The Significance of Smaug

        We discussed the issue of dragons, monsters, and why they frighten us, and why they're important, but we ultimately walked away from the discourse without an answer. Thus, I am attempting to discover more about the significance of dragons in Tolkien's mythos. In the spirit of fair warning, I haven't read all of the dragon lore that exists, even in Tolkien's realm, but even within Tolkien, there isn't much of it. I will mostly focus on what I can extrapolate about the role of dragons based on their depiction in The Hobbit. Thus, it is an important caveat that The Hobbit was not originally written as part of the complete saga of Middle-Earth, although it was later modified to fit into the context of The Lord of the Rings. Given this, some aspects of The Hobbit may not be entirely consistent with the rest of Arda's lore; however, since The Hobbit is considered to be canon and treated as such, I will consider it the same way, and mostly just study the dragon Smaug. I have found that Smaug shares many similarities with Fëanor, Morgoth, and Sauron, which implies a connection between them. Ultimately, Smaug, and other dragons in Tolkien's mythos, are a personification of the corrupting force of greed, and an extension of Morgoth's corrupting influence.

        First, let us look at the traits dragons exhibit. Smaug is massive, a scaled flying beast who breathes fire and hoards gold-- very standard dragon traits. There are other physical traits, as well: he has red eyes, is probably slimy, at least on his underbelly, is functionally immortal, and actually glows just a bit (The Hobbit, 348, 378, 52, 338, respectively).* These traits probably aren't as important, however, as Smaug's behavior. Thorin says of Smaug, 

"Dragons steal gold and jewels... from men and elves and dwarves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live ... and never enjoy a brass ring of it. Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't make a thing for themselves, not even mend a little loose scale of their armor" (The Hobbit, 52).

This information is very significant, because it frames a fundamental aspect of Smaug, and dragons in general (and it's an aspect that exists outside of Tolkien's mythos as well. The dragon Fafnir and the unnamed dragon from Beowulf both had hoards). It tells us a few important things about Smaug's behavior: first, he steals gold and jewels from men, elves, and dwarves, indiscriminately. Second, he hoards his treasure fiercely, but without appreciation for its actual beauty. He just enjoys the possession of it, the sense of ownership over the thing considered valuable (i.e. things with good market value). In fact, he is actually rather incapable of determining the beauty of an object, since he can't tell "a good bit of work from a bad" (The Hobbit, 52). 

        This behavior is eerily consistent with that exhibited by Fëanor, with the Silmarils. Although Fëanor was once noble, soon after his creation of the Silmarils his admiration of their beauty quickly becomes an obsessive lust. "Fëanor began to love the Silmarils with a greedy love, and grudged the sight of them to all save [a few]... he seldom remembered now that the light within them was not his own" (The Silmarillion, 71). Then, when the Two Trees are killed, Fëanor refuses to destroy the Silmarils to revive the trees (The Silmarillion, 84). Finally, after Morgoth steals the Silmarils, Fëanor vows to slaughter anyone who possesses a Silmaril in bloody vengeance. (The Silmarillion, 90). His traits sound very draconic, including his envious rage over the idea of others possessing or even seeing the Silmarils. Furthermore, at the point where he begins to forget that "the light within [the Silmarils] was not his own" (The Silmarillion, 71), he begins to see them as something other than what they are. This could easily include him forgetting their beauty, and Tolkien writes in his poem "The Hoard" that this is often the case with those who obsess over treasure. In the poem, he describes an old Dwarf who works his whole life over a pile of jewels and precious metals, making beautiful items, but in the end, his obsession for the trinkets overpowers his actual appreciation for their beauty, as well as his pride in their creation ("through his bony claw with a pale sheen / the stony jewels slipped unseen") ("The Hoard," stanza 2). "The Hoard" demonstrates the infectious power of greed, and while the poem includes a dragon, it also features Dwarves, Elves, and Men, showing that "draconic" behavior is not limited to the dragons themselves. Other beings are very much capable of falling prey to greed and gold-lust.

        Smaug actually has a special power in this regard, that essentially corrupts any pile of treasure that a dragon might hoard. The Dwarves, once holed up in the Lonely Mountain, soon find themselves falling prey to this "dragon-sickness," demonstrated through the ominous warnings about "the power that gold has upon which a dragon has long brooded, nor with dwarvish hearts" (The Hobbit, 412).** The Master of Laketown also falls "under the dragon-sickness, and took most of the gold and fled with it" (The Hobbit, 472). Not only does Smaug hoard treasure with a jealous rage, but he also has the power to spread that covetousness to other people. Even Bilbo, who is remarkably level-headed and disinterested in treasure, feels the effects of the dragon-sickness when he first encounters the treasure (The Hobbit, 339-340). This power does not have much significance beyond its ability to spread greed when Smaug is compared with Fëanor, but it suddenly gains much more significance when Smaug is compared with Morgoth, and Sauron.

