Many critics of The Lord of the Rings (yes, there are such people, bizarrely) think they have identified a major plot hole in both the book and the film trilogy.
These are the people who complain that the books and films are too long (false — they’re too short); there is too much description of trees and hills (true); there are too few strong female characters (true); there is too much poetry (false – try reading the poems instead of skipping over then); that Tom Bombadil doesn’t fit into the story (true – the films removed him entirely); and that the various homosexual relationships were sublimated (true, but come on – the books were written by a Catholic in the 1950s).
But the major complaint from critics of LOTR, the one that makes them feel all clever and smug, is this supposed plot hole: Why didn’t Frodo just ride an Eagle straight from Rivendell to Mt. Doom, and drop the One Ring into the lava? We know Gandalf was buddy-buddy with some giant Eagles, who rescued him from Orthanc and later snatched Frodo and Sam from certain immolation. If the Eagles can pick up the Hobbits from Mordor, why can’t they take them there as well?
This video presents the question in a humorous way:
Tolkien himself had to deal with this issue the first time a Hollywood producer tried to develop a Lord of the Rings film, in 1958. If you want to read how Tolkien excoriated the screenwriter over changes to the story, read letter 210 from Humphrey Carpenter’s The Letters of JRR Tolkien. I’ll wait.
Back? That was fast. You can see that Tolkien pretty much hated any changes to his story, even minor ones (although he was willing to cut the Battle of the Hornburg entirely, rather than lose the Ents). I suspect Tolkien would have hated the Peter Jackson trilogy, despite the fact that it makes very few changes that approach the stupidity of the 1958 treatment that Tolkien despised so much. (It describes Orcs with feathers and beaks. Really? Really??? Then again, Jackson turned Wargs into giant zombie hedgehogs.)
The treatment has Frodo and the Fellowship flying from location to location on the backs of Eagles. To quote the Professor:
…the Eagles are again introduced. I feel this to be a wholly unacceptable tampering with the tale. [emphasis original] ‘Nine Walkers’ and they immediately go up in the air! The intrusion achieves nothing but incredibility, and the staling of the device of the Eagles when at last they are really needed.
There are three general reasons Frodo does not fly an eagle to Mordor. The first has to do with storytelling; the second with the plotlines of The Hobbit and LOTR; and the third comes from The Silmarillion and other writings.
First, Tolkien considered the Eagles to be what he called a “device,” a deus ex machina that allows Frodo and Sam to be teleported to safety. Tolkien admits as much. Tales of the journey to slay the dragon/destroy the Ring are exciting and interesting – journeys home are not. As he put it:
But would [the screenwriter] think that he had improved the effect of a film of, say, the ascent of Everest by introducing helicopters to take the climbers half way up…?
The Fellowship walks (they don’t even have horses, except poor Bill the Pony) so they can have adventures. The end. Now, you could complain that this is poor storytelling. If you don’t want the characters riding friendly talking Eagles, then don’t introduce friendly talking Eagles.
Fortunately, Tolkien does explain why, in the story, Eagles were not an option. This second reason is revealed in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings.
In those two books, there are five instances where Eagles intervene. In The Hobbit, Eagles rescued Gandalf, Bilbo and the Dwarves from the Wargs and Orcs. The Eagles intervened because they hate Wargs and Orcs, but they refused to take Gandalf and the others very far, because the Eagles have their own business to take care of and don’t exist for the convenience others.
Later they arrived during the Battle of Five Armies, turning the tide of the battle for the good guys. Again, this is because they hate Orcs, and not because they respond to any summons, or follow anyone’s orders.
In The Fellowship of the Ring, an Eagle happens to rescue Gandalf by accident. Gandalf had previously asked the wizard Radagast (who doesn’t appear in the films, and is replaced, in one of Peter Jackson’s most bizarre changes, by a moth) to send any messages for him to Orthanc.
