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Comment by zeteo | Hacker News Reader

As the article points out, it's a question of stealth versus speed, but speed is not necessarily preferable. The powers of Sauron, especially deep within his own domain, are indeed unknown. With even an hour to react, it is quite possible he would be able to conjure up something that would end up in the whole endeavor delivering the ring to him, instead of destroying it. On the other hand, the stealthiness of hobbits is well familiar to Gandalf from his previous experience with having Bilbo as a "burglar", and there are various things that the allied forces can do to further distract Sauron's attention. The power of the eagles is also something that Sauron knows and fears, and that he probably took precautions against; whereas hobbits are creatures that he most likely underestimates.

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I agree, but the author's note about the Council of Elrond is extremely convincing. If Tolkien wanted to strike this plan as a possibility, he could easily have added 1-2 lines into the Council talks where they discuss (and refute) every plan they can think of. In the end there's nothing concrete in Tolkien's work that refutes the 'eagle plan' as viable. Suggesting fan-fiction and/or 'the unknown' as proof that it's not possible isn't in the spirit of the article, per this section:

> My question is not what fan-fiction we can add to the story to rule out the "eagles" plan; my question is what Tolkien has written which rules it out.

That being said, your thoughts about the Hobbits' stealthiness is agreeable, but again it's more of a matter of what can be proven by excerpts from the books, not what can be guessed/assumed.

I would venture that there were many possible alternate decisions at various points in the plot, and discussing all of them thoroughly was not necessarily a literary enhancement. The "eagles plan" itself is fan fiction, and refusing to accept more "fan fiction" in response to it is a bit disingenuous.

It's more of a plot hole than fan-fiction. The article is an exhaustive look at provable (written) arguments that can refute the eagles as a possibile solution to the Mordor trip. The author is trying to prove that the plot hole is, in fact, a plot hole by nature of it being plausible.

Using other possibilities to refute a possibility goes against the spirit of the article, where the author looks for concrete facts that would render the plan implausible.

In the end, there's nothing I know of (or that the author could find) written in the books that disproves it as a possibility. It simply isn't addressed directly in the text, even where there was a prime opportunity to strike it down (Council of Elrond).

I do not agree that it is a plot hole, unless every possibly important unanswered question qualifies as a plot hole.

I agree that the use of eagles is an unanswered question, that might, to some, seem somewhat surprising that it was never mentioned.

My answer is that Tolkien made the artistic choice to speak of the powers of both Sauron and the Ring in poetic terms only. The last thing he wanted to do is delve into details about Sauron's Anti-craft Aircraft potential when shooting at eagles from throne of Barad-dur, even in a passing comment. He worked very hard to shield our eyes from such details.

Fan fiction fills up spaces that were not covered in the original story. The pros and cons of airborne travel into Mordor are one of those spaces. The author of the article is just as entitled to speculate on this point as anyone who responds to him.

To be a bit more succinct than my previous reply, I think there is a legitimate distinction between "making up content to fill up spaces not covered in the original story" (i.e. fan fiction) and "reasoning out as much as you reliably can about what filled up those spaces, and no more".

Fan fiction is creative writing, more or less by definition: inventing new details is fine unless they conflict with the original story (or even if they do). The author of this article is very explicitly trying to avoid "making up" an answer: he's searching for evidence only within the original story that could constrain the answer to a question relevant to that story. They're both games for fans to play, but at least to my eye the two are worlds apart.

Except the evidence in the original story is clearly insufficient, and absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. We know nothing of Sauron's capabilities to detect and confront airborne intrusion into Mordor or about Gandalf's assessment of these capabilities. Assuming Sauron could not see or bring down the eagles and that Gandalf was aware of this fact is, from this point of view, adding new elements to the story and therefore fan fiction.

It may simply not have been addressed because it was obvious to anyone present that it was an infeasible plan.

