Why destroy Laketown's bridge?

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by The Sixth Wizard

Let's forget about this methane-bladder theory, please. Dragon's fire, at least in Tolkien, is created through the physical form of the dragon's inner fea, the fire spirit that has been corrupted by Morgoth. Adding in actual bodily elements, while quite interesting, is much too complicated for this thread methinks. I think we should keep it simple for now.

Sorry to completely snub you Bêth...

Oh, not a snub at all, no need to apologize, Sixth Wiz.

Your comment simply demonstrates your relative newbie-ness, as someone who, having joined in April 2006, likely has not had the pleasure of recognizing how some of us olde timers like to posit hypotheses. I refer you of course to one of the most speculative of threads, started April 10, 2005 (heavens! but three years old, almost still smelling of that new car smell!), alatar's "Snow Angels" thread , wherein Lalwende reports her extensive experiments with custard. It is possible methane had a passing mention there too. I believe it was Mister Underhill and Sharkey who contributed mightily to instigating this particular form of speculation--their thread certainly would not have any lingering new car smell. I bet Esty could provide a link to that thread.

Do continue of course with your own speculations. I suppose we could posit that Gandalf had no need for a staff to focus his fireworks, but simply preferred not to be mistaken for a mouthy dragon.