Each of the five Istari, or Wizards, had a special power. Gandalf had fire, Saruman had charisma, and the Blue Wizards had complete irrelevance. Radagast’s power was friendship with birds and beasts. It’s Radagast who asked an Eagle to take a message to Gandalf. The Eagle saw that Gandalf was imprisoned on the roof of Orthanc, and carried him away.
Perhaps Radagast could have convinced the Eagles to carry Frodo to Mordor, but he wasn’t at the Council of Elrond.
Later, an Eagle retrieved the newly resurrected Gandalf the White from the summit of Celebdil. The reasons for this are made clear below.
And finally, Gandalf got the Eagles to rescue Frodo and Sam from the violent eruption of Orodruin. This is why some people think that Eagles should have flown them to Mordor in the first place.
Why does Elrond send Nine Walkers, without steeds? Because Sauron and Saruman are both on the lookout for anyone who might have the One Ring. They are both using all the magic and manpower (orcpower?) they possess. All the roads are being watched. Some of the birds are spies.
Riding horses would just bring attention to the Fellowship. And riding Eagles? Why not just construct an enormous neon sign that says in all-caps “HEY SAURON – THE RING IS RIGHT HERE.”
Sure, the Eagles are able to fly safely in and out of Mordor – after Sauron is defeated. Remember the Ringwraiths? The ones with flying steeds? Maybe an Eagle could defeat a Ringwraith in an aerial battle, but I wouldn’t want to be the Halfling clinging to its back. And if Sauron himself attempted to interfere with the Eagles (either the menacing humanoid Sauron of the book, or the “evil lighthouse” of the films), I would place my bets on Sauron.
No one at the Council of Elrond suggested riding Eagles because (a) Eagles don’t take orders and (b) it would have drawn the attention of The Eye and insured disaster.
Many things that occur in The Lord of the Rings are unexplained, or only partially explained. Readers in the 50s and 60s enjoyed this aspect of the book, that it takes place in a fully realized world, and there isn’t time to cover everything. But it’s clear to the reader that these mysteries have explanations, even if those explanations aren’t provided.
In 1977, Chris Tolkien published The Silmarillion, and most of those mysteries were revealed. Which brings us to our third point – what are Eagles, anyway?
Tolkien went back and forth on this, at one point writing that Eagles are just regular eagles given giant size and intellect by magical means. But canonically, according to The Silmarillion, Eagles are Maiar (lesser gods or angels) incarnated as large birds. (This goes against the canonically established fact that Eagles have offspring, but whatever.)
No matter what Eagles are, all sources agree they are servants of Manwë Súlimo, King of the Valar (greater gods or archangels), making them quite literally deus ex machina. The Eagles provide help when Manwë wishes them to do so, and only then.
Tolkien’s gods, whether the Valar or Eru Ilúvatar (God) Himself, are the kind who create the world and then sit back and watch the fun, only interceding in the most extraordinary circumstances. The Eagles don’t make the quest to destroy the Ring easy because the gods want mortals to solve the problem on their own. Once Frodo and Sam have completed their tasks, then the gods reward them by (a) rescuing them from certain death and (b) allowing them to make the voyage to the Uttermost West.
But what about Gandalf? Why are Eagles always rescuing him? Because Gandalf is a mortal manifestation of the Maia Olórin, sent by Manwë to aid mortals in the fight against Sauron. So Gandalf has a special hotline to divine intersession. And when he dies, the Valar send him back to try again.
So the Eagles don’t fly Frodo to Mordor because the gods don’t want it going down that way. Makes you wonder why anyone would want to live in a universe with a capricious God, or gods, in the first place.
[...] Warner on the Hobbit films. For more info:; Via Bloomberg via Frodo Franchise; more details; and here is what Tolkien himself thought of an early treatment for an LOTR film. Share this [...]
“….. Again, this is because they hate Orcs, and not because they respond to any summons, or follow anyone’s orders.”
I think that sums it up perfectly.
