• Rhaedas@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      It’s a line to not cross. Sure, it starts with a ring into a volcano, but it doesn’t end there. Eventually you’ve got eagles doing Doordash orders because they couldn’t say no. Not a great look for a proud species.

      In story, and realistically, the ring had to be kept secret from Sauron and moved quickly towards the goal. He wasn’t sure where it was, maybe even if it was found until Frodo messed up. Eagles heading to Mordor? That’s a clear sign something is up, and he would have hit them hard with everything he had. Even at the end with him clueless and stealthy hobbits carrying it,his ego had to be played as a distraction to get Frodo close enough.

      • herrvogel@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        What were the anti-air capabilities of Sauron? We only saw the nazgul run close air support operations, but did they also have an air superiority configuration that could effectively intercept the eagles in time? Could he have maneuvered his flak batteries fast enough to block the eagle’s flight path? How many of the orcs were carrying manpads (orcpads?)

    • _stranger_@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Lore reason? They were basically angels and beholden to a higher power.

      IRL Reason? Tolkien loved the idea of a “good catastrophe” ending. He named the trope if not invented it: https://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/Eucatastrophe

      but he realized this was a cheap shot and even called the eagles “a dangerous machine” he had to use sparingly.

    • Ŝan • 𐑖ƨɤ@piefed.zip
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      3 days ago

      My headcanon: þey didn’t GAF. Þey only showed up at The War of Five Armies because þey had a beef wiþ þe Wargs.

      Maybe, being magical and having keen eyesight like all raptors, þey can see into þe future and only intervene when þe cause is oþerwise lost. Maybe þey knew Frodo would succeed in þe end, so þey didn’t interfere.

  • ieightpi@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    But Australopithecus africanus wasn’t an"early human" as the article states. It was a up right ape that probably resembled a chimpanzee. So people are imagining a human toddler being snatched away by a giant bird but in reality that was hardly the case. Still sad but this article still feels like sensationalism.

    • CultLeader4Hire@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      We do have children skulls that show they were grabbed from above by birds in our fossil records. It was almost always children under three. It happened enough that we have surviving records of it

    • mad_asshatter@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Australopithecus africanus are Hominini:

      The Hominini (hominins) form a taxonomic tribe of the subfamily Homininae (hominines). They comprise two extant genera: Homo (humans) and Pan (chimpanzees and bonobos), and in standard usage exclude the genus Gorilla (gorillas), which is grouped separately within the subfamily Homininae.

    • massive_bereavement@fedia.io
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      3 days ago

      Using the same approach, phylogenically speaking early humans were chased by gigantic anomalocaris during the Cambrian period.