Return of the King

I watched Return of the King with Elizabeth last night. She's such Lord of the Rings nut, she kept saying character's lines just before they said them. I really wish she wouldn't do that!

Anyway, I had some thoughts on the movie. It seems to me as though Frodo failed. Not only did he end up defeated by Shelob because he picked the wrong companion, but in the end he chose to keep the ring instead of destroying it. The ring was destroyed only because Gollum attacked him, beat him, then himself fell with the ring into the lava. Since Frodo had also tried to kill Gollum before and failed at that, there's a whole bunch of failure going on there, and it is merely good fortune that saved Middle Earth.

To me, the real hero is Sam. They gloss over it quickly in the movie, but he had been the Ringbearer for a time while Frodo was in the tower with the orcs. He kind of sold himself short when he decided it was too difficult for him and instead rescued Frodo, kept Frodo motivated, carried him bodily for a time, then urged him to follow through with the destruction of the ring at Mount Doom - oh, that's way easier! In fact, it's an interesting connection between Sam and Elrond. Both had been at that point with someone considering destroying the ring - Sam with Frodo, Elrond with Isildor.

I couldn't help, though, but ask one question about the decisions made by the heroes of the story. With giant eagles available, why didn't they fly the ring to Mount Doom? When the Eye of Sauron was fixed on Minas Tirith or some other spot of interest, couldn't Gandalf and a Ringbearer climb on the eagles and go straight in? The only airborne opposition was from the Nazgul, and Gandalf demonstrated in his covering of Faramir's retreat from the orcs that he was able to keep Nazgul at bay. Granted, it would be a much shorter story, but I'd be interested to hear why that wasn't an option, not even one discussed and discarded by the Fellowship.