What if Frodo had died at Weathertop?

[RTFirefly]

@Anaamika

I have said this before with more or less degrees of bitchiness, but the Eagles are not Middle Earth’s taxi service. They don’t come when called. They came to Gandalf because they owed him a number of favors but to fly into Mordor before Sauron was vanquished is almost literally akin to flying into Hell - there isn’t a favor big enough. Plus if you were Sauron and you saw a bunch of fatass Eagles flying toward your Tower of Doom you’d damn well get not just the Nazgul over there but every catapult, ballista, and other machine of war you could find. Remember how technogically savvy the Orcs and such were, with their machines?

In contrast, two Hobbits on foot were a totally unprecedented move and one the Enemy never even thought of in his arrogance and conceit. So please stop assuming the Eagles were anyone’s bitches. They were proud and regal creatures themselves.

Yaargh!

The debate over whether it would have made more sense to get the Ring to Mt. Doom by Eagle, along the lines of “How Lord of the Rings Should Have Ended,” deserves its own thread, so that it doesn’t derail other LOTR threads. I’ve started one here.

Feel free to c’mon over, and even if you don’t, the next time this comes up in some other LOTR thread, as it inevitably will from time to time, you can just point them to my thread.