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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 14 2009, 7:49pm
Post #1 of 33
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Flies and Spiders VII: Here There Be Spiders
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VII. Here there be Spiders–Thursday Afternoon, May 14, 2009
After some realistic groping around blindly to try and figure out what to do, Bilbo takes off in the general direction where he thinks he last heard his friends cry out for help. The narrator remarks that Bilbo was born with a “good share of” luck. In this case, his luck leads him to a whole nest of giant spiders, in a place darkened by their webs “like a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away.” He can understand their speech. (Some of us will prefer to believe that this is the One Ring providing translation of foul tongues, while others will see this as happening in a different world entirely, where all creatures speak English.) They gloat over capturing the dwarves for future meals. Bilbo can get close enough to eavesdrop because the Ring makes him invisible, but also because hobbits have an innate ability to walk silently.
(Feel free to ignore the questions below, and instead express anything you wish about these or other giant spiders, if you feel so inclined.)
1. What would you (symbolically) make of a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away, made of sticky veils spun by monsters, right in the final part of Mirkwood that’s just beginning to reveal some light?
2. Are the dwarves lucky that the last “man” standing happens to be Bilbo? Or unlucky? Explain your reasons.
The spiders complain of the tough hides of their prey, and their starved condition. They debate whether to leave them hanging alive or dead. (As disgusting as it might sound to the modern reader, hunters often left game hanging unrefrigerated for days to tenderize. It’s a well-kept secret (but busboys will talk) that some of the swankiest of restaurants still do this.) To demonstrate that the dwarves still live, a spider goes to pinch the fattest (poor old Bombur, despite several days of less food than the others) and Bombur, bless him, kicks back. Most of the spiders find this funny, but the one kicked comes back to kill Bombur while he hangs helplessly bound.
3. Why do the spiders find these dwarves tough-hided enough to remark upon?
4. What does it say that Bombur still has some fight in him?
“Bilbo saw that the moment had come when he must do something.” Yes indeed, for there are no great heroes to hand, nobody but one small and inexperienced hobbit, who only months before shrieked in fear at the mere mention of adventures where people don’t necessarily come back alive. He has no arrows nor any other kind of distance weapon to make his situation even relatively safe.
So he picks up stones to chuck at the spiders. Shades of David and Goliath! This has the effect of stopping the spider from killing Bombur (by knocking the spider senseless) killing another by undoing its web, and prompting the rest to chase after Bilbo–or wherever they guess Bilbo to be.
(To Carl Jung, a stone symbolized the self, the integrated and insoluable core of who a person is. The Philosopher Stone he equated with the power of transformation.) (On the other hand, maybe the cigar is just a cigar. What else is Bilbo going to throw at the spiders? But it’s fun to play with the idea, all the same!)
5. Bonus question: What might it mean to save your friends by flinging your core self at the forces ranked against them?
6. And how transformative is this moment for Bilbo, this moment when he finally turns the tables and rescues his friends! We usually think of the Philosopher’s Stone as changing lead into gold and mortals into immortals. Can you relate this in any way to the transformation that Bilbo here undergoes?
7. Consider the courage it takes to deliberately make yourself a target so as to spare someone who, at the moment, is even more defenseless than yourself–even though these are people you normally consider better equipped for crisis. Do any parallels come to mind, in folklore, history, personal accounts or other sources?
Tolkien here mentions that Bilbo has always been good at throwing stones, darts, bowling, and anything else involving hand-eye coordination, and that he is good at quite a few things besides throwing, cooking, smoke-rings, and riddles, but that the narrator has no time to mention them all.
8. What other talents do you think that our Bilbo might have?
There follows a surreal scene, hilarious and terrifying at the same time, where Bilbo lures the spiders further and further away, at frightening risk to himself, singing out ridiculous and insulting ditties about the spiders themselves, sometimes while dancing and stomping. The spiders, unable to see Bilbo, nevertheless hears his voice quite clearly enough--because he deliberately pipes up again every time their attention begins to wane. They fill the air with their sticky snares and unleash a three-dimensional assault, on the ground, in the branches, and swinging between the branches, spreading out to cover all avenues of escape, eventually trying to net him in a fence of webs. They are many and large; and he is only one, and small.
