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Old 01-26-2014, 06:37 PM   #61
Butterbeer
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He could not covet what he did not know.

He would not covet what he had not seen.

But had he known and seen, well, he was, after all, a dragon. And that is covetousness.
Alcuin... (above) ...
Pretty much nail on the head ref how i see it regarding Jon's question

Interesting thread though.

On a more practical note: (and apologies if this has been mentioned) how would he wear the ring?

I doubt it would fit snugly (and certainly not securely) onto a Talon (too big)...

Whilst he could perhaps force someone to forge it onto a chain for him...

bar the style or Dragonista bling element, that would be no use as you need wear the ring...

Nose piercing? Cool looking perhaps? (though Tolkien didn't say much ref Dragon fashions and anyway likely wasn't up-to-date on the vagaries of such things ) ... either way same problem ref the Ring as above chain example...


But had Smaug gotten the ring, and somehow managed to wear it?

Would he be invisable?

Were he invisable - presumably Bard would be killed, and Lake Town burned and sunk... The Elves would stay at home partying in the woods with their "keep off the Grass" signs and slightly over the top approach to strangers walking into their glades...

and Bolg and the Boyz?
Still leg it to Erebor? If they did, would they Fall under Smaug's Dominion?

Remember he cant easily take the ring on or off (presumably..although in this instance we are somehow presuming he got it on...)

therefore hes just an invisable voice... could be tricky convincing them...

Mind you- admittedly i'd assume his flames were visiable, and his voice (obviously) would still be audiable.... and the sound of his flight, roars and his tail smiting mountainsides etc...

therefore i suppose he could easily put bolg and his boyz from Gundabad and the misty mountains under his Dominion...

But, if he did wear the Ring, how long before Sauron would know?
Instantly?

If not he'd likely find out soonish.

What would happen then?

Last edited by Butterbeer : 01-26-2014 at 06:39 PM.
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Old 01-27-2014, 03:04 PM   #62
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I like the idea of a Dragon with a nose ring. But the original question begs the question is the ring self malleable? I mean it did fit snugly on Saurons giant [movie] fingers and Bilbos/Frodos tiny ones. Does the ring have any control over its sizing ability when it wants to be found/worn? My guess is no but its worth asking. As for the dragon, I think this is one of those universe mixing questions. Tolkien didnt have in mind the potential of others using the ring in any form in The Hobbit like he did in Lord of the Rings where the concept of others wielding it is discussed to some level. Now my question is what would have happened if he had eaten Bilbo and therefore the ring? Would he become invisible or do you have to have it on your finger? And would he have been able to feel something powerful and evil passing through his gut? Or would he have thought it was just a bad Dwarf he just ate? (which begs the next question... does Smaug eat and if so what does he eat? I dont remeber any mention of him feeding on Laketown men since he landed on the mountain. And the dwarves havent been around since then either. Does he eat wild animals? You would think he would be noticed hunting down an elk or a bear or something. Or is he in an extended state of inactivity where food isnt necessary for long stretches? Python like.)
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Old 01-28-2014, 09:40 AM   #63
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Originally Posted by Alcuin View Post
In the book, I don’t think Smaug ever saw Bilbo’s Ring. In fact, I don’t think he ever saw Bilbo! He smelled him, heard him, felt his air (probably referring to the draft coming from the secret entrance Bilbo and the Dwarves opened), but he never saw him. Ergo, he didn’t see the Ring, either.
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He could not covet what he did not know.

He would not covet what he had not seen.

But had he known and seen, well, he was, after all, a dragon. And that is covetousness.
:
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I agree that Smaug did not see Bilbo, and therefore did not see the Ring. However - I think it's possible that he felt the Ring, probably without knowing just what it was. Just as the Ring called out to the Orcs who ambushed Isildur. It may even give another reason why he was willing to talk extensively with Bilbo. Whatever feeling he got from the Ring would have piqued his curiosity even further.

Not sure about his age. My guess is that he was born after the start of the 3rd Age, but I have nothing on which to base that. I don't recall exactly - were just 2 or maybe 3 dragons mentioned in the First Age tales (at least two slain). No stories of them in the Second Age (retreated into the far north, I suppose - maybe eating up the woolly mammoths), then a handfull of stories or mentions in the Third Age.
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Old 01-28-2014, 12:37 PM   #64
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A little idle speculation…

Gandalf told Frodo, “The Ring had given [Gollum] power according to his stature.”

Galadriel echoed that when she told him, “Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.”

Smaug had certainly trained his “will to the domination of others.”

So if Smaug had obtained the Ring and somehow tapped into it – choose any of Butterbeer’s options, or others that you can invent – would the dragon become aware of the Nazgûl, for instance? Or of the Three Keepers?

