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Old 01-20-2011, 06:20 AM   #14
PrinceOfTheHalflings
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I think one of the false assumptions many people make is somehow assuming that flight by Eagle would be more or less instantaneous. It's a bird, not a jet aircraft! It has to stop, eat, rest. So does Frodo - so he's going to need to carry supplies (adding weight).

In reality the Eagles could only fly so fast and for so long - carrying a passenger would slow them down even more. It would still take a considerable period of time for an Eagle to carry Frodo all the way from Rivendell to Mordor, and then the flight across Mordor would take some hours at the very least. All the time the Eagle is vulnerable to attack. It's all very well saying that the Nazgul are out of action at the time of the Council of Elrond, but our heroes don't know that, and realistically by the time an Eagle (carrying Frodo) makes it all the way to Mordor the Nazgul could be up and running again.

There's also the problem of Frodo being able to destroy the Ring. It's all very well to say that Frodo had no trouble setting the Ring down on a table at the Council of Elrond - but that's not the same as destroying it, is it? Frodo couldn't even throw the Ring into the fire at Bag End!

The power of the Ring increases as it get closer to its point of origin. Nobody could destroy it in the Cracks of Doom - Isildur couldn't, and he had Elrond and Cirdan standing beside him urging him to destroy it!

The point of the story is that nobody could destroy the Ring of their own free will - it took an act of Providence, related to Frodo's mercy, to allow the Ring to be destroyed - no amount of shenanigans with Eagles makes any difference. I mean, even Peter Jackson understood that part of the story! Why do some people have difficulty with this?
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