Forum: scifi.stackexchange.com
Tags: <the-lord-of-the-rings><tolkiens-legendarium><the-hobbit><dragons><smaug>
Title: Why did Smaug gather a treasure of gold and other precious objects?
Question: In  The Hobbit ,  the Dwarves, Bilbo and Gandalf are on a mission to rob Smaug . But why did he have so much to steal from? He's a Dragon! He is not the kind of dragon that  eats gold and gems . He doesn't need wealth to buy a luxury cavern and/or pay his servant.   Why did Smaug gather his treasure?

Answers:
sents: text: It is just something that Dragons do in Tolkien's legendarium.
text: It's in their nature.
text: From
text: The Hobbit : Dragons steal gold and jewels , you know, from men and elves and dwarves, 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 .
text: Indeed they hardly know a good bit of work from a bad, though they usually have a good notion of the current market value; and they can't make a thing for themselves, not even mend a little loose scale of their armour.
text: ...
text: There was a most specially greedy , strong and wicked worm called Smaug.
text: Dragons are simply greedy by nature, and that combined with an inability to "make a thing for themselves" has apparently driven them to horde precious items made by others.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/4383/NominSim
score: 80
sents: text: Aside from dragons gathering treasure being a generic mythology trope (e.g. Fafnir's hoard, which Tolkien would have been well aware of), an in-universe explanation is also appropriate.
text: Dragons in Tolkien do gather treasure; his other major dragon from the legends of the First Age - Glaurung - did the very same after he sacked Nargothrond - piled up all the treasure and sat on it.
text: In the Third Age Scatha the Worm is also mentioned as having a hoard, which led to a fued between the Northmen and the Dwarves (the horn that Merry was given is mentioned as having come from this hoard).
text: So it's just something that Tolkien's dragons do.
text: But why?
text: As creatures of Morgoth there is very likely an element of his spirit in them
text: (this is nowhere confirmed in canon, but I'm imagining Morgoth feeding reptiles to create dragons in much the same way as he fed a wolf to create Carcaroth, although their obvious intelligence and sentience suggests a possible Maiar source (I'm deliberately ignoring the Lost Tales concept of dragons here); either way we don't know and we've moved away from the topic a bit now); when Morgoth lusted after and stole the Silmarils from Formenos, he also took a lot of other jewels with him, which he also did not need and which he begrudged having to feed to Ungoliant.
text: So there's a clear element of basic avarice, especially avarice for items one does not actually need, running through Morgoth and his dragons.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/None/
score: 43
sents: text: It's an expression of Smaug's power.
text: Collecting something you value is an intrinsically motivated act.
text: You build up a collection of things you enjoy purely because you enjoy them.
text: The opinions of others have no impact.
text: To collect something valued by others shows extrinsic motivation.
text: Not only do you deprive others of the contents of your collection, but by gaining their admiration or envy, you gain power over them.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/10570/Richard Hare
score: 9
sents: text: Tolkien's day job was as a teacher of Old English literature, among other things.
text: The third part of the Old English saga/poem 'Beowulf' tells how the hero had to deal with a dragon who was angered because some low-life had sneaked in, and stolen a golden cup from his cavern-hoard of treasure.
text: The dragon emerged and devastation ensued.
text: Eventually the dragon is slain, but the hero dies.
text: The idea of dragonish desire for treasure was certainly present in literature before 1000AD, and was also picked up in C.S. Lewis' Voyage of the Dawn-Treader.
text: Perhaps it was all metaphorical for humans with an overwhelming lust for glittery stuff.
text: We all know some bling-heads!
text: They probably had them back then too.
text: Some of the Anglo-Saxon gold-work with enameling and carnelian insets are unbelievably intricate and beautiful, check the Sutton Hoo treasure on google images.
text: I can see why dragons would covet it.
text: There are a lot of scholarly articles on the dragons of Old English literature, try google scholar.
text: The bibliographies of a few articles should get you on the road to a better answer.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/17362/Maria Mackay
score: 8
sents: text: Not a Tolkien source, but I fondly remember the explanation used in The Flight of Dragons , a favorite movie when I was a boy.
text: Breathing fire, dragons tend to burn up bedding made from conventional materials.
text: They make their beds of gold as it is a softer metal that won't ignite.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/10616/phasetwenty
score: 6
sents: text: Wikia states (no Tolkien quote) that there was one side benefit to the hoarding (possibly not intentional) -
text: the jewels stuck to Smaug's scales when he was lying atop of his treasure, making him even less vulnerable to damage than scales alone.
answer_details: author: scifi.stackexchange.com/users/976/DVK-on-Ahch-To
score: 5

Summary of the answers:
This is just something that Dragons do in Tolkien's legendarium and this can be seen as an expression of Smaug's power.
Smaug wants to express his power.