I feel like every story has a plot hole.
Especially time travel stories, none of them ever has a consistant rule of time travel.
I feel like every story has a plot hole.
Especially time travel stories, none of them ever has a consistant rule of time travel.
I 100% agree with this.
One of the classic examples often given (and one of the top results if you search for “famous plot holes”) is from The Lord of the Rings. “Why don’t the Eagles just fly them to Mount Doom to destroy the One Ring, allowing them to bypass all the trouble getting there?” It’s often cited as a well-known plot hole and given as an example to define what a plot hole is.
Yet it’s not a plot hole at all. It’s just characters making decisions the reader might not agree with.
Also, not having information is not a plot hole. We don’t know why they didn’t, and it’s safe to say that considering how intelligent Gandalf is, he would have thought of it, and found a reason it wasn’t feasible (where sending the eagles after the Eye falls was the best choice).
We can speculate various reasons it might not work (The Eye would be able to spot them and archers shoot them down, The One Ring might be too tempting to the eagles, giant eagles lack the dexterity to keep track of a ring, or eagles are willing to make a contribution for a moment, but aren’t willing to really bear the burden and seriously risk their lives), but it’s completely irrelevant. We don’t need to know why. Just because we weren’t offered a reason, doesn’t mean there wasn’t one.