Spoilers: Start of Hobbit: Battle of the Five armies
Throughout
human mythology there have been common themes and subjects that have
appeared with frequency. Usually this can be explained as an
expression of a community’s social unconscious; ghouls, vampires
and wendigos allude to the widely held taboo regarding cannibalism
for example.
Taking
this as the case, one would assume the most prevalent mythological
being would be representative of a common theme deemed important to
the human psyche. The being would come in many different variants
however the message this creature represents would be all the same.
And so it
is that we have the cultural anomaly that is the dragon. The dragon
is present everywhere, even in places where there would be no
reptiles or birds that would serve as inspiration. It takes many
forms; from the Norse lindwyrm to the Chinese Long.
But it
seems as the dragon has many shapes so does it have meaning. Some
dragons represent power, some represent Christian sin, some represent
lust, some represent temperance, peace and life. It is this paradox
of the dragon that feeds my interest in the subject (actually, to be
honest, what feeds my interest is that they are basically fire
breathing dinosaurs with wings, but for now lets just pretend I'm an
adult).
Given this
popularity of dragons throughout history, there is no reason for them
to be absent in modern day narrative.
Strangely
though, dragons have not played as huge a role as one would have
expected. For one thing they, along with elves, dwarves and other
prisoners of the Tolkein universe have been assigned to the fantasy
world and are hence ever resigned to be the final dungeon bosses in
WOW.
But there
have been a few popular forms of media that I think have done dragons
in an interesting way or at least put a little more effort into them.
So I am
going to take a tour through various interpretations of dragons in
popular culture, exploring how these modern depictions represent
modern ideas but mostly I'm gona judge the hell out of them.
Probably
the most recent depiction of dragons in popular media (which is
ironic given it draws from the oldest text), is of Smaug the
impenetrable in the recent Hobbit films. Through Smaug we saw a brief
glimpse of the dragon concept that is held within the mind of J.R.R.
Tolkien.
Tolkein is
considered to be the father of fantasy by some and the rapist and
plunderer of norse mythology by me, but nevertheless his dragons are
quite interesting.
Tolkien
dragons come from Morgoth or as he is otherwise known “not-Satan”
who wished to use them in his battle against the creations of
Iluvatar or “not-God”. Dragons come in your basic flavours: you
have your fire drakes, ice drakes, sea serpents, regular
serpents.......pistachio.
Whatever
the shape, his dragons hold certain characteristics in common. These
characteristics can be summed up in one word: evil.
In x words
that would be:
Tolkein
dragons have a love of gold and wealth, though they never mine or
smith their own objects. No, dragons prefer to order on amazon or
alternatively bully some dwarves. Dragons and dwarves in the Tolkien
universe are arch enemies; dwarves because they like mining for
precious minerals under big mountains and dragons because they are
like big fire-breathing magpies. This adoration of gold is not very
well explained in Tolkien's usually heavily detailed world but from
the actions and behaviour of Smaug in the hobbit, combined with
Tolkien's own beliefs; there may be three reasons.
1. It may
be a form of protection as Smaug spent centuries lying on a sea of
gems so that they would embed in his skin and protect his soft belly
from arrows, which worked out perfectly.
2. Dragons
are a metaphor for humanity’s consumer greed, something Tolkien was
personally against.
3. Dragons
like shiny things.
Along with
a tendency towards filigree, dragons are amazingly cunning. Often
they use this intellect to mess around with their food before they
eat it. Smaug wastes no time in trying to derive information from
Bilbo as he tries to glean who he is and where he comes from. With
the little knowledge he gains Smaug is able to come to the conclusion
that Bilbo has been sent to steal from him on behalf of the dwarves.
Smaug also holds an impressive knowledge of each and every piece of
treasure in his hoard; instantly realising that Bilbo has taken a
cup. As soon as Smaug recognises Bilbo's plan, he sets about trying
to drive a wedge between him and his allies showing a distinct
understanding of the human psyche.
But with
this intellect comes a fatal flaw, in that Smaug has a certain
weakness to riddles and mind games. Bilbo exploits this by using
several riddles to entice Smaug into revealing information about
himself.
