Why destroy Laketown's bridge?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by alatar

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.

Now that's just plain erroneous, al. Everyone knows that cats do not need to resort to breathing fire in order to draw respect, awe, fielty, obseisance. All it takes is a flick of the tail.

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.