Shelob
Shelob is a female literary character who features in Middle-earth.
Contents |
Biography
Shelob was a female spider who was one of the children of Ungoliant where she came to be considered the greatest of her offspring. A force of primal evil in the form of a great spider. Somehow, Shelob escaped the ruin of Beleriand and she and her offspring dwelt in the forest of Mirkwood. Eventually, Shelob made her way to the Mountains of Shadow and made herself a vast lair in the Pass of Cirith Ungol, high above the fortress of Minas Morgul. For two ages of Middle-Earth, she lived there, feeding on Men, Elves and Orcs. Sauron knew of her presence and tolerated it, since Shelob made a better guard for the Pass of the Morgul Vale than any Orc. Sauron even fed her, sending prisoners to her that he no longer had use for.
During the Third Age, Gollum stumbled into her lair while attempting to escape the barren country. She caught him, but he survived the encounter by promising to bring her tastier meats than he. Orcs of Cirith Ungol had seen him on several occasions and believed that he was too thin and wiry for Shelob to bother eating. Gollum would attempt later to fulfil this promise by leading Frodo and Sam into her lair and abandoning them. His hope was that once Shelob finished eating the two hobbits, she would throw away the One Ring with the other parts of the hobbits that she could not eat, allowing Gollum to retrieve it. The two hobbits eventually happened upon a passageway that was too choked with Shelob's dark cobwebs to proceed, but as fortune would have it, Frodo's sword Sting, being of Elvish make, was able to slice through them. Using the Phial of Galadriel, they managed to at first fend her off. The light of Eärendil's Star shone from the Phial, causing unbearable stabbing pain to Shelob's darkened senses, but she returned to attack Frodo, poisoning him with her stinger in a surprise attack just as they reached the exit of the cave on the Mordor side. Her venom paralyzed Frodo, and she then wrapped him in her web. Sam then assaulted the creature using Sting and the Phial of Galadriel in order to rescue his master. In a pitched battle, Sam managed to stab one of her eyes and injure her leg, but she held the upper hand. However, when she tried to use her stinger to inject Sam with venom, he dodged at the last moment and was able to stab her in the abdomen with Sting. This wounded her enough that Sam forced her to retreat using the Phial of Galadriel. None had ever wounded her so badly before.
Overview
Personality and attributes
Powers and abilities
As a spawn of Ungoliant, Shelob was classified was part spider and part demon. Like most spiders, Shelob had spindly legs, multiple eyes, and venomous chelicerae. She usually immobilized her prey with her paralyzing sting that enabled her to feed on her victims at her leisure, but could also crush her prey to death by swiftly dropping on them. Her head was crisscrossed with scars and she had a number of missing eyes. The Orcs comment she usually would paralyze her victims and trap them in webs, keeping them alive for some time before killing them.
Notes
- Shelob was created by J. R. R. Tolkien where she featured in the setting of the Middle-earth universe.
In other media
Films
Video games
- In Middle-earth, Shadow of War, Shelob appeared in the setting of the video game where she was voiced by actress Pollyanna McIntosh.
Appearances
- The Lord of the Rings: (1954)
External Links
This article is a stub. You can help Multiversal Omnipedia by expanding it.
