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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 3357857" data-attributes="member: 4937">Did I say he was wrong?  Do I seem to need instruction on classical literature and myth?I merely pointing out a gamer's expectations of how things work shouldn't necessarily color thier perception of how things work in the book setting.  Questions like, "Why didn't Elrond kill Isildur?", "Why didn't they just fly to Mordor with eagles and drop it in the volcano?", or "If Gandalf was such a powerful wizard, why didn't he just teleport to Mordor?", are based on a false understanding of the story setting.And your argument that it boils down to, "Because the Good Professor said so.", ignores the fact that said professor didn't feel that he had complete freedom to write whatever he wanted to, to the extent that near the end of his life he was so unsatified that he was meeting his design goals that he started gutting his own setting.  But those passions were not driven by the feeling that the eagles could have mounted an expedition to Mordor was some big oversight.  Once JRRT decided on a myth, and an empowering cosmology behind his fantasy, he loses freedom of action.  Sure, he technically could have had Sauron destroyed by a bubble gum cannon, but if he had we wouldn't have believed it because that breaks theme with the myth.  The myth - the one he is drawing on and subcreating - prevents that sort of ending.  JMS may believe in the speed of plot, and you can find speed of plot devices in LotR ('How fast can Shadowfast run?', 'How enduring can Frodo be?', etc.), but JRRT isn't nearly so lose with speed of plot devices as that, but to the extent that he is, speed of plot cuts both ways.  Question: 'How many aerial defenses against commando attacks does Sauron have?'Answer: 'As many as he needs, and a little extra besides'.Why is that the answer?  Because the internal testimony of the story is that the forces of good lack the power to open the way to the Fire BY ANY MEANS AT THIER DISPOSAL.  by the internal testimony of the story, only the armies of the Valar arriving from the Undying Lands would have been able to enter Mordor in force while Sauron gaurded it, and (as emissary of the Valar) we have Gandalf's testimony that they aren't coming and middle earth is left to its own devices.  The fact that they had eagles they didn't use is not a plot hole, because by the internal testimony of the story we can infer that using eagles would have done no good - even if those eagles residing in Middle Earth would have been willing to go along with the plan.  Possibly, Manwe could have sent more eagles, enough to overcome whatever fell beasts, dragons, and other defenses Sauron was keeping back in expectation of this very sort of move by Manwe and or the rest of the Valar (I say possibly because by this point, Sauron has become very great on the Earth and a rival in power (relatively) to his master Morgoth), but then he could have sent an army of the Eldar with Orome at its head too.  The point is we know that middle earth lacks the force to overcome Sauron by a direct blow, that there is no other trustworthy carrier for the ring but Frodo, and that  no other help is coming.  We know this because the story tells us this, so we dont' have to independently check off all possible plans to beat Sauron (and yet not raise a new Dark Lord) by some other fashion than having a lowly hobbit carry the ring into Mordor in humble submissiveness with no expectation of reward or success, because the story says thats the only way.  If there had been any other way, then 'The Wise' would have thought of it.  Since they didn't, we know that that was the only way, and we can presume from what we know of the meta-story (for example that Sauron would have been very afraid of intervention from 'the West', that he's keeping back something precisely for that sort of (to Sauron) obvious attack) why it wouldn't have worked.</blockquote>

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