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#1 |
Ghost Prince of Cardolan
Join Date: Mar 2007
Posts: 903
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From my perspective your analogy with the French is faulty. You say that people defend on the basis of what they see and know. The French built the Maginot Line and could never have anticipated the sheer power of the Nazi war machine that came two decades later. But the people of Laketown are looking up into the skies and they see a fire breathing dragon the size of a large building flying towards them at a very quick speed. And what is their reaction to this?
Quick - destroy the bridge. For me, and I guess it just me, that does not even approach the level of believability that I need to suspend disbelief. It does not pass the smell test. The answer to the problem has absolutely nothing to do with the problem. The reaction of the town would make perfect sense if they got word of an advancing army marching on foot towards them. Yes, destroy the bridge to prevent them from easily marching across right into town. But this is a flying dragon for heavens sake. Not an army marching on land. Anyone with eyes looking into the skies of Laketown can see that. And allow me a personal thought. One reason why I love Tolkien so much is that is so tightly written. It seems that every page, every paragraph, every line, every character and every event was written and rewritten and rewritten again until it was right in every possible way. When I come across things like "destroy the bridge" to stop a flying dragon or a Dwarf who turns into an ultra-marathoner with no training, it just sticks out like a sore thumb because JRRT is such a great writer. I expect better. And 99.9% of the time he delivers. |
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#2 | |
Flame of the Ainulindalë
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Upon the hearth the fire is red Beneath the roof there is a bed; But not yet weary are our feet... |
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#3 |
Doubting Dwimmerlaik
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Heaven's basement
Posts: 2,466
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Just a quick thought before I'm engaged at getting the kids off to bed: Why do we assume that it's Smaug's intent to destroy Laketown? As I stated earlier, why wouldn't he want to play with the mice a little while, and why sink all of that treasure - regardless if it were large or small - into the lake where he could not go?
Keep in mind that dragons, methinks, are much like cats. alatar runs off before Bethberry sees him.
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There is naught that you can do, other than to resist, with hope or without it.
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#4 | |
Cryptic Aura
Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 6,003
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![]() I had always assumed that the command to cut the bridges (easily done if they are suspension bridges hung with rope) represented both the muddled nature of Laketown's defenses, due to poor leadership, coupled with a sort of seige mentality, a bit perhaps like that at Masada. I'm sure that under such duress enterprising young lads would have worked out the Middle earth equivalent of SuperSoakers, which could well have proven effective, given his desire to avoid water, in holding off Smaug. Such weapons likely would not ressemble the water pistols of today but more likely be something akin to a . . . water sabre or lance, perhaps even a sort of water Aeglos. Their whereabouts would of course remain unknown to this day.
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I’ll sing his roots off. I’ll sing a wind up and blow leaf and branch away. |
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#5 |
Odinic Wanderer
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Would the quickest escape route not be by boat? I am just guessing that they did not keep horses in Esgaroth. . .
Mac quite correctly points out that no body said that Smaug had to land on the bridge. The thing is that if he could slowly aproach the city via the bridge hos level of destruction would be much higher than attacking it from above. . . You grap a bow and arrow, stand up and shoot it at a dummy, then do the same while running around in circles, which one is easier? The only way that Smaug would have had the same advantage attacking from the air, would have been if he had the flight ability as a helicopter and if he was equally vournrable from every angle. That being said I think the burning of the bridge was written because it was simple war stradegy and we all know that Tolkien had some experience with this. I am sorry if I have brought nothing new to this discustion. |
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#6 | |
Shade of Carn Dűm
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Hello all.
