[The Saucepan Man]

Yes, I see now. Thanks Sharkû. Sorry for being so slow on the uptake. I find these concepts of fea and hroar quite difficult to come to terms with. I think that it's because of my resistance (Tolkien's words notwithstanding) to this idea that Orcs, Eagles etc were basically animals taught to talk parrot-fashion. With Orcs, this concept doesn't square with my conception fellows such as Ugluk, Shagrat and Gorbag, built up through the conversations that they have with their fellow Orcs (although I can appreciate that it gets over issues such as what happens to Orcish feas and whether they are capable of redemption).

The same goes for the Eagles and the Ravens. It just doesn't work for me to view their "sentience" as being akin to that of a parrot when they appear (like the Orcs) to express their own independent thoughts and opinions.

But those, I suppose, are issues for another topic.

As I said earlier, I have no problem, conceptually, with Thorondor not being a Maia. I simply have a problem with him being a parrot. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]