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Old 10-15-2012, 11:17 AM   #1
Estelyn Telcontar
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Eye Hobbit2 - Chapter 14 - Fire and Water

This chapter goes back in time and away from the point-of-view of its main character(s). I remember reading that Tolkien originally wrote this part differently but revised it before publication. Perhaps I'll check out Rateliff's History of the Hobbit for more, but let's begin the discussion first.

Tolkien uses a similar narrative technique to heighten suspense later in LotR, telling a long passage from one (or more) character's pov, then going back to (an)other(s). Do you feel this technique succeeds here?

Just like the Dwarves, who are clueless about Smaug's fate in the previous chapter, we find that the inhabitants of Esgaroth don't know what to expect here. Their misguided optimism is almost fatal, and the seemingly surly pessimism of Bard saves many lives both immediately and almost certainly in the future. Is his suspicion prophetic or merely common sense?

I still don't understand the significance of destroying the bridges to combat an enemy that can fly.

How do you feel about the introduction of a previously unknown hero who kills the dragon instead of Bilbo or the Dwarves?

What part do the wily words of the Master have in the hostile encounters coming up?

Do you see the hostility between the Elven-King and the Dwarves as increased by the curse of the dragon's hoard?



You can read the previous discussion here.
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Old 10-17-2012, 07:11 PM   #2
jallanite
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This is in a sense the main chapter of the book, the one to which everything up to now has tended, the death of Smaug.

Rateliff tells on page 496 that originally Tolkien had planned that Smaug was unable to overcome the Lakemen and returned to his lair to rest and recuperate:
Bilbo puts on ring and creeps into dungeon. and hides. Dragon comes back at last and sleeps exhausted by battle.

Bilbo [takes >] plunges his little magic knife and it disappears. he cannot wield the swords or spears.

Throes of dragon. Smashes wall and entrance to tunnel. Bilbo floats <away> in a golden bowl on D’s blood, till it comes to rest in a deep dark hole. When it is cool he wades out, and becomes hard & brave.
Why Tolkien made this major change is not known. One can speculate that Tolkien felt that such a role for Bilbo was too much and that bringing in a different slayer helped credibility.

In Tolkien’s earlier drafts there are a number of bridges connecting Laketown to the mainland. Tolkien mostly changes this to only a single bridge, but forgets and has “bridges” when he writes (emphasis mine):
Amid shrieks and wailing and the shouts of men he came over them, swept towards the bridges and was foiled!
The idea of destroying the bridge is to make Laketown into an island, protected by the water around it. That indeed is somewhat troublesome. If Smaug could have used a bridge to get onto Laketown despite archers and pails of water it appears that Smaug might have simply landed on one of the buildings in the town instead. But Smaug does not try this. Instead Smaug swoops onto the town again and again, quickly breathing flames, attempting to set the town on fire. When Smaug withdraws from their bows temporarily, men quickly put the fires out.

In the published version, in which right up to the end Smaug appears to be winning, this strategy appears well thought out.

Bard is introduced with careful casualness, seeming to be merely an example of a less credulous lakeman. But then Bard is introduced again as the captain of a company of archers still holding out against Smaug while most (understandably) flee by swimming or in boats. Tolkien now tells us that Bard is a descendant of Girion Lord of Dale. The perceptive reader immediately sees that Bard is being set up as the dragon slayer.

But couldn’t anyone have fired that shot? No. Tolkien sets it up with a couple of previous statements that now come together. Thorin had previously mentioned that the thrush who had cracked the snail may be one, perhaps the last one, of a breed of magical birds and mentions, among other bits of lore, that the “Men of Dale used to have the trick of understanding their language.” Tolkien stresses that this particular thrush appears to be listening when Bilbo is relating the details of his conversation with Smaug, including Smaug’s unintentional revelation about the bare patch in Smaug’s diamond waistcoat and has Balin repeat that particular piece of information again.

