Editing Ungoliant (section)

== Analysis ==

{{further|Tolkien's monsters|Hell and Middle-earth}}

[[File:Satan and Death with Sin Intervening John Henry Fuseli (Johann Heinrich Fussli) (Switzerland, Zurich, active England, 1741-1825) Switzerland, 1799-1800.jpg|thumb|upright=0.9|The story of Ungoliant and [[Morgoth]] has been likened to Milton's ''[[Paradise Lost]]'', where Death is the ever-hungry child of [[Satan]].<ref name="Drout2006"/> Painting of Satan, Sin, and Death by [[Henry Fuseli]], 1800 ]]

According to the Tolkien scholar John Wm. Houghton, the story of Ungoliant and [[Morgoth]] is comparable to the account in [[John Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' in which [[Sin]] conceives a child, Death, by [[Satan]]. Both Sin and Death are always hungry; Satan says he will feed them, and leads them to the world.<ref name="Drout2006">{{Cite encyclopedia |last=Houghton |first=John Wm. |date=2013 |editor=Michael D. C. Drout |title=Ungoliant |encyclopedia=[[J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia]]: Scholarship and Critical Assessment |publisher=Routledge |page=687 |isbn=978-1-135-88033-0}}</ref>

Joe Abbott, writing in ''[[Mythlore]]'', comments that Ungoliant and Shelob are similar monsters, "product of a singular concept".{{sfn|Abbott|1989}} He observes that they are [[Jötunn|female giants]], something found in Northern folklore. Those are not usually in spider form, but he notes an early Icelandic example where "the Devil appears as a spider and has his leg cut off".{{sfn|Abbott|1989}}<ref>{{cite book |last=Boberg |first=Inger M. |author-link=Inger Margrethe Boberg |title=[[Motif-Index of Folk-Literature]] |location=Copenhagen |publisher=Rosenkilde and Bagger |year=1966 |at=G303.3.3.4.2 }}</ref> On Ungoliant's race, he notes Tolkien's remark in ''The Theft of Melko'' (in ''[[The Book of Lost Tales]]'') that "Mayhap she was bred of mists and darkness on the confines of the Shadowy seas, in the utter dark that came between the overthrow of the Lamps and the kindling of the Trees, but ''more like she has always been'' [Abbott's italics]; and she it is who loveth still to dwell in that black place ''taking the guise'' of an unlovely spider."{{sfn|Abbott|1989}}<ref name="Theft of Melko" group=T/> He draws attention to Tolkien's suggestions that Ungoliant has always existed and that she is simply choosing to appear (in the "guise") as a spider, and states that this means she must be an immortal [[Maia (Tolkien)|Maia]], a spirit-being able to take on physical form.{{sfn|Abbott|1989}} He offers the parallel of Nott ("Night"), an Icelandic female giant in the "Gilfaginning" in the ''[[Prose Edda]]'' of [[Snorri Sturluson]]. Nott was dark, like all her kindred, just as Ungoliant and all her brood dwell in and "personify" darkness.{{sfn|Abbott|1989}}

In ''Mythlore'', Candice Fredrick and Sam McBride write that Ungoliant and the lesser spider [[Shelob]] signify purely irrational evil, "wholly preoccupied with their own lusts; they operate on the pleasure principle."<ref name="Fredrick McBride 2007"/> They contrast this with the Dark Lords Melkor and Sauron, who, while also wholly evil, possess the power of rational thought, "evil guided by rationality".<ref name="Fredrick McBride 2007"/> Thus, Melkor can think long-term, exploiting other beings to achieve his goals, whereas Ungoliant chooses "instant gratification".<ref name="Fredrick McBride 2007"/> They further assert that the spiders' irrationality required Tolkien to make them female, while the Dark Lords' analytical thought identified them as male.<ref name="Fredrick McBride 2007">{{cite journal |last1=Fredrick |first1=Candice |last2=McBride |first2=Sam |title=Battling the woman warrior: females and combat in Tolkien and Lewis |journal=[[Mythlore]] |volume=25 |issue=3/4 |year=2007 |pages=29-42 |url=https://dc.swosu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1237&context=mythlore}}</ref>

In a version of ''Of the Darkening of Valinor'' written after ''[[The Lord of the Rings]]'', and not included in ''The Silmarillion'', Tolkien added that "[Ungoliantë] would not dare the perils of Aman, or the power of the dreadful Lords, without a great reward; for she feared the eyes of Manwë and Varda more even than the wrath of Melkor."<ref group=T>{{harvnb|Tolkien|1993|loc="Of the Darkening of Valinor" (p. 285)}}</ref> Kristine Larsen, in ''[[Mallorn (journal)|Mallorn]]'', comments that this mention of [[Varda (Middle-earth)|Varda]]'s power over the great spider is unique.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Larsen |first=Kristine |title=(V) Arda Marred-The Evolution of the Queen of the Stars |journal=[[Mallorn (journal)|Mallorn]] |issue=45 |year=2008 |pp=31-37 |jstor=48614618 |url=https://journals.tolkiensociety.org/mallorn/article/download/103/97}}</ref>