9. Invisible or not, just how much danger is Mr. Baggins in right now? And what are his options?
10. Do you think that the dwarves would have done the same for Bilbo? Can you explain why or why not? And most important of all, does it matter?
11. Any symbolic thoughts on the spider onslaught and their sticky snares, trying to foil Bilbo’s attempt to rescue his friends?
When Bilbo slashes through a sloppy part of the web fence, the spiders see Sting and go running after him. (Sting apparently glows for giant spiders as well as orcs.) Tolkien describes the fearsomeness of their onslaught at the sight, in all its “froth and fury” in great detail. While they charge off in the direction of escape, Bilbo sheathes his sword and doubles back to rescue his friends. He will not have much time for the task!
12. Any ideas on the symbolism of Sting’s light that cannot be hid? (For my own part, I admire how he turned a strategic disadvantage to his purposes.)
I will finish the battle on the next thread, if you’ll pardon the expresson.
13. Any other thoughts on this part?
(Again, any pictures that you deem fitting for this discussion will be welcomed with open arms, particularly sticky snares and spidar attacks, so long as they meet local regulations.)
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Beren IV
Mithlond
May 14 2009, 9:57pm
Post #2 of 33
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This is still a children's story.
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2. Are the dwarves lucky that the last “man” standing happens to be Bilbo? Or unlucky? Explain your reasons.
These are pretty pathetic Dwarves, when it comes right down to it, but the real reason is that this is still a children's story. This entire episode is something of a plot device. The Dwarves have to be slow, stupid, cowardly and pathetic, for now anyhow, or else Bilbo would not be so impressive.
"Most of the spiders find this funny, but the one kicked comes back to kill Bombur while he hangs helplessly bound."
I disagree here. My understanding was that it was going to re-paralyze Bombur, just as all of the other dwarves were paralyzed.
9. Invisible or not, just how much danger is Mr. Baggins in right now? And what are his options?
Bilbo is most certainly in danger right now. He has an advantage of being invisible, and armed, but one false step and he's still history.
The paleobotanist is back!
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squire
Gondolin
May 15 2009, 1:27am
Post #3 of 33
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Tuffet sitting and other adventures
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1. What would you (symbolically) make of a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away, made of sticky veils spun by monsters, right in the final part of Mirkwood that’s just beginning to reveal some light?
Hm, I’m not sure giant spiders are monsters in the classic sense of unnaturally deformed beings. But colloquially, “monster” has come to mean “of great size”.
We don’t know how large they are. Big enough that Sting can go between one’s eyes, and the blade be stained by its body fluids. To me the spiders are about the size of a large cat, which is plenty large enough for me, yet still plausible physically. Too large, and their anatomies will fail since they do not have true circulatory systems or bony legs to take real body weight. (Shelob in LotR, a giant the size of a lion or tiger, is a creature of “spider form”; and the “mother-children” connection between her and these large arthropod arachnids is very much a post-Hobbit invention).
I love the black shadow under the webs, but I’m not sure it has particular relevance that the shadowy nest/den is in a slightly better lit section of Mirkwood. The shadow is “black even for that forest” which compares it to Mirkwood’s darkness, not its light. The shadow definitely inspires and embodies fear. It is an early instance of what Tolkien became a past master at evoking in LotR, although he had practiced it in the abstract in many of his Silmarillion adventures: shadow as an almost physical substance, darkness of itself rather than from an absence of light.
3. Why do the spiders find these dwarves tough-hided enough to remark upon?
This is probably a reference to the fact that the dwarves are clothed.
