Hanscom - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

In the Hobbit movies, we encounter a situation where Thorin becomes ill with something called "gold sickness" or "dragon sickness". Thorin, Bilbo and the rest of the Hobbits found a vast amount of gold treasure protected by Smaug, the dragon. However, Thorin was the only Hobbit that gave full way to the effects of greed and folly when he came in contact with the riches. He became consumed by his desire to have all the gold for himself. He was losing his mind completely, not thinking logically about others or himself, and was even becoming violent. To me, this symbolizes humanity's sinfulness as one gives way to their evil desires.

There was a moment in the film where Thorin is confronted with his sinfulness as he stood over a golden floor that turned into liquid. Thorin had an out of body experience where he was able to see himself from the outside, literally being sucked into the vortex of gold beneath him. I thought this was a really good film making technique used to capture the emotion of the scene. After this moment, Thorin is woken up from the "gold sickness" spell and repents. This makes me think of the words Jesus spoke about the effects of sin in our lives: "You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. That is why I told you that you would die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins" (John 8:23-24, NIV). Thorin was saved from a shameful death, and turns around to help save the city that Smaug almost completely destroys.