Back to Bard who is surprised in the midst of battle when an old thrush perches on him by his ear. “Marvelling he found that he could understand its tongue, for he was of the race of Dale.”

Tolkien does not here or anywhere get into how many others of “the race of Dale” might be now living in Laketown or how the thrush recognized that the understanding magical thrush talk gene was dominant in Bard. The thrush blurts out the information about the gap in the hollow of Smaug’s left breast. Then “it told him of tidings up in the Mountain and of all that it had heard.″ That is a considerable bit of information.

When the talkative thrush at last shuts up, Bard prays to an hereditary black arrow which has never failed him, and so armed with folktale motifs, shoots Smaug. Amazingly the bald patch in Smaug’s armoured waistcoat just happens to be right over Smaug’s heart, by chance as it seems, although in Tolkien’s Middle-earth it has probably all been predestined by Eru. Smaug drops dead immediately from the shot and his body falls onto Laketown, destroying the town and apparently Bard in the draft text. But Tolkien seeing more use for Bard as a Return of the King figure brings Bard back almost immediately.

In folktales and legends dragons are killed by a sword or by the traditional weapon of some god, wielded by a single champion. Considering how unlikely a shot through the heart would be against a bear or a boar this is reasonable enough (though not only a single champion).

As to Smaug, Tolkien writes of the place where his body lay in the lake:
But few dared to cross the cursed spot, and none dared to dive into the shivering water of recover the precious stones that fell from his rotting carcass.
Personally that seems to me to be unlikely, possibly a flourish from Bilbo’s diary. Although fear of a zombi Smaug is interesting.
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Old 10-18-2012, 06:01 AM   #3
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jallanite View Post
As to Smaug, Tolkien writes of the place where his body lay in the lake:
But few dared to cross the cursed spot, and none dared to dive into the shivering water of recover the precious stones that fell from his rotting carcass.
Personally that seems to me to be unlikely, possibly a flourish from Bilbo’s diary. Although fear of a zombi Smaug is interesting.
That bit reminds me of Eustace and the curse of the dragon hoard in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Traditionally treasure that has been held by dragons is thought to carry evil with it. There's a similar set of taboos on archeological digs, for example graves of ancient Egyptian Pharoahs. Someone is usually foolhardy and/or greedy enough to try anyway, but the results are said to be catastrophic for that person.
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Old 10-18-2012, 07:44 AM   #4
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Originally Posted by Estelyn Telcontar View Post
That bit reminds me of Eustace and the curse of the dragon hoard in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Traditionally treasure that has been held by dragons is thought to carry evil with it. There's a similar set of taboos on archeological digs, for example graves of ancient Egyptian Pharoahs. Someone is usually foolhardy and/or greedy enough to try anyway, but the results are said to be catastrophic for that person.
Along that line, compare the description of the treasure of Nargothrond after Glaurung's death:

Quote:
....Mîm the Petty-Dwarf had found his way to Nargothrond, and crept within the ruined halls; and he took possession of them, and sat there fingering the gold and the gems, letting them run run ever through his hands, for none came nigh to despoil him, from dread of the spirit of Glaurung and his very memory.
The Silmarillion Of the Ruin of Doriath

Of course, Mîm did come to a bad end, right there at the location of the treasure.

Then again, Dáin and his kingdom apparently weren't affected by any curse on Erebor from Smaug's tenure there. Maybe that was mitigated in that case by Dáin's openhandedness and resistance to the typical Dwarvish avarice.

To me, it's also reminiscent of the "curse" that lay on the treasure of Doriath that was drowned in the river Ascar after Beren killed the Lord of Nogrod.
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Old 10-18-2012, 11:43 AM   #5
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re: the bridge

Smaug could only do a limited amount of damage by strafing; as with his conquest of Erebor years before, you do the serious damage once you alight and become, in effect, a flamethrowing tank.

Of course, in Tolkienthink I'm sure there was also an echo here of Turin's ill-considered stone bridge over the Narog, which allowed Glaurung direct access to Nargothrond.
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