This isn't even the most contentious point of the Tolkien universe. The biggest and ultimate question is: where the hell do Hobbits come from? because of all the races in his universe, they are the most well known, yet in terms of lore, are very vaguely defined as being an off-shoot branch of men. Like. what kind of an offshoot?

Clearly, Tolkien had characters that were half-elves, right? Can we not assume that Hobbits are just half-dwarves? because let's be real here: humans love to ffffuuuu….

They could've done that, but it probably would've taken thirty chapters and still involved the guy walking all the way to the eagles

kidding, but yeah it could work, It seems believable that at least one of the Eagles would be like 'The hell are we letting this guy do what he wants'