One must
understand that this scene in the book and later movie, is based off
the Lay of Fafnir. Bilbo makes an effort not to name himself as in
the myth, it is believed a dying Lindwyrm may put a curse over
someone once they know their name.
It is this
dialogue that results in Bilbo realising Smaug's weakness. As it was
Sigurd's objective to try and gain prized wisdom from Fafnir.
Another
thing taken from the Fafnir legend is that of the dragon spell.
Tolkien's dragons often hold a hypnotic ability to bend the will of
men or drive them insane. In Fafnir's legend, it is Sigurd's
companion who is driven mad with gold sickness, just as Thorin
Oakenshield becomes obsessed with his own treasure.
The dragon
spell has been used by dragons such as Glaurong in order to wipe
memories and drive people to suicide. Smaug it seems, may have some
form of dragon spell that relies on a person having to give their
name, but it is equally possible that Tolkien simply wrote his
Bilbo/Smaug scene to brazenly mirror earlier Dragon stories. Magic or
no, Smaug still has an understanding of human psychology which he
uses against his enemies.
So given
that Dragons are gigantic, fire breathing, hypnotic evil-masterminds,
it begs the question of how were they wiped out by the time the
Hobbit was written.
Basically,
Tolkien doesn't give any good answers, just that Smaug happened to be
the last of the “great dragons”. However, he does mention that
their disadvantage happened to be the fact they were slow to mature.
But even if it takes several hundred years to make one Smuag, that's
still one Smaug and one Smuag can destroy the combined kingdoms of
Dale, the lonely mountain and the Wood elves that not even Sauron and
his ugly-face parade could conquer.
And I
suppose that brings me to my main criticism of the Tolkien dragons
(you know aside from the plagiarism), its that they are immensely
powerful, yet very easily defeated. I think Smaug is the perfect
example of this case. Anyone who has watched the third Hobbit movie
has only received a taste of the disappointment that was Smaug the
stupendous.
In the
books Smaug's demise resulted in Bilbo noticing there happening to be
a gap in his jewel encrusted belly just above his heart, this piece
of information was overheard by a thrush who fluttered down to Bard
the bowman and let him know. Bard was then able to aim one of his
arrows at the spot, hitting it dead centre and killing Smaug
instantly. Now, I think everyone should just take a minute to
appreciate that the last great dragon of middle earth was thwarted by
a song bird.
If this
doesn't make sense, again it has been nicked from Fafnir and I'm not
going to even bother explaining it because you can just go read it,
trust me its much better than this farce.
Obviously,
there are some flaws with this concept. Chiefly, being if Smaug had
an exposed belly the entire time during which he destroyed Dale and
the lonely mountain's armies how was he not shot down like a
pheasant. Furthermore, how did Smaug, in all his intellect and for
all the decades he spent in the Lonely mountain, not ever once look
down and notice that one of the jewels he had placed to cover his
heart was missing. Lastly, how did Bard know what the fuck this bird
was saying? And what did the bird get out of this? Who does it work
for? Fuck that Elf/dwarf romance bullshit from the movies, I want to
know what this bird's story is.
This sort
of thing doesn't happen to be an exception to the rule, by the way.
In Tolkien's universe the one weakness all dragon's share happens to
be generic, white-teethed heroes.
The
tradition all went back the first dragon, Glaurong whose immense size
and hypnotic gaze meant nothing against the forces of one noble
dipstick hiding in a ditch (Again see Fafnir and assorted dragon
myths). This dipstick was named Turin Turanbar heir to the Folk of
Hador, Lord of the cumbly-wumbly candy stick hills and hero of the
oogly-boogly (insert old English word for sock here) islands. He
wielded a magic sword, I'm not bothered remembering its name because
having a magic sword in Middle Earth is like owning a Katana in
feudal Japan. So Turin managed to defeat this omnipotent beast by
stabbing it in its tummy with a pointy stick.
This
happens again, and again throughout Tolkien's stories. Anytime, a
mighty dragon threatens some dwarf's stash of shiny rocks the hero of
the day comes out of the woodwork and stabs it with a special sword
that Tolkien goes to lengths to name.
This took
a humorous turn when it came to the case of Ancalagon the black. Now
I want you to take this moment to look up the size scale of
Ancalagon, all the while remembering that one pretty faced douche-bag
was all it took to bring him down.