Good article!
[...] Tolkien turns to his commonly-used deus ex accipitridae, the heroic giant Eagles of Manwë Súlimo, who rescue our heroes here, and at the Battle of Five Armies, and at Orthanc, the Fall of [...]
Eagles are Maiar (lesser gods or angels) incarnated as large birds. (This goes against the canonically established fact that Eagles have offspring, but whatever.)
Why would reproducing Maiar-eagles contradict other parts of the stories? After all, Melian (a Maia) bore Lúthien. Is it that Maiar cannot reproduce with each other? Or the limitation that they cannot “create (sentient?) life” on their own? (Melian did have Thingol, who wasn’t a Maia, to contribute, so maybe that suffices.)
The argument here is that Maiar cannot create new life, although it seems to me this is reproduction, not the kind of “life creation” that Aulë attempted with the Dwarves.
This has apparently been an argument amongst scholars for a while. Unfortunately, Tolkien was unclear about whether all spirits are Ainur, and whether Eagles and Ents are in fact Maiar, or something else. What we do know is that both can have offspring.
Personally, I’m with you — that incarnated Maiar living in Middle-earth (Ents, Elves, Melian) can reproduce. Does that imply that Istari can have children? Or little Balroglings, or a Son of Sauron? A child for Tom & Goldberry? I don’t know.
[...] the Ringwraiths – yet Bombadil can dispel them with a simple song. The kind of person who asks why Frodo didn’t fly Eagles from Rivendell to Mount Doom might also ask why Bombadil doesn’t do everyone a favor and throw [...]
Only if Bombadil and Goldberry are Maia…but I think thats another article :)
[...] As for Gandalf being a terrible wizard? Movie: we established that Saruman was the more powerful wizard. Book: Gandalf never claimed to be able to defeat freakin’ mountains. Anyway, what kind of a story would LOTR be if Gandalf could teleport the Fellowship past every obstacle? They might as well all fly eagles to Mordor. [...]
[...] The Eagles arrive! Hooray! They find the ceaselessly chatty Frodo and Sam and bear them away from the volcanic eruption. They also bear THE ENTIRE GONDORIAN AND ROHIRRIM ARMY back to Minas Tirith. Seriously. Look, I included a screen cap. Now, that is dumber than bearing the fellowship to Mordor. [...]
this issue always arises but i never chose to believe Tolkien would leave such a plothole. i just finished reading The Two Towers and although this never popped into my mind i saw it in the net after further reading. this post shines! I thank you so much. i wonder if Tolkien would ever have thought this way but this post is very hard not to believe. i am convinced the Eagles really wouldn’t have taken them to Mordor!
sounds to me like the eagles are dicks
In the fellowship, we have seen how Saruman conjured a thunderstorm with powerful lightning to strike the mountaintop. Sauron would be able to do that and the eagle would have been toasted in seconds.
THE MOVIES TAKE OUT TOM BOMBADIL!!!
HOW CAN THEY!!!
THIS IS MY MY FAVORITE SERIES IN THE WORLD!!
THEIR THE BEST!!!
having the eagles take them would have ruined the book
i love it the way it is
Awesome article. It clearly demonstrates and explains the problem, with a light language and wise remarks.
