Shelob
Shelob is a female literary character who features in Middle-earth.
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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
- In The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Shelob appeared in the setting of the live-action film. Gollum tricked Frodo Baggins to travelling through her lair in his quest to reach Mount Doom in Mordor. This was with the goal for him to be killed by the giant spider thus allowing him to claim the One Ring from the body. Within the cave, Frodo was ambushed by Shelob who stung him leaving him paralysed where she wrapped him in a web but she was saved by Samwise Gamgee. The other Hobbit came to fight Shelob and severed her stinger with his Elven sword forcing her to scurry back into the darkness of her cavern lair.
Video games
- In The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, Shelob appeared in the setting of the video game. She was only fought as an imaginary enemy in the Shire overworld's Mushroom Woods that was available in the afternoon where Frodo Gamgee re-enacts Frodo's perilous journey to her lair.
- In The Lord of the Rings Online, Shelob appeared in the setting of the MMORPG video game. She was known to Elves as Ungwetári and Lord Celeborn had hunted her down in the early years of the Third Age, to no avail. Shelob had a mental link to her children and after being stabbed by Sam she summoned all of her children to her side for nourishment and protection. Places formerly infested with spiders such as Mirkwood become empty as whole nests of them travel south to the call of their mother. Shelob herself was depicted as much larger than other giant spiders. Shelob herself was the last boss in the main raid of the Minas Morgul expansion.
- In Middle-earth, Shadow of War, Shelob appeared in the setting of the video game where she was voiced by actress Pollyanna McIntosh. She was visible in human form in the wraith-world. In the setting, she had Celebrimbor's ring for quite some time while giving Talion visions about the fate of Minas Ithil (Minas Morgul) and the Ringwraiths. Shelob was shown to had been working with Sauron during the period he was posing as Annatar, and was implied to be his lover before he betrayed her.
Appearances
- The Lord of the Rings: (1954)
External Links
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