Doests
19311
325
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Aug 18, 2025 6:58 PM
Doests
19311
325
19
CityYeti
They had air support. They'd see the Eagles from a mile away. Only 2 hobbits could walk into Mordor
ProfessorMatt
The Dude: “Man, fuck the Eagles.”
officedemon
fly you fools!
Kats8652
Unbeknownst to Elrond, Sauron invested heavily in the Gepard.
Hypothesist
JayDeeDubs
AtsaMattaForMe
Ilovetomakestuffup
haven't seen an oglaf in a while
AtsaMattaForMe
DrSharkbite
jonhamsandwich11
Guess he listened….
v
PineappleLoopsBroether
First class, you rubes!
faro2000
a.k.a. Deus Ex Machina Airlines (since the 1960s, at least. : )
AtsaMattaForMe
AtsaMattaForMe
see I just realized Alex Garland created a series called DEVS (Deus) and movie Ex Machina
AtsaMattaForMe
euphoricopportunity
A memory from my teenage years. The first half was kinda funny, but it really falls off before the end.
livtempleton
I figured one of the (if not THE) reason they didn’t go to the eagles was the same reason Gandalf didn’t take the ring himself. Eagles are crazy powerful, the ring could corrupt them worse than it would Gandalf, Galadriel, or any human. Hobbits are humble. Sure gollum went crazy but the ring couldn’t escape him for centuries or something right?
NothingPrince
they would have been seenlanding and killed if not killed befoehand by the Nazgûl-bird would have killed them
livtempleton
That too of course haha
richardstinks
I know it's a meme, but we can't forget that getting The Eagles was a Big Deal. They were isolationists, unconcerned with human affairs and it took 14 years for Hell to freeze over and them to play again.
Eldibs
I hate that explanation. It feels forced, like an ad-hoc thing thought up to justify a plot hole. You know what explains it better? Nazguls have fucking flying mounts available and would have seen the eagles coming from miles away, especially if they were carrying the ring-bearer. It needed to be a stealth mission, it wouldn't work if Sauron knew what they were up to.
Ulthirm
Also they're intelligent beings that might be reasonable scared about flying into the evil volcano land where they have giant warbows that could prolly pierce through 10 of them in a row.
NothingPrince
Nazgûl-bird would have killed them and they would have been ambushed when they landed
swinglinered
An eagle would be way tougher than one of those. iirc the Eagles are "Aid from Manwe", and thus only act as part of some pre-ordained script. Except for when Tolkien contradicts himself in his many rewrites. :)
JackieTreehornProductions
GreatWhiteNorthEh
It's also worth noting that the only time an eagle speaks in both the Hobbit and in LOTR is when the lord of all the eagles tells the story about Gandalf saving him after some rando shot him down with a bow.
Orcs also have bows.
RedClaws23
Orcish Bowmasters you say?
JasonThorn
Yeah, they would have been easy targets, and the One Ring would be on Sauron's finger two hours later, at most. Can we just retire this concept already?
EllisTomago
I love the Eagles! Don Henley, Jalen Hurts, the O line . . .
skwint
Don't you draw the sword Anduril, boy, she'll beat you if she's able
TheWombatStrikesAgain
Then came The Hobbit, and the eagles came over just to carry Gandalf and a bunch of dwarfs for a bit on their equally important quest to get their old house back.
FireSolvesProblems
I've always been of the opinion they knew the Ring would corrupt the Eagles & nobody wanted that nonsense. Also even in Middle Earth an army of giant eagles flying towards the one location that can destroy the bad guys superweapon & kill him, probably pretty noticeable & heavily guarded.
Sensiblyinteresting
The eagles could have flown over 10,000 feet up. Which probably would have had them go unnoticed, then dropped the ring from there. BUT then the books/movies couldn't have happened.
oldguyexlurker
Could have cut a helluva lot off the journey, though.
UnaccomplishedWatcherImNotaBot
Yeah that was Tolkiens opinion, i just like to point attention to 1 Sauron and satuman knowing magic 2 nazguls and fell beasts 3 mordor being an industrial machine capable of producing balistas 4 inability do land close to the FREAKING VOLCANO
GreenJayBird
There is an entire chapter in the books about why they have to walk the path they walk
reineseele
The eye in the tower lookin at sky level stuff and flyin nazghuls. yeah would have been a bad idea. but when the eye was distracted > fly
Kittynomnoms
Literally the whole point was that they were doing what Sauron didn't expect: giving the ring to a Hobbit and having them go to Mordor to destroy it. He would have expected a distraction followed by an all-out eagle blitz.