Lord Of The Rings finally explains 'why they didn't just fly' to Mordor

For many years people have watched The Lord of the Rings trilogy and asked, ‘But why didn’t Frodo just ride the eagles to Mordor?’

It’s an honest and simple question. After all, the eagles swoop in to save Frodo and Sam and they’ve been watching over Middle-Earth for a long time.

The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power will be back on our screens soon

It’s a question with two answers. One as simple as the question itself - without the journey, there would be no Lord of the Rings.

It should be obvious, really. If Tolkien had just had Frodo essentially call a Middle-Earth Uber, we wouldn’t have had all the drama and battles.

The other answer is more complicated. The eagles aren’t just relatively smart birds, they’re great beings.

Their role is to watch over parts of the world, monitoring the rise of the goblins, they aren’t a fancy taxi for Hobbits. Well, not really.

The eagles only show up when they’re needed the most and they make the choice on their own. Essentially, it was up to them to leap into action during the events of The Hobbit and The Return of the King.

If you think of it another way, the eagles are huge. Like, really big. Flying one over to Mordor wouldn’t be very easy to hide from Sauron who is already all-seeing.

A couple of Hobbits scurrying up the mountain is much simpler and they could travel without being so easily detected.

Plus, it was Frodo’s innocence and heart that stopped him from being lured in by the ring which had already corrupted so many - it was a big part of the story for him to face it down himself.

So, there you have it. Frodo couldn’t hitch a ride and the eagles couldn’t just drop it off like a pizza delivery service.

And if you think about it, would you really want to give up such an epic story for a bit of convenience?