The REAL Reason Why Sauron and Smaug didn't Team-up.

Smaug the dragon, Gandalf, and the Lonely Mountain — why did the greatest fire-breathing dragon of the Third Age never join Sauron? This Lord of the Rings deep dive tracks the Smaug problem straight through Tolkien's text: The Hobbit, the appendices, and The Quest of Erebor in Unfinished Tales. We follow the dragon-line from Morgoth's First Age (Glaurung, Ancalagon the Black, killed by Eärendil) down to the cold-drakes of the Withered Heath and the fall of Erebor in 2770 — 171 years on the greatest hoard in the North, while Sauron rebuilds in Dol Guldur. The strange fact underneath it all: four of the Seven Dwarf-Rings were consumed by dragon-fire, and Smaug never once mentions Sauron in the entire book. Then Bilbo in the tunnel, Bard the Bowman, the black arrow, the thrush, and Lake-town — and the year 2941, when Smaug fell out of the sky and the White Council drove Sauron from Dol Guldur within months of each other. Plus what Peter Jackson's Desolation of Smaug invented for Cumberbatch's dragon that Tolkien never wrote. Sources: The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings Appendix A and B, and Unfinished Tales ("The Quest of Erebor"). Could Sauron ever have bought Smaug's loyalty? Let me know in the comments. 🔔 Subscribe for more Tolkien lore, Middle-earth lore, and the differences between the books and Peter Jackson's films. 📜 Watch next: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8Ffig0ZKeGBUOVhaav45Yq9j3pOII9aa ───────────────────────────── FAIR USE All content falls under fair use: any copying of copyrighted material done for a limited and "transformative" purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work. Such uses can be done without permission from the copyright owner. ARTWORK & ARTIST CREDITS This channel is built on the work of incredibly talented Middle-earth artists, and I want every one of them credited. Tracking down the original creator of a piece is often genuinely hard — art gets reposted, renamed, and separated from its source all across the internet. If your work appears in this video and you'd like a credit added, corrected, or your piece removed, just email me and I'll take care of it right away. Your wishes always come first. 📧 Contact / credit & removal requests: [email protected] Art credits (in order of appearance): 08:23 - Artist: John Tedrick 08:34 - Artist: Francisco Miyara #LordOfTheRings #Tolkien #Smaug #TheHobbit #Dragons