Thorondor as a Maia???

[the phantom]

The fact that they were sentient is of no relevance, unless we are going to say that Carc's race and the thrush at Erebor were Maiar too.

Excellent point.

In that incarnation thread I alluded to earlier, Oblo posted a Tolkien quote from Myths Transformed-

In summary: I think it must be assumed that 'talking' is not necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fëa.

I believe that quote is in line with what you're saying.

And SPMan, you said this-

referring to them as birds in a published work

That leads us to the age old question, are you the type that puts more weight on LOTR and The Hobbit since they were novels written by Tolkien rather than notes published by his son, or are you the type that puts more weight on whatever Tolkien wrote last (latest date).

Hmm... that might take us off topic. We'd better forget about it. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

And, in any event, what is the problem, conceptually, with the Eagles simply being giant eagles?

Frankly, I don't care either way, I just like to run my mouth about Tolkien. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

Darkness, Iarhen? Sorry for the misunderstanding, but my comment had nothing to do with the "darkness" part of your statement, it had to do with the fact that you called her "MAIA" since one of the things I was questioning in this thread was whether or not she was in fact a Maia. So when you said that the Sil calls her "Maia" (when it doesn't) it sort of messes the debate up (because if the Sil really did call her "Maia", the question would be answered).

It's "Maia" that I had a problem with. Do you get what I mean now?

(I suppose I could've let it slip, but I just don't like Galadriel-worshipers [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] )