Wk. 4 Ch. 6 - Eagles to the Rescue!

[Sparrow]

The eagles retrieve the entire company from their precarious refuge in the trees and carry them to their eyrie's. Bilbo comments he feels like a piece of bacon removed from the frying pan, and Dori points out the bacon returns to the pan and expresses hope of a better end for them. Then an eagle flies up and refers to the company as "prisoners." Have they been rescued or taken prisoner? How does the use of this work affect the pacing of the story at this point?

[Stormrider]

Except for the sojourn in Rivendell, the suspense and frightful experiences seem to keep escalating. I suspect Bilbo and the Dwarves are very exhausted at this point and may be at the point of not being able to take any more excitement. They may have said to the Eagles, "Just eat us and get it over with already!"

I remember not being able to put the book down for hours on end because of all the action that was going on in the book. How could Tolkien's kids take it only having one chapter read to them per night? I bet the story didn't allow them to fall asleep peacfully as some of the nicer stories might do.

The only thing that calmed me down at this point was that I had read LOTR first and new more about the Eagles than if I had read this chapter in The Hobbit first.

[Andorinha]

RE Stormrider's: "The only thing that calmed me down at this point was that I had read LOTR first and knew more about the Eagles than if I had read this chapter in The Hobbit first."

Yeah, I read the trilogy first, so I never had any fears from the eagles, figured it was a rescue from the start...

But, I think Tolkien did intend his readers to wonder here whether the quest members were getting out of one scrape -- avoiding wolves and goblins -- only to be eaten by gigantic carnivorous birds. As a writing technique, I guess he was hoping to make the readers' relief all the greater when we find out the eagles are actually Gandalf's friends.