The whole POINT of trying to destroy the Ring was that it had to be sneaked quietly into Mordor, because Sauron wasn’t expecting them to do that. An eagle (known to be Good Guys) coming flying into Mordor would be noticed, and probably be noticed from a long way off.
One assumes that Sauron had other flying nasties, not just the Nazgul – and perhaps he could even shoot lightning bolts to down eagles. So, flying Frodo into Mordor would have attracted Sauron’s attention.
To say nothing of the inability to be sure the ring is dropped into the fire, if you’re flying over a great height. If the ring happens to land on a little ledge (which it might try to do, remember that it has some will of its own!), y’all are S.O.L.
Nope. Big birds – no kidding birds – who functioned as Manwë’s messengers, doing his bidding. Lassie doesn’t cease to be a dog because she’s in the process of conveying the message that Timmy’s got himself in yet another fix, does she?
Same birds in both situations – and also they had roles guarding the Encircling Mountains of Gondolin, back in the First Age, and in the Three Ceremonies atop Mount Meneltarma, in Numenor in the Second Age.
They weren’t angels, per se, except in the sense that Malachi who wrote the last book of the Prophets was both a human being and God’s messenger (“malak” translated “aggelos”). They were birds – large, human-intellegence-equipped birds – with a role assigned them as errand-runners for the Lord of the Valar.
(In perspective, a parallel – the son of my Magical Sky Pixie is simultaneously a carpenter’s boy turned itinerant rabbi – and can be both things at once. And Tolkien was a Catholic.)
And I want to reiterate that they did Manwë’s will (and sometimes Gandalf’s as Manwë’s emissary with plenipotentiary authority), not whatever happened to come down the pike needing a short flight to Isengard International Airport. And they were just as subject to the temptation to power that the Ring embodies as anybody else in the stories (except maybe Tom B.). You really want a Dark Lord who is his own Fell Beast, and several times the size of anybody else in the stories with human-level intelligence (except maybe Smaug)?
You forget that the human Narnians (at least at the time of TLTWATW) were all descended from English folks. Presumably that was an Earth custom that lived on.
Regarding the Eagles, I quote from FOTR:
The speaker is Gandalf, during the Council of Elrond.
So here we learn a few things. First, the Eagles are doing their own thing. They’re not taking their marching orders from Gandalf; someone else told Gwaihir to come and get him. So at most they could ask the eagles nicely, assuming that the eagles could be found in the first place.
Second, they can’t fly all that far. They could take Gandalf from Isengard to Rohan, or take the hobbits from Mount Doom to the Black Gate, but they couldn’t go from Rivendell to Mount Doom. It would be way too far.
Third, they aren’t really made for carrying stuff. More of a messenger service than parcel pick-up.
Add to these the temptation that the Ring holds for any powerful being, and the protections that Sauron would doubtless have against big eagles, and you have an unworkable plan.
IIRC it was at Radagast’s request that Gwaihir had come to Orthanc - he was bringing news to Saruman and Gandalf of the activity of the Black Riders and was surprised to find Gandalf imprisoned… then came the nice asking, and I’m assuming that it was only because of Saruman’s trechary that he agreed to bear Gandalf at all…
Gwaihir dropped him off in Rohan. Theoden (who was still being poisoned by Wormtongue at the time) told him to take any horse he wanted and leave. So Gandalf took the best horse they had.
Sure, the elves in LOTR sit around discussing the fate of the world and singing sad laments and clothing themselves in raiment and bearing tidings and other elfly things. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t sing silly songs during happier times.
When Sauron invades, the elves get tough. But when they kick back in their hidden fastnesses, they lighten up a bit.
There’s also quite a bit about the different sides that elves show the world. Glorfindel is first introduced as an ordinary elf, and we’re supposed to think of the “Tra-la-la-lally” elves from the Hobbit. But when Glorfindel faces down the Nazgul he is revealed as an “Elf-Lord”. I imagine the difference between elf and elf lord is a matter of mood. Gandalf can sit around playing with smoke rings, or he can smite undead. Same guy. The elves are the same way. The Hobbit emphasizes one side of the elves, LOTR and the Silmarillion another.
It’s been several years since I read The Hobbit or LOTR, but I remember 3 trolls in The Hobbit that were turned to stone, and one troll in the Mines of Moria (FOTR).
Were there trolls mentioned elsewhere? Cause Peter Jackson sure makes liberal use of them in at least the last movie. When did they become resistant to sunlight? Or are there different kinds of trolls? If so, I want a chocolate one.
My second question is just speculation, but does anyone wonder how much headsmacking Sauron/The Necromancer must’ve done when he realized how close he’d been to his precious ring while he was shacked up at Dol Guldur? I mean, over the river and through the woods to Gollum’s cave we go. And Bilbo used it liberally less than 40 or 50 leagues from the Big Eye Guy. Was he off his game or what?
On page 82 of the 50th anniversary (of the Hobbit) edition Gandolf says that Sauron thought the ring destroyed. I’m on 98 so it’s still pretty fresh. And it sounds like he believed it was destroyed until fairly recently. I’m not exactly sure when he realized it wass still around but I think that it was after he was kicked out of Mirkwood and returned to Mordor. Then he began sending out waves drawing all evil towards him. Gollum strongly afflicted by the ring was brought to the edge of Morder where he hid for quite sometime before being caught just before he was about to go back for the ring.
