Talk:Ungoliant

message: Ungoliant is a very controversial subject. Many people are unsure of what to call her, but in my opinion she cannot be a Maia or any kind of Ainur. Melkor himself fears her. Ungoliant may be darkness incarnate, or another proposition I have put forth both on Council of Elrond and now here. She may be Hades/Sheol incarnate. Many people will be unfamiliar with this term. They may recognize Hades from Greek mythology, but this is a different Hades. It is well known that Tolkien was a Christian. Though his books were not "Christian" books many of the principles he personally believed in worked their way into the book (such as the need for a god of Creation, the polarity of good and evil, etc.) Hades or Sheol is an anthropomorphized object in the Christian Bible. In English translations she is commonly referred to as "the grave." Proverbs 30:15b-16 NIV says, "'There are three things that are never satisfied, four that never say, "Enough!": Sheol, the barren womb, land, which is never satisfied with water, and fire, which never says, "Enough!"'" Notice, it list Sheol at the top of the list of things that are never satisfied. This reminds me so much of Ungoliant. Revelation 6:8 NIV says, "I looked, there before me was a pale horse! Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him. They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth." One translation says that Hades crawls behind Death. And another says that she devours everything that Death slays. These parts of the Bible and many others make Sheol/Hades appear very much like Ungoliant in my mind. In fact, one passage pairs up Sheol with the Devil. This reminds of the part of the Silmarillion in which Ungoliant and Melkor are teamed together slaying the inhabitants of Arda. I doubt Tolkien was using Ungoliant as a symbol of Sheol/Hades, because Tolkien despised allegory. I choose rather to believe Ungoliant was Sheol incarnate.
--Merond e 12:08, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: The article first gives this etymology:
'In the form Ungoliant the name is technically Sindarin, but is a direct loan from Quenya ungwë liantë: "dark spider"'
But at the end of the Origins section: 
"The name Ungoliant is partly derived from the root ungol ("spider"), which also occurs in Cirith Ungol, where Shelob resided..."
"Derived from the root..." of what language? 
And ungwë vs. ungol? 
--Johnabdl 18:52, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The Quenya form, Ungweliantë was 'Sindarinized' to 'Ungoliant'... Quenya 'Ungwe' becoming Sindarin 'Ungol'. The Quenya was actually more like 'great dark spider' (ungwe meaning both 'gloom' and 'spider'). The 'liant(e)' portion was outdated even in Quenya and doesn't occur in Sindarin at all. The full translation to Sindarin was Delduthling, 'spider of the horror of night', but apparently the Sindarinized 'Ungoliant' was more commonly used. Prior to coming up with 'Cirith Ungol' Tolkien wrote, "ungol darkness, ungor black, dark, gloomy. In N not used except in name Ungoliant, which is really taken from Q." - LROW, Etymologies - UŇG. Note that 'N' was his abbreviation for the language spoken by the exilic Noldor (as opposed to Q for the Quenya of Aman)... which he later determined to actually be Sindarin due to Thingol's decree that Quenya not be spoken. Thus, the usual Sindarin for spider was apparently 'lhing' prior to the arrival of Ungoliant. --CBD 01:47, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Origin of the Name Ungoliant 

message: Do people think that it's woth it, if we put a picture of her in?
:I think that would be excellent, as long as you can find one that meets Wikipedia guidelines.--UrsaLinguaBWD (talk) 05:56, 20 May 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Picture 

message: Somebody further up the page suggested that Ungoliant was the personification of Hades or Sheol but personally I doubt this. The role of Hades/Sheol was played by Mandos. Personally I believe that Ungoliant was the personification of the darkness that existed before Eru came into being the same way the Leviathan is sometimes thought of as being the embodiment of the chaos that came before God. Many mythologies and religions will have a supreme being of evil such as Melkor (the Norse had Loki, the Egyptians had Set, Christians have Satan) and then a gigantic monster that seeks to devour everything like Ungoliant (Fenric, Apophis, the Leviathan) whom even the supreme being of evil feared. For example in Egyptian mythology the supreme God Ra was protected by a legion of gods the mightiest of which was Set who later became the god of evil. They protected him from the evil serpent God Apophis who sort to devour the sun. In this, Ra could be thought of as Illuvatar, the other gods could be thought of as the Ainur, Set could be thought of as Melkor and Apophis could be thought of as Ungoliant. 
Furthermore Set would sometimes join forces with Apophis as Melkor did with Ungoliant. Enhancing the similarities, Set had an animosity with his benevolent brother Osiris the same way Melkor did with Manwe, the same way Loki did with his brother Balder and the same way Satan did with his brother Michael. --Illustrious One (talk) 16:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Ungoliant's origins

message: This article says that Ungoliant gave birth to the Giant Spiders; but their entry says they were offspring of Shelob. I don't know if this is an inconsistency in source or in wikipedia. killy mcgee (talk) 19:04, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  It says they are the descendants of her, not that she gave birth to them. There is a difference. Shelob if I remember my facts correctly was her "daughter" Carl Sixsmith (talk) 20:00, 27 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Above that, it says "Whilst there, she gave birth to the lesser Giant Spiders, as well as various creatures infesting the Ered Gorgoroth". killy mcgee (talk) 12:16, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  Ooops missed that, this whole article needs re-working. I'll make a start probably take a couple of days though. Carl Sixsmith (talk) 12:45, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  There's giant spiders in Ered Gorgoroth (children of Ungoliant), but also of Mirkwood (probably children of Shelob, but I haven't looked up the reference). Elphion (talk) 20:29, 28 February 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Offspring 

message: Thanks to all the edits to the re-write, this is beginning to look like a much better article. I need to dig out my copy of the Silmarillion to add references to source material, but does anyone have any decent secondary sources they could reference? Carl Sixsmith (talk) 08:11, 4 March 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Re-write 

message: When you hover over Ungoliant in other wiki pages (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelob), the image shown is that of the flag of Israel. I tried but can't find how to fix, can someone more knowledgeable try? Almogor (talk) 19:22, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: This is the result of template vandalism. I've purged the page cache so it should be fixed now. Nardog (talk) 22:43, 15 September 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Image is flag of Israel