10 Movie Idiots Who Made Simple Solutions Look IMPOSSIBLE

I’m not sure at one point exactly during the release of Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy this theory became so popular. It wouldn’t surprise me if this even went back to the time of the source books’ publication, because once you think about this too much, it almost undermines three books’ worth of plot.

LOTR sees one Frodo Baggins journey from his hobbit hole in Bag End, all the way to the dark land of Mordor to destroy a ring capable of bringing back a dark lord who could vanquish the entirety of Middle Earth. So like, a lot is riding on this little guy.

But it’s well established that Gandalf the Grey has a hotwire to the Great Eagles, a race of, well, giant eagles who have often helped him out in particularly troubling times. Stuck in a tree with the heir to dwarf kingdom of Erebor? Call the eagles. Boss goes mad and sticks you on the top of the tower? Ask a moth to get the eagles. The eagles even ultimately help recover Frodo and Sam from the nomnatively determined Mount Doom.

So why didn’t Gandalf maybe try asking the eagles if they could airdrop the ring into the lava? There’s a lot of discussion about their unwillingness to involve themselves too much in matters like these, but did Gandalf not think to just ask them? They could have at least given them a lift part of the way, and maybe we could have avoided a lot of the mess caused by needing to wait a year before Frodo was able to make it on foot. After all, it’s him taking so long that allows Sauron to steadily grow in strength – they really could have nipped it in the bud much sooner.