Ulmo and the Ring War

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Feliandreka

They were at the Battle of Five Armies but were they instructed to go there? Did they need to be instructed? Ok, the Eagles helped the Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf escape from the Wargs and Goblins by carrying them away to their aeries. But if the Eagles had not already seen them during their flight from the tunnels of the Goblin complex, would they have not seen them when Gandalf started lighting off pine cones?

I am not sure if I understood the two last sentences - as far as I know, the Eagles noticed only the burning pine trees, that was the first time they noticed something happening, and later they saw that somebody's up there and they saved Gandalf. But they have not seen the Dwarves and Gandalf escaping from the underground.

But, anyway, to the main point. I believe the Eagles' intervention had nothing to do with the relationship to Gandalf, even less to the Dwarves (they didn't have any): it is stated in the Hobbit explicitely, and it has been already even quoted here, that the goblins were the Eagles' bitter enemies. And that is sufficient, and it goes well with the "task" of the Eagles: they were the breed brought into Middle-Earth by Manwë in order to guard and protect the others, and be in the battle against Morgoth and whatever he created. Battle of the Five Armies, despite its importance and impact which could have been seen only later (preservation of the Ring, the Kingdom Under the Mountain as a protection against the Easterlings...), was not as important event for the Valar or whatever providence might have guided the Eagles (if we decide it guided them in several other times) to intervene. In this case, and that has been already mentioned before, it was most probably solely the Eagles' own initiative. But I still doubt about the decisive Battle of Morannon.

Originally Posted by Feliandreka

It also seems likely to me that the Eagles possessed their own information network, built chiefly upon their outstanding vision, they could see troop movements from a mile up just as they could see a playing card. Can anyone honestly say that these amazings creatures could not have know when a battle was brewing?

You have to take into account, that battle was brewing everywhere at that time. In the Anduin Vales, in Mirkwood, also there was an attack on northern Rohan - all of this much closer to the Eagles' home than the Black Gate. Why did they arrive just there, and how did they know that they should go just there? Okay, even if they decided to intervene not close to their homes, but to the battles in the South (which by itself is illogical, but okay), then wouldn't it be logical to head for Minas Tirith, and not the Black Gate, where it wasn't even known if any army is going to march there! No, I will say with Gandalf: "There was something else at work."