Why didn't the great eagles drop the ring into Mount Doom?

1. the Ring had to be cast into the Cracks of Doom - it wasn't exactly a cavern, and perhaps Gwaihir wasn't well known for his targeting ability.

2. Gwaihir and the other Great Eagles would have been susceptible to the call of Sauron themselves. I doubt a bird's brain would be as capable of the same sort of willpower as a Hobbit's.

3. Gwaihir made it plain to Gandalf that he was not fond of carrying heavy burdens very far, and the Ring became heavier the closer to Mount Doom it came.

4. Neither Gwaihir nor any of the other Eagles were represented at the Council of Elrond, where the Bearer was to be decided. Maybe they weren't invited, maybe they were no-shows. Who knows?

5. Tolkien just Didn't Want It Done That Way.

Kind of kills the story, doesn't it? Gandalf just tosses the ring to some great bird and the bird drops the ring into Mount Doom? That would make the book approximately 1000 pages shorter. Yeah...that'd be a classic, wouldn't it?

Boromir Quote: "It is a baron wasteland riddled with fire and ash, the very air you breath is a poisonous fume...Not with ten thousand men could you do this."

Firstly Sauron will know of there plan because he has one of the palantri, ("the lord of Mordor sees all") therefore he will get lots of his archers to surrond mount doom.
The eagles would have to get past 10s of 1,000s of orc archers. then they would have to fight the nine nazgul on there fell beasts. Also Sauron controlls Mount Doom and can cause fire to spout out of the top burning the eagles before they get close.

If the eagles were to take the ring they would have been seduced by its power keeping it for there own inwhich sauron would declare war on the eagles and slay them all. ("the one ring answers to sauron alone, it has no other master.")("it wants to be found)

I think the eagles would have been just as susceptible to the power of the ring as anyone else. It was the hobbits' ability to resist the ring that made Bilbo and Frodo able to handle the ring for such a long time.

G'day Radulski,

Thanks for your question.

I guess there are two reasons. Firstly, you wouldn't have much of a book or a film. Secondly, they may not have understood why they were doing it.

Regards

It would have invalidated everything Frodo and Sam did as a part of their journey. Wonderful story filled with allegory. I find it interesting that a 'ring' was part of early nuclear devices. Giant eagles are interesting also as the US swooped in and helped the Brits in WWII.

Tricky question - seems logical on the surface doesn't it? (In spite of such an outcome negating the existence of the book). There's a bit in the LOTR that might go some way to explaining why this didn't happen.

The eagles in the Hobbit and LOTR are descended from an eagle from the First Age called Thorondor. They are sentient creatures with the power of speech. One might think they could be pursuaded - they do 'act' in various important ways throughout Tolkien's writings.

However, such an action implies that a person in possession of the ring would give it up - something only one person ever did - Bilbo. Gandalf indicates that a person could be made to give it up -

"You see? Already you too, Frodo, cannot easily let it go, nor will you damage it. And I could not 'make' you - except by force, which would break your mind."

- but the price is obviously one that is too high, and would take Gandalf down a moral road he will not tread.

Only Bilbo 'gave up' the Ring, and it was a real struggle to do so. As the time of LOTR draws on, the effects of the Ring increase as Sauron's power increases, and Frodo is more affected by it than his uncle was.

So if one cannot get Frodo to give up the Ring, how do the eagles get it? Even if they did get it I think their flight over Mordor would be noticed. Once noticed I wouldn't give much for their chances, so it's not perhaps such an easy road after all.

As I understand it. In the Silmarillion, Manwe becomes the lord of the Valar while Melkor his brother (aka Morgoth) becomes the 1st dark lord of middle earth. Manwe is the lord of the winds and the sky and the eagles are his messengers. After the overthrow of Morgoth, the Valar will not interfere in middle earth due to the actions of Feanor and his kin. (Their last great act is the drowning of Numenor). After that they effectively disown themsleves and let events play out of their own accord. I believe that Manwe would have been pefectly capable of destroying the ring himself but would not. In the same way, i believe his messengers (the eagles) would also have been able to but he simply did not want that direct an involvement. He simply sent them to help out when need was most dire but not to do the job themselves.

The quest to take the ring back to Mordor was to remain as inconspicuous as possible, and the eagles would have been noticed in the sky by Sauromon or Sauron immediately, whereas the council could hide in the "cracks" of middle earth.

Would have made for a much shorter story. A short story vs a trilogy

Maybe they would have claimed the ring as their own as well. Or probably the Nazgul would have itercepted them en route and taking the ring with their "winged beasts". That would be the end of that. They needed secrecy into Mordor. Sauron would have seen them coming for a long way. Not very secret.

It's kinda like in "The Mummy" before the creature is fully regenerated and has to flee in the presence of cats. If the guys in the movie would have been smart, they would've rounded up a bunch of cats and stayed in that room until they could decide how to kill the creature...would've made for a boring movie!

Plot hole.

Well not as if it would be easy, Sauron has the Nazgul remember, and a giant eagle flying towards the volcano with something shiny in it's claws is definantly going to be noticed...

Stop this foolish debate, please. We have the answer now, and that makes this dispute pointless.