https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=jFuE-gGYhGo
But there’s a whole conversation between Bilbo and Smaug. And Bilbo flatters him. Oh, you know, greatest of, you know, and chiefest of calamities. Right? He like, all these things, he flatters Smaug to kind of get him talking. Well, let’s talk about that. Like, is that a good idea to have a chat with a dragon? I mean, you know, if you want to steal something from it, maybe. Like, I’m just thinking about this. Like, this doesn’t seem wise, you know, like, and I don’t know. You know, this is my second invocation, second and last invocation of Father Stephen Young, because again, we don’t want him to appear. He said, you know, he said one time in a conversation I was having with him about somebody who seemed to be like an actual modern person, who seemed to be kind of trying to get in touch with the spirits of giants. Okay, so we’re talking anti-deluvian, pre-flood demons. Yeah, that doesn’t sound like a very good idea. Right, right. He said, well, you know, in the conversation, he said, well, if you want to know what it was like before the flood, I guess you could ask somebody from then, dot, dot, dot. You know, it just doesn’t seem like a good idea, you know, and of course Bilbo does get burned a little bit. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Like, let’s say, okay, so let’s let’s let me give you, let me let me let me turn that on on its head for you, like, because I always like to do that. So I won’t name him the priest that you mentioned, but isn’t that what he’s doing already? Right, isn’t that what he’s doing? Isn’t he looking into ancient stories of Baal and ancient stories of all these dead gods in order to find some nugget, some small little spark that he can then steal from it and then it would be useful for him? And maybe that’s more like what Bilbo is doing. I mean, Bilbo is literally having a conversation with the dragon. Yeah. But he’s not, I don’t know, he’s not engaging with the dragon in the sense of trying to have a relationship with him, right? He’s not trying to commune with the dragon. No, he see, he definitely sees the dragon as his enemy and his conversation with the dragon is in order to see what gold we can take from that. Yeah. Is it that the Saint Irenaeus talks about, you know, you know, the finding, I forget if it’s Saint Irenaeus, the idea of finding gold nuggets in piles of dung, you know. Yeah, and Smaug remains fully kind of other, you know, there’s no taming of Smaug. Yeah. There’s, you know, it’s interesting, like, they go out on the quest for the lonely mountain and there’s this sense that there’s a dragon there and they’re gonna have to do something about that, but the question of like killing him is not really exactly brought up along the way. So there’s this sort of, you know, unfinished, you know, part of the plan, right? What are we gonna do when we get there? Well, I’m gonna steal a cup. Yeah. And that’s kind of, like, that’s where the plan sort of ends. It’s his job is to go take something, right? Now Smaug comes out once he’s sort of fully provoked, you know, because there’s a couple conversations that happen. Yeah. And once the dragon is out, there’s no other solution besides killing it. That’s right. That’s it. Like, you should leave dragons alone most of the time, but if it comes out, then that’s it. You gotta kill it. Yeah. I like this thing with Smaug because, like, Smaug is a dragon you can have a chat with and it is dangerous. Like, he is gonna come out and blow fire. He is gonna do that. But at the same time, it’s very bold, you know, what Bilbo does. And he really kind of comes fully into his own at this moment too, right? But he is in a way trying to, he’s not going to tame Smaug. No, no. He is attempting to flatter. He’s attempting to make himself seem close to Smaug so that he can get something from him, at least long enough to get something. Yeah. Yeah. And they both have this kind of list of titles. You know, Bilbo gives Smaug all these titles, you know, and my favorite, of course, is Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities. That’s so good. Like, you want to put that, I wish I could get like a diploma that has that on it. From the University of the Lonely Mountain, Chiefest and Greatest of Calamities. That’s right. But then Bilbo has all these titles too, you know, Barrel Rider, Luck, you know, Luck Winner, and you know, all that kind of, it’s just, I don’t know, there’s, there is, it’s interesting you describe it as this, you could almost describe it as this kind of parody. Like, he is relating to him, even while he doesn’t have a relationship with him. He’s not trying to tame him, but he’s just- Well, he’s trying to get close. He’s trying to get close to him in a tricky way, you know, which is what you do when you want to steal from someone, is you, it’s a kind of fake closeness that you try to, you know, to bring about. And then when you’re close to the person, then you take something, you know, and that’s what he’s doing. He’s acting as a thief, just like a pickpocketer needs to get close to you to steal from you. He’s trying to get close to Smaug through words. And that’s why also flattery is part of it, because he’s trying to make himself seem innocuous and not dangerous to Smaug so that he can just take you. Yeah, exactly.