Unveiling the mystery of 🕷️Shelob's origins.

[celebdraug]

Originally posted by Gothmog
This is from The Two Towers: The Choices of Master Samwise. So Sam was very lucky indeed. It was not his strength that drove the blade of Sting so deep into Shelob but Shelob that thrust herself on to it with such force.

It wasnt his strenght, but it was his courage. it would take alot to stand infront of Shelob.

 

[Lúthien Séregon]

Just before I go...sorry if this seems like a dumb question, but I couldn't help thinking about this.

Was Shelob a Maiar actually in the form of a spider, or a Maiar that looked most like a spider?

There are two things that imply that she is a spider: her name ( she-lob, meaning female spider ), and the fact that her smaller brethren are spiders of Mirkwood. And she is a descendant of Ungoliant of course. So this seems to clearly imply that Shelob is a spider. But if this is the case, how come she only has two eyes? Spiders have either four or eight. She must have had a head of different form other than a spider’s ( or maybe Tolkien had no idea how many eyes a spider was supposed to have ). And she is described as being “most” like to a spider, implying that she only looks like one. Any comments?

 

[Ithrynluin]

Why do you assume Shelob is a Maia? Ungoliant bred with spiders, producing offspring of different 'variety', some lesser, like the spiders of Mirkwood, some greater like Shelob. Indeed Shelob may have some Maiaric blood running in her veins (that's if we assume that Ungoliant is a Maia, which is only a guess), but she definitely isn't a Maia.

 

[Lúthien Séregon]

I guess I assumed she was a kind of lesser Maiar considering that she was most like to Ungoliant, who herself was probably more than simply a great and evil animal to have been able to almost overcome Morgoth. That's mostly made up of my personal opinion though. I probably should have written a "spirit or creature in the form of a spider, etc."

The way I see it, I don't think Shelob was actually a creature-spider, because of the eye problem I've mentioned, and the fact that she's described as being most like a monster in spider-form. That seems to me to imply that she's something more beneath the surface.

 

[Gothmog]

Originally posted by celebdraug
It wasnt his strenght, but it was his courage. it would take alot to stand infront of Shelob.

I agree that Sam's courage was great. However, no amount of Courage would allow him to drive the sword into Shelob deep enough to really hurt her. It was only the strength of Shelob herself that caused this.

Had Shelob not tried to flatten Sam so soon, all his courage would not have saved him.

 

[Gil-Galad]

It is true that Sam survived only by chance,but sometimes the brave ones have some more luck than usual

 

[The PETER]

Originally posted by Gil-Galad
It is true that Sam survived only by chance,but sometimes the brave ones have some more luck than usual

I am bound to well, sort of at least, disagree. True, no courage would allow him to penetrate Shelob's armor, but still he was brave enough to not give up. So, (after reading the quotes, I should re-read the books) I am more or less convinced that his courage saved him, not luck. If you see my point.

 

[Gil-Galad]

What I mean(and Gothmog too,I suppose) is that no matter of how corageous he was,he wouldn't manage to kill her without luck.He was really lucky.

 

[The PETER]

Originally posted by Gil-Galad
What I mean(and Gothmog too,I suppose) is that no matter of how corageous he was,he wouldn't manage to kill her without luck.He was really lucky.

I realize what you meant, but I hate calling it luck. Not strength of course not, but he didn't just happen to point Sting upwards when Shelob came, right? So I believe that the "luck" is not luck, but simply courage. Do you see my point?

 

[Lantarion]

Getting back to the Ungoliant issue..

The way I see it, Ungoliant was a Maia. But I believe that she was far, far greater in 'Valinorean stature' than e.g. any Valarauko except maybe Gothmog. (I draw this conclusion from the fact that Melkor, arguably the most powerful of the Valar, was almost killed by her!)
She might have come into her 'evil' existance already with Melkor's Discord; but at the very latest she was one of the Maiar who turned towards Melkor's greatness in the beginning.

Now, she lived in Beleriand and there she mated; IMO she mated with the other horrendous creatures of Melkor, and that she passed on her 'spirit' in part into her immediate offspring. Now while all of her much later offspring will probably have at least some tiny amount of her 'spirit', when her offspring copulated, and their offpsring copulated, etc., the strain of Maia-'blood' would have lessened.
So Shelob is not a Maia, but she is probably directly descended from one. And another theory of mine is that the Great Spiders of Mirkwood were of the offspring of Shelob, who had even less Maia-essense in them.

 

[Flammifer]

Very well explained, Lanty.

I agree now that if Ungoliant can be classified as something other than a 'very powerful spirit or creature' then she must be a Maia. We cannot know for sure, but this seems the most likely.

