Shelob

Shelob was a great Spider and the greatest offspring of Ungoliant, the primordial spider. In the Third Age she lived on the borders of Mordor and was known to feed indiscriminately, preying on the inhabitants. She was encountered by Frodo Baggins and Samwise Gamgee in their quest to destroy the One Ring.
==Biography==
===Origin===
Shelob's early history is completely unknown, save for the assumption that she was born in the Ered Gorgoroth and that she was the "last child" of Ungoliant. By the Second Age, she often feasted on her own children, and that at some point after fleeing from Beleriand, yet long before Sauron took the land of Mordor for himself she spun a dark lair in the Ephel Dúath (Mountains of Shadow) in Cirith Ungol. For thousands of years she resided there, making a labyrinth of webs within a network of caves to better trap her prey, which included all creatures great and small. She feasted primarily on those who wandered into her webs, though if a particularly juicy morsel was available, she would silently pursue and kill it.
===Third Age===
Sauron was aware of Shelob's presence in the mountains and allowed her to dwell there, for she made an excellent, if incidental, guard for the pass of Cirith Ungol. Sauron was known to be somewhat fond of her, and in a rare show of humor, was even known to refer to her as his cat. Sauron would sometimes give her food in the form of prisoners for which he had no more use, or servants who had displeased him. Reports of the massacre made by Shelob would be carried back to Barad-dûr to further please the Dark Lord's humor. She would also sometimes eat Orcs that manned the Tower of Cirith Ungol. However, as she was a more effective guard for the pass than they, and as orcs were extremely plentiful and expendable, Sauron never made any serious attempt to stop her (though Orcs would occasionally try to barricade her lair with stones).
At one point after being set free from Mordor, Gollum stumbled into her lair while attempting to escape the barren country. She caught him, but he survived the encounter by promising to bring her tastier meats than he.The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Book Four, Ch. IX: "Shelob's Lair", pp. 723 Orcs of Cirith Ungol had seen him on several occasions and believed that he was too thin and wiry for Shelob to bother eating.The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Book Five, Ch. X: "The Choices of Master Samwise", pgs. 738-739
Gollum would attempt later to fulfil this promise by leading Frodo and Sam into her lair and abandoning them. His hope was that once Shelob finished eating the two hobbits, she would throw away the One Ring with the other parts of the hobbits that she could not eat, allowing Gollum to retrieve it. While being pursued, the two hobbits eventually stumbled upon a passageway that was too choked with Shelob's dark cobwebs to proceed. But, fortunately, Frodo's sword Sting, being of Elvish make, was able to slice through them. Using the Phial of Galadriel, they managed to at first fend her off. The light of Gil-Orestel, the Star of Eärendil, shone from the Phial, causing unbearable stabbing pain to Shelob's darkened senses, but she then returned to attack Frodo, poisoning him with her stinger in a surprise attack just as they reached the exit of the cave on the Mordor side. Her venom paralyzed Frodo, and she then wrapped him in her web. Sam assumed Frodo to be dead.
Sam then assaulted the creature using Sting and the Phial of Galadriel in order to rescue his master. In a pitched battle, Sam managed to stab one of her eyes and injure her leg, but she held the upper hand. However, when she tried to use her stinger to inject Sam with venom, he dodged at the last moment and was able to stab her in the abdomen with Sting. This wounded her enough that Sam forced her to retreat using the Phial of Galadriel. None had ever wounded her so badly before.The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers, Book Five, Ch. X: "The Choices of Master Samwise", pg. 729
It is not known if Shelob recovered from the battle or succumbed to her wounds, as it was said her fate would remain unknown to the people of Middle-earth. She is last mentioned, in The Lord of the Rings, when Sam put on the One Ring, and heard Shelob "bubbling" in her misery far away, as his sense of hearing was vastly improved by wearing the Ring.
== Character ==
As a spawn of Ungoliant, Shelob would accurately be classified as part spider, part demon (to an unknown extent), though of a spider form. Like most spiders, Shelob had spindly legs, multiple eyes, and venomous chelicerae. She usually immobilized her prey with her paralyzing sting that enabled her to feed on her victims at her leisure, but could also crush her prey to death by swiftly dropping on them. Her head was crisscrossed with scars and she had a number of missing eyes. The Orcs comment she usually would paralyze her victims and trap them in webs, keeping them alive for some time before killing them. It is said that her desire was to gorge herself on her prey, and swell until the mountains themselves could no longer hold her, and emerge from her rocky abode, and make her way to the sea.