Sauron, I suspect, would soon become aware of Smaug’s possessing the Ring. How would he get it back? No one but a great power could withhold the Ring from Sauron, as Tolkien tells us in Letter 246,
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Even from afar [Sauron] had an effect upon [the Ring], to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of “mortals” no one, not even Aragorn.
So how would an encounter between Smaug and Sauron end? Was Smaug as powerful as, say, Elrond or Galadriel? Could they have withheld the Ring from Sauron, had they claimed it? Could Smaug?

─╫─

An interesting side question is how Galadriel knew what Gandalf had told Frodo: Gandalf doesn’t seem to have visited Lórien between April 3018 and his death in Moria the following January.

Last edited by Alcuin : 01-28-2014 at 12:39 PM.
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Old 01-29-2014, 06:32 PM   #65
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Originally Posted by Alcuin View Post
A little idle speculation…
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An interesting side question is how Galadriel knew what Gandalf had told Frodo: Gandalf doesn’t seem to have visited Lórien between April 3018 and his death in Moria the following January.
Idle speculation is what this thread is all about. And yes - Smaug would have made a formidable possessor of the One Ring.

On communication between Gandalf and Galadriel. Yes - I think the greater rings may allow for some kind of communications link between wearers. It explains a lot. I think even so far as explaining much of what is known of Isildur's demise. And also how - Galadriel feared that if Sauron obtained the One, all that she had done would be laid bare, as in - exposed to him. I don't know if a Hobbit (or a man, even such a man as Isildur) could have read the thoughts of others, but I think their thoughts may have been open to the wielders of the Three, when they put on the One. Was not Celebrimbor aware of Sauron as soon as he made and put on the One? And I think the Three could have communication with one another. Even as they journey to their abodes, late in LOTR (in Dunland, I think); Elrond, Gandalf, Galadriel (maybe Celeborn too - but is he participant, or merely bystander?) appear to sit around all through the night, communicating via telepathy or something. Is it an Elvish thing (with Gandalf admitted as a Maia?) or is it their rings?

Forgot to mention - yes, I think the Ring would have grown to fit even a dragon-sized finger.
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Old 01-30-2014, 12:46 AM   #66
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Idle speculation is what this thread is all about.
Oh, thank you! I feel so much more productive now.

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On communication between Gandalf and Galadriel. Yes - I think the greater rings may allow for some kind of communications link between wearers. It explains a lot. ... I think their thoughts may have been open to the wielders of the Three, when they put on the One. Was not Celebrimbor aware of Sauron as soon as he made and put on the One? And I think the Three could have communication with one another. Even as they journey to their abodes, late in LOTR (in Dunland, I think); Elrond, Gandalf, Galadriel (maybe Celeborn too - but is he participant, or merely bystander?) appear to sit around all through the night, communicating via telepathy or something. Is it an Elvish thing (with Gandalf admitted as a Maia?) or is it their rings?
When the surviving Eight of Nine Walkers (reduced to Seven of Nine after Boromir was lost) reached Caras Galadhon, Galadriel said she couldn’t see Gandalf unless he entered Lórien, that he was surrounded by a grey mist.

When Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, and Gandalf sat around a few days in what was left of Eregion before parting company, they were practicing ósanwe-kenta, or direct communication via thought. (That’s probably what happened between Celeborn and Galadriel during the silence after Galadriel gently rebuked her beloved, “the wisest of the Elves of Middle-earth,” when he blurted out he’d have barred the Eight survivors from Lórien had he known the Dwarves had stirred up a Balrog in Moria – something he apparently suspected was there, a suspicion both he and Galadriel neglected to mention to Gandalf, unfortunately – and that Gandalf had fallen from wisdom to folly in his old age.)


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Forgot to mention - yes, I think the Ring would have grown to fit even a dragon-sized finger.
Si, I agree.
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Old 03-12-2015, 01:27 PM   #67
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…does Smaug eat and if so what does he eat? I dont remeber any mention of him feeding on Laketown men since he landed on the mountain. And the dwarves havent been around since then either. Does he eat wild animals? You would think he would be noticed hunting down an elk or a bear or something. Or is he in an extended state of inactivity where food isnt necessary for long stretches? Python like.)
In The Hobbit, Smaug himself says he ate six of Thorin & Co’s ponies right away. “Horses and ponies” had been provided by the Men of Lake-town. The text indicates, but does not explicitly state, the Dwarves rode ponies to the Lonely Mountain, so there were at least 14 ponies and some horses as pack animals. (“Here they were joined by the horses with other provisions and necessaries and the ponies for their own use that had been sent to meet them,” at the north end of the Long Lake; Chapter 11, ”On the Doorstep”) Three ponies were later found alive with the assistance of the ravens of the Mountain.

