Why destroy Laketown's bridge?

[Bêthberry]

As to the question of bridge versus bridges, it is quite possible that Laketown had internal bridges and not only the one bridge leading from shore to "pontoon" town, as it were. (Yes, I know the town was not technically a floating town.) Tolkien's drawing uses the perspective of the shoreline and so would not necessarily show the inner bridge work, although it does show possible side "canals" into the town. It does not in fact show the sheltering rock which his text mentions either--again, simply the fact that one drawing cannot reproduce all the aspects of perspective available to a written text. In this case, the thousand words actually are more informative.

Originally Posted by TH, "A Warm Welcome"

Not far from the mouth of the Forest River was the strange town he heard the elves speak of in the king's cellars. It was not built on the shore, though there were a few huts and buildings there, but right out on the surface of the lake, protected from the swirl of the entering river by a promontory of rock which formed a calm bay. A great bridge made of wood ran out to where on huge piles made of forest trees was built a busy wooden town, not a town of elves but of Men, who still dared to dwell here under the shadow of the distant dragon-mountain.

Interestingly, Alan Lee's drawing of Laketown picks up on this possiblity of canals:



As for whether a fire breathing dragon could be squelched by spirts of SuperSoakers, well, that depends upon the anatomy of said dragon and the method of producing the fire. Certainly it is unlikely that any internal forge is at work, as we would have to question how the dragon's interal organs would withstand the fire. Here's a most interesting analysis of how intelligently to design a fire breathing dragon:

The Scientifc Feasibility of Fire Breathing Dragons

If this design of a methane-holding bladder in the head is feasible, it would possibly provide two uses: not simply to produce fire, but also to act as ballast, allowing the dragon to fly by his own internal 'hot air balloon'. So the dragon would be forced to employ a balancing act as it were: too much fire production would hinder his flight capabilities, thus necessitating some sort of ground assault.

As for the generation of fire, the spark necessary to ignite the gas from this bladder could easily be what the SuperSoakers would aim for. So they would not necessarily be putting out the flames so much as inhibiting the production of the flames.