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littlemanpoet · 02-07-2002, 08:33 PM

I'll take another shot at the gist of my response, Rhud. I'm sorry the first attempt was lost. I thought it was pretty interesting. Lessee.....

I recall someone metioning that the Eagles were the servants of Manwe, and functioned as a sort of (gasp dare we say it) "Deus ex machina" in Tolkien's works. There was the Battle of Five Armies, the battle before the Teeth of Mordor, the very first rescue from the trees as they were burnt by the Goblins (and Wargs), and the rescuing of Gandalf once from Orthanc, and once from the top of Caradhras. Okay. Now that I got all that outlined clearly in my head, it turns out that they are NOT all battle-related. So I was wrong to say so. They DO all seem to be Gandalf-related, which I find interesting, and perhaps key. It is the friendship between Gwaihir Windlord and Gandalf that makes the thing work at all, and I tend to believe that JRRT did lace enough of that into his Tapestry to make it more than mere deus ex machina. I also mentioned in the previous (lost) thread that I considered the Eagles to be one race among the sentient free peoples, that they are not humanoid notwithstanding. Based on the Gwaihir/Gandalf friendship and the free peoples aspects of Eagles, I think there's enough there to say that they were not merely a "throw them in as the last salvation". I would put it that they were the air force, so to speak, of the Free Peoples. As such, they were the counter to the Nazgul, I suppose.

Another related aspect to the discussion, I recall, was that they were "redemptive", and I suggested that "salvific" was a better word.

I hope that helps to bring some or more of this discussion back.

02-07-2002, 08:33 PM	#4
littlemanpoet Itinerant Songster Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: The Edge of Faerie Posts: 7,066	I'll take another shot at the gist of my response, Rhud. I'm sorry the first attempt was lost. I thought it was pretty interesting. Lessee..... I recall someone metioning that the Eagles were the servants of Manwe, and functioned as a sort of (gasp dare we say it) "Deus ex machina" in Tolkien's works. There was the Battle of Five Armies, the battle before the Teeth of Mordor, the very first rescue from the trees as they were burnt by the Goblins (and Wargs), and the rescuing of Gandalf once from Orthanc, and once from the top of Caradhras. Okay. Now that I got all that outlined clearly in my head, it turns out that they are NOT all battle-related. So I was wrong to say so. They DO all seem to be Gandalf-related, which I find interesting, and perhaps key. It is the friendship between Gwaihir Windlord and Gandalf that makes the thing work at all, and I tend to believe that JRRT did lace enough of that into his Tapestry to make it more than mere deus ex machina. I also mentioned in the previous (lost) thread that I considered the Eagles to be one race among the sentient free peoples, that they are not humanoid notwithstanding. Based on the Gwaihir/Gandalf friendship and the free peoples aspects of Eagles, I think there's enough there to say that they were not merely a "throw them in as the last salvation". I would put it that they were the air force, so to speak, of the Free Peoples. As such, they were the counter to the Nazgul, I suppose. Another related aspect to the discussion, I recall, was that they were "redemptive", and I suggested that "salvific" was a better word. I hope that helps to bring some or more of this discussion back.