What role does Stephen Fry’s The Hobbit character the Master of Laketown play in the trilogy? Ten years after his success with the Lord Of The Rings trilogy, director Peter Jackson made a return to Tolkien lore by adapting The Hobbit into a trio of movies. Taking place 60 years prior to The Lord Of The Rings, the films follow hobbit Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) as he’s enlisted by Gandalf the Grey (Ian McKellen) to accompany a baker’s dozen of dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) on a mission to reclaim their lost treasure and kingdom from the dragon Smaug (voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch).
In the trilogy’s second film The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug, Bilbo and the dwarves find themselves in the community of Laketown (AKA Esgaroth) where they arrive after escaping downriver from a three-way battle with both the Wood Elves of Mirkwood and a horde of Orcs. They’re smuggled into the destitute Laketown with the help of bargeman Bard (a character played by Luke Evans) who agrees to sell them weapons. Finding Bard’s makeshift weapons unsatisfactory, they attempt to raid the town’s armory but are captured and brought to its ruler – a man known only as the Master of Laketown (Stephen Fry).
The Master of Laketown is a corrupt, greedy individual played to perfection by Stephen Fry in The Hobbit trilogy. The character’s primary concern is retaining his own wealth and power, which he does with the help of his conniving right-hand man Alfrid Lickspittle (Ryan Gage). He shows little compassion for the people of Laketown and hoards food and riches even as his townsfolk starve. The Master’s greed gets the better of him when he agrees to equip Thorin, Bilbo and the dwarves with weapons in exchange for a share of the riches they’re on a quest to reclaim from Smaug the dragon – despite Bard’s warnings that awakening the dragon will bring death and destruction to Laketown.
Stephen Fry returned in The Hobbit trilogy’s final film The Battle Of The Five Armies but his character didn’t last very long into the movie. Bard’s prophesizing soon came true when Bilbo and the dwarves awoke Smaug who laid waste to Laketown with his fiery breath. Many residents were killed and the Master of Laketown became a casualty of Smaug’s attack himself when Bard slew the dragon and its corpse fell from the sky, landing on the Master’s boat as he was trying to flee with his riches, crushing him to death.
Die-hard fans of author J.R.R. Tolkien will probably know there are quite a few differences between Stephen Fry’s The Hobbit character the Major of Laketown and his book counterpart. Both Laketown and its greedy ruler play a greater part in The Hobbit films than they do in the book, and the movie version of the Master of Laketown is more directly antagonistic than he is in Tolkien’s novel. Similarly, the two characters experience very different deaths. Instead of being crushed to death by Smaug’s corpse, the book version starved to death alone in the wilderness – both befitting ends for such an unscrupulous character.
