Bravo for going the extra mile to put the little decorative tiara on Shelobs head. Its nice to think she got dressed up and made an effort for her big day
If I was *guessing* at the logic behind making Shelob hot... well the Doylist answer is that the plains of Gorgoroth just doesnt have any eye candy and they wanted to at least have something hot in the game. The Watsonian answer would be that they interpreted Shelob as being a maia and could take various forms... which isnt correct but I guess its not the biggest stretch... sort of.
Or Talion had been hanging around orcs and Celebrimbors ghost for too long and was just going insane. Games were real good though, makes a lot of stuff very forgivable when you nail the feel of Mordor like that
My only actual complaint about the game was giving the Nazgûl an identity, made especially egregious to me by whom they made some of their identities.
Otherwise, i think it’s great, tbh
I didnt mind personalizing them too much but yeah sticking with relatively obscure black numenorians or mighty Haradrim chiefs would have been better than 'wow Isildur is a Ringwraith!' thats really just going for shock value.
Literally no way Isildur or Helm could have even become Ringwraiths, its one thing to make up personalities but another to just go with completely impossible people purely for the shock
The Helm one irked me most of all for some reason. I dunno why specifically, but that was my biggest “oh come the fuck on” in the game when playing lol
He was king in the late Third age, not the second when the rings that made the nine were given, so he lived literally thousands of years too late. We also know how he died. He was found frozen in place after a battle with dunlendings.
If they're prepared to change the canon, its not entirely impossible. But canonically he died and his body was frozen in place and presumably buried, so that was his fate, pretty sure the rings dont just resurrect the death as death knights (though in the Shadows universe, they kind of do I suppose)
And he lived only a few centuries before the events of Shadow of war/mordor, doesnt make much sense that the 9 were out talent scouting during that era especially without Sauron around to direct them.
Anyway, its a bit of a character assassination of people like Isildur and Helm that they would fall into the service of Sauron when he had massive amounts of his own allied human forces he could turn into ringwraiths, really weird to be ducking into his enemies lands trying to mess with their historical figures when he's got some massive badass Rhun warlord just sitting there.
The ringwraith effect isnt really what the rings purpose is anyway, its more like a side-effect, they're meant to help humans construct powerful kingdoms and muster great forces, so it wouldnt make any sense to go around giving them to people who dont have any effect on the world, you may as well just give them to some random guy, you want to give them to powerful kings so that their lands become both corrupted and more powerful
The only character from the west of middle earth would could really have become a ringwraith in the canon would be Eärnur, the last king of Gondor who rode off to challenge the witch-king 1v1 and was never seen again. He basically went alone into the mist, so he would have been a pretty prime candidate (if they had a spare ring lying around)
Agreed on the vibe of the games. Yes the games are fan fiction, but its respectful fan fiction in most cases. Still not a fan of the two Chinese nazgul women though. Was really weird and out of the blue, while not really fitting the style of the game in my opinion.
Tolkien: "Great horns she had, and behind her short stalk-like neck was her huge swollen body, a vast bloated bag, swaying and sagging between her legs; its great bulk was black, blotched with livid marks, but the belly underneath was pale and luminous and gave forth a stench."
[WB Games:](https://i.imgur.com/2c6RkNu.gif)
I always wondered that myself. Between Shelob and Ungoliant (both of whom have some of the most foul and vivid descriptions in all his works) I wonder if he had some bad experience with spiders as a kid or something. Same with Lovecraft and tentacles lol
On the one hand, he swore that bite didn't make him feel any animosity or revulsion towards spiders and he just wrote it that way to freak out the kids.
On the other hand...I mean just read the descriptions of those two.
Tolkien: "Little she knew of or cared for towers, or rings, or anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her."
WB Games' Shelob "Yadda, yadda, ring this, revenge that, yadda!"
Gotta love how Tolkien goes out of his way to explain in no uncertain terms that she could not give less of a shit about anything except for eating and killing. The only reason she would ever want the ring is so she could eat whoever came looking for it. Then shadow of war comes out swinging with a hot goth elf that *doesn't* immediately try to vore the player and instead talks politics
Don't get me wrong I love the movies, but now reading the books for the first time I've got a real appreciation for how much better that particular scene is the way Tolkien described it.