Originally posted by Kelonus
Interesting. So Ungoliant became a spider, (a freakin huge) one to mate and his daughter did the same, but who did they mate with?

Well, first of all, Ungoliant was a she !

Ungoliant, after fleeing from Melkor and his Balrogs, set up a nice home of filth and terror in the a valley called Nan Dungortheb, in the Ered Gorgoroth ("Mountains of Terror"). There she mated with lots of other foul creatures (who were of a less powerful breed to herself).

Thus, any offspring of this mating were not as powerful as Ungoliant, because her "blood" was mingled with the "blood" of lesser creatures.

This means that these offspring were not as "great" as Ungoliant. Some were still very powerful and terrifying, like Shelob, and some less so (although they were still very large and scary), like the spiders of Mirkwood.

I belive that it can be concluded that the "dark will" that Frodo and Sam felt in Shelob's tunnel was a feature Shelob had inherited from Ungoliant, as was the uttermost darkness in the tunnel (something very similar to the "Unlight of Ungoliant".........Ungoliant's name also means "gloom-weaver").

Also Shelob seemed only to look out for herself (similar to Ungoliant), and only wished to drink the blood of all things, and be fat and bloated, and devour all light (all these thing features of Ungoliant).

It seems in the case of Shelob (arguably the greatest child of Ungoliant) that she inherited more Ungoliant-like traits than the other offspring, and thus she was the most powerful.

I say "inherited" and "blood", but really these are just representations for "genes". But the problem is we don't know that Ungoliant (whatever she was) or the the other foul creatures actually have "genes", or, if they do, that the genealogy of these kinds of beings are the same as ours.

However, if they do have "genes", I think it would be safe to assume that Ungoliant's "genes" would be the more dominant, as she is the more powerful being.

Indeed, if we look at the case of Luthien, it can also be concluded that "the more powerful being has the more dominant 'genes'". Melian, Luthien's mother, is a Maia, whilst Thingol, Luthien's father, is just an Elf (albeit a very great one). It seems that Luthien (as the most beautiful ever Child of Eru) "inherited" many Maia-like "genes", such as her beauty, and her ability to enchant even the Valar with her songs.......she could also by arts of enchantment make her hair grow very long very quickly, and she threw Sauron out of his own fortress, too! I'd say that most of these almost "supernatural" qualities are "inherited" from Melian, not Thingol.

 

[Lantarion]

Yeah that 'gene' idea is interesting!

Oh and an earlier name of Ungoliant was Ungweliantë.. And Quenya ungwë is translated in my source as 'spider's web'. I think 'Ungoliant' might be the Westron equivalent of its Quenya form.

 

[Flammifer]

That could well be correct Lanty...........I got my translation from here:

http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/default.htm?http://www.glyphweb.com/arda/n/nandungortheb.html

 

[Dáin Ironfoot I]

Earlier Luthien Seregon (sp?) said that Shelob had two eyes.

Where did you read that? I seem to recall a great many eyes appearing behind Frodo in the passage to Cirith Ungol.

 

[Lantarion]

'The LotR', 'Shelob's Lair'
Not far down the tunnel, between them and the opening where they had reeled and stumbled, [Frodo] was aware of eyes growing visible, two great clusters of many-windowed eyes - the coming menace was unmasked at last.

 

[Dáin Ironfoot I]

Two clusters of many-windowed eyes = much more eyes than two!

 

[Lúthien Séregon]

I’m pretty sure that meant two large eyes. Also, a quote later on indicates only two eyes ( if only I could find my Two Towers book! I could get the exact quotes ), when Sam stabbed one eye that went dark, and the other was blinded by the phial of Galadriel. So Shelob's eyes were quite un-spiderlike, in any case.

 

[Lantarion]

No Lúthien at least I have seen or at least remember no indication that Shelob had any less than two clusters or eyes.
The quote says "clusters of ... eyes", not "two eyes".

 

[Lúthien Séregon]

Hmm I've always interpreted it to mean two eyes, with the "many-windowed" eyes indicating an eye structure similar to that of a fly.

Even with "clustered eyes", she's still unlike a spider, because a spider's eyes are arranged in rows.

EDIT: Ah here we go, I found my book:

Sam sprung in, inside the arches of her legs, and with a quick upthrust of his other hand stabbed at the clustered eyes upon her lowered head. One great eye went dark.

It then goes on to say that upon viewing the light of the Phial, the infection of light spread from eye to eye. Now regardless of interpreting it differently, the structure of a spider's eyes is not made up of two "clusters".

 

[Gil-Galad]

Well,we need somebody who knows enough about Spiders.Probably a biologist,Eriol can do that thing for us.