3 ms·

> "couldn't they just fly to Mount Doom and drop the ring?" If the allies were counterfactually sensible enough to fly the ring to Mordor, Sauron could have be

> "couldn't they just fly to Mount Doom and drop the ring?" If the allies were counterfactually sensible enough to fly the ring to Mordor, Sauron could have been counterfactually sensible enough to station an Orc/Troll Battlegroup at the Sammath Naur, with a Nazgul combat air patrol.

bell-cot 9mo ago
If trying to rationalize things - I'd say Sauron knows that giant eagles are a thing, and able to serve as mounts. So to prevent Western aerial reconnaissance and insertion/extraction of observers/spies/special forces in Mordor, he's got to have some sort of aerial observer / aerial denial systems going. Which systems would make a "fly the Ring to the fire" gambit too risky. (Vs. voice-of-canon Gandalf makes it clear that anyone seeking to destroy his Preciousss is simply beyond Sauron's Vile McEvil worldview.)
- KineticLensman 9mo ago
  Exactly. In fact, when Gandalf catches up with Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli in 'The White Rider' chapter, he explicitly tells them that Sauron has committed a major strategic blunder: attacking too early, as soon as he thought the Ring was in play. If he'd kept some forces back to guard Mt Doom, he'd have been alright. Especially because, as later becomes clear, Mt Doom isn't a normal volcano where you could just lob the Ring in from your low-flying eagle. The Cracks of Doom are in a chamber deep inside the mountain.
  - bell-cot 9mo ago
    Speaking of things needing rationalization: Smelting iron, which the dwarves are supposedly past masters of, requires furnaces which routinely exceed 1,500 °C. Vs. even exceptionally hot lavas are considerably colder. So why bother forming a Fellowship of the Ring, or embarking on a long & dangerous journey to Mt. Doom, when it'd be vastly quicker & easier to smelt local?
    - the_af 9mo ago
      Mount Doom is magical/mythic in nature, the birthplace of the One Ring, while the Dwarven forges aren't. Quoting Elrond during the Council at Rivendell: > “It has been said that Dragon-fire might melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any fire, save the fire of Orodruin, that could melt the One Ring.” Also, the Dwarves that took the One Ring for melting would have likely fallen under its influence, postponing the destruction and ultimately keeping the ring as a keepsake, tool or weapon, like most living creatures would... except for some brave Hobbits, which took a longer time to be corrupted. More fundamentally, this is not the kind of mindset with which Tolkien wanted us to read LotR. It can be done for fun, but if done seriously, it'd be missing the point.
the_af 9mo ago
Note I wasn't really trying to go into the argument, just pointing out these are well-known and very debated topics in Tolkien fandom. My own opinion is that debating this is missing the point. Tolkien was about the hero's journey, which necessitates the hard path to victory. It's not at all about flying a modern superweapon into Mount Doom; that's too literal a reading.

bell-cot 9mo ago

If trying to rationalize things - I'd say Sauron knows that giant eagles are a thing, and able to serve as mounts. So to prevent Western aerial reconnaissance and insertion/extraction of observers/spies/special forces in Mordor, he's got to have some sort of aerial observer / aerial denial systems going. Which systems would make a "fly the Ring to the fire" gambit too risky. (Vs. voice-of-canon Gandalf makes it clear that anyone seeking to destroy his Preciousss is simply beyond Sauron's Vile McEvil worldview.)

KineticLensman 9mo ago
Exactly. In fact, when Gandalf catches up with Aragorn/Legolas/Gimli in 'The White Rider' chapter, he explicitly tells them that Sauron has committed a major strategic blunder: attacking too early, as soon as he thought the Ring was in play. If he'd kept some forces back to guard Mt Doom, he'd have been alright. Especially because, as later becomes clear, Mt Doom isn't a normal volcano where you could just lob the Ring in from your low-flying eagle. The Cracks of Doom are in a chamber deep inside the mountain.
- bell-cot 9mo ago
  Speaking of things needing rationalization: Smelting iron, which the dwarves are supposedly past masters of, requires furnaces which routinely exceed 1,500 °C. Vs. even exceptionally hot lavas are considerably colder. So why bother forming a Fellowship of the Ring, or embarking on a long & dangerous journey to Mt. Doom, when it'd be vastly quicker & easier to smelt local?
  - the_af 9mo ago
    Mount Doom is magical/mythic in nature, the birthplace of the One Ring, while the Dwarven forges aren't. Quoting Elrond during the Council at Rivendell: > “It has been said that Dragon-fire might melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough; nor was there ever any fire, save the fire of Orodruin, that could melt the One Ring.” Also, the Dwarves that took the One Ring for melting would have likely fallen under its influence, postponing the destruction and ultimately keeping the ring as a keepsake, tool or weapon, like most living creatures would... except for some brave Hobbits, which took a longer time to be corrupted. More fundamentally, this is not the kind of mindset with which Tolkien wanted us to read LotR. It can be done for fun, but if done seriously, it'd be missing the point.

the_af 9mo ago

Note I wasn't really trying to go into the argument, just pointing out these are well-known and very debated topics in Tolkien fandom. My own opinion is that debating this is missing the point. Tolkien was about the hero's journey, which necessitates the hard path to victory. It's not at all about flying a modern superweapon into Mount Doom; that's too literal a reading.