Smaug also tells Bilbo, “I know the smell (and taste) of dwarf – no one better.”

In the very first chapter, Thorin tells Bilbo, “…Smaug could not creep into a hole that size … after devouring so many of the dwarves and men of Dale.” Shortly afterwards, he adds, “he used to crawl out of the great gate and come by night to Dale, and carry away people, especially maidens, to eat, until Dale was ruined, and all the people dead or gone.”

In addition, Smaug destroyed all the pleasant land around the Mountain to create a desert, in part to better see anyone approaching his lair, in part (possibly) because he was an (innately?) evil creature and preferred ruin and desert to pleasant fields and forest.

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…is he in an extended state of inactivity where food isnt necessary for long stretches? Python like.)
I’ve no idea what the Legendary Black Beast of Aaaaarrrrrrggghhh ate between the carving on his cave wall and the arrival of Brother Maynard.


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I agree that Smaug did not see Bilbo, and therefore did not see the Ring. However - I think it's possible that he felt the Ring, probably without knowing just what it was. Just as the Ring called out to the Orcs who ambushed Isildur. It may even give another reason why he was willing to talk extensively with Bilbo. Whatever feeling he got from the Ring would have piqued his curiosity even further.
That idea is made explicit in Peter Jackson’s film.
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Old 04-08-2015, 05:59 AM   #68
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In the very first chapter, Thorin tells Bilbo, “…Smaug could not creep into a hole that size … after devouring so many of the dwarves and men of Dale.” Shortly afterwards, he adds, “he used to crawl out of the great gate and come by night to Dale, and carry away people, especially maidens, to eat, until Dale was ruined, and all the people dead or gone.”
This always had me wondering, what are all the maidens of Dale doing outside at night?!
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Old 04-08-2015, 10:26 AM   #69
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They were probably the town floozies. No great loss to Dale, depending on which group of people you ask.

Also? They were no maidens.

My assumption was always that they probably were not out and about. I figure he hunted them down... possibly implied in the phrase "until Dale was ruined," if you want to read into it. Maybe knocking down buildings/hiding places/etc. to get to people
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Old 04-11-2015, 09:05 AM   #70
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They were probably the town floozies. No great loss to Dale, depending on which group of people you ask.
Charming.

Still, in a prosperous town like Dale, they'd probably have a proper brothel with bouncers and the lot and didn't have to bother with working the streets.

But I'm guessing the idea that the bulk of a great Dragon is the world's best key for any door (so good, in fact, you'd only have to use it once and that's a door you will never have to close again because it's broken into tiny, tiny bits.) is a more likely explanation.

One wonders, though, that if Smaug preferred to dine on maidens and people knew this, how many made sure they weren't maidens by the time the Dragon came calling again?
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Old 04-12-2015, 04:15 PM   #71
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Charming.

Still, in a prosperous town like Dale, they'd probably have a proper brothel with bouncers and the lot and didn't have to bother with working the streets.
Did Middle Earth have brothels? I would assume in Tolkien's world the Oldest Profession in the world would be... English Professor.

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But I'm guessing the idea that the bulk of a great Dragon is the world's best key for any door (so good, in fact, you'd only have to use it once and that's a door you will never have to close again because it's broken into tiny, tiny bits.) is a more likely explanation.
My thoughts exactly.


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One wonders, though, that if Smaug preferred to dine on maidens and people knew this, how many made sure they weren't maidens by the time the Dragon came calling again?
What a SHOCKING thought! I'm sure in Tolkien's world, virtuous young maidens were pleased to take the risk to assure their sanctity.
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Old 04-12-2015, 08:50 PM   #72
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Perhaps we need a separate thread on maidens in The Hobbit

In a “simpler” society (i.e., before the late 1950s), it is likely most young, unmarried female youth – “maidens” – would be untouched because of the adverse results (pregnancy, shame, etc) now absent in “modern” society.

In any case, surely Tolkien is using “maidens” in the plain sense of young, unmarried girls and women. As Joseph Pearce points out,
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Continuing his exposition on the nature of dragons, Thorin tells Bilbo that dragons also “carry away people, especially maidens, to eat.” Once again, the fullness of applicable meaning transcends the literal eating of the flesh of maidens. Dragons are not merely hungry, they are wicked. They desire the defilement of the pure and undefiled, the destruction of the virgin. Their devouring is a deflowering. Parallels with human “dragons” in the world beyond Middle-earth and closer to the home of the reader are not difficult to discern. The war against the dragon is not, therefore, a war against a physical monster, like a dinosaur, but a battle against the wickedness we encounter in our everyday lives. We all face our daily dragons and we must all defend ourselves from them and hopefully slay them. The sobering reality is that we must either fight the dragons that we encounter in life or become dragons ourselves. There is no “comfortable” alternative.
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