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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3353979" data-attributes="member: 4937">1) Sauron has many times as many resources as the good guys.2) Sauron thinks like an adventurer. 3) Flying the ring into Morder on the back of eagles with Gandalf at the head would be the sort of thing that Sauron would expect the good guys to do.  He's already planned for it.  The exact nature of his plan for it might not be apparant, but he's definately got a plan for it.  Maybe he's holding back a flight of dragons in reserve. (We know that Gandalf organizes the expedition in 'The Hobbit' specifically to keep Smaug from allying with Sauron.)  Maybe he's got more of those fell beasts than you think he does.  Maybe he's invented anti-aircraft guns.  In any event, you try the whole Eagle thing and you'll find out just how well prepared a demigod of technology with an 30 Intelligence can be for the obvious plan.  According to Gandalf (a demigod of wisdom), the only plan that could work was one that was so foolish (seeming) that Sauron would never considered it a possiblity.4) Anyone that tried to do the Eagle plan would be hit by a second double whammy.  Anyone that tried to destroy the ring through might, and you can hardly get more vain glorious than flying into Mordor arstride an armada of giant eagles, would find that the very act of choosing this plan - the very arrogance of it - made one more succeptable to the influence of the ring.  The reason that the hobbit plan worked wasn't just that it was so crazy that Sauron couldn't imagine it, it was that it was so humble that Sauron couldn't imagine it and so humble that the actors in it could suppress the power of the ring to tempt them.  There is simply no way that anyone flying in on the back of an eagle, exalting in the power of that activity, could resist the temptation of the ring to claim its power for thier own and challenge the dark lord.  Not Frodo, not even Sam, and certainly not anyone with greater pride that would have the power to thwart Sauron's counter-plan.5) There is an even further problem.  Sauron would see the Eagles coming for hundreds of miles.  He's scanning that way.  He's awaiting such an attack.  As soon as Sauron pins down the rings exact location, its over, because as soon as Sauron knows where to exert his will he's going to bend his will toward the ring.  What most readers don't get is that Sauron is the rightful owner of the ring.  If Sauron _asks_ for the ring, no mortal - not even Aragorn - is going to be able to resist giving it to him.  It's just that simple.  And those immortals that could resist - Gandalf, Elrond, Galadriel, for example - could only resist by the excercise of power, and in doing so would fall and you'd have a new Dark Lord.  It won't work.  The way in the story is the ONLY way that would have worked.  Every other path will - according to the testimony of the story - fail.</blockquote>

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