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Old 10-22-2005, 10:44 AM   #1
Morsul the Dark
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I think its more that people in general just dont like spiders i dont know why but to most people they give you a queezy feelig

rowlings spider was actually good as i recall except his/her children were little
ba---rds anyway the only myth i know of as har as spiders go well two actually..some native americans believe a giant spider wove the cosmos. and the other is greek

this lady aracna boasted of being the best weaver even better than helena(the goddess) helena freaks out goes down to challenge her aracna wins and helena is all like i hate you so she turns her into a spider and thats where spiders come from.

now remember in IT if I recall correctly the clown took the shape of whatever you feared most when it was the spider it was only because thats what the kid feared if he was scared of teletubbies it would have been a teletubby

except maybe ungolient none of the spiders were really evil; shelob was only fighting for survival as were the mirkwood spiders. and ungolient was fighting melkor(although i dont know why so im probably wrong about this next bit) if ungolient was evil wouldnt she have Aattacked yvanna or one of the other "good" guys?

I think spiders are just creepy and thats why theyre so prominent theyre like a universal fear.
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Old 10-22-2005, 10:56 AM   #2
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Hmm.. I was under the impression that the spider was IT's most natural form... well other than the 'lights'...

I guess you're right thou about the evil part... We can't really call any of them evil as they were mostly just fighting for survival. Although to me it still seems that Ungoliant only wanted to devour eveything simply because she could, and not because she needed all of it as sustenance.

I guess spiders are a universal fear but surely that can't just be because they look and move creepily; there must be some myth that set he fear off. Maybe the Native American Indians views had something to do with this... It could stem from a fear of the unknown and maybe a fear that something had power over you or power to destroy the whole cosmos and therefore you, if it had the power to create it ...
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:11 AM   #3
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I think that we have to accept that in the world of Tolkien giant spiders are evil !

As statet before Ungoliant was greedy, she wantet to eat all just because she could. It was this that became the end of her.

Shelob is called evil in the books is she not ? She like Ungoliant want's to eat everything she can. (- Gollum as he could be of some use) If we do not accept that at least these two are evil, we will end up with a philosophical discusion of what evil is.
Or at least a confusing story, becouse then the orcs are not evil, they do not realy want to fight, neither do the mouth of Sauron. He just wants a nice place to live
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:17 AM   #4
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Tolkien was bit by a tarantula as a child in South Africa. A nurse sucked out the poison. Perhaps his giant spiders of later stories are in memory of the giant tarantulas of South Africa.
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:32 AM   #5
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Alcarillo
Tolkien was bit by a tarantula as a child in South Africa. A nurse sucked out the poison. Perhaps his giant spiders of later stories are in memory of the giant tarantulas of South Africa.
Like any writer worth his salt, though, Tolkien denied any direct biographical importance. According to his biographer, Carpenter, "he [Tolkien] said the incident left him with no special dislike of spiders." (p. 27 in my edition of the biography, chapter "Bloemfontein").

Of course, some of us don't ascribe to the 'author knows everything' version of events.
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:42 AM   #6
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Tolkien seems to have suggested that the spider goddess created an early form of the world before Eru and he decided to represent this as evil and disgusting.
That's one of the most intriguing concepts I've come across on the Downs. So that's the explanation for Ungoliant? She was the Creatrix of the worlds, & an eternal presence in them, in one form or another. She is the Weaver & the Unweaver. Reminds me of Ariadne/Arianrhod in the Prophecies of Merlin.

Seems we are dealing with the 'Translator Conceit' again. Eru as Demiurge, Ungoliant as Weaver of the Worlds. I wonder if there was a Middle-earth equivalent of Nag Hamadi......
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Old 10-22-2005, 02:29 PM   #7
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Looking at folklore, spiders are not always seen as evil. I cannot think of any prominent British folktales which feature spiders, not to the same extent that Anansi is known. There is the tale of Robert Bruce; hiding as a fugitive in a cave, so the familiar tale goes, he watched a spider try to weave her web over and over again, which inspired him not to give up. This is a story where the spider is an inspiration. There is a particular maypole dance known as the 'spider web', which involves people holding alternately coloured ribbons dancing in and then out of one another, creating a spider web pattern. And I remember the spider being one of the many things that the old woman swallowed after swallowing the fly.

