Re: Could Smaug have averted the War of the Ring? <gulp>

In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Tristan Miller
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Greetings.
> 
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Stan Brown
> wrote:
> > Gandalf tells Frodo in LotR I 2: "It has been said that dragon-fire
> > could melt and consume the Rings of Power, but there is not now any
> > dragon left on earth in which the old fire is hot enough..."
> 
> This implies that there were still dragons living at the time when LotR
> takes place.  But I thought Smaug was the last of his kind, and was
> vanquished some decades earlier during Bilbo's quest.  Or was he only
> the last "major" dragon?  If so, where were the others, and why didn't
> we observe Sauron using them in the war, as Gandalf feared he would
> have done with Smaug [UT:QoE]?

too far away

sauron could not use smaug or the balrog as a subordinate
rather as an ally or depending on it to hazard his enemies