What if the ⚔️Battle of Five Armies had been the Battle of Three Armies?

[BalrogRingDestroyer]

For smiles, let's say that the Goblins and the Wargs didn't think the death of the Great Goblin was worth going so far east and waging a big battle, or, perhaps, somehow they didn't get the memo that Smaug was dead and didn't want to mess with the dragon they thought was still there. So that meant that the fight between the Dwarves on one side and the men and Elves on the other happened and even Gandalf couldn't stop it.

How would this fallout, depending on which side "won" this war, have negatively affected the events of Lord of the Rings?


If I'm not mistaken, while part of the reason that the Dwarves didn't trust the Elves was because of the Mirkwood imprisonment in the Hobbit, but the fallout of the Elves against the Dwarves to where they didn't want Gimili in Lorien wasn't just because of the Balrog but because of the Battle of the Thousand Caves in Beleriand.

If so, it seems that Thorin came awfully close to starting another one and that it would have destroyed relations between dwarves and elves completely.

Interestingly enough, I think that Bilbo and his Arkenstone scheme put off immediate conflict for about a day or at least several hours, which provided enough time for the goblins to arrive and make the three sides put aside their differences out of necessity.

It actually seems the goblins would have gotten better revenge against Thorin and his people by NOT showing up for war rather than showing up for war like they did.

 

[Child of Varda]

This is the theme of "luck" that keeps on popping up. I suspect the Dwarves would have lost that battle since they were outnumbered, but they would probably come back in greater numbers for revenge. Dwarves are terrible enemies.