Quote 1
"I suppose you got a fair price for that cup last night?" [Smaug] went on. "Come now, did you? Nothing at all! Well, that's just like [dwarves]. And I suppose they are skulking outside, and your job is to do all the dangerous work and get what you can when I'm not looking – for them? And you will get a fair share? Don't you believe it! If you get off alive, you will be lucky."
Bilbo was now beginning to feel really uncomfortable. Whenever Smaug's roving eye, seeking for him in the shadows, flashed across him, he trembled, and an unaccountable desire seized hold of him to rush out and reveal himself and tell all the truth to Smaug. In fact he was in grievous danger of coming under the dragon-spell. (12.62-3)
All of this time, we've been thinking Bilbo's the cunning one. Smaug has just seemed like a toothy, fire-breathing abstract threat, and not necessarily a thinking being. But here we get proof that dragons are surprisingly wily and well-spoken. And they can enchant you with their talking; they can put you under "the dragon-spell." Do we get any sense of Smaug as a character? Does he have any character depth or motivation for what he does?