I’ve always thought that it would have been so much better if JRR could have just admitted “yeah, I see what you’re saying, they probably should have at least asked the eagles to take them over the mountains” instead of trying to pretend that everything was logically consistent. Hell, the Bible isn’t logically consistent, and that thing was written by god!
I’d say the same thing applies to the Elves, mostly, but then we’d have all the nerds in a huff.
