...that Gandalf was smart enough to know that a bunch of Giant Eagles flying across the continent would draw massive amounts of attention.

Still, I can see how this could be a plausible explanation.

-Phobos

... the fact that Tolkien at one point stated that the Battle of the Hornburg - y'know, Helm's Deep, 'the battle that ate the film' - could actually be cut if it conflicted with the rest of the story.

Hmm... a Lord of the Rings with little-to-no on-screen fighting: that could be interesting! Doable, too, if you stick entirely with Hobbit viewpoints: the Hornburg is off-screen, thrown out in favour of the Ents breaking down an empty Isengard. The Pelennor is mostly off-screen too, just seen through the eyes of Pippin running around Minas Tirith. The Morannon (which I previously called Dagorlad - whoops!) would be in, by way of Pippin... but overall, a lot less fighting, a lot more sneaking (Frodo) and watching politics (M&P).

Or, even more interesting - an LotR entirely from the perspective of Gandalf. That speaks to 'who knows what when' - it would be a story replete with incomplete information. Will Frodo and Sam succeed? Heck, we don't even know they're still alive!

hS

I can't help but think, though, that the Nazgul's methods in the Shire show a lack of preparation. They just go up in their suspicious black garb asking suspicious questions of the locals - I suppose they thought it would be an easy mission, but still, that is not smooth investigative procedure at all. But it makes some sense - they're ex-rulers, not field agents, incognito was not their style while alive.

If they knew anything about the Shire, they knew the population was largely rural. Nine high-ranking nobles who want information from a bunch of peasants? Yeah, "walk up and demand answers" is pretty much how they'd do it.

... did any of the big battles have a direct impact on the outcome of the Quest? The Pelennor and Dagorlad, in particular, were - in the words of a certain Wood-elf who knew a lot about moving unseen - 'a diversion'. I mean, sure, Aragorn probably didn't plan on Sauron nearly wiping Minas Tirith of the face of Middle-earth when he looked into the Palantir - but he also didn't plan on drawing him out to defeat him in open battle. His sole purpose was to distract the Eye from Mordor so that Frodo and Sam - if they were still alive, if the Ring wasn't already on its way back to its Lord - had a chance.

Hmm. Which explains (yet again) why that Osgiliath sequence was so incongruous - it's a battle, in the half of the story which is trying to avoid them.

hS

Three of them, including the Witch-King, were lords of Numenorean descent (and there's a whole bunch of theorising about whether the Witch-King was a named character - or even a King of Numenor!); the second-in-command was named Khamul, and known as the Shadow of the East. Which, again, implies stealth and hidden manipulation.

Of the Rings, the Three are semi-tangential - they were handed out by Celebrimbor directly, not by Sauron. They also didn't go to the three kings of the Elves - Gil-Galad, Oropher of Mirkwood, and Amdir of Lorien - but to the High King of the Eldar (Gil-Galad again) and Galadriel, who at that point wasn't ruler of anything. Basically 'Brim had a thing for Noldor...

The Seven, though, were given to seven dwarf-lords, and we know that one of them went to the king in Durin's line. There were seven races of the dwarves, so it's entirely possible that Sauron gave a Ring to the seven kings of the dwarves. With that precedent, it's hard to imagine he would have given the Nine to some random blokes off the streets of Umbar.

You've drawn out the political side of things, and you're absolutely right: between them, the Nazgul run no less than four independent realms that we know of - Angmar, Dol Guldur, Minas Morgul, and (at certain times) Mordor itself. We can be reasonably sure they ran some of Sauron's eastern realms, too (fun exercise: see if you can spot the hidden workings of Sauron in the history of the earlier Third Age). For nearly six thousand years, the Nine were Sauron's lieutenants and political underlings. Despite the resemblance, they weren't Darth Vaders - they were Grand Moff Tarkins.

Only better with swords.

hS

Amon Lanc was the original Sindarin settlement in Greenwood, under Oropher - Thranduil's father. It makes a certain sense - it's close to Lorien, then also a Sindarin realm under Amdir; in fact, Oropher and Amdir were both refugees from Doriath; they probably wanted to stay reasonably close to each other. Perhaps their sons - Amroth and Thranduil - were friends.

They crossed the Misty Mountains to get away from the Noldor who were setting up in Lindon and Eregion, people like Gil-Galad, Celebrimbor, and (irony!) Galadriel. Of course they still had some connections back that way - Galadriel's husband Celeborn was another noble of Doriath - but ultimately, the Sindar had always blamed the Noldor for their troubles (and not without reason!). So they headed east, and set up realms among their distant Silvan kinsfolk.

But times changed. Galadriel left Eregion and moved to Lorien; she was welcomed by Amdir, but one gets the impression Oropher wasn't too keen on her. The dwarves of Khazad-Dum made themselves into a major power in the region, partly by the influx of refugees from Nogrod and Belegost - and it was dwarves of Nogrod who had killed Thingol of Doriath. Worse, these dwarves were allied with the Noldor of Eregion - you know, the ones whose leader, Galadriel, had 'just decided' to move over the mountains into Lorien. Another Noldorin power grab was clearly in progress, and there were rumours of suspicious magic artefacts, and an unidentified Maia.

And then there was the darkness rising in the south and east - rumours of werewolves and vampires, and of men worshipping a figure disturbingly reminiscent of the Morgoth... it's little wonder the elves of Amon Lanc migrated north, until at last Oropher removed his throne to the northerly Emyn Duir. They'd be safe there, right?

... right?

(And the fact that didn't fit in: Thranduil's halls were founded much later, a thousand years into the Third Age, when Sauron again appeared - unidentified - on the scene. With Southern Mirkwood a mess of spiders, and Amon Lanc taken from them by the sinister Necromancer, the elves took the mountains as a shield, and fled to the far north-east. Safe at last! ... and then a thousand years later, those bloodthirsty dwarves came by and set up a Kingdom under the Lonely Mountain. There's no rest for the weary...)

hS