[Aldarion Elf-Friend]

I've haven't posted in a while, although I've been faithfully lurking, but this chapter is one that's given me pause for thought.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Well now, are we going to discuss whether this little thrush is a deus ex machina..

I've thought about this a bit, and I think that maybe it doesn't matter in this case. I get up in arms when deus ex machina is used to resolve a book or plot, but in this case I'll argue that the plotline involving the death of Smaug is secondary in this book.

Secondary!?! Isn't this a book about going on a quest to retrieve treasure from the dragon? I don't see it that way. To me, this is a book about Bilbo's finding something greater in himself than he thought was there, and about how one deals with sudden fortune - especially when one has struggled and sacrificed for that fortune only to receive it through the actions, unasked for, of another, who then has a claim on it. The dwarves almost failed this test.

The long and short of it is, Tolkien needed to remove the dragon, and had to do it in a way independent of the dwarves. When coincidence or deus ex machina is used to create the dilemma that must then be solved, I think that it is much more acceptable that when it is used to solve the dilema, thus leaving to the characters, and the readers, not learning anything. In this case, the dilema is "what to do with the treasure that once rightfully belongs to the dwarves who have returned to claim it, but has been rightfully 'earned' by Bard and the citizens of Dale."

In this light, this book becomes more and more a morality play and less and less a simple fairy tale.

Not that the Professor ever wrote a "simple" fairy tale...