That plan fails to account for OwlKitty.
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For all Team Good knew, that’s exactly what Sauron wanted—that could have been the worst possible thing they could do
I mean, reliable intelligence about exactly what the Ring was, what it was for, and what it could do seemed pretty scarce—all Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel knew was it was bad news and nobody powerful should be allowed anywhere near it
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It would have been. Turns out it was basically a horcrux, and taking it to the undying lands would have made him truly immortal.
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the nazgül clearly hate water, and i’m not sure if sauron can even swim. ( he certainly is never described as swimming, or even taking a bath. )
that said, i do see the problem with kraken. and it’s also possible that the undying lands were just a story to make everyone feel better about frodo and the elves departing. such places usually are
i do think giant whales could have helped. but maybe they were so big even tolkien couldn’t fit them in a book…
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It takes a significant portion of the start of Moby Dick for the protagonist to walk a hundred yards up the beach and buy a beer. It’s doable, it’d just be as dull as Moby Dick.
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I have not read the books.
But knowing that they are books and assuming they were written as a series, I’d imagine Tolkien started the hobbits on their journey with the ring on foot knowing it would take a while, with no clue about how they might get back (or if they even would), and figured it out later.
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It was written as a single book with the six sections in it. The publishers couldn’t do it as a single book due to paper shortages after the war and thousand page books weren’t a thing back then so it was split into three with two sections in each book and the appendixes in the third.
These days it’s different though, it depends whether a author is a plotter or pantser as if they know where they are going or just write and see where their characters take them.
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Thanks!
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Seconded! The many Craigs alone are worth the watch, and the varied fan mail clips are just perfect.
Perfectly observed:
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Also, me settling down to read this thread after seeing the original clip:
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Think they covered that in The Council of Elrond didn’t they? Basically, “It’s a middle earth problem.” Also, it was mentioned that going back the way they came with the ring, which would be the direction to the Grey Havens, would be super risky.
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The book version of the council meeting did address the question of why they didn’t send the ring somewhere far away or just drop the thing into the bottom of the ocean.
‘Then,’ said Glorfindel, ‘let us cast it into the deeps, and so make the lies of Saruman come true. For it is clear now
that even at the Council his feet were already on a crooked path. He knew that the Ring was not lost for ever, but wished us to think so; for he began to lust for it for himself. Yet oft in lies truth is hidden: in the Sea it would be safe.’‘Not safe for ever,’ said Gandalf. ‘There are many things in the deep waters; and seas and lands may change. And it is not our part here to take thought only for a season, or for a few lives of Men, or for a passing age of the world. We should seek a final end of this menace, even if we do not hope to make one.’
A reasonable question, asked and answered. Which is why it’s all the more frustrating Tolkien never answered the equally reasonable question “why not enlist the help of the Eagles?”
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Ok, so why did it have to be Mordor? Surely there were other places with access to molten lava that he could have dropped the ring into. Why did it have to be taken to the most dangerous place in the world, and not Hawaii or its Middle Earth equivalent?
“Cast into the fire from which it was forged” or something like that. It’s where it was made, so back the Ring must go to be unmade.
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Yes. The Ring is indestructible, at least by any craft or power the Free Peoples had access to. You can’t destroy it, you have to unmake it, and that can only be achieved in the place where Sauron made it in the first place.
As for the “why not Eagles?” thing, I consider the repeated statements that directly challenging Sauron is going to end in a disaster, and that the use of stealth and doing what Sauron doesn’t expect anyone to do (or be capable of doing) is the only working solution, as sufficient. The author is not obliged to feed you everything readily chewed.
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Even if they didn’t manage to persuade the eagles to fly the hobbits all the way to Mount Doom, couldn’t they have arranged for them to be brought somewhere reasonably close to Mordor by air and still saved them a lot of walking, including through the mines of Moria and stuff?
Didn’t you see that Oglaf comic upthread?
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Even if he didn’t have air defenses in place, as soon as the Eagles crossed the Mordor border he could have ordered armies of orcs armed with missile weapons (and probably some siege weapons as well) to guard the locations where it looked they were headed. I don’t know how many orcs they would need to have a good shot at shooting down an Eagle carrying the Ringbearer, but they’d probably be able to muster that (and more) along the Eagles’ path.
This assumes Sauron didn’t have some power he could throw against the Eagles directly once they got close enough. The Ring had much of his power locked up in it but I’m guessing he would still have enough to fling a couple big fireballs at a clear target like a flying giant eagle. After the Ring was unmade, the shock of its destruction likely prevented him from retaliating against the forces of good as they swooped in to save Frodo and Sam.
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Baby calf-sized eagle chicks to take care of. They come first.
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I think the bigger reason why he didn’t use the eagles in the story was that the eagles that were sent were from the Valar, specifically Manwe. And at that point in history, the Valar recognized that it wasn’t their war to fight anymore. The first age was the age of elves and dwarves, and Valar to some extent, but the third age was truly meant to be the struggle of mortals. And as such, narratively, it made sense that the eagle’s appearance was a rare sight. It was a signal that the age of wonders and unhuman terrors were long past. And that evil now has an all too human face with Sauron being the last inhuman evil in Middle-earth.
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