Here are some other questions I have about these lovely creatures:
Why do the spiders talk like proto-orcs with strongly lower-class colloquialisms like “Aye”, “I’ll wager”, “a bee-autiful sleep”, and “none too well of late”? Why are the spiders never assigned a gender, when their descendant Shelob is one of Tolkien’s greatest female creations? How can you hiss the line “Kill ‘em, I say” when reading aloud to children? Are spiders really squishy enough to sound like a “flabby football” when kicked? Why, or on what basis can we assert it, has no spider ever liked being called Attercop? Why call them insects, for goodness sakes? Where do the spiders get their collective intelligence, so that they almost entrap Bilbo through a coordinated but unspoken web-spinning strategy (“at least that was the spiders’ idea”)? How could it be said that spiders’ eyes “pop” with rage, as if they had eyeballs in sockets? Is the “old slow wicked fat-bodied spider” guarding the prisoners “wicked” in the context of Bilbo’s moral universe, or the spiders’, given that it is about to cheat its fellows out of the juiciest meat?
9. Invisible or not, just how much danger is Mr. Baggins in right now? And what are his options?
I have often admired the idea of this ring of invisibility: like most literary devices, it does what it must, not what it might. Wearing it one is (usually) not just invisible, but imperceptible, which is quite a different magnitude of magic.
Throughout the book, Bilbo’s ring hides him from creatures that thrive in dark black environments: Gollum, the Orcs, the Spiders, and Smaug. I should have thought that the spiders could see outside the visible spectrum, and spot Bilbo in the infrared immediately. Still, the spiders and Smaug do use other senses (smell and hearing) to perceive the hobbit’s presence, because that heightens the tension and downgrades the Ring’s unfair advantage in the immediate scene. Gollum and the Orcs don’t smell and hear Bilbo, because in those scenes the ring’s benefits are new to the story, and must be shown off to the reader.
As it is, they “make for his noise far quicker than he had expected.” The spiders do a noble job of defending their den from this creature’s intrusion, and their strategy of encircling and entangling their invisible tormentor almost works. We are meant to sense that Bilbo, for all his untoward cleverness, is in quite a bit of danger and may possibly fail, get trapped, and eaten, throughout this adventure. Otherwise there would be no adventure!
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 15 2009, 5:09am
Post #4 of 33
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Buffalo are not really buffalo, but bisons. A meerkat is not really a cat, nor is a polecat. Javalinas may look and act like boars, but they're actually more closely related to raccoons. And prairie chickens aren't chickens.
People colloquially name whatever they see according to whatever in their experience it most reminds them of. Most people who do the naming are not biologists, nor are they too concerned about accuracy. (I once wrote a science fiction story where, among other things, a "lobster dinner" turned out to feature a gigantic red aquatic cockroach--closest local equivalent.)
One may assume that the monsters known as giant spiders bear a considerable resemblance to spiders. That is, they have eight legs and spin webs. But since they have bulgeable eyes and are large enough to haul away dwarves, they probably aren't arthropods. Or, for that matter, insects.
But only if one wants a strict explanation for everything. If you want accuracy about biology, you also need accuracy about the sloppy way that folks go about naming things.
I like your take on the battle!
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Twit
Menegroth
May 15 2009, 9:17am
Post #5 of 33
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1. What would you (symbolically) make of a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away, made of sticky veils spun by monsters, right in the final part of Mirkwood that’s just beginning to reveal some light?
It could be the bit of 'bad' in all of us, now matter how 'good' we try to be. I really like the way the dark of Mirkwood is described as 'enormous, uncanny darkness' it makes it sound alive, ready to take over whenever it can, both inside and out.
2. Are the dwarves lucky that the last “man” standing happens to be Bilbo? Or unlucky? Explain your reasons.
I think they are lucky. Bilbo is not only able to creep about, see and hear better than the Dwarves, but he has the Ring AND is lucky.
3. Why do the spiders find these dwarves tough-hided enough to remark upon?
My local butcher still hangs his meat and I remember having rabbits and pheasants hanging around the place as a child.
Perhaps the Dwarves are naturally thick skinned- literally and along the same lines of some-one being described as thick skinned doesn't get upset when being teased (for example).
4. What does it say that Bombur still has some fight in him?
It made me smile that he kicked out - it shows spirit.
5. Bonus question: What might it mean to save your friends by flinging your core self at the forces ranked against them?
You are willing to do what ever it takes to help them? Perhaps with this in mind Bilbo is willing to commit a form of suicide?
6. And how transformative is this moment for Bilbo, this moment when he finally turns the tables and rescues his friends! We usually think of the Philosopher’s Stone as changing lead into gold and mortals into immortals. Can you relate this in any way to the transformation that Bilbo here undergoes?
