He represents the wrongful impulse to hoard, to accumulate beyond what one can use and to refuse to share with others. In revenge for the theft of the Arkenstone, he destroys the town of Lake-town (Esgaroth).
Smaug, the dragon in J.R.R. Tolkien's novel The Hobbit, represents greed in several ways. Firstly, he hoards a vast treasure trove, which he obsessively guards and refuses to share.
According to Tolkien, (who was born in the Free State where these animals occur) the name Smaug is "the past tense of the primitive Germanic verb smeugan, meaning "to squeeze through a hole", making it a doubly appropriate name for dragon-like lizards that live in burrows or rock cracks.
Greed is a common trait that dragons can symbolize and it is present in many of our characters. For example, Smaug is a very selfish creature whose only purpose is to guard the stolen mound of treasure from thieves; even though he truly has no use for it.
The most important of of Smaug's antecedents was Fafnir, a treasure-hoarding dragon from a Norse epic. Tolkien first ran into Fafnir in a story-book when he was very young, writes literature scholar Jonathan Evans, and the dragon had a profound effect.
The Life of Smaug & the Dragons of the North | Tolkien Explained
Does Smaug represent the devil?
In crafting the dialogue and mannerisms of Smaug, J.R.R. Tolkien rendered a malignant character who showcases a number of parallels with that ancient serpent, the tempter who came to seduce Eve and Adam in Eden, the devil.
Smaug, left those who fled Erebor, because the treasure was his goal, from the beginning. After these events, we understand that Smaug is, at least, Neutral Evil. And this is where, the Films and Book choose a different path. In the Book, Smaug desires only the treasure of Erebor.
"I kill where I wish and none dare resist. I laid low the warriors of old and their like is not in the world today. Then I was but young and tender. Now I am old and strong, strong strong."
Smaug, a genus of lizards, was named after Tolkien's Smaug. Most notably, Smaug was apparently a four-legged western dragon in the first film, but to follow the description in the book, referring to him as a "wyrm", he was redesigned to be a more snake or bird-like wyvern-type dragon in the second film.
Smaug. When describing Smaug, the dragon, the author uses both similes and metaphors. The following metaphor directly compares Smaug to a worm without using 'like' or 'as' to connect them. 'There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug.
In the conversation between Smaug and Bilbo, Bilbo calls him "Smaug the Tremendous", "Smaug the Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities", "Smaug the Mighty", "Smaug the Unassessably Wealthy", "Lord Smaug the Impenetrable" and "Your Magnificence", and later Bilbo refers to him as "Smaug the Terrible" and "Smaug the Dreadful ...
Here, Smaug, the story's mouthpiece for unfettered greed, begins to get inside Bilbo's head, prompting the hobbit to wonder whether the dwarves will ultimately betray him. This momentary sowing of discord represents the effect of greed in general.
Using the evidence from the text here provided by J. R. R. Tolkien himself; it explains that Dragons seem to have soft underbelly's, which is a key weakness to them, but Smaug unlike other Dragons, laid and slept on top of the treasure or Erebor which caused his underbelly was crusted with gems and fragments of gold.
"My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!" - The Hobbit, Ch. 12 'Inside Information'.
Smaug (/smaʊɡ/) is a dragon and the main antagonist in J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 novel The Hobbit, his treasure and the mountain he lives in being the goal of the quest. Powerful and fearsome, he invaded the Dwarf kingdom of Erebor 171 years prior to the events described in the novel.
So, Smaug, like all the other dragons of Middle-earth, may very well crave gold because their maker did as well. KEEP READING: Lord of the Rings: Could Smaug Have Destroyed the One Ring With His Fire?
Bard the Bowman is a character in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. A Man of Laketown and a descendant of the ancient Lords of Dale, Bard manages to kill Smaug, the dragon, after which he becomes king of Dale.
"My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail is a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!" ― Smaug to Bilbo Baggins -The Hobbit, "Inside Information.
Bilbo regrets giving himself the nickname "Barrel-Rider." The nickname gives Smaug a clue that Bilbo and company had help from the people of Lake Town, and Smaug flies off that way at the end of the chapter.
Smaug had no problem eating Dwarf, and on the day he attacked the great Dwarven kingdom, he likely had enough bodies to last him a long while. But over the decades, the bodies would've decomposed, leaving only whatever meals the Dwarves left behind.
Smaug's dragon-fine would not have been hot enough to destroy the One Ring. The malevolence that Sauron put inside of the Ring could only be destroyed in the Cracks of Doom, so Frodo was compelled to make the journey to Mordor.
Undeniably, Smaug is the Greatest Dragon left in Middle Earth during the Third Age. Yet, he is not the strongest in its history. That title falls to Ancalagon the Black, the largest dragon ever to have existed in Middle-earth.
