You stay idle because you can afford it, until you can't

Tolkien lived through WW2.

Which he used as inspiration for how the nations would react to a great catastrophe.

WW1*
Tolkien was a soldier in WW1 and his experience as a soldier would have had an effect on his writing, especially considering the Lord of the Rings books were written before and during WW2, which he’s also denied had any influence on them.
I think this, along with most of the comments in this thread, is oversimplistic and does Tolkien and his work a pretty serious disservice.
Tolkien was an academic, a student of myth. The reason his works are some of the best-selling books ever written, and that they still resonate with people so strongly seventy-five years later, is not because LOTR is a gritty take on the realities of trench warfare - it's because Tolkien understood, possibly better than anyone else ever has, feelings, experiences, and tropes that are timeless, ideas that are innate to the human experience.
Everyone saying "Tolkien based LOTR on his experiences in WWI" is entirely missing the fact that Tolkien was attempting to create a mythology. Mythical stories across the world throughout history, from the Bible to Germanic sagas, to Finnish myth, to Greek myth, to middle-eastern myths, feature similar tropes of "not acting until it's almost too late", and I honestly think it's insulting to ignore the fact that Tolkien was tapping into his vast understanding of myth to distill truths about the human experience that have nearly universal appeal, only to instead put him into a shallow box of "he wuz riting about Worl War I/II/nuclear bombs/whatevs lol".
Did those experiences factor into his Middle Earth writings? Of course they did, but it's still badly missing the point to claim that his works are allegorical as a result. That's why Tolkien always reacted so strongly when people accused him of allegory - it's, frankly, an insult, and a complete misunderstanding of the point of Tolkien's work in the first place.
- Goddamn, your comment inspired me to reread the trilogy. Well done!
- Exactly. It's the difference between "the ring is a great power that corrupts" that the reader can draw parallels to their own experiences with, and "ring = nuclear bomb, Isengard = No Man's Land" like it's a slide puzzle with only one right answer.
  A work can be deeply personal and reflect your beliefs without having to be strictly allegorical.
- Myths are one of the most allegorical kind of story-telling, though. The fight between good and evil is how the world came to be. This guy is wisdom, that guy is trickery. This is why the seasons are. Don't fly too close to the sun. The gods behave much like the kings and emperors, and maybe they're even related. It's a very Christian take to call these mere fables, just stories, divorced from any reality or historical context. No! They were renditions of the philosophical questions and material forces in the lives of the people who told them. That's why they were so important to them. Just as those people did, Tolkien told myths which drew on the questions and experiences of his own time. That is allegorical, whether he liked the word or not.
He also served in WW1.
Exactly. And I suspect the world is heading towards another big international war, given how the patterns repeat. It will be a sudden change, a quick realization that yesterday was the last day of peace for a long time coming.
I dearly hope my suspicion is wrong, but atp I expect to be proven right.
After all, war is peace, Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength.

Not surprising considering it's partially allegory for the world wars.

"I cordially dislike allegory in all its manifestations, and always have done so since I grew old and wary enough to detect its presence. I much prefer history – true or feigned– with its varied applicability to the thought and experience of readers. I think that many confuse applicability with allegory, but the one resides in the freedom of the reader, and the other in the purposed domination of the author." -JRR Tolkien
Edit: I think a lot of people in this thread are conflating a story that is meaningful with one that is allegorical. See my comment elsewhere in this thread for more of my thoughts on the matter.
- A distinction without a difference, really. I think he's wrong to say that people confuse these. What he says here boils down to "when it's heavy handed it's allegory and when it's good it's applicability" but I don't think most authors or scholars use these terms this way. He's right to say that it isn't good to beat your readers over the head with the relationship between your story and real events, and it makes sense that he felt strongly enough about that to want to use different words. But it's IMO still totally fine to say that LOTR has some allegorical character.
- The guy who wrote about trees smashing industrialism dislikes allegory. I love Tolkien but come on.

I'd argue it was too late for the many people who died...

They can still help as ghosts. 🤷‍♂️
- Especially if they broke an oath to the King of Gondor before dying
That too is very realistic

Needs more bombadil

Hunh. I thought it was that there's always the one that thinks he's the main character, and everyone around him had to share the load. I mean, FFS, you know at least a handful of the others were aware that giant eagles'd carry them straight off, but who wants to tell the hero-who'd-rather-walk?

ugh, the eagles argument is so old and played out. there's a million reasons why the eagles couldn't have carried them in.
for one thing, mordor had an airforce. the nazgul were stronger than or equal to the strength of the eagles. the only reason they could fly in at the end is because the ring was already destroyed and the nazgul fell with it.
another is that the plan only worked because it was done in secret. if they had flown in, sauron would have seen them days or weeks before they arrived. he would have had that entire army waiting for them on mount doom. even if the eagles made it past the nazgul they never could have made it into the mountain.
the eagles are intelligent willfull creatures. they also didn't want to risk active war with mordor. just like this meme is pointing out, no one would have helped if they didn't absolutely have to. that's made much more clear in the books. every race and nation believes that either they are too far for the danger to reach them or that they can appease sauron. the eagles were not fully committed to war with mordor. they were kind of like Europe helping ukraine right now. they had a side, they supported that side, but only with the occasional assist never an actual battle.
also, the ring's corruption will basically slowly turn all who bear it for long enough into ring wraiths. that's why frodo and bilbo had to take the boat to basically heaven at the end. they were immortal, but the magic that gave them that life was gone from the world. they would have withered away into husks over time, but not died. while the movies didn't show it, Sam also suffered this fate in the end. he got to live his life with his family, but he too eventuality needed to make his exit in that manner. the only reason Hobbits could bear the ring is because they so free from want of power that it simply doesn't sway their hearts the same way. if the eagles had carried the ring bearer for the length of journey that would have been required they too would have been corrupted. that was why they dissolved the fellowship. because the ring was starting to corrupt other party members despite only frodo carrying it.
so no, the eagles couldn't have just carried them.