In Tolkien’s Middle-earth, the Arkenstone is a rare and precious gem found deep in the heart of the Lonely Mountain, centuries before Bilbo’s quest for the hobbit occurs. It is never explicitly explained in Tolkien’s books or the movie adaptations the stone is made of. Readers only know that it is white in color, with glints of the rainbow shimmering through the core.
The Arkenstone shone so brightly that it seemed to steal the light from the room and turn it into something even more iridescent and radiant. It became the crown jewel of the dwarf race and was passed down from generation to generation by Durin’s people. The stone can be seen in a place of honor above the throne of Thror, Thorin’s grandfather, during the filming of the story by Peter Jackson.
The Arkenstone gave all who possessed it the right to summon the seven armies of the dwarves from all over the land, who had long ago sworn an oath of allegiance. Therefore, it was considered not only a precious jewel, but also a tactical weapon to protect the dwarf kingdom from invaders. Thus it became so closely associated with all gold treasures that Thror began to gather in the mountain. He saw the Arkenstone as a shield to keep it impenetrable and believed that it allowed him to keep digging. The Arkenstone fueled the greed and ruthlessness Thror experienced for wearing one of the Seven Dwarf Rings of Power designed by Sauron in the Second Age to corrupt and twist this already stubborn race of creatures. Spurred on by the combination of the Arkenstone and the Ring of Power, it wasn’t long before Thror developed dragon sickness and was no longer able to reason about it.
As a prelude to the story of the hobbitSmaug, the great and terrible dragon, was drawn by the treasure of gold that had materialized in the Lonely Mountain. There he burned all the dwarves who lived there, as well as the people in the nearby town of Dale. He then entered the mountain and, according to the movies, fell into a long sleep among the coins, brooding over his treasure until the already cursed gold was full of dragon sickness.
When Gandalf sends the dwarves to reclaim Erebor, he doesn’t realize how reckless Thorin will be when it comes to recovering the Arkenstone. His desire for the Arkenstone is desperate enough for him to trade all the rest of the gold in the mountain for it. It is enough that he is willing to risk Bilbo’s life for it, sending him inside to try and retrieve it from under the sleeping dragon’s belly. Even the idea of the Arkenstone, and that it’s close enough to the mountain that he thinks it’s within its clutches, is enough to begin Thorin’s slow descent into his ancestors’ famous disease. None of the other dwarves, nor Gandalf the Gray himself, could have predicted how quickly the Arkenstone and his greed would seize Thorin.
However, there was one character who knew this from the start. Smaug seems aware of the effect the stone had on Thorin’s grandfather, and almost relishes the idea that Thorin is suffering because they can’t find him. In the movies, he cruelly taunted Bilbo:
“He sent you here for the Arkenstone, didn’t he? Don’t bother denying it, I suspected his bad intentions a while ago. Well, it doesn’t matter. Oakenshield’s search will fail. A darkness is coming. You are used, thief in the shadows. […] The coward Eikenschild staked the value of your life and thought it was worth nothing.’
And sadly, in Thorin’s maddened and proudly entitled state, that’s not far from the truth. In this regard, Smaug covets the Arkenstone because he knows that of all the wealth in Erebor, this is the one thing the dwarves desire most. It is therefore the only thing he wants to keep from them, because he enjoys watching them endure the pain of not having it. He enjoys watching it tear them apart and turn them against each other. He even says it himself:
“I’m almost tempted to let you take it, if only to see Oakenshield suffer. Watch it destroy him. Look how it spoils his heart and drives him crazy… but I don’t think so.’
Ultimately, the bottom line is that Smaug himself also has some form of dragon disease. Like Thorin, and like Thror before him, he too is made greedy and unreasonable by the gold in the mountain. His famous line, “I don’t spend a single coin, not a single piece of it”, shows that he would never voluntarily give up the Arkenstone. Even though this would make the dwarf madness worse, it’s not worth letting go of the treasure he’s been hoarding all these decades, not a single bit.
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