What if SMAUG had gotten The One Ring?

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

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.
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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.
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I agree that Smaug did not see Bilbo, and therefore did not see the Ring. However - I think it's possible that he felt the Ring, probably without knowing just what it was. Just as the Ring called out to the Orcs who ambushed Isildur. It may even give another reason why he was willing to talk extensively with Bilbo. Whatever feeling he got from the Ring would have piqued his curiosity even further.

Not sure about his age. My guess is that he was born after the start of the 3rd Age, but I have nothing on which to base that. I don't recall exactly - were just 2 or maybe 3 dragons mentioned in the First Age tales (at least two slain). No stories of them in the Second Age (retreated into the far north, I suppose - maybe eating up the woolly mammoths), then a handfull of stories or mentions in the Third Age.

[Alcuin]

A little idle speculation…

Gandalf told Frodo, “The Ring had given [Gollum] power according to his stature.”

Galadriel echoed that when she told him, “Did not Gandalf tell you that the rings give power according to the measure of each possessor? Before you could use that power you would need to become far stronger, and to train your will to the domination of others.”

Smaug had certainly trained his “will to the domination of others.”

So if Smaug had obtained the Ring and somehow tapped into it – choose any of Butterbeer’s options, or others that you can invent – would the dragon become aware of the Nazgûl, for instance? Or of the Three Keepers?

Sauron, I suspect, would soon become aware of Smaug’s possessing the Ring. How would he get it back? No one but a great power could withhold the Ring from Sauron, as Tolkien tells us in Letter 246,

Even from afar [Sauron] had an effect upon [the Ring], to make it work for its return to himself. In his actual presence none but very few of equal stature could have hoped to withhold it from him. Of “mortals” no one, not even Aragorn.

So how would an encounter between Smaug and Sauron end? Was Smaug as powerful as, say, Elrond or Galadriel? Could they have withheld the Ring from Sauron, had they claimed it? Could Smaug?

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An interesting side question is how Galadriel knew what Gandalf had told Frodo: Gandalf doesn’t seem to have visited Lórien between April 3018 and his death in Moria the following January.

[Valandil]

Originally Posted by Alcuin

A little idle speculation…
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An interesting side question is how Galadriel knew what Gandalf had told Frodo: Gandalf doesn’t seem to have visited Lórien between April 3018 and his death in Moria the following January.

Idle speculation is what this thread is all about. And yes - Smaug would have made a formidable possessor of the One Ring.

On communication between Gandalf and Galadriel. Yes - I think the greater rings may allow for some kind of communications link between wearers. It explains a lot. I think even so far as explaining much of what is known of Isildur's demise. And also how - Galadriel feared that if Sauron obtained the One, all that she had done would be laid bare, as in - exposed to him. I don't know if a Hobbit (or a man, even such a man as Isildur) could have read the thoughts of others, but I think their thoughts may have been open to the wielders of the Three, when they put on the One. Was not Celebrimbor aware of Sauron as soon as he made and put on the One? And I think the Three could have communication with one another. Even as they journey to their abodes, late in LOTR (in Dunland, I think); Elrond, Gandalf, Galadriel (maybe Celeborn too - but is he participant, or merely bystander?) appear to sit around all through the night, communicating via telepathy or something. Is it an Elvish thing (with Gandalf admitted as a Maia?) or is it their rings?

Forgot to mention - yes, I think the Ring would have grown to fit even a dragon-sized finger.

[Alcuin]

Originally Posted by Valandil

Idle speculation is what this thread is all about.

Oh, thank you! I feel so much more productive now.

On communication between Gandalf and Galadriel. Yes - I think the greater rings may allow for some kind of communications link between wearers. It explains a lot. ... I think their thoughts may have been open to the wielders of the Three, when they put on the One. Was not Celebrimbor aware of Sauron as soon as he made and put on the One? And I think the Three could have communication with one another. Even as they journey to their abodes, late in LOTR (in Dunland, I think); Elrond, Gandalf, Galadriel (maybe Celeborn too - but is he participant, or merely bystander?) appear to sit around all through the night, communicating via telepathy or something. Is it an Elvish thing (with Gandalf admitted as a Maia?) or is it their rings?

When the surviving Eight of Nine Walkers (reduced to Seven of Nine after Boromir was lost) reached Caras Galadhon, Galadriel said she couldn’t see Gandalf unless he entered Lórien, that he was surrounded by a grey mist.

When Galadriel, Celeborn, Elrond, and Gandalf sat around a few days in what was left of Eregion before parting company, they were practicing ósanwe-kenta, or direct communication via thought. (That’s probably what happened between Celeborn and Galadriel during the silence after Galadriel gently rebuked her beloved, “the wisest of the Elves of Middle-earth,” when he blurted out he’d have barred the Eight survivors from Lórien had he known the Dwarves had stirred up a Balrog in Moria – something he apparently suspected was there, a suspicion both he and Galadriel neglected to mention to Gandalf, unfortunately – and that Gandalf had fallen from wisdom to folly in his old age.)

Forgot to mention - yes, I think the Ring would have grown to fit even a dragon-sized finger.

Si, I agree.