Nicholas Palazzo
Well-Known Member
To be more specific, the book does say that she wants to "sting" Sam, and that he is out of stinging range when he is under her, but it does not describe a kind of bee sting in her abdomen.
The sting they gave Shelob in the film was likely because they may have had trouble figuring out a way to deliver her venom by her fangs alone.
As to spider "beaks" ... There is the camel spider. True, it's not really a spider, but Ungoliant could at least have the mouth parts of one, no?
How about a Sydney Funnel Web Spider? That sort's shown up in more than one of my nightmares....
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Nick, I am so mad at you right now....If we really want to ruin people's lives, later on we could show her doing this:
A bit late, but you're right, Haakon, that "beak" is not a word usually used in English to describe the pincers of a spider.I don't know enough about Old/Middle English literature to know if that's an old-fashioned way of speaking of a spider's bite, but I've never heard it in conversation outside of discussions of Tolkien.I don't have my Tolkien library with me right now but as I remember, Tolkien mentions the 'beak' of Shelob a few times as a feature that is really scary. The chosen spider should have one of those, whatever that is. (To me 'beak' doesn't sound like something a spider has, but then English isn't my first language.)
The "rearing" behavior is partly why I find them so terrifying.... and I'm from Texas! Used to poisonous things!Besides being sufficiently terrifying and deadly poisonous, they also have that 'rearing up' behavior, which could account for the 'horns' mentioned on Shelob.