I understand the point you're making here, and I've certainly seen plenty of "fan fiction" theories taken far too seriously in discussions of Tolkien. But for my own pride's sake, I would attempt to draw a distinction between those "fan theories" and the sort of analysis that we used to do on the Tolkien Usenet newsgroups (including rec.arts.books.tolkien, which inspired this article: I was involved in conversations with the article's author on this topic back in the '90s).

The attitude adopted by much of the r.a.b.t community was a deliberate echo of Tolkien's own: we treated Middle-earth as an independent "sub-created" world (to use Tolkien's term from "On Fairy Stories") which ought to have "the inner consistency of reality". In such a vast imagined history, there are obviously huge gaps in our knowledge where Tolkien never told us what happened or why. But in a few rare cases when those gaps are closely connected with the story that Tolkien did tell, we can make a strong case for a unique consistent way to fill the gap (or at least a "very likely" answer).

One of my favorite examples of this was a longrunning collection of debates related to the blades that the hobbits got from the Barrow Downs and their effects on the Nazgul. I won't say we reached consensus, but after years of related discussions quite a few of us had reached the conclusion that those weapons had some sort of enchantment making them especially dangerous and frightening to the Ringwraiths. And then, unexpectedly, a previously unpublished excerpt from one of Tolkien's essays was quoted in Hammond and Scull's Reader's Companion that explicitly confirmed our conclusion (and much of the related evidence that we had gathered). It felt for all the world as if a scientific theory that I had helped develop had just been confirmed by experiment.

It's that sort of thing that encourages me to think that we were one step more rigorous than fan fiction. [And shameless plug: I still maintain the newsgroups' FAQ site. It doesn't say much about the Eagles question, but here's the full story on the barrow blades that I mentioned: http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/History.html#BarrowBlades ]

Filling gaps is a perfectly fine exercise, and can even lead to consensus when the gap is small and you take years of discussion to fill it. The question of Sauron's anti-air detection and defense capabilities within Mordor, and of the Council of Elrond's confidence in assessing these capabilities, is much larger, vaguer and conducive to controversies. Not to mention that the character most likely to propose using the eagles (Gandalf) was also the most aware of any possible impediments (e.g. Sauron being able to conjure storms and blinding lights at a moment's notice etc.).

Interesting. Here's the FAQ response to the eagle question: http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/History.html#Eagles

If Tolkien wanted to strike this plan as a possibility, he could easily have added 1-2 lines into the Council talks where they discuss (and refute) every plan they can think of

"What about a catapult?" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gsgGzdEtDw

I agree with this comment the plan has always been about stealth rather than speed or force. It's an ongoing theme in the book that Sauron is too powerful to assail directly. Sending a Hobbit on eagle back into Mordor seems to fall into the direct category despite how fast they may be and how easy it may be for them to initially get into Mordor.

It seems reasonable to assume that the hobbit plan is more stealth than the giant eagle flying into Mordor plan and point 12 Sauron is an evil Maia with a giant evil domain seems to be the reason why you wouldn't try anything directly especially when he is not distracted.

Also the eagles are not directly under the control of anyone except Manwe, no time in the Silmarillion or the other books does one just say "maybe we should take eagles instead of walking". So the reason they are not brought up as an option is because they simply do not have eagles under their command. Otherwise the same logic can be leveled against every difficult journey in the Silmarillion/hobbit/lotr, e.g. "why didn't they just take eagles".

I can see the conversation being a little bit more like this:

Gandalf: we could ask the eagles if they willing to help us out on this one, maybe Manwe is cool with it now.

Elrond: Sauron will likely see them coming at the least when they enter Mordor.

Gandalf: Maybe he has nothing to stop Eagle's, come on let's take a chance.

Sam: Come on worth a shot look at these flight plans I drew up, will save walking and we will be back in the shire before supper time.

Elrond: No damnit.

Eagle plan is pretty good but I don't see it as being too inconsistent with the world as the article does, e.g. why didn't Manwe just use eagles every time something hard happened in the entire history. The extent of powers of the Maia and Valar are never explained explicitly why should they be for Sauron.

> it is quite possible he would be able to conjure up something that would end up in the whole endeavor delivering the ring to him, instead of destroying it.

