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Originally Posted by Thalion
I'm not entirely sure where I would place Ungoliant, but I think there is something that is being lost here in the discussion of her battle with Morgoth. When Morgoth was almost defeated by Ungoliant, it was because she had within her the light of the two trees of Valinor..., the light gave presumably immense power that combined with her "natural" strength/power/ability was nearly too much for Morgoth (reminiscent somewhat of Carcharoth when he had the Silmaril in him)
When making a determination of where to place Ungoliant, it should therefore be noted that her placing on the list should be deminative of what I would deem her "natural power", not that as it was magnified as a result of the light of the trees within her...
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I agree in general, Thalion, that Ungoliant's position on the list should be made with the her normal abilities in mind, but those normal abilities would appear to be fairly large to begin with.
Let us first look at Shelob, Ungoliant's offspring. Shelob is a pretty fearsome creature. Sam had the luck to be carrying a Gondolin-wrought sword on which Shelob was foolish enough to impale herself, but it says right there in the text that any other sort of assault would have been pretty much futile. "Not though the hand of Beren, Húrin, or Túrin wielded it" says the text, more or less.
Therefore, Shelob is a pretty fearsome creature. How much moreso, therefore, should Ungoliant be? After all, just as the Spiders of Mirkwood are the offspring (or so it appears) of Shelob and males of lesser stature, I seem to recall it being said that Ungoliant mated with lesser males, thus producing children- of which Shelob is one.
Therefore, if we assume a similar disparity of power between Ungoliant and Shelob as between Shelob and her offspring, we get a pretty powerful being indeed.
Personally, I should place Ungoliant just below the Balrogs- or possibly above, since the case could be made that it took all of them to drive her off, and that one of them couldn't have done so alone.