The Lord Of The Rings is one of the biggest fantasy stories on the planet, but there’s a plot hole that’s irked fans for years now, unless you’ve read the books.

I’m talking about the question, “Why didn’t the Fellowship just get the Eagles to fly them to Mordor from the start?”, which has quickly become the bane of many fan’s existence.

To be fair, the Lord Of The Rings films do a very poor job of explaining it so when you watch them, it does cross your mind why they couldn’t have saved themselves the trip.

If you read the books though, you’ll know exactly why the Eagles can’t go to Mordor. In fact, there are a few reasons.

The big reason, which was discussed in a recent Reddit thread, is it’d be incredibly dangerous for them. After all, Mordor was filled to the brim with Sauron’s minions and they’re not just going to stand there and watch as the Eagles fly overhead.

The other big reason is they just don’t want to… the Eagles are Eagles, they don’t work for anyone and they don’t really care what happens to the men of the realm. They only help out because Gandalf is, well, he’s Gandalf.

In the books, one Eagle even says to Gandalf they can travel long distances, “but not to the ends of the Earth, I was sent to bear tidings not burdens,” showing they probably could have taken the Fellowship to Mordor, but chose not to.

In the thread, one fan makes another good point, saying the Eagles were “presumably subject to the corruption of the One Ring. One of them might have decided to drop Frodo, claim the One Ring for himself and become the Dark Lord of Eagles”, which would be a hilarious way to end a trilogy.

Despite being such an old tale, there’s no doubt every new fan will want to ask about this so called “plot hole”, driving the book-readers madder than Gollum in the process.