Why save them?

[Lotrelf]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

The Eagles in general were servants of Manw�0Š5. Therefore, as lmp said, they would not have accepted such a task. The point of the Istari was to give the Valar an indirect means of aiding Middle-earth against Sauron, not to do the job for them.

Yes, and weren't the Elves and Men supposed to fight on their own after a battle(which one I can't say, I was told this by a friend of mine who's read The Sil)? That's why they wouldn't participate in the War of the Ring. Isn't it? Is there any other explanation?
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I read few posts where it's said that Tolkien got too connected to his characters, and that's why he didn't kill them. I'd heard somewhere that initially Tolkien planned to kill Pippin, but he could not endure the loss. So he killed Boromir (why?? ).

[littlemanpoet]

At the risk of sending this thread in an entirely new direction, Tolkien was able to kill Boromir and "endure the loss" because with that warrior-prince's death, he was well within the borders of Northern heroic epic theme.

As for Pippin, if one reads the various events of his life, including the words Gandalf speaks to him in warning, there is plenty of foreshadowing for his death. Personally, after reading the battle at the Gates, I thought that Pippin was dead. So Tolkien was well within his artistic rights to choose to have had him killed, because it would have worked; but it would have changed the tale, made it darker, especially on the return trip, and all the events in the Scouring of the Shire.

I'm rusty on the Sil and so will leave that question to be answered by others.