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Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man
I'm not a fan of this theory or the theories that have the talking animals as merely repeating learned patterns or the products of Hobbitish whimsy, as they all rather detract from the charm of the Hobbit and the early chapters of LotR, which suggest to me that all of these creatures (including the eagles and the spiders) are just what they appear to be - sentient (non-Maiar) animals.
Whoever said that such things could not exist in Middle-earth anyway?
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I'm not a huge fan of such theories, and I have no problem reading about middle-earth, or accepting such things as being fully able to happen there, but we fans are not the only ones to wonder.
The Professor himself, after having written the LotR, began to try and make things consistent. He took GREAT pains to explain what appeared to be anomolies and exceptions to the rules. In particular, he did this in the linguistic field, vigorously explaining things like how a river flowing through a barren plain can be call the "Shadowy River".
Look also at his continual (and mostly undecided, in the end) attempts to reconcile the origins of the orks with the rules of his world. Somewhat connected with this is the exact portrayal of the Great Eagles.
Now I, personally, have no particular opinion on the "talking animals" one way or another, but I wanted to point out that it not out of character with regards to middle-earth to try and fit everything into a coherent system, and is, in fact, a part of Tolkien's own history of revision and sub-creation.