Characters:
Gandalf
Thorin Oakenshield
Smaug
Sauron
Questions:
1. Chance Meeting: Do you believe it was pure chance? Or,
do you think perhaps it is the same forces at work that put the Ring in Bilbo’s
path, or changed the winds or brought the Eagles?
2. ‘Thought of you Also’: how much chance is it that they
should each have the other in their thoughts much lately? What do you make of
this?
The second question answers the first. Some force, the Valar or the One, was at
work here. At least that's strongly implied. Not even Gandalf can be sure,
although he suspects as much, as shown by his comment about it being called a
"chance meeting" in Middle-earth but not, perhaps, in Valinor. Of course, both
are free as to whether or not to act on these thoughts, and Gandalf has
increased the possibility of chance meetings by his policy of roaming the West,
unlike a certain other wizard who has locked himself in a tower.
Q: Does Galdalf realize Thorin has become a bit twisted
with the whole revenge-lust thing. In other words does Gandalf have any
hint what has been going on with Thorin: that ‘hot embers’ in Thorin’s heart of
‘vengeance upon the Dragon’ he had inherited, and that ‘great anger burned him
as he smote the red iron’, and thought of weapons and armies? [see ‘Heir
without Hope’] Is he dismissing Thorin’s brooding as sense of duty? Is he
forgetting any lingering affects of the Ring? Or is that exactly what he is
thinking about? Is he seeing what is in front of him or is he ignoring the
clues here too as with Bilbo’s Ring?
Vengeance seems like a pretty natural thing for a Dwarf in Thorin's position,
with or without the
Ring.
(Insert wildly creative footer here.)