The reason the Lake Towners destroyed their own bridge was a mix of battlefield tactics and good sense. First off, however: Quote:
And now on to their motives for destroying the bridge. It is simply good sense. I was watching a television program last night about escape scenarios in sporting arenas. The sporting arenas are unimportant; the point is it struck me that in an emergency, the first thing someone thinks of is to run and get out as fast as they can, forgetting about other members of the community besides their relatives. The first few who ran the bridge might have made it, but this would inspire more people to do the same and cause a massacre when Smaug burned the bridge. The authorities must have decided to rip it down to encourage escape by boat, which would give the populace as a whole more chance of survival. It is good tactics. If the dragon was to attack via land, the defenders would be forced to confront it bit-by-bit, in small groups. Can you possibly imagine having to fire arrows into the maw of the beast, knowing that you are about to be incinerated and that they will merely bounce off? And to heighten the fear, only a few men near you, who you hardly know, are obligated to do this as well, and they are most likely running for their lives? (This is why armies of antiquity used flaming arrows and bolts; it is utterly terrifying to think you might burn alive.) It would be a rout. Even if the men were all into suicide, they would make no impression upon Smaug's armour and would only get one shot each. I don't think dragons can hover; any soaring lizards of today can not fly efficiently and, more to the point, flying lizards of the dinosaurs' time such as Quetzalcoatlus could not hover or even take off without updrafts, and those creatures were built purely for flight. Smaug is built like a lizard in Tolkien's pictures, not a cat. Lizards such as Australian goannas can not curl up like a dragon would need to do in order to land on buildings. Therefore the dragon would be forced to do a series of fly-bys, with fire breath in short bursts, before wheeling around and attacking again. Indeed, in the book, Smaug is described as "swooping". (Coincidentally, the Hobbit video game has him hovering; as if! ![]() Think about it, people. This was the absolute best chance the people of Lake Town had. Escape via the bridge is an utterly farsical notion. ![]() |
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#7 |
Shade of Carn Dűm
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Here's a classic picture of Smaug.
![]() You think THAT could land on Esgaroth rooftops? Pssshh... |
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#8 | |
Mellifluous Maia
Join Date: Aug 2006
Location: A glade open to the stars, deep in Nan Elmoth
Posts: 3,489
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Good points, Sixth, just one thing I'd like to mention:
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I would imagine the bridges probably had guards posted and these guards, during their initial training, were taught the emergency bridge-destruction plan, shown where the tools were kept and which ropes to cut if the signal was given, something of this nature. Even in the absence of guards, those who lived and worked near the bridges would have been similarly prepared. If the villiage is small enough, everyone might have known said emergency plan and been prepared to execute it. Last edited by Rikae; 04-04-2008 at 05:43 AM. |
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#9 | |
Haunting Spirit
Join Date: Nov 2007
Location: Mirkwood, NC
Posts: 66
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But, as TSW points out, perhaps Smaug had relatively large wings and flew more like a buzzard or condor (primarily soaring and using an occasional vertical wing stroke to recover altitude and velocity). If so, he might need to use a high altitude (i.e. Lonely Mountain) launching site and thermal updrafts to take flight. So perhaps Smaug did not land in Lake Town because he knew he would not be able to take off again from that low altitude situation, and without a bridge would be trapped unless he could swim (which is unknown).
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Time is the mind, the hand that makes (fingers on harpstrings, hero-swords, the acts, the eyes of queens). |
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#10 | |
Fading Fëanorion
Join Date: Mar 2006
Location: into the flood again
Posts: 2,911
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The only other option is to flee. But as Rune has pointed out, they probably kept very little horses at Esgaroth, and you just can't escape from a flying, fire-breathing dragon on foot. Even if everybody would have run into a different direction, Smaug would have killed most of them by his fire. Within the town, the people had a limited ability to fight the fires, not so on the land. Tolkien didn't provide us with a stat sheet about Smaug. We don't know his exact size, shape and weight, not his endurance or style of flying or landing. The people of Laketown, and the people who built Laketown and its bridges, probably knew a bit more about it. All we can do is deduce these things from the given text. From his death scene we know that his weight was great enough to crash through the city, yet presumably little enough to be able to walk through or over it. His style of flying apparently didn't allow him to slow down his flight and land like a bird on a twig. His armour was strong enough to allow him to land anywhere on the shore - he didn't have to care about how many trees he would mow down. I would say that the builders of Laketown had this in mind and built their town and bridges like this in order to have a chance of avoiding the fate of Dale (do we know how exactly Dale was destroyed? I don't have my book with me right now, and it could be interesting to check). |
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