Chapter 14: Fire and Water
Now what does the story of fire and water got to do with this. You know fire hates water; water hates fire. Big fat hairy deal. This chapter is about dear ole Smaug dropping dead.
See, when Bilbo rejected him, he decided to take it out on Laketown, which was a good idea to him. So with his best barbequing powers in tact, he ran (well, flew) down to Laketown and burned it off the map. Those lucky maps! Of course, this stuck on himself dude named Bard the dingiest, clumsiest, and stupidest creature that walked Middle Earth had other plans. By accident, he tripped over his own feet while showing off to his cohorts that he could fire dance, and he shot off an arrow. The arrow conveniently brought the dragon down. Bard was proclaimed the hero. Smaug grasped his chest, made a few gagging noise, and did a graceful swan dive into the lake, effectively flooding out the town. Not exactlywhathe had intended to do, but it did erect some sort of revenge. Oh, poor Smaug would never meet that wonder called Bertha or any other female for that matter.
Now, most men are not so dumb to leave it at that (After all, Bard was bright enough to realize that gold might persuade that sexy troll woman in the fat dwarf's photo to come to town. The rest of the men of the town groaned in despair), and neither are the visiting shopping Wood Elves. They knew that there was gold in that there mountain just for the taking. The dwarves and that weirdo bunny thing were most likely long dead, cooked, eaten, and were a pile somewhere. Everything must come out in the end, you know. So, the men and elves went for the gold in that there mountain. Now the elves were none too sure about this venture, and they wanted to be sure that this was the right dragon. Men did tend to exaggerate things, and they were the brightest or most patient of creatures. So, the elves figured would just let the men go and find out if the dragon was gone or not. If he wasn't the men would get roasted instead of them. If he was good and gone, they'd come and get their share of the gold. After all, gold did have a way of persuading Boy George into coming back to Mirkwood.