Yes, because eventually he goes to the Grey Havens. (I have read LotR)
7. Consider the courage it takes to deliberately make yourself a target so as to spare someone who, at the moment, is even more defenseless than yourself–even though these are people you normally consider better equipped for crisis. Do any parallels come to mind, in folklore, history, personal accounts or other sources?
With regards to throwing stones, what about Jack (and the beanstalk) throwing them at the giant?
I would make myself the target in a heartbeat if it meant I could save my children. To be honest, I think it is a human trait, most people would, in the right circumstances try to help others.
Merry and Pippin do (may just be in the film though, it has been a while since I read it!)
I think it is quite a popular theme of hero stories, they are willing to put themselves into danger to save others.
8. What other talents do you think that our Bilbo might have?
Lots, and we don't need to know what, Tolkein here allows Bilbo to be a good shot by saying this, but also opens the door to any other talents Bilbo might find he has later on.
9. Invisible or not, just how much danger is Mr. Baggins in right now? And what are his options?
Alot of danger, he can run and hide or stay and fight.
10. Do you think that the dwarves would have done the same for Bilbo? Can you explain why or why not? And most important of all, does it matter?
It's not that they wouldn't, but that they couldn't.
11. Any symbolic thoughts on the spider onslaught and their sticky snares, trying to foil Bilbo’s attempt to rescue his friends?
Not really, spiders are spiders and webs are sticky.
12. Any ideas on the symbolism of Sting’s light that cannot be hid? (For my own part, I admire how he turned a strategic disadvantage to his purposes.)
I will finish the battle on the next thread, if you’ll pardon the expresson.
13. Any other thoughts on this part?
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Twit
Menegroth
May 15 2009, 9:28am
Post #6 of 33
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Here are some other questions I have about these lovely creatures:
Why are the spiders never assigned a gender, when their descendant Shelob is one of Tolkien’s greatest female creations? How can you hiss the line “Kill ‘em, I say” when reading aloud to children? Are spiders really squishy enough to sound like a “flabby football” when kicked? Why, or on what basis can we assert it, has no spider ever liked being called Attercop?
Children love this sort of squishy, bulgy, yukky sort of stuff, they can identify with the sounds of a flabby football etc.
I like the name calling line the narrator gives us, I think it shows his sense of humour.
Perhaps they are like Black Widow spiders. Maybe they eat the male spiders.
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 15 2009, 3:48pm
Post #7 of 33
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I had completely forgotten about Jack throwing stones at the giant! Thank you for all of your refreshing comments.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 15 2009, 3:49pm
Post #8 of 33
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So you may be onto something, there.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Beren IV
Mithlond
May 15 2009, 4:27pm
Post #9 of 33
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Spiders aren't insects anyway!
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One thing we can say about these 'spiders', however, is that they do have exoskeletons. Terrestrial creatures (as opposed to aquatic life forms) cannot attain the size they are described as having here and have exoskepetons. They would be too heavy.
Now, admittedly, during the Carboniferous there were some centipedes that size, but that was before there were any land vertebrates to compete with.
The paleobotanist is back!
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 15 2009, 5:10pm
Post #10 of 33
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Why do you think I specified "arthropods"? I made the "insect" reference tongue in cheek, because Squire quoted it.
So, these "giant spiders" probably do not have exoskeletons, so much as hardened hides like armadillos. They probably have bones. They probably still look pretty much like spiders, nevertheless, and those whom they pursue would probably shout, "Are you kidding me?" as they scrambled to escape, if you tried to correct their description of the monsters as giant "spiders". Bilbo doesn't care whether they carry their bones inside or outside of their bodies. He just wants to know whether Sting can cleave through whatever it is that they are.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 15 2009, 7:18pm
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...and I'll have fun mine. Hey I was the kid who used to sketch cross-sections of Santa's reindeer's antlers to envision them resembling the cross-sections of airplane wings, and told doubters that it must be a very special breed of reindeer! This is a pleasurable exercise in fantasy, although not recommended for real life--not unless you're a defense lawyer whose client has an especialy flimsy alibi.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Elvenhome
May 16 2009, 2:32am
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I love that about the reindeer!
