What if SMAUG had gotten The One Ring?

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Jon S.

Did Smaug covet the Ring?

... Smaug obviously experienced Bilbo being invisible but did he ever actually "see" the Ring? And if not, did he - or could he, even - sense it?

If he did, why didn't he covet it?

If he didn't, had he seen it, do you think he would have?

In the book, I don’t think Smaug ever saw Bilbo’s Ring. In fact, I don’t think he ever saw Bilbo! He smelled him, heard him, felt his air (probably referring to the draft coming from the secret entrance Bilbo and the Dwarves opened), but he never saw him. Ergo, he didn’t see the Ring, either.

Do you suppose Smaug even knew about the Rings of Power? And how old was he, anyway? Would he remember the end of the Second Age and the victory of the Last Alliance of Elves and Men over Sauron, for instance, or the War between Sauron and Eregion 1600 years before that, or even the end of the First Age? Or was he much younger: hatched sometime during the Third Age from survivors or descendents of First Age dragons? I am assuming that the older he was, the more likely he was know about the Rings of Power, simply because he’d have had more opportunity to find out: I don’t imagine dragons as particularly sociable creatures, so news might be a little slow in reaching them.

He could not covet what he did not know.

He would not covet what he had not seen.

But had he known and seen, well, he was, after all, a dragon. And that is covetousness.

I’m not certain dragons were without fëar.* They were certainly monstrous beasts; but were they, like Carcharoth, imbued with an evil spirit? If so, were all of them so imbued, since they apparently hatched (or were believed to hatch), or only some of them? Would that make them Barrow-wightish?â€* I don’t recall what Tolkien said on the subject, if anything.

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* Note: fëar, pl of fëa, Quenya (High Elven) for “spirit�. As opposed to hröar, pl of hröa, “body�. Not to be confused with English “fear�.

â€* Barrow-wights were dead bodies inhabited by the spirits of Elves that refused the summons to Mandos, or so Tolkien implies. Which throws up another issue: were there evil Elves? Eöl and his son Maeglin seem to fit that description.