Why didn't the eagles just fly them over to Mount Doom?

This

They're called fell beasts

Gandalf was leading the party directly towards the Eagles, following roughly the same path that the dwarves+Bilbo took in Hobbit, but Saruman intervened with the whole 'bringing down the mountain on us' thing, forcing the party to detour through Moria. When the Balrog killed Gandalf, he didn't have time to explain the whole plan to the Fellowship. All he had time to say was "Fly, you fools."

He was hoping that Frodo would put it together with what had happened to Bilbo and lead the Fellowship to the eagles, but it didn't work.

TL;DR: That was Gandalf's plan but then Balrog happened.

They are variety of dragons. Tolkien's taxonomy was much less clearly defined. He had dragons without wings, even

Why couldnt red riding hood tell a Wolf from her grandma

>mfw so many people think Nazgul refers to fell beasts because every time a gondorian scream NAZGUL the ringwraith always rides one

why didn't the fucking asshole eagles fly them all the way to the Lonely Mountain?

they just left them at the top of some other mountain after saving them from the goblins

i could be wrong but the talk about earth burrowing wyrms/worms became the sandworms in the third hobbit movie

Wouldn't flying the ring into Mordor put it in plain sight of the lidless eye, i.e. Saurons ringdar?

The eagles are symbol of good and would be easily spotted and attacked. They're also susceptible to the ring's corruption, remember a defining aspect of the hobbits was their resilience against the ring's call. Why is this still a question that gets asked?

the lidless eye is symbolic in the book, real in the movie. there was no lighthouse there

If I'm not completely mistaken sauron still has two or three dragons lying around. Why didn't he use them for anything? Could the dragons just not be bothered? Lazy writing? Or is there actually a proper explanation?

The Eagles are afraid of flying above farms because people would shoot them, nevermind the armies of the Dark Lord at Mordor

If they aren't dumb, are they tempted by the ring? What would happen if the ring slipped into the talon of a great eagle?

Invisible evil giant eagle.

i haven't heard about that. it wasn't even certain that smaug would have sided with sauron but gandalf was afraid that that would happen. after the fall of morgoth the dragons probably just fucked off and stayed in the north, away from everyone. they probably weren't made to be social or herd animals so to speak. if they were actually in control of evil they would have destroyed middle earth whenever they wanted instead of bullying dwarves in the far north every once in a while. of course not all of them were fire breathing so they didn't have the same destructive capability as smaug

Probably the same thing that happens to everyone else wearing it. And yes, they can and would be tempted by it. Arguably worse because they might know how to actually use it so it's almost as bad as giving it to Gandalf.

...

Because the eagle didn't give a fuck about some dorfs wanting bling bling. They saved Thorin and the company, but come on, it's the difference from helping a guy with a broken car on the side of the road and taking him from LA to the east coast.

As far as we know, smaug was the last of the great dragons. Sauron DID employ the last of his giant monster pets left over from melkor's bullshit, including the fell beasts and trolls

I know this a fan theory and not accurate but goddamn does it rub me wrong.

If Gandalf had enough time to say "Fly, you fools" he could have just as easily said "Seek the eagles," or something similarly easy to interpret.

As I recall the King of all Birds told Gandalf that he wouldn't dare lead his subject to certain death against Sauron and the Nazgul in Mordor. This of course changes when Sauron gets wasted by the destruction of the ring and the revelation that the Nazgul have been defeated in battle (at least temporarily).

because there was a massive fucking dragon living in the lonely mountain.
i dunno
probably
just spitballing here.

remember smaug laid waste to entire armies before, everyone was afraid of him and only a party of stubborn dwarves and a hobbit who was in over his head were stupid enough to not only go near that mountain but try and STEAL something from said dragon.

yeah pretty much the only creatures that can withstand the temptation are hobbits, some individuals and tom bombadil

Bombadil doesn't stand the temptation, he doesn't feel it at all. It's explained as him being "his own master" but he actually puts on the ring as joke and it doesn't even turn him invisible.

wrong. the road the dwarves took in hobbit is at the time of the war of the ring too unsafe to pass through. too unsafe i mean absolutely impossible for anything short of an army. in lotr they took much southern road. the goblin town is in the north, close to gundabad.

>tom bombadil

Obviously a fragment of sauron's power couldn't corrupt Ungoliant.

>roughly the same path

This is why.

oh sorry i was mistaken

>Much more southern is roughly the same.
Try to get from El Paso to Dallas by means of I10 and tell me how it works out for ya.

Four reasons.

1. They didn't want to. You can't make them. They'd be with Boromir on this crazy plan. No thank you.

2. Orcs have bows. The king of all eagles was afraid of farmers with bows ffs. Flying to Mount Doom would have just gotten everyone killed, and there are many possible locations along the journey for this inevitable massacre.

