them,) and bows from the ground wouldn't have the range to hit them in the air, so ground based def against them would be useless.

It just seems to me that they should have thought through their options more when they were discussing their options..

[Lord Inquisitor]

(and lets face it, legolas would knock out any air power they could send to try and counter them,)

Well, when their "air power" is probably ringwraiths on fell beasts, no, I don't think he could. So it rather depends on whether you could do it without attracting the Eye. If only there were a way of distracting it...

"Well, that was incredibly easy!"

[Higgsy]

thats what air raids are, quick and subtle.... until the first few rounds are fired then its anything but subtle. But then it ends almost as quickly, just as soon as they ditch the ring, they get out, i mean with access to great eagles, stubborn or not (i mean in the end they showed up to help, would it have been so hard to get them to lend a few like minded eagles who were willing to take the risk,) you effectively have a SpecOps strike team equipt with little birds (literally.)

And it wouldn't have been any more obvious than the 9 walking to mt doom and stirring up trouble every mile. in fact by the time they got wind of it (even with the eye of sauron) they would probably already be landing at mt doom (and lets face it, legolas would knock out any air power they could send to try and counter them,) and bows from the ground wouldn't have the range to hit them in the air, so ground based def against them would be useless.

It just seems to me that they should have thought through their options more when they were discussing their options..

I don't think the eagles are slaves... They were not an 'option' as such...

Anyway, does it matter? Would you really have preferred the lord of the rings to have panned out like this? You also speak about it as if someone made a terrible decision during some important military operation in real life... The sequence of events in the lord of the rings never happened...

[lotrchampion]

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c3...dor_defcon.png

[Whitwort Stormbringer]

In reality, flying overhead and just dropping the ring into the crack of Doom would either require

a) precision timing, and they couldn't really risk dropping the ring and having it land on the side of Mt. Doom, where Sauron would definitely get his hands on it,

or b) flying very, very low, pretty close to the opening to the volcano, which would likely give Sauron ample time to get archers on the mountain-face and shoot them down. He'd definitely see them coming from some distance, and Mordor is a lot bigger than it seems in the movies (in fact, all of Middle-Earth is bigger than the impression you get from watching the movies).

However, if they were able to work out the physics of it and the eagles would agree, then yeah, that would have made more sense.

That said, perhaps being intelligent animals, they would have been susceptible to the ring's influence just as the other intelligent races were, and that's why Gandalf never brought it up in the first place. Entirely hypothetical, but it's a possibility.

And even if the eagles were willing, I think that fending off the 9 on fell beasts would be more than the Fellowship were a match for. Gandalf took on several (maybe all?) of them on foot, and Aragorn fended off the 5 at Weathertop, but in both cases being on foot allowed the good guys to stay close together and avoid being picked off or seperated (mostly, Frodo still got stabbed). In flight, the wraiths could probably isolate the weaker members and easily overwhelm them. The fact that Frodo was carrying the ring would have made him that much easier for the wraiths to target.

"Well, that was incredibly easy!"

"Can you imagine what it would be like if we had walked the entire way?"

"One of us might have died!"

[Verm1s]

Family Guy has no good points. Unless it's to inspire good episodes of South Park...

Tolkien was sent preliminary scripts from the animated movies Ralph Bakshi was producing, way back when. They featured the eagles giving the Fellowship a lift for long parts of the way, at least to the gates of Moria. Tolkien shot them down. (pun shamelessly intended) It turned the eagles into some form of Deus Ex Machina (well, more than usual) and cut out too much of the journey, adventures, and reasons for a tiny band of nine sneaking out from Rivendell on foot at night and not flying about on giant eagles so every spy of Sauron and Saruman would notice you in two minutes flat thanks very much.

[Gatsby]

So long as the moon is not full you would be FAR less noticeable flying high and even if you were noticed your to high for them to hit you with arrows (and dropping the ring into the volcano from the air wouldn't be THAT hard with some practice,) helicopters make a lot more noise than birds, and those are used to get past modern perimeters undetected, you just gotta be smart about it.

While yes the eagles do become Deus Ex Machina, it also saves the elves from dying to a man at Helms Deep (yes they die epicly, but they didn't have to) it stops the final battle where tons of people die who again, didn't have to.

Just seems to me that they should have sat there at their council for 5 more minutes and thought through ALL their options.

and for the record, Family Guy has TONS of good points and ideas, I never would have gotten my car to fly if they hadn't told me to fill it with jet fuel.

edit: im not saying that the great eagles are like slaves, but they seem to have some intelligence as they knew when Gandalf needed help, and when they needed help during the last battle.

[Khamul]

As much as the fellowship might have preferred the airbourne option, I think that the Lord of the Rings trilogy wouldn't have been quite so interesting had the hobbits flown to mordor. Plus they probably would have been shot down over the Mountains of Shadow by nine sniggering Black Dart wielding Ringwraiths!!! Not even Legolas could manage more than two with nothing but a bow.
"Family Guy has no good points. Unless it's to inspire good episodes of South Park..." Yup. And provide the world with stupidity on weeknights from 7.

[-Grimgorironhide-]

While yes the eagles do become Deus Ex Machina, it also saves the elves from dying to a man at Helms Deep (yes they die epicly, but they didn't have to) it stops the final battle where tons of people die who again, didn't have to.

Just thought i'd point out that the elves fighting at helms deep never actually happened in the books, those scenes were film only.

cheers

[Gatsby]

Just thought i'd point out that the elves fighting at helms deep never actually happened in the books, those scenes were film only.

cheers

but it was just SO epic.

[ForgottenLore]

Just thought i'd point out that the elves fighting at helms deep never actually happened in the books, those scenes were film only.

cheers

No, in the books elves don't join Aragorn and Theoden till just after Helm's Deep.

I believe that Gwaihir mentions somewhere in the books that he was only able to carry Gandalf for a limited distance, so if you factor in the eagles needing to land and rest it may not have been that much faster or safer, not to mention the fact that they had no way to contact the eagles, in the books it is pretty much random chance when Gwaihir shows up.

Yeah, if they had a cell phone number for Gwaihir during the council at Rivendell I think they would have considered the option, but they didn't.

[DeadInTheHead]

No, in the books elves don't join Aragorn and Theoden till just after Helm's Deep.

Just to correct that slightly, they're joined by the Dunedain, rather than elves. Although the sons of Elrond are 3/4 elvish I guess

As for the what's being discussed: it is just a hole in an excellent book, when pitting the work of one man against the scrutiny of millions of readers, holes will come out.

Much in the same way that when millions of people watch Family Guy, every now and again someone spots an attempt at humour.

[StormCrow]

It's already been mentioned but the main thing most people forget is that the ring corrupts absolutely, so who would risk giving it to the eagles if they may well fly off with it? Would be most embarrassing for all involved

[EffCee]

Saruman could have easily summoned a storm to knock the eagles about and any riders off them once his spies passed on to him what the fellowship were up to.

[Jedi152]

Basically because it would have made the story boring. It's not real life, it's a story.