"Dragons steal gold and jewels, you know, from men and dwarves and elves, wherever they can find them; and they guard their plunder as long as they live (which is practically forever, unless they are killed), and never enjoy a brass ring of it." ~Thorin Oakenshield, The Hobbit

I had read these words before, of course, and was always captivated by them with every re-reading. But they never meant more to me until I read Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith. In the book, Matthew uses the metaphor of a dragon, which represents fear, to illustrate Anakin's interior struggle. Suddenly, all that talk about dragons in The Hobbit took on a more personal tone. As much as I enjoy being immersed in Middle-earth, I have never been able to relate with any of the characters personally. But I can relate with Anakin, and once I found a connection, I ran with it.

The first coorelation between the dragons of Middle-earth and Anakin's dragon was obvious to me. Being fond of Thomas Merton's spirituality, it hit me at once that the root of Anakin's fear of losing Padme was greed.

"To love blindly is to love selfishly, because the goal of such love is not the real advantage of the beloved but only the exercise of love in our own souls. Such love cannot seem to be love unless it pretends to seek the good of the one loved. But since it actually cares nothing for the truth, and never considers that it may go astray, it proves to be selfish. It does not seek the true advantage of the beloved or even our own. It is not interested in the truth, but only in itself. It proclaims itself content with an apparent good; which is the exercise of love for its own sake, without any consideration of the good or bad effects of loving." ~Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

For me, Anakin is just like the dragons in Middle-earth who protect their treasure at all costs. What's even more interesting is that neither can Anakin truly enjoy his plunder. Just like the dragons who can't appreciate the beauty of craftsmanship, Anakin cannot love Padme in truth. And there's more.

"There was a most specially greedy, strong and wicked worm called Smaug. One day he flew up into the air and came south. The first we heard of it was a noise like a hurricane coming from the North, and the pine-trees on the Mountain creaking and cracking in the wind."

This immediately recalls Anakin's anguish in Matthew's novel.

"I'm sorry Padme. I'm sorry. I know I've been...difficult to deal with. I just--I feel like I'm in a free fall. Free fall in the dark. I don't know which way is up. I don't know which way is down. I don't know where I'll be when I land. Or crash."

He frowned against his fingers, squeezing his eyes more tightly shut to make sure no tears leaked out. "I think it's going to be a crash."

This feels exactly like a hurricane to me. Everything around him is being violently shaken, and he doesn't know how or when the storm will pass. The only difference here is that the dragon is causing the hurricane, not Anakin. But it's unclear actually, because the dragon is his fear. And definitely Anakin is acting out of fear here. Maybe the dragon and Anakin are sometimes so alike that they can become one. If so, there is yet another similarity between Smaug and Anakin.

"We saw the dragon settle on our mountain in a spout of flame. Then he came down the slopes and when he reached the woods they all went up in fire."

Sidious offered an appalling smile. "There is a place within you, my boy, as briskly clean as ice on a mountaintop, cool and remote. Find that high place, and look down within yourself; breathe the clean, icy air as you regard your guilt and your shame. Do not deny them; observe them. Take your horror in your hands and look at it. Examine it as a phenomenon. Smell it. Taste it. Come to know it as only you can, for it is yours, and it is precious." ...

You have found it, my boy: I can feel you there. That cold distance--that mountaintop within yourself--that is the first key to the power of the Sith."

Before reading Stover's book, I thought it was just cool imagery that Smaug would fearlessly perch on top of the mountain with a breath of fire. But given the chance, it's far more compelling to think that some sort of evil conscience-numbing exercise was going on up there. It still appears that Anakin is not the dragon, however it's hard for me not to confuse the two.

I am Darth Vader, he said to himself.

The dragon tried to whisper of failure, and weakness, and inevitable death, but with one hand the Sith Lord caught it, crushed away its voice; it tried to rise then, to coil and rear and strike, but the Sith Lord laid his other hand upon it and broke its power with a single effortless twist.

I am Darth Vader, he repeated as he ground the dragon's corpse to dust beneath his metal heel, as he watched the dragon's dust and ashes scatter before the blast from his furnace heart, and you--

You are nothing at all.
He had become, finally, what they all called him.
The Hero Without Fear.

I see it, black and white, in front of me. But I don't believe it. I believe Anakin has become the dragon. Symbolically, Darth Vader is fear itself. There's also the fact that Padme is still alive at this point. It should make Anakin fearful that she refuses to follow him, but it doesn't. It only makes him angry. This is the same way Smaug behaves once he has claimed the treasure for himself in the mountain. He fears nothing.

"Now I am old and strong, strong, strong. Thief in the Shadows!" he gloated, "My armour is like tenfold shields, my teeth are swords, my claws spears, the shock of my tail a thunderbolt, my wings a hurricane, and my breath death!"

And then there's the similarity of the dragon settling atop the mountain in a spout of flame. This is exactly what Darth Vader does. Once he hides away his guilt deep within himself, he is ready to swirl down and destroy everything in his path. "They all went up in fire."

There remains one more similarity that gets me every time. There is one weakness to the dragon, only one. A "hollow of the left breast." It takes one arrow from a bowman to take the great worm down. In all the years Darth Vader terrorized the galaxy, only one person could finally destroy the dragon: his own son. And, fittingly, Luke aimed the arrow straight at the heart.