July 30, 2021

29. Always Around to Do the Bare Minimum.

Listen Later

48 minutes

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: the Eagles.

Most familiar to Tolkien readers via the lordly and imposing figure of

Gwaihir, identified as the Lord of the Eagles in both The Hobbit and The Lord

of the Rings, the Eagles have a recurring role in many of the stories of

Middle-earth, acting as emissaries, guardians, intercessors and figures of

warning or doom. They serve the Valar, their leader Manwë in particular, but

often seem to be following their own particular code of living. However, a

recent tweet based off a Polygon article about them in their Lord of the Rings

series this year revived an old—and rather tiresome—controversy about whether

the Eagles act as a deus ex machina in the plots of the stories—or even more

tiresomely, are somehow supposed to be a plot hole. What are the roots of

eagles in mythology in general, and how has that impact on the human

imagination played out in Tolkien’s legendarium? Do the Eagles even

particularly care about what is happening in realms beyond their own, and

regard nearly everyone and everything as being of a piece? What do the sudden

appearances of Gwaihir’s ancestor Thorondor at various points in the published

Silmarillion say about how they function in terms of both being Manwë’s

servants and in noting the working out of the Doom of Mandos? And how is it

that such lofty, indeed arrogant figures like the Eagles have incredibly sharp

senses of humor?

Show Notes.

Jared’s

doodle. Would

you like to fly, on my beautiful ea-gle…

Uh yeah get your shots, the end.

That TheOneRing.net spy

report. Questions, questions, we have them!

Our episode about Orcs.

Blue Harvest! Horror beyond

imagination!

Blue Origin! Also horror beyond

imagination!

The HarperCollins UK

tweet about

Andy Serkis’s further audiobook work, with further links.

That Foreign Policy piece “Comrades of the Ring” — worth a read!

The Eagles! They fly around.

That misleading Polygon

tweet. They could do

better.

The Tolkien Gateway summary of Letter

210, Tolkien’s response to the

screenwriting treatment created in the late 1950s.

“Someone is WRONG on the Internet.”

CinemaSins? We hate it.

Edmund Wilson’s “Oo, Those Awful

Orcs”

does not appear to contain any Eagles complaints.

Bored of the Rings. It’s

very, very of its time.

Deus ex machina! It’s a

thing.

The Peter Jackson Beorn bear

bomb. Well, yes, there we go.

Eagles in world mythology? You’re

darn right it’s a

thing.

We only know so much about the Sky

Father.

Superstore! Probably

a defining US comedy of the second half of the 2010s.

Metro Micro, should you so desire.

Ted Naismith’s painting of the cloud eagle in the

West as Númenor approaches its doom.

Support By-The-Bywater (and Megaphonic FM) on

Patreon. Thanks!

...more

View all episodes

View all episodes

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By-The-Bywater: A Podcast about All Things J.R.R. Tolkien

By Jared Pechaček, Oriana Scwindt, and Ned Raggett

4.8

2828 ratings

July 30, 2021

29. Always Around to Do the Bare Minimum.

Listen Later

48 minutes

Jared, Oriana and Ned talk about Oriana’s choice of topic: the Eagles.

Most familiar to Tolkien readers via the lordly and imposing figure of

Gwaihir, identified as the Lord of the Eagles in both The Hobbit and The Lord

of the Rings, the Eagles have a recurring role in many of the stories of

Middle-earth, acting as emissaries, guardians, intercessors and figures of

warning or doom. They serve the Valar, their leader Manwë in particular, but

often seem to be following their own particular code of living. However, a

recent tweet based off a Polygon article about them in their Lord of the Rings

series this year revived an old—and rather tiresome—controversy about whether

the Eagles act as a deus ex machina in the plots of the stories—or even more

tiresomely, are somehow supposed to be a plot hole. What are the roots of

eagles in mythology in general, and how has that impact on the human

imagination played out in Tolkien’s legendarium? Do the Eagles even

particularly care about what is happening in realms beyond their own, and

regard nearly everyone and everything as being of a piece? What do the sudden

appearances of Gwaihir’s ancestor Thorondor at various points in the published

Silmarillion say about how they function in terms of both being Manwë’s

servants and in noting the working out of the Doom of Mandos? And how is it

that such lofty, indeed arrogant figures like the Eagles have incredibly sharp

senses of humor?

Show Notes.

Jared’s

doodle. Would

you like to fly, on my beautiful ea-gle…

Uh yeah get your shots, the end.

That TheOneRing.net spy

report. Questions, questions, we have them!

Our episode about Orcs.

Blue Harvest! Horror beyond

imagination!

Blue Origin! Also horror beyond

imagination!

The HarperCollins UK

tweet about

Andy Serkis’s further audiobook work, with further links.

That Foreign Policy piece “Comrades of the Ring” — worth a read!

The Eagles! They fly around.

That misleading Polygon

tweet. They could do

better.

The Tolkien Gateway summary of Letter

210, Tolkien’s response to the

screenwriting treatment created in the late 1950s.

“Someone is WRONG on the Internet.”

CinemaSins? We hate it.

Edmund Wilson’s “Oo, Those Awful

Orcs”

does not appear to contain any Eagles complaints.

Bored of the Rings. It’s

very, very of its time.

Deus ex machina! It’s a

thing.

The Peter Jackson Beorn bear

bomb. Well, yes, there we go.

Eagles in world mythology? You’re

darn right it’s a

thing.

We only know so much about the Sky

Father.

Superstore! Probably

a defining US comedy of the second half of the 2010s.

Metro Micro, should you so desire.

Ted Naismith’s painting of the cloud eagle in the

West as Númenor approaches its doom.

Support By-The-Bywater (and Megaphonic FM) on

Patreon. Thanks!

...more

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