First Eagles from what I recall are not Maiars (only spirits sent to live their existance as giant sentient birds, they are rational incarnate creatures to use Tolkien’s own words, just like ents, so being a race means they live and multiply as all other races, elves, men, hobbits, dwarves, orcs, ents), they also have faults, make mistakes (they are divine messangers but not divine themselves, well even divines in Lotr can make them just like god-like Sauron’s wrong assumptions based on limited knowledgem, omniscience is not total for Maiar and Valar, they know things beyond mortal comprehension, yet are not infallible and all-knowing, certain things are hidden from them), though capable of speech, strong and big the Eagles are not invincible, they tire, they express emotion and weakness, can be wounded and killed. In the First Age they were active on the behalf of Valar but as the time goes by the contact with the Powers is severed and Eagles rarely ever receive messages from higher bosses (only instance when the Eagles arrive at Morannon) other times it’s either pure luck or deliberate action on their part (Battle of Five Armies, they came after the army of orcs which movements they registered, help to the dwarf company and Gandalf, pure chance and a bit of gratitude for Gandalf’s healing of the King of Eagles from arrow wound). There’s lots of reasonable explanations which take into account the in-universe limitations, natural order. Also Mordor has more ways of protection of it’s borders than only flying creatures that serve Sauron, first very hostile environment, air full of ash and poisonous fumes, the rescue of Frodo and Sam was a risk they took when in total chaos of destruction no other force could hinder their flight (like incapacitating power of Sauron Eye and it’s vigilance, power to ,,govern the storms in the Mountains of Shadow” and mundane armed forces guarding the borders, the Egles feared the bow wielding men, so orcs, who even had war machines, like catapults would be quite serious threat, animal spies and such could detect them). It’s not as simple as it seems.
[...] Periannath, Erik David Even explains away one of the supposed plot holes in The Lord of the Rings: why doesn’t Frodo simply ride an eagle to Mount Doom? It’s a lengthy explanation that delves into Middle Earth lore, but I prefer a simpler one: [...]
Thanks for putting this so eloquently. I absolutely hate it when people think they can outsmart Tolkien by pointing this out, when if you’ve read the books it’s quite easy to see that the Eagles are intelligent creatures who don’t take orders from anyone!
None of this invalidates that it’s a plothole. It could conceivably be that Manwe has no interest in intervening at this point, but the fact of the matter is that that is not mentioned–more poignantly, it’s not brought up as an option at the Council of Elrond (to be dismissed), even though they clearly considered every other possible option. I feel like this link here sums it up pretty well: http://www.sean-crist.com/personal/pages/eagles/index.html
As far as “out-smarting Tolkein” from the comment above–that’s a pretty narrow way to think about it. These books are enormous in scope, and they only scratch the surface of the monster world-building exercise that is Middle Earth. If there’s one plothole, I think it would be unreasonable to look down on Tolkein for it. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a plothole.
Interesting another point of view that searches for easier ways :). The proposed route is dangerously in range of sight from Barad-dur it’s just crossing betwenn it and Orodruin so Sauron would rather notice when he would look towards the Black Gate. Well some of the other points on the sean crist site are also not exactly what I would agree with. First Ered Lithui or Ashen Mountains must have took it’s name from somewhere and thus it means lots of ash and fumes of Orodruin high in the air and winds specifically direct it towards this mountain range to accumulate. Middle Earth is after all a world where normal laws of physic and nature work, birds especially so large as Great Eagles would quickly choke from it and their morality is sometimes questioned in The Hobbit we’re told that many eagles are not so nice as most think they are this gives a a debatable matter of their resistance to the rings inmfluence (not to mention that near Orodruin NOBODY would have the strength of will to destroy it even in short time):
,,Eagles are not kindly birds. Some are cowardly and cruel. But the ancient race of the northern mountains were the greatest of all birds; they were proud and strong and noble-hearted.” The said group can be better but they still have wild nature and flaws of character.
Also Gwaihir himself states that he can carry burdens many leagues but not for long.
Speed of fell beast is also described as ,,faster than any wind” so the Eagles outmatching them is not so certain (Gandalf in his words only expresses desire to try be faster than them). Frodo and Sam rescue is not fully described but I bet they didn’t fly so high as to be unnoticed from ground because eruption would relese more dangerous poisonous fumes and ash.
The amount of times I’ve had to explain all this to people…
I love LOTR. Great books , good movies. If you put this much time I to discussing them you have to much time. Get a job and be productive.
Sorry for the typo
Nope..they should have just flown the eagles..
But really…Tolkien shouldn’t have introduced them at all… Case closed