I suppose
there's a possibility that I'm missing some sort of a point here,
that the reason dragon's are so easily thwarted is because Tolkien is
referencing previous great works. But luckily I've read many dragon
myths throughout the European and world cannon and I can say that
usually it takes a little more than one blue eyed prick and his big,
pointed long-thing to bring a dragon down; like a sheep filled with
sulphur or eight barrels of hard liquor.
I suppose
there is nothing more to say about Tolkien's dragons. Their story's
are all pretty much the same: dragon appears, burns some things,
tricks some people, then (INSERT NAME HERE) son of (INSERT NAME HERE)
heir to (INSERT KINGDOM HERE) of the (INSERT FAMILY TREE HERE) stabs
him with a magic sword and everyone goes home to do their hair.
Dragons
aren't mere animals in Middle Earth, so perhaps we can shed some
light on their psyche by analysing Smaug. Smaug is described
everywhere by everyone as an evil character. Gandalf calls him the
most greedy and wicked of worms (by worms he obviously means the old
translation wyrm that means serpent, you'd be surprised how much
confusion this has caused). Even Tolkien himself considers Smaug to
be nothing more than a generic evil being.
At his
core, Smaug isn't really evil. Of course he's killed countless
people, destroyed entire kingdoms and takes sadistic pleasure in the
suffering of his enemies but in all honesty, would you really call a
man a monster just because he crushed a few ants? Smaug doesn't
appear to care much for what happens in middle earth so long as he is
left alone to his cavern. He does not actively cause destruction
unless provoked. He doesn't demand taxes or tributes, nor does he
lord over lands and that's more than can be said for the dwarves who
previously lived there. He may be considered greedy, but Smaug seems
to have little more than an attraction to gold rather than any sort
of desire to amass wealth. Indeed, Smaug does not actively seek any
more gold than he has. He does not see gold as power, but instead
something of a symbol of his own strength.
Smaug can
be anxious or even paranoid, this is more than well portrayed with
Benedict Cumberbatch's voicing of the character. He is afraid that
someone will come and try to take everything away from him. And, to
be honest, he's 100% correct. But this anxiety may go deeper; one can
even imagine Smaug as being fearful for his own life.
Despite
his constant boastings, Smaug is the last dragon of Middle Earth.
From the sounds of things, he was quite young by the time he took
over the lonely mountain and by then most of his race was presumably
dead if not extinct. He would have seen countless long haired,
square-jawed messiahs defy all odds and kill his species. Not only
would this place him in extreme doubt on the supremacy of his
species, but this would also have harboured a deep resentment of the
races of Middle Earth, all who seemed to be out to destroy his race.
He has mentioned before that he had fought against a large number of
“heroes of old”, implying that Smaug had on numerous occasions
been confronted with people who wanted to kill him. Smaug would have
probably developed a siege mentality, naturally seeking somewhere he
could take refuge whilst at the same time a means to grow stronger
and re-affirm his own strength.
This
interpretation would explain all of his behaviour, from his taking
the lonely mountain to his apparent 150 year dormancy to his constant
shouting about how great his various body parts are.
From this
stance, Smaug seemed like more of a tragic character than the
horrible monster to be slain. It really doesn't do him justice to be
killed at the hands of a garden variety song bird or alternatively in
the movie adaptation by a hastily imagined one dimensional hero and
his son: Middle Earth's Ron Weasley.
So maybe
Smaug and the Tolkien's dragons had more complex characters at a
deeper level?
Pffft,
yeah and Hamlet has an Oedipus complex.
So in
summary we can say that Tolkien's dragons are big, greedy excuses to
give a heroic moment to an otherwise bland, unmemorable character.
Like the guy who killed Smaug. Seriously, if Bert the magic thrush
hadn't shot Smaug with that black bullet then you wouldn't remember
the first thing about him.
Except for
his snot nose son. I think the fact that little twat didn't lose his
head from the sheer force of the bow string was the greatest tragedy
of the entire Tolkien cannon.
But of
course this is Lord of the rings we're talking about: all candy floss
and objective morality. This isn't Game of thrones.
Oh and
speaking of which.....
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