3. Because they're trying to avoid being seen, and it's way easier to spot the eagles and track their movements. Everything goes to complete shit forever as soon as Saruman or Sauron get a hold of that fucking ring. Last thing you want is either of them knowing your exact location.

You know they didn't even think that the council had decided to destroy the Ring. They were convinced Aragorn was most likely going to take it and try to lead an army against Mordor attempting to use it as a weapon.

>implying eagles didn't have their own epic saga where flying hobbits around was detour out of goodness of heart.

You don't read much about hobbits in Feathership of The Ring by SCROO KAWAA KAWAA TOSKRIIIEN

lel good post

Moviefag detected. In the book, the mountain itself is harassing them. Not Saruman.

That said, I totally understand why they changed it for the film.

this theory makes sense if there were no books in existence. Jackson was telling you a story that based off a series of novels, in terms of storyline those novels are all he had to go off. since there is no mention of gandalf wanting to do that in the books then there is 0 possibility it would have happened in the movie. never make assumptions about movies that are based off books, just read the books instead.

Didn't someone ask Gandalf if the Eagles will help them? And Gandalf said he already asked they explicitly told him no?

Why didn't the Hobbits just give the Ring back to its rightful owner? They're supposed to be the "good guys" but instead of returning stolen property they keep it for themselves.

Eagles bullshit aside, I do have a question.

Exactly how the hell did hobbits in the Shire manage not to be fucked over by pretty much the first bad guy?

I mean:

1) pretty damn good lands, maybe the only decent ones for agricoltural business west of the Misty Mountains
2) no army or basically any means to ward off bad guys
3) it's not like there wasn't any orcs or shit from the mountains, nor was Elrond's power very good at stopping really anything say in the third millennium of TE

So it basically means the Rangers not only did know the movements of any orcs' party of say 10+ people (which I can more or less buy) but Sauron, who did know about hobbits, didn't see any reason to use say 3000 stray orcs and fuck over royally The Shire.
Hell, not even Sauron, what about the Great Goblin?

I dunno, it's like JRRT did get the part about "hidden village" but didn't bother to actually hide the Shire.

In the book its because the men of laketown try to hunt them. Also Im gonna go with dragon as my second guess.

>Sauron
Probably didn't want to draw too much ire from rivendell and such and by the time he was powerful to not give a shit the ring had left the shire.
>Great Goblin
Rivendell, wizards, rangers and maybe some dwarfs.

But come on man, Elrond had maybe 300 elves at his command. Actually to me it seems like a worthwhle diversion.

>I'm starting to think the real answer is fucking Bombadil

>A Man succumbing to the Ring
Bad

>An Elf succumbing to the Ring
Double plus bad

>A fuck-of huge flying Eagle succumbing to the Ring
Shit fuck oh cunts we are never getting that back bad.

Because it'd have made a boring story.

What is gandalf on this scale?

In the book, Saruman lives through getting kicked out of his tower and goes on to take over the Shire.

Why was it ignored until then? It doesn't really have any strategic value, I guess. Maybe the evil bad guys had bigger fish to fry.

It's the "not of strategic value" that I don't' really get: the Shire seems basically the most potentially valuable piece of land property for the bad guys after motherfucking Gondor.

Oh well.

Holocaust.

Tolkien specifically discusses how the Shire is protected at some point, although I can't recall where.

Also, at the time of the books, bad people actually are starting to show up in or around the Shire.

Geographically, it's protected by the Barrow-downs, the Old Forest and the Hedge, the Brandywine, etc.

Also, it's just not really that known, interesting, or valuable. If you're an orc, would you rather raid Lake-town or a Gondorian settlement, which are well known to have valuables and trade routes, or are you going to go after some midgets with tomatoes?

Why didn't they get on the eagles and dangle the ring off them with a really long rope so it doesn't get close enough to corrupt them

Just read the books,they aren't dragons. They are a type of featherless carrion bird, this is gone over several times.

Fly just means run fast, it's an expression he uses many times in his writing.

There was a red eye in the book,but it was just a bright regular sized eye peering out from the top most window of barad-dur

This. Lake Town basically lived in fear of a giant murdersaurus, so anything bigger than a hawk would be shot don't IMMEDIATELY.

Why don't I just put a million dollars a block away from you and watch you not get tempted?

Because Tolkien said the Eagles were nothing but a plot device, and admittedly accepted this flaw wholeheartedly because he was busy masturbating to linguistics

Don't tell them it's the ring say it's a fruit delivery

In the novel weren't most people in Laketown doubtful of the existence of Smaug because all they had were stories to go off of?

Nazgul have methods of flight. Also the Eagles likely can't resist the Ring. They're proud as heck.

Yep. They're Maia too, like Gandalf, so them getting the Ring would be bad news.

