ch11&12

In chapter 11, the dwarfs discover that the door to the south is too dangerous, but eventually, the dwarfs find out that after sunset, a single ray of sun knocks off a rock from the door revealing a key hole and Thorin puts the key from the map and puts it in the keyhole. In chapter 12, Bilbo is asked upon by the dwarfs to go between the mountains and snoop around. There is where he finds a dragon named Smaug who is taking a nap by many piles of golden cups and Bilbo takes one and sprints back to the group. When the dragon notices that one of the cups has been taken, he becomes very angered and he flies around the mountain searching for who did it and he finds the ponies and eats them. While this is happening, the group of dwarfs hide by the secret passage and Bilbo later has to sprint as fast as he can in order to barely make it to the door and shut it as an avalanche occurs and the group of dwarfs are trapped in the mountain.

I liked chapter 11 because it involves a mystery rather than an adventure because it is a mystery how to open the door. Usually in most chapters, there are no mysteries involved. For example, it's really not a mystery that the goblins stealing your ponies and the dragon running like mad around the mountain are antagonists, nor is it a mystery that Bilbo is not going to die from the dragon because he is the main character of the novel and that rarely ever happens, especially in a children's book like this one.

I have mixed feelings about chapter 12. The part that I like about this chapter is that they finally introduced a dragon into the novel. In my opinion, I feel that a sci-fi story based on early civilization like this one is never complete without a dragon somewhere in it and if this chapter were erased from the novel that this book would be incomplete. The part that I disliked about this chapter is that rather than slaying the dragon, Bilbo just runs away. Why didn't he just slay the dragon with Thorin's sword? Wouldn't that be pretty easy if you're invisible?