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Kind of reminds me of the night Uncle Baggins sat down with a calculator and some basic assumptions to try to figure out how fast Santa's sleigh would have to fly to visit every Christian household in one night. I think he came up with about 80% the speed of light. Of course, at that speed, relativity would start to impact his mass, but that was beyond us...
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 16 2009, 2:50am
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Santa would have more than eight hours, due to crossing time zones, though that's still cutting it awfully close. Hmmm....impacting mass might have interesting implications for a fat man. Please excuse my ignorance: in what way would it impact his mass?
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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squire
Gondolin
May 16 2009, 3:29am
Post #15 of 33
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"If every child gets a two-pound present, Santa's sleigh must weigh about 321,300 tons."
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"...some people have even suggested that Santa has the technology to manipulate time. By creating an artificial time bubble around his sleigh and his person, he could speed himself up as much as he needed." (Krystek, L. 2003. The Museum of Unnatural Mystery)
It's interesting to see how each of us sets different limits to how fantasy should work in relation to the real world. I always think that Tolkien tries very hard to keep "impossible" stuff to a minimum, so as to maintain believability in what he called his "secondary world." I think this is because he was both an artist and a scientist. This doesn't mean that some of his stuff isn't impossible: he has his requisite elements of magic, to be sure. But the frame they live in seems remarkably "natural", as for instance his obsession with the mundane logistics of quests, and his hyper-detailed geographies.
Of course, the question of what is "believable" is flexible, since many people have different standards of knowledge on which to base belief. Beren IV for instance is a population biologist and paleontologist (I think), and his standard of what's believable in those areas of a fantasy world's environment is rather high. Others, as with some who answered my dragon-wing topic, never spent much time on vertebrate anatomy, and happily accept the "six-limbed" dragon as an eminently plausible animal.
Let the silly scientists be damned, this is a fantasy, and I'm suspending disbelief like I'm supposed to! Yet they might not suspend their disbelief in a fantasy where, say, an unprotected hero (or hobbit) walks right through a dragon's fire and stabs the beast in its mouth, killing it instantly. Gee, it turns out that in this story the dragon's fire burns at about 80 degrees fahrenheit, and its heart happens to be located in its snout. That would be bad fantasy to most people who enjoy genre conventions because it's "unbelievable". But the disbelief is not based on anatomy - such a dragon is no less likely to exist than a six-limbed dragon, I daresay - it's based on story. The essence of a dragon is not how its body works, but how dangerous a beast it is.
To return to the original topic, that's the point about the spiders in Mirkwood. It's all about how creepy spiders are to most people, so that giant spiders are very creepy! Tolkien has written extremely unbelievable beasts, on one level: he doesn't say how large they are, but they are seemingly larger than spiders could ever be; he makes them intelligent, malevolent, and talking; he plays with their arachnid anatomies; he even misidentifies them as insects. None of it really matters compared to what he gets right: they spin webs and sticky rope-like threads; they capture their prey by binding and stinging with poison; they hang their prey up to be sucked dry; they move fast; their abdomens are bulbous; and they curl up when they die. Additionally, they don't have: teeth; wings; fingers; feathers; or tools or any physical culture. The end result is frankly, believability - we suspend our disbelief about the impossible stuff, at least while reading for the first time.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Elvenhome
May 16 2009, 4:17am
Post #16 of 33
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Well, it's been a loooong time since school
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but I think the faster the speed, the higher the mass. As well as the shorter the object in the line of travel. As the old limerick says:
There was a young fencer named Fisk
Whose fencing was so very brisk,
By the speed of his action
The Fitzgerald Contraction
Reduced his rapier to a disk.
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 16 2009, 2:41pm
Post #17 of 33
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Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 16 2009, 2:43pm
Post #18 of 33
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So maybe Santa isn't fat to begin with, but by the end of the trip he has gotten massier and horizontally expanded around the waistline, as well as shorter. Well, that's as good an excuse as any not to diet! Blame it on high speed travel!
