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and he had little hope that Dáin Ironfoot would help in any attempt upon the dragon
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The length of time since I'd seriously read the Tolkien background materials starts to show. I'd forgotten that particular line.
I find it interesting in light of the earlier conversation regarding Dain and Thorin.
I read that line to say even if Thorin appeared in the Iron Hills one day and said to Dain, "What ho, old bean! Time to rally the troops to take out that nasty, overgrown lizard, what, what!" Dain would have said something to the effect of, "No." I wonder whether Dain would have thought the whole enterprise insane or if he thought Thorin would make a botch of it.
At this point I would also freely speculate about the nature of dwarven kingship shown by Dain's ability to refuse Thorin...but I think it didn't have much to do with the formalities of the dwarven monarchy and more to do with the realpolitik of Thorin being unable to force Dain to go.