Thorondor as a Maia???

[doug*platypus]

Huan and Sorontar could be Maiar - emissaries of Manwë.

But couldn't an emissary of Manwë be a non-Maiar? Even one of the kelvar? We could consider Tuor to be an emissary of Ulmo, in which case an emissary could be one of the Children of Ilúvatar.

Is there a difference between a fëa and the spirits that inhabited Ents (and may also have inhabited the Eagles of the Lords of the West)? Treebeard and the Ents show a much wider range of emotion than Orcs, and are capable of sub-creation as evidenced by their lovely wee songs. It is believable that an Ent could have a fëa and an Orc could not. Whether Eagles are similar to Ents in terms of their behaviour is debatable.

If an eagle did have a fëa, would that mean it was a Maia? I don't think it would have to mean that; not even for Thorondor. I'm thinking right about now that Thorondor and his clan are sentient eagles that have fëar, but are not Maiar. The fact that Yavanna is so deeply involved in their appearance (I hesitate to say "creation") makes me think they are kelvar of some kind rather than incarnate Maiar. My whacky theory on Huan I will explain elsewhere.

Here are two tiny bits of pretty unconvincing evidence that got me thinking about Thorondor along these lines. Firstly, I can't remember his death being described at all, yet we know that he is no longer chief of the Eagles of the Lords of the West by the time of The Hobbit. I feel that the death in battle of such a remarkable character would have been mentioned somewhere! And if he did not die in battle, then it must have been old age. Ergo he was not a Maiar, at least not as we know them. Second bit of "schmevidence" is similar: he is referred to as "Old Thorondor" in The Lord of the Rings... somewhere. How does this "schmevidence" rate?