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Aunt Dora Baggins
Elvenhome
May 16 2009, 3:26pm
Post #19 of 33
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Love it! "Blame it on high-speed travel" :-D
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"For DORA BAGGINS in memory of a LONG correspondence, with love from Bilbo; on a large wastebasket. Dora was Drogo's sister, and the eldest surviving female relative of Bilbo and Frodo; she was ninety-nine, and had written reams of good advice for more than half a century."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"A Chance Meeting at Rivendell" and other stories
leleni at hotmail dot com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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sador
Gondolin
May 17 2009, 10:16am
Post #20 of 33
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Some of us will prefer to believe that this is the One Ring providing translation of foul tongues, while others will see this as happening in a different world entirely, where all creatures speak English. I don't really mind the first interpretation; but why couldn't he understand the Wargs' speech? If anything, Bilbo with his recent long wearing of the Ring was likely to understand the Wargs better than the spiders (as far as I remember, he hears their speech before putting the Ring on).
1. What would you (symbolically) make of a patch of midnight that had never been cleared away, made of sticky veils spun by monsters, right in the final part of Mirkwood that’s just beginning to reveal some light?
I don't quite know what to make of it symbolically, but it reminds me of Ungoliant's mantle of unlight, which she cast around Melkor and herself when they came to attack the Trees.
Just like the old argument whether Evil is an entity or an absence, the same applies to Darkness; is it the absence of light, or its opposite?
It is interesting, that with the spiders, Tolkien gives three different answers: Ungoliant's Unlight seems to be absorbing all light without reflecting any (a Black Hole, in a way); the spiders in the Hobbit darken the place with their webs, and unlight in their case would only be a simile; and Shelob's Lair is pitch-dark, worse than Moria - but because of the air not moving, which means the dark is an absence of light but enhanced by the numbing of another sense (well, not exactly numbing - the hobbits did feel the floor and walls of the tunnel).
In LotR, Tolkien saves this ambiguity for the concept of shadows - in his description of Mordor, the Nazgul, and possibly the Balrog (and his wings!) too.
2. Are the dwarves lucky that the last “man” standing happens to be Bilbo? Or unlucky? Explain your reasons.
Well, Bilbo is the luckiest person of the fellowship, so I guess it does serve to have him the last standing.
But does Middle-earth work by the rules of luck?
Perhaps it follows a different system - that of Fate? of Chance? Free Choice? The mysterious consequences of Good and Evil? indirect monitoring by God?
What system does our world follow?
3. Why do the spiders find these dwarves tough-hided enough to remark upon?
That's what dwarves are - creatures of stone, at least in their exterior.
Do you remember how the trolls simply hate the sight of uncooked dwarves? Do you think the are adverse to eating raw meat? Not the trolls I know!
I suppose dwarves are naturally tough, and stiff-necked in more than one way.
4. What does it say that Bombur still has some fight in him?
That the spiders didn't try to sting and poison the dwarves before binding them.
Maybe their sting is less potent than Shelob's, or because dwarves are so tough, the can't get deep enough under their hides.
So he picks up stones to chuck at the spiders. Shades of David and Goliath!
David wasn't invisible.
On the other hand, maybe the cigar is just a cigar. What else is Bilbo going to throw at the spiders?
The cigar's butt, still alight.
5. Bonus question: What might it mean to save your friends by flinging your core self at the forces ranked against them?
It's not the core self, it's a projection of the core self. The ability to project your self is a mighty power, and it behooves you to save your friends with it, if you can.
6. And how transformative is this moment for Bilbo, this moment when he finally turns the tables and rescues his friends! We usually think of the Philosopher’s Stone as changing lead into gold and mortals into immortals. Can you relate this in any way to the transformation that Bilbo here undergoes?
I always thought the Philosopher's stone was the proverbial stone which one fool threw down a well, and ten philosophers couldn't get out.
Anyway, no.
He first contemplated and decided to risk himself and rescue his friends after he escaped the Misty Mountains, and became a warrior when facing the first spider. So the Ring and Sting are more important. The stones are - well, just cigars.
