/lit/ - Literature

>but the eagles are a proud race and would never stoop so low!
Except when they rescued Frodo and Sam, and Gandalf (twice), and fought in the Battle of the Five Armies and the battle at the Black Gate.
Also, Sauron's acquisition of the ring would have dire consequences for the eagles, so there's no reason they wouldn't help for the sake of their own self-interest.

>but Sauron's forces would have defeated the eagles before they reached Mount Doom!
The Nazgul only rode the Fellbeasts after their horses were drowned, so the eagles would not have faced any real threat in the air if they had helped since the beginning.
Also, it's likely that they could have dropped the ring into Mt. Doom quickly enough that Sauron would have no opportunity to mount a counterattack.

>but they still would have been caught flying there!
Not if everyone was preoccupied fighting Aragorn's army at the Black Gate, which was the plan anyway.
Also, they could have at least helped on the first leg of the journey, far from Sauron's eye. It's established that destroying the ring is the last thing Sauron expects, so he wouldn't be guarding the place very well. A couple of eagles flying around the Misty Mountains would have aroused little suspicion and at least allowed them to bypass the Misty Mountains.

>but the eagles would have been tempted by the Ring!
Not any more than Gandalf, Aragorn, and the rest of the Fellowship that traveled with Frodo.
Also, they would have spent much less time with the ring-bearers and therefore experienced less temptation.

>b-but.... there's just no way it would have worked!
The plan they went with had almost no realistic chance of success either. Gandalf himself stated that there was "just a fool's hope" of victory, the way things were. The eagles would have certainly given the Fellowship better odds than the ones they were faced with.

>but using the eagles doesn't make for a good story!
Plot holes don't make for good stories either. In a highly developed, well thought-out fictional universe like Tolkien's, such a deus ex machina should not have the possibility to exist.
The only possible in-universe explanation is that a great moral struggle was deemed necessary by the Valar, and as such the eagles would not have been allowed to intervene. This should have been stated explicitly in the literature.

Why didn't the Israelites just take the eagles to Canaan?

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

Why didn't they just give the ring to Tom Bombadil?