Looks Like Someone Got A Makeover
We all remember Shelob, right? The giant spider that appeared in The Return of the King and scared the hell out of us? Well, she’s also a major character in the upcoming sequel to Shadow of Mordor. Only she’s looking a little…different these days.
Yep, in Shadow of War, Shelob takes the form of an attractive woman.
Well, that has us…conflicted.
A recent article on Gamespot reveals more about the spider’s new guise and importance to the story.
As is to be expected from the sequel to Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Shadow of War takes more than a few liberties with the Lord of the Rings canon. There’s maybe no better example of that than Shelob, the giant, monstrous spider who is one of the main characters in Shadow of War, where she appears as a human woman. That’s a form we never see her take in the books or movies, and it’s understandably left some fans scratching their heads. But the alternative, according to developer Monolith, was to dramatically reduce her role.
GameSpot recently spoke with Shadow of War’s lead narrative designer, Tony Elias, about the negative response to Shelob’s initial unveiling. “I think people’s sense of who Shelob is is one of the great spiders, and we could have done just that, sure,” he explained. “We could have had Shelob appear in great spider form, but she would have had a much smaller role in the game, ultimately. We really wanted to explore this character.”
“We thought there was a lot to explore there, and we could do that with a humanoid representation,” he added. “We’re not saying she is a woman; maybe she goes back between the two. It’s very clear from the outset that this is a form that she takes when she communicates with Talion. It allowed us to do a lot more with the story, it allowed us to use her in a more meaningful way in the story.”
Turning a giant spider into a human might seem like an out-of-nowhere stretch. And while he didn’t claim that Shelob-as-a-lady was some small detail that people simply missed, Elias stated that Monolith did look to the original JRR Tolkien text in making the change.
“If you look back at Two Towers for example, I think one of the first descriptions of Shelob is an evil thing in spider form,” he said. “It’s an interesting way to describe this creature: a spider form. Not just a spider, or a great spider. And so it feels like it’s chosen [that form] in a way.
“Her mother was Ungoliant, who it’s suggested is a Maiar, but this kind of primordial being who is all powerful. Shelob is the daughter of Ungoliant. We kind of ran with that idea of a creature that could transform itself, depending on the context–we have done that in the first game with Sauron in fair form. Sauron has his war form and he has his fair form, and Shelob, you could think of the spider as Shelob’s war form, and her fair form she uses when she counsels Talion. She can read the web of fate. We see her as this kind of dark oracle, a sort of dark Galadriel who can see the future and guide his path.”
As you might imagine this change has not sat well with many Lord of the Rings fans. But will such a departure play to Shadow of War’s strengths? Who knows, but it is fair to say that it has made for quite the enticing adaptation.
Still doesn’t make us feel any less jittery though, a giant spider is still a giant spider!
You can check out Shelob’s new form for yourself in the reveal trailer below!
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