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Treebeard
An ancient and insatiable creature in the shape of a giant spider, Shelob lives in the tunnels near Cirith Ungol, where Sauron allows her to remain as a guard for a secret path into Mordor. Gollum, who occasionally brings her food, leads Sam and Frodo into her lair, planning to let her kill the hobbits and then to take the Ring from Frodo’s body. Though Shelob has never before been mortally injured, Sam manages to stab her with an elf blade and drive her back into her lair with the help of Galadriel’s phial.
Shelob Quotes in The Two Towers
The The Two Towers quotes below are all either spoken by Shelob or refer to Shelob. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 4, Chapter 10 Quotes
Even as Sam himself crouched, looking at her, seeing his death in her eyes, a thought came to him, as if some remote voice had spoken, and he fumbled in his breast with his left hand, and found what he sought: cold and hard and solid it seemed to his touch in a phantom world of horror, the Phial of Galadriel.
[…]
As if his indomitable spirit had set its potency in motion, the glass blazed suddenly like a white torch in his hand.
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Get the entire The Two Towers LitChart as a printable PDF.
Shelob Character Timeline in The Two Towers
The timeline below shows where the character Shelob appears in The Two Towers. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 4, Chapter 9
...tunnel is the only way to go, but doesn’t tell them its name, Torech Ungol, Shelob’s Lair. Sam guesses that it’s some sort of orc lair, filled with their filth, but...
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But Shelob, “an evil thing in spider-form” has many exits from her lair. No one knows how...
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On the road with Frodo, Gollum often considered bringing the hobbits to Shelob, letting her eat them, then picking through their clothes and bones for the Ring. Once...
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Sam doesn’t know anything about Shelob except the fact that he’s so afraid that it’s hard to run. There’s dread all...
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...Sam’s mouth and pulls him backwards off his feet, hissing “got him!” and gloating that Shelob will eat him. Desperation gives Sam the strength to fight back and eventually tear himself...
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...forgetting everything but his rage, but Gollum is gone. Suddenly, he remembers the monstrous spider Shelob and runs back, shouting for Frodo. He’s too late, and Gollum’s plan is succeeding.
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Book 4, Chapter 10
Shelob looms over Frodo, who is bound up in silk cords, lifting him with her forelegs...
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Sam is now directly beneath Shelob, out of reach of her claws. He slashes at her underbelly “with desperate strength,” but...
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...Watching Frodo’s face, Sam eventually drags himself out of his daze. He looks back at Shelob, injured and crouching to spring on him again. As Sam faces her, a thought comes...
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Sam shouts at Shelob that she’s hurt his master and she’ll pay for it. The phial of Galadriel blazes...
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...already carried his body away. Sam follows, listening as Gorbag and Shagrat speak briefly of Shelob, then mention that they have something that Sauron wants. The orcs pass through the tunnel...
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Shagrat, who was supposed to be guarding the stairs, saw strange lights, as well as Shelob and her “sneak,” Gollum. Shagrat thought that Gollum, who is allowed to pass through Cirith...
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...prisoner needs to be safe, and Shagrat calls him a fool for not realizing that Shelob doesn’t eat dead meat. Frodo is alive.
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...shouldn’t trust his head because it “isn’t the best part” of him. Shagrat explains that Shelob paralyzes her victims, meaning Frodo will wake up in a few hours, and insists that...
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...uses the light to see that the stone, which is probably only meant to keep Shelob out, has a small open space at the top. Finding new energy now that he...
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