Although that doesn’t make much sense because I thought he was tied to the ring and its destruction was his destruction. Seems like I’ve missed that sentance on previous readings because I can’t recall ever thinking about it before.
Well, during the seige of Gondor, the sun never seems to rise. There’s a line - “The next day came with a morning like brown dusk,” and then he keeps mentioning how dim it is until dawn finally arrives with the Riders from Rohan: “The darkness was breaking too soon, before the date that his [the Ring-Wraith’s] Master had set for it…”
Also, it’s always dark in Mordor. They even mention it in the movie, in one of the early bits with Frodo and Sam. I don’t think time of day is a factor there. So PJ has an out for the trolls, at least in those two situations.
Finally, Saruman managed to make the orcs resistant to sunlight. Maybe he gave the trolls some SPF 50?
I think many of the inconsistancies of tone and characterization between The Hobbit and LOTR can be explained by saying The Hobbit was Bilbo’s personal recollection of his adventure, written in his voice, whereas LOTR was more of a “documentary” - various sources telling their experiences during the war, compiled into one large story.
Bilbo seemed to relish being a storyteller in the Shire (in FOTR, the crowd groans during his Party, anticipating another long account of his travels). It seems that The Hobbit (or, to use Bilbo’s title, There and Back Again) was written in a tone to entertain young hobbits, and less to be a historical reference. Thus,we have silly elves instead of awesome Elf-Lords, and trolls that bicker over the best way to prepare a dwarf meal rather than the horrifying creature encountered in Moria.
I thought the sun was not visibly rising in that part of ROTK because great black clouds were pumping out of mordor. The same breeze that brought the corsair ships up also broke the clouds so some light began to show.
There are several different breeds of troll in Tolkien's work. The trolls that are out in the sunlight are "olog-hai", I may not be spelling that right. These are basicly "trolls 2.0" Sauron has basicly used his power to enhance their intellegence, and make them resistant to sunlight.
A few addenda, elaborations, and comments, some of them smart-ass. Disclaimer: I am a geek, but not a Tolkien Geek.
I don’t know, but to get an idea you might want to consult the margins of old issues of Mad Magazine.
The time between the War of the Last Alliance and the War of the Ring was Sauron’s off-season. He was in the Dominican Republic playing winter ball. Or maybe filming commercial endorsements…
The eagle thing looks like a big problem on first inspection, but I believe it can be rationalized away. Others have already laid the groundwork. I believe we can make the following futher assumptions:
Sauron’s Eye could just as easily watch the skies as the ground
More easily in fact, because there’s less clutter up there.
And he would be watching them if he knew about the eagles, which I think is a safe assumption.
Further, I don’t think we can safely assume that there’s nothing S can do about eagles buzzing around Mordor. Who knows what he was holding in reserve? He didn’t let loose with those pterodactyl thingies until after the Nazgul took an unscheduled bath. Maybe he had a few extra ones. Or a dragon or two. Plus at least some of the birds were working for him, as spies.
Also, the impression I got was that you couldn’t just drop something into the Cracks of Doom from the air, you had to go underground for access.
But the most important point to remember is what Mr. Haven alluded to:
Sauron’s biggest mistake was that he assumed that if his enemies found the ring, the only course of action they would contemplate would be to attempt to use it against him. It simply never entered his thinking that they would be able to resist the corrupting power of the ring to even contemplate destroying it. The good guys wanted to preserve this advantage they had, thus the need for stealth.
I must re-read The Hobbit; I don’t recall any references to firearms in any of Tolkien’s works whatsoever. Except for one stray snippet…“It’s a pity I’ve run out of bullets.” Where did that come from? Hmmmm…
Anyway though, I’ve often wondered why the people of Middle Earth never developed gunpowder-based weapons. I presume from the fireworks that they knew about it. Two theories:
The best I’ve been able to find by googling: They just never thought of it. There are supporting examples of this sort of thing in history. The Chinese invented gunpowder, but never used it to make cannons.
My own theory, which is that the wizards (or at least Gandalf) knew about it but endeavored to keep it a secret, as wizards in general are prone to keep the exact workings of their “magic” secret. This would neatly explain G’s “magical” use of his staff against the Goblins in The Hobbit. Why was there a “smell like gunpowder”? Because it was gunpowder! Why didn’t he use it more often? If he’s keeping it a secret he has no efficient way to manufacture the stuff.
Taking this line of thought to it’s logical conclusion leads us to Heinlein’s “Magic, Inc.” and the science of “thaumaturgy”.
No, Sauron would be “forever diminished”, but not destroyed, by the destruction of the ring. That’s a direct quote from either The Silmarillion or the LotR appendix, I forget which.
To guard against what? Destruction of the Ring wasn’t even the last thing that Sauron expected - he didn’t even have it on his list of possibilities. It was incomprehensible to him that someone would want to destroy it.
Given your sig, I’m sure you must know where it’s from. For the benefit of others, it’s Dildo Bugger’s words upon missing Goddam in Bored of the Rings.