== In adaptations ==
===Films===
====The Lord of the Rings (1978)====
Gollum indirectly mentions Shelob near the end of Ralph Bakshi's 1978 film, saying that "she might help us...", but she does not appear.
====The Lord of the Rings film trilogy====
Unlike in the books, Shelob makes her first appearance in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, rather than The Two Towers, because (as explained) if she had appeared in The Two Towers, there would be very little for Frodo and Sam to encounter in the final film. In this adaptation, Shelob appears as a CGI animated creature, roughly eight feet in length and seventeen feet across.
===Video games===
====The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest====
Shelob is an optional boss in the Wii and PS3 versions of The Lord of the Rings: Aragorn's Quest, but only fought as an imaginary enemy in the Shire overworld's Mushroom Woods. This optional boss fight is the end of a side quest available in the afternoon where Frodo Gamgee re-enacts Frodo's perilous journey to her lair.
====The Lord of the Rings Online====
In The Lord of the Rings Online, Shelob is known to Elves as "Ungwetári" and Lord Celeborn had hunted her down in the early years of the Third Age, to no avail. Shelob has a mental link to her children and after being stabbed by Sam she summons all of her children to her side for nourishment and protection. Places formerly infested with spiders such as Mirkwood become empty as whole nests of them travel south to the call of their mother. Shelob herself is depicted as much larger than in the movie or other giant spiders, which are encountered in the game on numerous occasions. Shelob herself is the last boss in the main raid of the Minas Morgul expansion.
====Middle-earth: Shadow of War ====
Shelob, in Middle-earth: Shadow of War, is visible in human form in the wraith-world. In the game, she has Celebrimbor's ring for quite some time while giving Talion visions about the fate of Minas Ithil (Minas Morgul) and the Ringwraiths. It is also seen in the game that Shelob was working with Sauron during the period he was posing as Annatar, and was implied to be his lover before he betrayed her. The mobile version of Shadow of War classifies Shelob as a Maia, though J.R.R. Tolkien never specified her exact nature.   
==Gallery==
==Translations==
Foreign Language 	Translated name
Amharic 	ጽሀሎብ
Arabic 	صهيلوب
Armenian 	Շելոբ
Belarusian Cyrillic 	Шелоб
Bosnian 	Šeloba
Bulgarian Cyrillic 	Корубана
Catalan 	Aranyerra
Chinese (Hong Kong) 	屍羅
Croatian 	Sheloba
Czech 	Odula
Finnish 	Lukitar
French 	Arachne (First translation)
Araigne (Second translation)
Georgian 	შელობი
German 	Kankra
Greek 	Σέλομπ
Gujarati 	ષ્હેલોબ
Hebrew 	שילוב
Hindi 	शेलोब
Hungarian 	Banyapók
Icelandic 	Skella
Japanese 	シェロブ
Kannada 	ಷೆಲೊಬ್
Kazakh 	Шелоб (Cyrillic) Şelob (Latin)
Kyrgyz Cyrillic 	Сhэлоб
Lithuanian 	Šeloba
Macedonian Cyrillic 	Шелоб
Marathi 	षेलोब
Mongolian Cyrillic 	Шелоб
Nepalese 	ष्हेलोब
Norwegian 	Hutula
Pashto 	صهېلوب
Persian 	شیلاب
Polish 	Szeloba
Portuguese (Brazil) 	Laracna
Portuguese (Portugal)	Shelob
Punjabi 	ਸ਼ਏਲੋਬ ?
Russian 	Шелоб
Sanskrit 	ष्हेलोब्
Serbian 	Шелоба (Cyrillic) Šeloba (Latin)
Sinhalese 	ෂ්හෙලොබ්
Slovak 	Opucha
Spanish (Spain) 	Ella-Laraña
Swedish 	Honmonstret (first translation)
Lockan (second translation)
Tajik Cyrillic 	Сҳелоб
Tamil 	ஷ்ஹெலொப்
Telugu 	ష్హెలొబ
Thai 	ชีล็อบ
Ukrainian Cyrillic 	Шелоб
Urdu 	شالوب
Uzbek 	Челоб (Cyrillic) Chelob (Latin)
Yiddish 	שעלאָב
==References==
de:Kankra
es:Ella-Laraña
fr:Arachne
it:Shelob
pl:Szeloba
tr:Shelob
ru:Шелоб
Category:Villains
Category:Spiders
Category:The Lord of the Rings characters
Category:The Return of the King (film) characters
Category:Characters in Middle-earth: Shadow of War
Category:Evil