maybe as an arachnophobiac Tolkien was uncomfortable even foreshadowing it .. hmm.
well it does seem odd, cos that was definately a skill of his. maybe what was intended was that feeling of shock to the reader - that he himself would have felt had he wandered into the cave-home of a gigantic man-eating spider.
it is sort of a miss tho, i think there was a lot of spook-potential there, and to me personally shelob didnt represent such a scary villain purely because of her sudden in-yer-face appearance. i know, for example that HP Lovecraft's best stories are the ones about his real life fears. would have been good if there was some more foreshadowing.
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