“ | They've always been ugly. It's not my fault that they live in a place that stinks of fish oil and tar. Jobs, shelter, food, that’s all they ever bleat about. | „ |
~ This line tells us everything we need to know about the Master of Laketown. |
The Master of Laketown is a minor antagonist in Sir Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy, serving as a major antagonist in The Desolation Of Smaug and a minor antagonist in the opening of The Battle Of The Five Armies.
He is the extremely slovenly, greedy, and utterly useless dictator of Laketown until his callous actions led to the evil Smaug awakening and the dragon's corpse crushing him into oblivion.
He was portrayed by Stephen Fry.
What Makes Him A Hate Sink?[]
- He is a despot who selfishly controls Laketown and its resources, starving the people and having anything but their best interests in mind. He is also a gluttonous jerk (with atrocious table manners to boot) in spite of this and it's helped his extremely unattractive physical appearance; all while he thinks Bard takes after his so-called athleticism.
- His behavior is very narcissistic and childish for practically all of his screen time.
- He agreed to let Thorin and his Company take back Erebor only because it would bring them more gold. It's also very dangerous because the dragon Smaug lives there, and results in him attacking Laketown when he learns that they funded the dwarves' mission. This directly causes the Master's much-deserved comeuppance when Smaug's corpse falls on top of him.
- Although Alfrid is protective of him, he cares nothing for him and eventually betrays him by shoving him into the water.
- He assaulted and arrested Bard while he was being chased by his minions, locking him up for no apparent reason. This also put Bard's family in danger of being killed by Smaug.
- He is even vile compared to his deputy:
- Whereas much of Alfrid's behavior is emulating his boss for approval, all of the Master's behavior is simply being a greedy and simpleminded tyrant simply for the sake of being one.
- Alfrid is at least somewhat smart and clever while the Master has a very simple mind.
- Alfrid has a couple of redeeming qualities, given how he even asks him if they should save the town but he demands to save the gold instead. Even then Alfrid tries to let a random man into his lifeboat. But the Master predictably makes Alfrid stop it.
- His cowardice transcends Alfrid's, as he whimpers like a toddler when the dwarves say Kili is sick, babbling about him potentially being contagious while Alfrid protectively shadows him and quips about not being a sentient hospital.
- While Alfrid is on his feet out and about getting stuff done, the Master lays around in his offices stuffing his face and ignoring his peoples' suffering just because he can. He even has the sheer audacity to claim he's not to blame for their crappy living conditions.
- He has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, merely being a selfish and useless pig with absolutely nothing to detract from it.
Trivia[]
- Given that Saruman the White is protected by "Word of God" and an "Evil is Cool" vibe is first added to him come a 2014 prequel and Azog the Defiler, Gothmog, and Smaug were always "Evil is Cool" villains, and Alfrid Lickspittle, Wormtongue, and Denethor have a couple of redeeming qualities (namely having superficial concern for their people and loving Boromir) and Bolg and the Witch-King of Angmar are far too one-dimensional and the Mouth of Sauron has an awesome aesthetic, the Master of Laketown, who is not remotely badass and hasn't redeeming qualities and has the screenwriters going out of their way to flesh out his jackassery, is arguably the franchise's most punchable character of all, and with only a handful of screentime to boot.
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