But that's faulty logic my friend. People can be reasoned with (sometimes) but do occationally grab kids nonetheless. ;)

Obviously, tourists would have to sign an indemnity waiver. Like this:

not faulty logic at all, just a question of perspektive and definition. . .Anyays I can see on your location that you cannot be reasoned with :p

To segue back to the topic of the thread, while thinking about the Washer under the Bridge, I still think that Smaug wanted mostly to attack Laketown via the bridge. My argument turns on one item: Does Smaug know that he has a hole in his armoured belly?

What if he did know? Wouldn't he want to protect himself from attack from below? If he could march, or stomp, across the bridge, attack from below would be highly unlikely as there was no place for a Turin to stand as there is no understructure to the bridge. By collapsing the bridge, the Master forced Smaug to the air, which presented his Achilles heel, or belly, to attack (still however unlikely).

If he didn't know, well, I'm not sure that my argument falls down like so much bridgework, but it doesn't help it either.

I wouldn't be surprised if fairly soon a flying skwerl decended upon this thread, one whose armour is made invincible by the calm reason and astute good sense of She Who Wields Them.

alatar's idea of the water monster immediately brought to mind some of the more mythic possibilities of this scene. We've been treating the event as a military operation with feats of engineering, but of course story telling isn't limited to historical referents.

This scene, this battle, this event is of mythological proportions. A marauding, vengeful, fire breathing, terrifying dragon--also known as a night scather in Beowulf-- is defeated by coming down off the Mountain and engaging in battle in a sacred centre, isolated from the rest of the world, surrounded by deep and dark waters which the dragon isn't too keen on.

The mythic centre must be approached hierarchially. Movement is from up, top, to a downwards spiral, defeat being final placement in the dark underworld, this time, the dark waters of the lake. The bridge, a liminal object which bridges life and death, periphery and centre, as in Ragnarok (where the mythic centre is heaven in that mythology), must be destroyed for the essential symbolic homology to be developed. In Norse mythology, the breaking of the bridge Bifrost signals the end of time. Here, it is the end of the dragon's time. Sometimes bridges are for crossing, sometimes they are for burning. The realms of the shore and of the town must be separated, the gap that had been closed must be re-opened for the significance on which the story depends.

After all, this entire story of the cup stolen from the treasure hoard and the vengeful dragon seeking retaliation comes from one of Tolkien's favourite poems, Beowulf. We would do well to remember some of Tolkien's own ideas about monsters before we reduce the story to simply a matter of how did the bridge collapse. Might as well ask how Brifrost crumbled.

oh, and, by the by, Smaug's tail was also profoundly dangerous.

Warning - skwerlz can find their way to Sweden and Denmark and to much farther locations if necessary. After all, their fearless leader (= princess) is located quite centrally in Germany! ;)

Now that this thread has lightened up so much, perhaps we should tie it back down to earth with posts that have something to do with the actual topic. If I have time soon, I may split it for the enjoyment of those who would like to continue along the humorous line of thought.

Posts that are completely off-topic will be deleted without further notice.

"Throwing down" bridges seems to be a common human activity, it seems. Remember, after the Nazgul cross the Anduin at Osgiliath, Boromir and crew throw down that bridge (as he recounts during the Council of Elrond), the last bridge that was used to cross the river. How was this done? One would think that a city built with a river running through it would have substantial bridges between the two halves.

And yet they fell.

**And yet we know that this was folly as (1) Sauron wasn't really attacking at the time, just didn't have the money to pay the toll for all Nine Nazgul, and so feinting with a large force did the trick and (2) we all know about the sewer system that runs beneath the river, as shown by Peter Jackson, and so the bridgeless river was of little defense.

Perhaps it was a common protocol when dealing with dragons to get rid of the bridge, after what happened at Nargothrond with Glaurung. Perhaps they just felt a little safer knowing that the dragon could not come at them from that way.

Panic attack
 

Whoa, Sam, stop. Your legs are short, so stop and think! Why must the men of Lake Town chop down their path of escape?

Panic, I suppose...

"Sir! We're under attack from a flying dragon!" - Twitching guard.
"Down with da bridge! Down with da bridge!" - Screaming sergeant
"Its a Flying Dragon, Sir!" - Twitching guard
"Down with da Bridge! Down with da Bri..." - Screaming sergeant

Holding an peace branch
 

*Timidly pokes head in*

Looking at the picutre of the one bridge, it seems to me there is one other solution that nobody has mentioned yet. The half closest to the town is very strong and thick looking, but as it gets closer to the shore it gradually becomes smaller. I live about 20 miles from one of the biggest rivers in the country, and there are several old bridges near here. When one of them became too run down to be useable instead of destroying the whole bridge (which would have been costly and dangerous due to the large pillars) they only destroyed the smaller end sections which kept anybody from driving onto it.

Assuming that the bridge in the picture is over a mile long, it seems to me that just destroying the end closest to the shore would have prevented Smaug from walking over it. Laketown might as well be an island if the first fifth of the bridge is missing.

*pulls head back quickly*

It says in The Hobbit, that:

So it seems to me from this that they destroyed the bridge to force the dragon in the air, denying him access to the bridge. Perhaps they hoped that they could knock him out of the sky into the water perhaps hoping that such a fall would be enough to harm the dragon.

Maybe the men of Laketown heard the voice of Ulmo in the waters around their town, and Ulmo knew that the dragon's weak spot was underneath, and as Laketown never sported underwater warriors with spear guns, knew that they'd better get that dragon up somewhere where its belly would become exposed.

"The dragon doth brawl until the Bridge doth fall..."

It's all prophetic.