They were Maiar on older versions of the legendarium, but Tolkien later backpedalled on that one and changed it to them being just intelligent animals who also happened to serve the Valar.

The Hobbits had their own militia, and were able to defend their borders surprisingly well. Theres stuff in the books about a war between Hobbits and Goblins about a century before the Hobbit. Before that they had been protected by the nation of Armor who considered them a semi autonomous province and even after Arnor's fall the Dunedain intercepted the larger threats before they reached the Shire.

Wrong

Because the fucking ring would corrupt them and theyd dump the hobbits and end the world sometime after.

Is it really that hard of a fucking concept to understand, its like giving Boromir a kill everyone without issue and take the ring button and hoping everything would work out just fine.

I'm sure that's the plan Saruman would have approved of.
So, congratulations, Modern Geek Collective. You think like Saruman.

How many times do we need to explain this shit? Sauron coud've fucking burned them out of the sky with eagle-rape lasers, they could only fly into Mordor after he was dead.

Bandobras Took is an example as to why orcs avoided the Shire.

Because no one was stupid enough to get that close to Tom Bombadil.

...

If the Palantír was indestructible why didn't they just put it on a catapult and fired it at Sauron's tower?

Saurons tower is also indestrcutible.

Sauron had enough fertile farmland in Nurn to feed his armies, and, strategically, it was too distant to be a viable target for conquest. Sure, he might have been able to order some Misty Mountain orc tribes to raid it, but what would that have accomplished? The Hobbits were barely a concern for him. And the Rangers kept the scattered orcs away.

Saruman, on the other hand, did have a strong interest in the Shire. He infiltrated it with his agents, gained control of their economy, and eventually led a group of brigands to conquer it.

Indestructible =/= Unstoppable. It would just bounce off and now Morder has a palantir.

But they destroyed it

Not the guys you're responding to, but yes.

The men that the Eagles were afraid of were the men of the Anduin dales, that area between the mountains and Mirkwood, who would often shoot arrows at them because the Eagles would try to steal their sheep.

>tom bombadil

Yes, because giving the ring to someone who lives surrounded by Barrow Wights, Evil trees, even evil-er trees and Goldberry is clearly a good idea.

Sandwich.

Thorin got lost trying to find Bag End, twice.

Everyone in this thread knows not the tale of Tolkien's lore nor realized what was hidden in plain sight.

Before Gandolf the Gray's apparent death, he spoke but one thing... "Fly! You fools!"

He always intended them to fly upon the Eagles, but was not able to get the ring to them from safety of the prying eye. And he tried to alert the Hobbits of his plan without giving it away to any whom watched.

But, none made sense of his words and his plan was lost with Gandolf into the depths of the darkness.

You got a point, Golfimbul didn't go so well.

Still, Saruman got shit done before the return of the Fellowship...

...

Because eagles get fucked up hard by dragons and by disrespectful asses with bows and both laid between them and the Lonely Mountain, which even if they didn't, why would they want to take the dwarves there again? They're pretty much immune to bribery because they're giant fucking eagles, where are they going to spend gold?

>I'm clever for thinking of something other nerds thought of in the sixties
it was stupid then and it's stupid now. Eagles can die, orcs are heavily industrialised, even though everything they own in the films looks nigger-rigged they have artillery. They shoot the eagles down or mob them with flying creatures, then Sauron gets the ring and everyone has a bad time.

The Shire is protected by the rangers among others and is essentially hidden. Saruman only knows it's there because of Gandalf and goes after them as a fuck you. Hell it's quite likely Sauron isn't even aware the Shire exists because the various kingdoms of men don't seem to have a clue about it.

pootis

>Goldberry
whats wrong with her?

One of Tolkien's letters actually talks about the possibility, although I'd have to go digging if you want an exact quote.

If Gandalf fell to the ring, he'd probably try to hide away for a few years to master it, and then come back and try to kill Sauron. If he managed to keep control of the Ring (which would want Sauron to win, but isn't completely in control either, Gandalf's physical possession does mean a lot) he would win that Maiar fight, Sauron's chance in that is to have the ring betray Gandalf.

If you leave that shit with Tom Bombadil he'll forget about it inside a week and leave it in the middle of the woods for some asshole to find because he just doesn't give a damn.

>Gandolf

Because the Eagles are servants of Manwë and aren't supposed to interfere in Middle-Earth. They help Gandalf some of the time, but only when it suits them, and when it poses no danger to them to do so.

The actors in the movie also called the fell-beasts Nazghûls in the DVD commentary track.

More like the eagles aren't stupid enough to fly anywhere near or INTO THE PUTRID FUMING CLOUD OF AN ACTIVE VOLCANO

If you want to take that usage of the word 'fly' literate, what's stopping you from taking all the other usages of it literate? Such as just a bit earlier in that chapter when it says "Gandalf came flying down the steps and fell to the ground in the midst of the Company."