Wherein Bilbo is sassy to everyone, we get to meet a dragon, and Laketown pays for everyone's hubris. I've said it before, and now Tolkien is saying it, the dwarfs are not heroes . This is not their hero story, it's Bilbo's. "The most that can be said of dwarves is this: they intended to pay Bilbo really handsomely for his services; they had brought him to do a nasty job for them, and they did not mind the poor little fellow doing it if he would; but they had would have done their best to get him out of trouble, if he got into it, as they did in the case of the trolls at the beginning of their adventures before they had any particular reason for being grateful to him. There it is: dwarves are not heroes, but calculating folk with a great idea of the value of money; some are tricky and treacherous and pretty bad lots; some are not, but are decent enough people like Thorin and Company, if you don't expect much." Bilbo's been gradually finding ...
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