Note that if you're looking for a coherent cogent post, you might want to look elsewhere, and this author is not responsible for any collateral neurulogical damage as your brain screams 'Enough!' You've been warned.
The eagles are not "the hand of God," which is another way of saying D E M. In Arda we see the eagles attack Morgoth, and keep a watch on his doings (lot of help that was to the Elves
), and they helped Turgon keep Gondolin hidden for a time. Later we have the eagles assist Thorin's party, and they also take part in the Battle of Five Armies. We have Gwaihir rescue Gandalf from both Orthanc and Zirakzigil, and throughout LotR there's times when an eagle is noted to be circling about.
Lastly, the eagles assist in the rescue of Frodo and Sam, at the end of all things, when the two hobbits are surely doomed.
See the Hand of God? Don't think so. As
lmp kids
Formendacil, technically, in an Eru-constructed universe,
everything is wrought by Eru's hands, even Melkor and his subsequent deeds. But I think that when we talk about D E M/ HoG, we mean a specific intervention of the divine that tips the scales, miraculously, in a 'good' way. The eagles show up so that Gandalf can rescue the hobbits, but if they were purely the HoG, then they could have went to Mount Doom without Gandalf's prompting. Maybe Eru's hands via Manwë make the eagles available, but again, the eagles themselves aren't D E M.
Is the appearance of the eagles in the examples above so out of the ordinary that the average reader can see the HoG? Having done some looking for God's fingerprints myself, I'm always reminded that I have to rule out other, more mundane, explanations for the squiggly lines before tagging the event as a 'miracle.' By definition, a miracle should have such a low probability of occurance that you can only shug your shoulders and say, "I have no explanation as the event is contrary to every other thing that I observe." In books, when done poorly, the author will simply pull something out of nowhere just to finish off a plot, and the reader is dumbfounded as the fix is completely unnatural in an artificial way. You get the feeling that the author has either written him/herself into a corner, is lazy and tired of the story, and so cuts through the Gordian plot with a suddenly-found chainsaw that drops from the air, then burns the loose ends with a flamethrower.
When done well, the reader isn't quite sure if he/she sees the fingerprints or not.
But back to a point. Does the D E M always result in good, or a eucatastrophe? An obvious HoG moment is the drowning of Numenor. It's not even subtle, as I think that the text states that Manwë lays down his authority and says to Eru, "have at 'em." The Gift is taken back, and many die. The link provided in a post above has that Mablung is D E M in regards to Turin and Nienor Níniel, and I think that D E M is definitely not eucatastrophic.
Just some thoughts.