        One key difference between Smaug and Fëanor is that while Smaug covets the things that others make, Fëanor is possessive over "these things that he himself had made" (The Silmarillion, 70). His evil is much more like Morgoth's, then, whose fall into darkness also lies largely in his greed for other people's creations; when Arda was being formed, Melkor "coveted it, and he said to the other Valar: 'This shall be my own kingdom; and I name it unto myself" (The Silmarillion, 10). Later, the last straw before Melkor wages war against the Valar is when he sees that the Valar have taken beautiful physical form, and "his envy grew then the greater within him" (The Silmarillion, 11). At that point, he no longer appreciates the beauty of Arda. Otherwise, he would not have bent himself to destroying it. Like Fëanor, and like Smaug, Morgoth covets something, and hates the fact that others have it or want it, but unlike Fëanor, Smaug and Morgoth seem ultimately unable to create things for themselves. It's a good thing, too, in the case of Smaug, since an ability to "mend a little loose scale of [his] armor" (The Hobbit, 52) could have saved him from being shot in the heart by Bard the Bowman (The Hobbit, 389-390).

        Thus, in that context of their shared motivation, another key comparison between Smaug and Morgoth is this: at one point, the Dwarves Fíli and Kíli discover musical instruments in Smaug's horde, which are miraculously "untouched by the dragon, who had small interest in music" (The Hobbit, 374). Given the overarching theme of music in Tolkien's mythos, this small detail is actually very significant. Of course, Smaug has no interest in creating music, whereas Morgoth once wished to create music of his own, but Morgoth's priorities and desires have changed. Smaug has, in all likelihood, never been interested in making music at all, which shows a slight difference in their nature. I suspect that this difference is due to the fact that dragons were servants of Morgoth in the Elder Days (The Silmarillion, 229-230). Smaug, while autonomous, is not a creator, and he has never desired to be. His purpose lies in something far different.

        Dragons, including Smaug, have a relatively unique and very dangerous power, known as the "dragon-spell,"*** which Smaug uses on an invisible Bilbo Baggins in an attempt to coerce him to "rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth" (The Hobbit, 352), and, slightly earlier in the encounter, turn Bilbo against his friends (The Hobbit, 351-352). As a class, we've discussed the corruptive power of the Ring, and the fact that it doesn't really do much to its bearers other than talk to them. The Ring, as an extension of Sauron, has great power in words, just like how Sauron caused Númenor to fall into evil simply through his skill with speech (The Silmarillion, "Akallabêth"). Fëanor, too, is "a master of words, and his tongue had great power over hearts when he would use it... fierce and fell were his words, and filled with anger and pride; and hearing them the Noldor were stirred to madness" (The Silmarillion, 88). He uses his power to convince the Noldor to slay their kin. It is no coincidence that Smaug shares this power, this verbal magic of a kind that causes people to reveal themselves, brings out their worst sides. Smaug is a perpetrator of evil not just in his greed, but in his ability to manipulate, twist, and corrupt both with his words and with his "overwhelming personality" (The Hobbit, 354). 

        All of these details suggest that Smaug, and by extension all dragons, are incarnate extensions of Melkor's corruptive power. The end of The Silmarillion reveals that while Morgoth may be defeated, his lies "will bear dark fruit even unto the latest days" (The Silmarillion, 306). Smaug's significance, then, is that he is the manifestation of Morgoth's lingering power on Middle-Earth. He is an extension of Morgoth's will, even while he is an autonomous being. He is utterly disinterested in creating things of his own, which means he is in a perfect position to serve Melkor's purpose; if dragons were focused on creating their own things, it would be far less likely that they are spreading Melkor's evil, and they would be more their own, separate malevolent entity. That can't be the case, anyway, because no matter how powerful dragons are, they were still part of Morgoth's plans. There is most certainly more to dragons than this facet of their being, but it seems clear now that part of that role includes being an incarnation of that corruptive influence. It would probably take several more papers to explore dragons fully, however.

--GCE

*I am using an ebook version of The Hobbit to cite, so the page numbers may be slightly inconsistent with a print copy. The edition I am using is the ebook version of the "new reset edition" of the 1995 edition.

**The fact that there is an actual title for this affliction, and the assumption that other, more informed people would know about the risks of engaging with a dragon hoard, any dragon hoard, both point to the idea that this is a trait shared by most, if not all, dragons.

***IBID