7. Consider the courage it takes to deliberately make yourself a target so as to spare someone who, at the moment, is even more defenseless than yourself–even though these are people you normally consider better equipped for crisis. Do any parallels come to mind, in folklore, history, personal accounts or other sources?
But Bilbo is invisible! He is relatively safe.
8. What other talents do you think that our Bilbo might have?
Rewriting History! Note how well people believed the 'official' version of his encounter with Gollum for seventeen years, until FotR was published!
9. Invisible or not, just how much danger is Mr. Baggins in right now?
Quite a lot.
And what are his options?
None, really. Wander in the forest to starve, until the elves might pick him up?
10. Do you think that the dwarves would have done the same for Bilbo?
Yes, but with less success.
Can you explain why or why not?
They have no magic Ring.
And most important of all, does it matter?
For those anxious to see the core of the story as Bilbo's moral superiority to the dwarves, it does.
To those who prefer a more balanced view, it does - but far less.
11. Any symbolic thoughts on the spider onslaught and their sticky snares, trying to foil Bilbo’s attempt to rescue his friends?
I suspect Darkstone will come up with a few Biblical quotes about 'snares'; but I must point out that most English translators used 'snares' for what should rightfully be 'pitfalls' or even 'mantraps'.
12. Any ideas on the symbolism of Sting’s light that cannot be hid? (For my own part, I admire how he turned a strategic disadvantage to his purposes.)
Like his shadow.
"Don't start grumbling against orders, or something bad will happen to you." - Thorin
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FarFromHome
Doriath
May 17 2009, 10:39am
Post #21 of 33
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Well, I'll have a go at your (rhetorical?) questions, I mean...
Why do the spiders talk like proto-orcs with strongly lower-class colloquialisms like “Aye”, “I’ll wager”, “a bee-autiful sleep”, and “none too well of late”?
Indeed. All Tolkien's villains have a tendency to talk like small-time English thugs, don't they? Did he pick up the speech patterns in the trenches, maybe? Or is this just cartoon gangster-speak, like the stuff in Guy Ritchie films?
Why are the spiders never assigned a gender, when their descendant Shelob is one of Tolkien’s greatest female creations?
The default gender being male (in Tolkien and most traditional literature), I'd have to say that Tolkien hadn't yet thought of how much creepier a female version of these creatures would be. Although, with this being a children's book, he might have been uncomfortable using that concept anyway. Whether you see Shelob as a perversion of motherhood or of femaleness generally, she might be rather strong meat for children.
How can you hiss the line “Kill ‘em, I say” when reading aloud to children?
A sort of stage whisper should do it - and there is one sibilant, at least.
Are spiders really squishy enough to sound like a “flabby football” when kicked?
I love that comparison - especially because old-time footballs (read "soccer balls") often were flabby and underinflated, and gave off a wet, squishy sound when kicked (the balls were made of heavy leather and got very wet on the usually-wet grass they were kicked around on). A nice image for kids of that generation, who would all relate instantly to what this meant (harder today, though, with plastic-coated, perfectly inflated balls).
Why, or on what basis can we assert it, has no spider ever liked being called Attercop?
It's a joke. Along with the assertion that no-one at all likes being called Tomnoddy... Although I assume Tolkien knew what Attercop actually means. (I don't, but I assume the -cop is a variant of 'cob', an old word for spider (as in 'cobweb').
Why call them insects, for goodness sakes?
Seems that Tolkien doesn't care much for scientific distinctions. He's more interested in the way people actually think and speak (and fear), than in what objective observation tells us.
Where do the spiders get their collective intelligence, so that they almost entrap Bilbo through a coordinated but unspoken web-spinning strategy (“at least that was the spiders’ idea”)?
These seem to be a kind of combination between spiders and ants. I don't know whether spiders actually do work collectively, but I can see how people might imagine they do, based on the way their webs seem to combine into an almost-intelligent network, when you see them in the early morning, with the sun on the dew lighting up the details of the threadwork.
How could it be said that spiders’ eyes “pop” with rage, as if they had eyeballs in sockets?
There's more than one way to pop! I can imagine eyes on stalks popping too... It's all about the stalks bristling and stiffening, and the eyes seeming to expand, I think, when I try to pinpoint what I imagine.
