Where the Sun Sails and the Moon Walks: About Tolkien's Eagles

There comes a time in the life of every reader when he's re-reading his favorite book for the twenty-seventh time and he comes across a plot hole. This is the final test of a book: whether it can withstand the self-doubt of a reader's dedication. It forces you to be introspective, to decide whether you can still see yourself in the story you love, or loved.

A famous hole has been pointed out in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings since almost immediately after its publication. Don't worry: I won't spoil the ending here. The argument concerns the giant eagles who live upon the peaks of Middle Earth. They're smart, they can talk, and they sometimes help the protagonists out of sticky situations by carrying them away on their backs.

The plot of The Lord of the Rings is this, in oversimplified terms: Frodo, our protagonist, has possession of the Ring of Power, the greatest weapon of the tyrant Sauron. Sauron is ready to take over the world unless Frodo destroys the Ring, which can only be unmade where it was forged: in Mount Doom, a volcano in the heart of Sauron's territory. So Frodo and eight companions must travel by foot to Mount Doom, while every step brings them closer to danger and every day sees more people killed by Sauron and more allies become his devoted slaves.

The million dollar question is this: why did the journey have to be on foot? Gandalf, the wizard even non-Tolkien fans know and love, is a friend to the Eagles, and even calls them to rescue him at one point. Couldn't he ask the Eagles to fly them to Mount Doom? Shouldn't the Eagles want to help out, since Elrond and Gandalf make it clear that Sauron is trying to conquer absolutely everybody, which includes the Eagles on their lofty peaks?

I wouldn't give this criticism time and energy if it weren't a reasonable one. Now, perhaps you've read or heard my theories about the division between high fantasy and sword and sorcery. Read carefully: this question encompasses the entire divide between the two, as well as many other ideologies. I'll have to divide my reply into two parts: what the question misunderstands about Middle Earth, and what the question misunderstands about the Earth we all inhabit.

There are several reasons for the Eagles to withhold their services. The first and grittiest is that it's not their job. Elrond makes sure to say that only those who freely decide to take the quest must accompany Frodo, and the Eagles don't show up. I don't think that this is because, in Dungeons and Dragons mentality, Gandalf forgot they were in his inventory. Rather, the Eagles prove themselves quite capable of knowing what's going on and responding to it when they choose to do so.

Equally importantly, we're specifically kept from seeing exactly what Sauron can do on his own. My generation's audience, which has forgotten that a hidden monster in a book is scarier than the gory reveal provided in IMAX special effects, is also prone to forget that a character may have been able to do more things than they showed in the movie. Sauron's un-Ringed form may look like just a big, red eye, but Tolkien and even Jackson indirectly let you know that he's still the most fearsome person in Middle Earth. It's more impressive, not to mention less anal-retentive, not to tell you exactly how. As far as the Eagles are concerned, those key critics fail to notice that the Eagles only enter Mordor airspace after the Dark Tower has fallen (well, I guess there have to be some spoilers). To do so beforehand could have meant anything, because unlike the modern know-it-all, the Eagles weren't going to underestimate the man whom everyone fears will conquer the world. Flying over his wall would have been the quickest way to tip him off, especially since, because he is an eye rather than anything else, the only thing we have to know about Sauron is his ability to see threats coming. And since, if he had gotten his Ring back, he would have been unstoppable, our favorite Dark Lord could have considered this surprise air mail.

No, careful reading of the book tells us that the quest had to be in secret, carried out by the lowliest people in the most unlikely way, in order to avoid Sauron's all-seeing Eye. But even this wasn't the issue Tolkien took with the question of flying the Eagles.*

Tolkien called the Eagles a 'dangerous machine,' and why not? It would have been so easy to end his story about seven hundred pages earlier by flying the Ring to Mount Doom, and the book would not have been worth reading. "'Nine Walkers' and they immediately go up into the air!" he says to this suggestion. To him, the essence of the story was not the fact that good wins in the end, but the struggle that good must undertake to get there. Hence he needs "a long and arduous journey, in secrecy, on foot, with the three ominous mountains getting nearer." It is, quite literally, a journey toward the thing most feared, requiring the utmost courage because of its slow, dangerous way. If the matter of the story lay exclusively in its resolution, then the action would do nothing but appeal to voyeuristic thrill-seekers and narcissists. Instead, it speaks to people interested in actual courage to see the Ring in the hands of Frodo, a small, peaceful person who has no place in war.

I must stress again that the whole difference between high fantasy and cheap action lies in this question, and that it's a distinction that plays into every day of your life. You don't have to change what you read. Just understand that the world isn't quantified into what we can see; money, science, power, and all other numbers don't dictate another person's usefulness to you. Without these barriers you may discover what ominous mountains are on your horizon, and whether you, too would fly toward them without the slightest idea what awaits you there.

'I will take the Ring,' he said, 'though I do not know the way.'

Elrond raised his eyes and looked at him, and Frodo felt his heart pierced by the sudden keenness of the glance. 'If I understand aright all that I have heard,' he said, 'I think that this task is appointed for you, Frodo; and that if you do not find a way, no one will... Who of all the Wise could have foreseen it? Or, if they are wise, why should they expect to know it, until the hour has struck? 

-The Fellowship of the Ring

*Quotes here are taken from #210 of the collection of Tolkien's letters.

Poetic Fantasy

To dream of dragons ere I sleep,

To dream that stars beam in the deep,

To dream to listen to a fé,

I go on dreaming anyway...


Poetry has been a part of writing fantasy since long before "realistic fiction" emerged as a genre. In fact, poetry has been a part of culture far longer than prose. Before widespread literacy, rhyming patterns and image-based narration were the best tools for ensuring that oral traditions could be passed verbatim along generations. I don't know very much about the history of the transition to prose, but in British literature, many of the epic romances that have founded our written culture lace their prose with poetry as a way of recognizing the most precious values of the world contained in letters. Thanks to Tolkien, modern fantasy authors draw on Medieval British culture more than any other culture in history, and poetry is part of the package.


For me, poetry is the most difficult part of writing fantasy. I'm bad at poetry to begin with. There's a sense of dream, of logic without explicit narrative structure, that I tend to seek out, but what I write always reveals that I'm trying too hard. Then I need to have a reason to write the poem. On its own, that's a relatively easy question: what's on my mind? But writing poetry to include in a book is virtually ghost writing. I'm saying something not just on behalf of myself, but on behalf of a character or culture I've made up, and the words and images I use need to match this. And when it's all done, it needs to make sense to the reader. Talk about compromising priorities!


All my favorite fantasy authors are good at this, and I don't think that's a coincidence. I'd be interested in hearing some more authors, anyone at all, who can pull this off well.