Gollum and Eagles: Deux ex machina?

[Firefoot]

It sure is nice to see the Hobbits coming back to their home, as learned and experienced ones'. But enough of miracles?

I guess I just don't get tired of the miracles. You think it's just going to be all right now - on the slopes of Mt. Doom, Frodo seems to be at peace, his burden is gone, and now the Eagles are coming - that means it's going to be all right, right? But it's not. It makes for that beautiful eucatastrophe which Tolkien brings out so well. And, at least in the view of the Shire hobbits, Frodo and Sam aren't as much the learned and experienced ones - Sam is some (okay, maybe a lot, but still not as much as M & P), but Frodo is mostly ignored. Mostly talking about Frodo here, I was meaning more of his healing process - more internal - than the new perceptions of him, if that makes sense.

This is probably why I've never had a problem with the Eagles. They might not 'fit' quite right in the story, but the miracles for me do not detract from the story, they add to it. This undoubtedly has much to do with my upbringing and faith, but there it is. The prospect that Sam's simple preserverence and hope that brought them out onto the mountain was fulfilled even beyond hope is very right to me. Even if it does take the Eagles to do it.

I haven't quite decided what I think that Gollum's fall is... a simple mistake or an act of Eru, it doesn't really matter to me. As Lalwende so well put it, it is so entirely right that whichever reason is correct (or a mixture of both) does not ultimately matter to me. It is just right.

I guess my point is that I wouldn't consider it so much fatalist as ever hopeful. It's that hope... faith... that everything will turn out right.