Yet folktales from the Americas and Africa have trickster or evil spider characters. Perhaps this is due to other areas of the world having dangerous spiders, whereas in the UK our spiders are all totally harmless. We don't have Hunstman spiders for one thing, who will actually come over and bite you should they feel threatened; British spiders merely kindly offer their services by eating our flies and nits.

Even so, a lot of children seem to have a fear of spiders, which I think might stem from the fact that their webs get stuck all over you when you walk or run into them, which isn't nice (though much nastier for the poor spider). So Tolkien might have been playing up on some people's general fear of spiders, but I don't think he was making use of British folklore in creating giant, malevolent spiders. As someone who happens to find spiders fascinating creatures and who has no need to fear them, the fact that Shelob was a giant spider did not scare me, it was more the knowledge that she was a predatory creature made large which made me fear for Frodo and Sam.

I find the idea that Ungoliant sucked the Light from the Two Trees interesting as spiders do have a habit of liquifying their prey and sucking their food up. They are also a predatory creature, and they tend to live in darkened places; there is also a misconception that all female spiders kill and eat the males. For most of his giant spiders, I think Tolkien was simply using a creature associated with darkness and with predatory behaviour to conjour up a strong concept of fear. But as regards Ungoliant, Tolkien created something fascinating, as she is a creature which seems to be the antithesis of Light and creation, an arachnid black hole which devours light, so the idea of her being a personification of 'evil' is interesting. or perhaps rather than her being 'evil', maybe she is there as a necessary opposite to creation? Who created her? Is she on a 'par' with Eru?
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Old 10-22-2005, 02:40 PM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Lalwendë
Is she on a 'par' with Eru?
Very vey interesting question....I'd love to look into this. Where can I read more about Ungoliant? I only have vols 1, 2 & 3 of HoME... and I've obviously read The Sil, I don't remember much that would help though. In fact I don't ever remember coming across this theory either...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bęthberry
Tolkien seems to have suggested that the spider goddess created an early form of the world before Eru and he decided to represent this as evil and disgusting.
May I enquire as to where Tolkien suggests this?
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:25 AM   #9
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I believe that Tolkien, Stephen King (IT was such a stupid movie!!!) and Rowling all used it because a common phobia is arachnophoia (sp?) and not a whole lot of people like spiders. They were probably using the spiders to demonstrate the fear in those places (is. Mirkwood, the Dark Forest in Harry Potter). If that is the case, they used it well because evertime I read about the spiders in Mirkwood, I can feel the fear there is in there. Anyone else think that?
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:33 AM   #10
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I think that it's right that the tendency to view spiders as evil is pretty much universal in human cultures. But I'm surprised no one has yet mentioned what is most likely the root of that predisposition - research strongly suggests that we have a genetic tendency to fear spiders. The evolutionary reason is presumably the same as in the case of fear of snakes - the poisonous varieties (which are particularly common in Africa, where humans evolved) posed a great threat to our distant ancestors' survival.
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:37 AM   #11
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your surprised no one brought that up? i certainly didn't know that very interesting idea...
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Old 10-22-2005, 11:09 AM   #12
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There are spider legends and stories in many, many mythologies, Celebuial, so I don't think anyone can say that other authors copied Tolkien. If you do a google search for spiders in mythology, you will find many links, but here are some of the best known stories.

Anansi, the trickster god in African legend

Some Japanese spider myths

The story of Arachne in Ovid (Greek)

Some North American spider/weaving stories of creation

Not all of these mythic stories involve evil per se, but the link between weaving and creation is clear. Tolkien seems to have suggested that the spider goddess created an early form of the world before Eru and he decided to represent this as evil and disgusting. And the Downs is often overrun with 'search spiders' of course!

Have fun googling on the modern web!
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