Demons from the Ancient World

[Bêthberry]

Ungoliant was not created by Melkor: "The Eldar knew not whence she came." Shelob is the last of her children, I believe and as I recall it isn't known for sure that Shelob dies in LotR. Does this place her higher than the Balrog, who was destroyed?

[Farael]

I don't believe the watcher in the water was created by Melkor either, but I don't have any quotes right now to support that.

Also, technically, Melkor did not create balrogs. Balrogs were the incarnate form of lesser ainur that were swayed into Melkor's power, if I'm not mistaken.

Edit: I don't think Shelob dies in LoTR. Not by Sam's hand, at any rate.

[Gil-Galad]

Shelob starves to death due to the wounds inflicted on her by Samwise the Brave.

According to the Tolkien Beastiary by David Day, the Watcher was a creature created by Melkor but forgotten.


with Ungoliant and the spiders, i beleive that they were created at the forming of the world but were swayed by evil, like the Crebain were turned into evil use while the Ravens assisted the dwarves.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Gil-Galad

Shelob starves to death due to the wounds inflicted on her by Samwise the Brave.

According to the Tolkien Beastiary by David Day, the Watcher was a creature created by Melkor but forgotten.


with Ungoliant and the spiders, i beleive that they were created at the forming of the world but were swayed by evil, like the Crebain were turned into evil use while the Ravens assisted the dwarves.

The biggest demon from the ancient world mentioned is probably David Day. He's not erm...the most reliable of sources. Nice books though, I got the Bestiary twice because the pictures are so beautiful (contrary to what Alex Lewis of the TS thinks, after he gave the illustrations an unwarranted knocking about!). The best source in terms of reliability is the Robert Foster A-Z.

Remember Melkor couldn't create any new life, he could only corrupt what already existed. The scariest thing though is possibly this:

Far, far below the deepest delvings of the Dwarves, the world is gnawed by nameless things.

Nameless things can be whatever you want them to be, that's what's so scary about 'em. Check out me horror thread for more nasties.

Talking about Ungoliant, after a while, she takes nobody for her master:

there in Avathar, secret and unknown, Un- goliant had made her abode. The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwe, and that in the beginning she was one of those that he corrupted to his service. But she had disowned her Master, desiring to be mistress of her own lust, taking all things to herself to feed her emptiness; and she fled to the south, escaping the assaults of the Valar and the hunters of Orome, for their vigilance had ever been to the north, and the south was long unheeded. Thence she had crept towards the light of the Blessed Realm; for she hungered for light and hated it.

More Gigantarachnophobia...

[Nogrod]

If we take the trichotomy (?) as granted: that there are the Valar, the Maiar and the created ones, thence we face the question where do all these like Bombadill, Ungoliant or Glaurung come from.

But they might also be the anomalies, beings that are not just possibly explained by the storyline Tolkien gave us? So Eru couldn't be sure of every minute detail of the creation or didn't wish to intervene in every "detail"? Or that there were ones brought forwards in the creation even the Eru could not fathom - or of which s/he would not wish to steer?

The Ainulindalë in the end was the product of the Ainur making their personal contributions to the harmony (kosmos in Greek, meaning "harmonious whole") and one or more of these sounds they made might be the notes that would bring the balance just by not being the benevolent and good ones... to bring the balance? Had Eru a need to bow to the morality or the good of the being to be what s/he was, or was the good created because s/he willed it in a way it is? Or was there a place for the bad to just create a space for the good?

So where do these anomalies stem from? A good question indeed! And getting a bit too deep in to the metaphysical dimensions of ethics as well...

Tolkien was a catholic, yes he was, but most of his writings tell us that he was not writing a "christian" story here to explain the systematic problems christianity had tried to solve from the middle-ages onwards... More than that I see here a genuine bafflement in front of the distractment of the harmony everyone of us can see. The plight of every true christian - and a true disbeliever too...

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

If we take the trichotomy (?) as granted: that there are the Valar, the Maiar and the created ones, thence we face the question where do all these like Bombadill, Ungoliant or Glaurung come from.

But they might also be the anomalies, beings that are not just possibly explained by the storyline Tolkien gave us? So Eru couldn't be sure of every minute detail of the creation or didn't wish to intervene in every "detail"? Or that there were ones brought forwards in the creation even the Eru could not fathom - or of which s/he would not wish to steer?

I think simply Arda and Middle-earth needed their 'mysteries' just as our world does. There are many things that are or have been in our world that nothing can adequately explain. Just imagine an Arda where everything was explained, everything was logical. Ugh. Where would be the magic in that?

Even if such beings are put down to having been designed or brought forth by Eru for some reason, the fact that none of the Children can explain where they came from only underlines Eru's own mystery and such a level of greatness that simply cannot be explained by pathetic human (or Elven) minds.

[Saurreg]

Hence the old saying, "God (in this case Eru) moves/works in mysterious ways"

[Saurreg]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Ungoliant was not created by Melkor: "The Eldar knew not whence she came." Shelob is the last of her children, I believe and as I recall it isn't known for sure that Shelob dies in LotR. Does this place her higher than the Balrog, who was destroyed?

No one really knows where Ungoliant came from, though the Silmarillion hinted that she might have entered the world during the influx of the Ainur.

An anomaly like Tom Bombadil?

[Bêthberry]

The relevant passage about Shelob in LotR is as follows:

Originally Posted by The Choices of Master Samwise

Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair, nursing her malice and her misery, and in slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this tale does not tell.

Now there's a downright refusal to provide "the purposed domination of the author" in the story. Some may liken that passage to the 'cup half empty/cup half full' interpretation, but I prefer simply to go with the ambiguity of the passage and recognise that Tolkien decided to leave the reader a bit of a tease.

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Now there's a downright refusal to provide "the purposed domination of the author" in the story. Some may liken that passage to the 'cup half empty/cup half full' interpretation, but I prefer simply to go with the ambiguity of the passage and recognise that Tolkien decided to leave the reader a bit of a tease.

Beebs! I would have thought that you of all people would know Shelob's fate.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Fordim Hedgethistle

Beebs! I would have thought that you of all people would know Shelob's fate.

Well, as unexpected as this may seem, Fordy mostly in Books I discuss Things Canonical rather than Apocryphal.

But such distinctions don't pertain to avatars, so there's my remembrance now.

It was all a bit florid, eh?

[Alcarin]

What about Shelob?

Edit: Ok, forget that post. I just found out Shelob was actually of one Ungoliant's children. ( She had alot )