This is the exact argument the article is arguing against. You can only make assumptions based on what is known in the story. The author makes many valid arguments on why Sauron more than likely would not see it coming if it were to happen this way.

>quite possible he would be able to conjure up something

Its quite possible he wouldn't know. Its quite possible .. for anything to happen when you make random assumptions.

Both the pro- and anti-eagle arguments make assumptions. The pro-eagle argument is built on assumptions about the limits of power.

We know that Sauron is unequaled in power among the Maia. We know that Sauron built mountain ranges. We know that Saruman easily overcame Gandalf. We know that Gandalf has powers that allowed him to overcome a Balrog.

Tolkien has made the artistic choice to shield our eyes from overt magical power. It is the nature Middle Earth that great magical power is a very real thing. The lack of clear evidence of the exact limits of magic is because Tolkien really did not want to discuss it, and that is not a good argument for simplistic assumptions.

Assuming the non-existence of great magical power in the hands of Sauron is just foolishness. It boils down to whether a guess about the limits of Sauron's power is more believeable than a guess about the potential extent.

I would further note that the Council of Elrond may have no firm knowledge either. In the end, they guess that secrecy is the best hope.

>Assuming the non-existence of great magical power in the hands of Sauron is just foolishness.

then he should of knew of their plan too. Is it really secret if there is no limit to his power.

Straw man.

As I said, it boils down to guesses about the limits of Sauron's power. Reasonable people can disagree about the best guess. Unreasonable people pretend their guesses are not guesses.

That it is, to some degree, possible to evade Sauron's efforts by means of secrecy was a proven fact, or the Ringbearer would not have been alive to attend Council of Elrond at all.

The guess that someone who can create mountain ranges cannot swat an eagle floating by in plain sight, right in front of his seat of power, is not an obviously correct one.

Again go back and read the article as the author give many plausible reasonings as to why Sauron wouldn't detect the eagles.

Sauron also had flying troops of his own, so it would be a risky proposition to present for a battle that way.

Similarly, the use of magic is very unclear in Tolkien, but who's to say Sauron can't do something against a flying target himself if it makes a beeline for Mt Doom?

Is there really a plan, though? I mean the 'Eagle Plan' seems much more viable than the 'Fellowship Plan'. The fellowship was so bad it even included a couple humans who were pre-disposed to the rings affects and, as such, didn't last too long.

The 'Fellowship Plan' was designed by committee, parties with vested interests, etc., what other outcome could be expected?

what other outcome could be expected?

Are you implying that all plans by committee are doomed to failure? :)

Indeed. Gandalf was more interested in guaranteeing the supply of "pipe-weed," an addictive drug transported and sold throughout Middle Earth for great profit. Gandalf is smoking it constantly.

The whole ring story is just an imperialist narrative constructed to justify preemptive warfare on the "lesser" races of Mordor by the military-industrial complex in Gondor. Gandalf knows the ring is powerless; it's merely symbolic. After he becomes a Grand Wizard-- sorry, White Wizard, Gandalf feels ready to lead the war on the inferior races who speak the "black speech."

Chomsky already explained all this: http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/unused-audio-commentary-b...

"How do you think these wizards build gigantic towers and mighty fortresses? Where do they get the money? Keep in mind that I do not especially regard anyone, Saruman included, as an agent for progressivism. But obviously the pipe-weed operation that exists is the dominant influence in Middle Earth. It’s not some ludicrous magical ring."

Brilliant.

I would also like to postulate the element of surprise. Sauron would never expect a weak, feeble creature like a Hobbit to be an adversary. But mostly I agree with your points.

Didn't Sauron know that the ring bearer was a hobbit?

Yes he did. Gollum told him so. That's how Sauron knew to look for the Ring in the Shire. After the Shire, almost all of Sauron's forces knew to look for Hobbits and to take them alive for questioning.

Yup. But Sauron did not expect a hobbit to be an adversary. That's a salient difference, in the context of Tolkien works.

They could just fly at night.

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