Yeah, I don’t think Smaug posed a significant threat to Middle Earth as a whole. They even highlight this in the FotR film by adding a line where Gandalf brushes off the entire quest as “the incident with the dragon”:
“If you’re referring to the incident with the dragon, I was barely involved. All I did was give your uncle a little nudge out of the door.”
Funny, I have a different interpretation to “the incident with the dragon”, that Gandalf is intentionally underplaying the consequence of his “little nudge out of the door”.
Sure the original intent of the quest was mostly one of curiosity and greed, but it resulted in the Battle of the Five Armies. Which of course is much less of a huge deal in the book as it was in the movies (The Battle of Five Paragraphs more like), but still has significant implications for those involved.
Gandalf saying he was “barely involved” is also being quite generous to Gandalf’s involvement, as he a. picked Bilbo himself, b. provided the map and key needed for the quest’s completion, and c. served as a primary guide for the majority of the quest.
Yeah, I don’t think Smaug posed a significant threat to Middle Earth as a whole. They even highlight this in the FotR film by adding a line where Gandalf brushes off the entire quest as “the incident with the dragon”:
Funny, I have a different interpretation to “the incident with the dragon”, that Gandalf is intentionally underplaying the consequence of his “little nudge out of the door”.
Sure the original intent of the quest was mostly one of curiosity and greed, but it resulted in the Battle of the Five Armies. Which of course is much less of a huge deal in the book as it was in the movies (The Battle of Five Paragraphs more like), but still has significant implications for those involved.
Gandalf saying he was “barely involved” is also being quite generous to Gandalf’s involvement, as he a. picked Bilbo himself, b. provided the map and key needed for the quest’s completion, and c. served as a primary guide for the majority of the quest.