Why didn't the 🦅Eagles take the ring to 🌋Mordor?

[Arathorn]

As suggested in another thread, why didn't Gandalf have the eagles carry Frodo to Mt. Doom and just drop the ring in?

 

[Harad]

http://thetolkien.forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1705&highlight=Eagles

Not suprisingly this has been discussed in the above thread and in a thread referenced in the above thread.

The bottom line answer is:

Because LOTR would have been a pamphlet instead of a 1000-page book.

 

[Snaga]

What risk the One near an eagle? Imagine the poor birdies, lusting for the ring, and pecking away at Frodo to get it. 'In place of the Dark Lord you would set up a Pterodactyl'

 

[Harad]

I can see it now, a combination of "Rodan" and "LOTR." All the crebain would be promoted to important jobs. Cheep thrills.

 

[aragil]

Forget the risk to the Ring. What about the risk to the Eagles. Sauron had Balrogs patrolling the air around Mordor with their Surface-to-Air Whips (SAWs). Why needlessly sacrifice some Eagles when the ring could be so much more efficiently carried by Hobbits?

 

[Harad]

Wait...Flying Balrogs. Balrogs on Wing-ed Steeds or Wing-ed Their Own Selves? Either way the answer is:

We'd go in low....right above the corn fields..no way those Russkies'll stop us.

 

[Snaga]

Originally posted by Harad
Wait...Flying Balrogs. Balrogs on Wing-ed Steeds or Wing-ed Their Own Selves?

Don't even go there!

 

[HLGStrider]

Another discussion to make my day...

It was like the other day, my little brother was walking up on the place (What we rural folks call our lil' parcel of land...) and comes back with the bold announcment... "I watched a dog fight!!!" We were all pretty confused while he described this air combat to us... Finally we got out of him that the combatants were a red tailed hawk and a turkey vulture...

Anyway, sensibly, it would be a little risky. The eagle gets shot down by anti-eagle guns or arrows... you pick your projectile, and the ring bearer has to bail out in enemy territory...

 

[Harad]

Anyway, sensibly, it would be a little risky

I can accept a lot, but when you say "sensibly"...

The Eagles pretty much had the run of the air. No dogfights for them. No one interfered with Gwaihir saving Gandalf from Orthanc or from the peak of Moria.

Mordor did not have a tight Air Cap, especially before the Nazgul got their Wing-ed Steeds. Fly at Night, Come in Low, and the Mission to Doom, would go like Slim Pickens. Yahoo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[aragil]

I believe Slim said 'Yee-haw'. Like any self respecting man in a cowboy hat would have done.

 

[HLGStrider]

Okay... I always assumed that there would be some defense against everything... including eagles.. And me using the word sensibly or logically is always a mistake... I wish I could find all the quotes I've made on this thread that explains why...

for instance... "I may be a child but that's no reason to treat me like one..."

That was one of my opening statements...

You better start being nice to me though, Harad, because if you don't I won't give you a cabinet position when I'm president!

 

[Dhôn-Buri-Dhôn]

Wing-ed Balrogs? Nah.

Just station them in the mountains. Those fire whips could take out an Eagle at 30,000 feet, no prob.

 

[aragil]

'Fly you fools. I mean it literally this time.'
-Gandalf as his Eagle-mount is downed by a SAW.

 

[Eonwe]

what would have been even more plausible would be the Nazgul on wings, terrorizing the Shire, swooping over the lands East of Bree looking for Frodo. What a different book it would have been.

How far can an Eagle fly without resting or eating? Could they carry someone from say Minas Tirith to Orodruin about 120 miles away without resting? I mean, how far can an unladen swallow travel?

 

[Quercus]

What? African or European?

 

[Harad]

Are you implying that coconuts are migratory?

 

[daisy]

Uh eonwe, I think the last thing Tolkien was thinking as he figured out which flying creature was going to do what with hairy footed hobbits and elves and dwarves etc. was whether eagles can fly really really far!

 

[Bill the Pony]

Daisy, are you sure? Gandalf certainly worries about it when he's rescued from Orthanc:

"How far can you bear me? " I said to Gwaihir.
` "Many leagues," said he, "but not to the ends of the earth. I was sent to bear tidings not burdens."

 

[Eonwe]

I like how Gandalf talks to the moth on top of Orthanc:

Tickootiskcioojwosojoititkosi (releases moth)

Translation:

"Get Gwaihir. Don't be confused by the Moon. Beat it!"

 

[Beleg Strongbow]

Why didn't gandalf conjure up a nuclear bomb drop it on sauron and then run in and destroy the ring.lol. Well frodo couldn't drop it right and also gandalf might have ment that to happen but he was lost remember.