Is the “old slow wicked fat-bodied spider” guarding the prisoners “wicked” in the context of Bilbo’s moral universe, or the spiders’, given that it is about to cheat its fellows out of the juiciest meat?
Both, I think. All the spiders are enemies, but this one is the most dishonorable of those enemies - the one who doesn't even obey the orders of its own side. Like
Grishnákh.
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Bilbo's Last Song
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FarFromHome
Doriath
May 17 2009, 6:39pm
Post #22 of 33
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Just to follow up on this point:
Why, or on what basis can we assert it, has no spider ever liked being called Attercop? It's a joke. Along with the assertion that no-one at all likes being called Tomnoddy... Although I assume Tolkien knew what Attercop actually means. (I don't, but I assume the -cop is a variant of 'cob', an old word for spider (as in 'cobweb').
I checked the OED, so now I know what Attercop means:
† 'attercop. Obs. or dial.
[OE. attorcoppa, f. átor, attor, poison + coppa, deriv. of cop top, summit, round head, or copp cup, vessel; in reference to the supposed venomous properties of spiders. Cf. also Du. spinne-cop ‘spider,’ and cob-web, formerly cop-webbe; whence it appears probable that the simple coppa was itself = ‘spider.’]
1. A spider.
2. fig. Applied to a venomous malignant person.
Just thought someone else might be interested!
It seems this is one of Tolkien's dry little philological jokes - after all, a spider shouldn't really mind being called 'attercop' if it just means 'spider', but if that spider knows Old English, he would also know that he's being called poisonous. Whether he really is poisonous or not, he's not going to take the accusation kindly - or so Tolkien likes to imagine. In fact, I'm sure Tolkien knew perfectly well that his child audience wouldn't know anything about any of this, and would be happy enough to take the narrator's humorous spider-lore at face value. )
Farewell, friends! I hear the call.
The ship’s beside the stony wall.
Foam is white and waves are grey;
beyond the sunset leads my way.
Bilbo's Last Song
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squire
Gondolin
May 17 2009, 7:02pm
Post #23 of 33
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"fig. Applied to a venomous malignant person" is the second OED definition.
If we take the spiders in this story as a kind of "people" (since they talk and enjoy a social life, like the wargs, eagles, etc.), we can imagine that they are taking Bilbo's insult in the second, perjorative, sense - the joke being that they are spiders, so that the literal first definition is actually accurate! You might say that no talking evil-minded spider has ever enjoyed being reminded that it is, after all, just a spider.
It is interesting to think that "Attercop" is something you might say to insult the Necromancer.
squire online:
RR Discussions: The Valaquenta, A Shortcut to Mushrooms, and Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit
Lights! Action! Discuss on the Movie board!: 'A Journey in the Dark'. and 'Designing The Two Towers'.
Footeramas: The 3rd TORn Reading Room LotR Discussion; and "Tolkien would have LOVED it!"
squiretalk introduces the J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia: A Reader's Diary
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Dreamdeer
Doriath
May 17 2009, 11:55pm
Post #24 of 33
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Since clearly the dwarves were pretty sick after being freed, I think we can safely say that they were poisoned. But her Bombur's size might have left him stronger than the others, in the same way that a heavier person needs a stronger presecription than a light one.
Life is beautiful and dangerous! Beware! Enjoy!
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
May 18 2009, 8:26pm
Post #25 of 33
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I suspect Darkstone will come up with a few Biblical quotes about 'snares'; but I must point out that most English translators used 'snares' for what should rightfully be 'pitfalls' or even 'mantraps'.
How about:
"The spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces."
-Proverbs 30:28
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The audacious proposal stirred his heart. And the stirring became a song, and it mingled with the songs of Gil-galad and Celebrian, and with those of Feanor and Fingon. The song-weaving created a larger song, and then another, until suddenly it was as if a long forgotten memory woke and for one breathtaking moment the Music of the Ainur revealed itself in all glory. He opened his lips to sing and share this song. Then he realized that the others would not understand. Not even Mithrandir given his current state of mind. So he smiled and simply said "A diversion.”
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