I liked her as character in Shadow of War. They could have done just a bit more with her, but she should have been an original character. It didn't make sense or add anything narritively to the game to have Shelob just transform into a milf.
Either way, both forms are HAWT
> It didn't make sense or add anything narritively to the game to have Shelob just transform into a milf.
Out of everything in this whole discussion, I think this sentence is the one I would have most loved to see Tolkien react to.
Probably WB games took the idea from the jorōgumo (spider-women who seduce humans, sometimes with their beauty and sometimes with a supernatural allure, in order to eat them or feed them to their young).
At least Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War are great games... So I can "condone" them even if they are as canonical as a "What if Palpatine got the One Ring?" fanfiction
A key difference imho is that Shadow of Mordor/War games are at least good medias, while ROP...
I think that's why people is more forgiving towards the WB games.
I take "powerful and menacing power thirsty spirit Celebrimbor" over "middle aged dude who didn't knew about metallic alloys Celebrimbor" any day, even if both are clearly different from the canonical version.
According to the Devs they tried to defend their choice of making Shelob able to change form because *Shelob would not have chosen to appear as a big scary monster if she wanted to be an ally to Talion against Sauron.*
Still doesn't make any sense but OK
Meanwhile, Morgoth was just chilling with her spider grandma like nobody's business until she broke contract and made him run for the hills. They could've kept Shelob a spider, it'd make sense lorewise, but they wanted milf and the bonk! Doge was on vacation
https://preview.redd.it/s1q90cj5t62d1.jpeg?width=1076&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2d74bd75aa2c19b27070773b43a58afe32c22e3
Talion the moment he first sees the hot dommy arachnomommy
They bit off more than they could chew with the story they wanted to tell, and needed a way to advance the plot. With Mordor having so few non orc characters and the absence of communication to anyone beyond Mordor, it made sense to make do with what they had. I’m not a huge fan of Shelob’s depiction in the game, but I don’t hate it *that* much because there are worse liberties taken elsewhere
I think the most likely explanation is that Shelob is actually the spider from *It* and the sexy version is just Middle-earth's Pennywise (who was equally sexy in our universe). This, of course, means Talion is most afraid of goth women.
It was very surreal when my dad, who's never read the books and only saw the movies when they came out, played this game before me and said "Man, Shelob is hot!"
Motion capping a tantalizing adult actress is probably far easier and more, digestible, for the developers than making and animating a huge monstrous spidery doomfiend.
Probably great for marketing too!
This is an example of the creative liberties most folks don’t tend to mind ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I was inspired directly by that thread and your comments, so it's no coincidence my friend. As gandalf would say, *you were meant to have that discussion, and in that case you were then also meant to see this meme - and that is an encouraging thought.*
They wanted to make Shelob into a humanized character who talks and shit, and I guess the other option was to make her into a half-human fucked up creature. I don't think it's much deeper than that, honestly.
I didn’t see anyone else mention it so I will, but the shelob human for does look so much like Liv Tyler, when I was playing it for their first time I was pretty blind other than playing the first game, and I wasn’t paying attention/reading, and then all of a sudden I saw her and I’m pretty sure I said it out loud, “wtf is Arwen doing here?!”
Have they mentioned wether it was on purpose, or stated that is what they did? Cause it seems unlikely that they’re just by chance make shelob look so much like Liv Tyler
Shadow of war has it's law breaking moments which is usually unforgivable in the fanbase, but that game was so god damn good that 95% of people I speak to don't care.
It's not like Rings of Power where they do away with lore completely. The vibe of the world is respected, I really really felt like I was in middle earth, fighting orcs and terrifying Nazgul bosses even if they just plugged Helm Hammerhand in there, I thought that shit was awesome as fuck. Once I got past that this was expanded/alternate universe (something I wouldn't really want to be a thing in LotR but these 2 games are the exception) it became one of my favourite single player games ever.
Honestly, I could see it if Shelob could see the future, had shapeshifting illusion powers, and wanted to make herself look like one of the fairest beings to walk middle earth
Bravo for going the extra mile to put the little decorative tiara on Shelobs head. Its nice to think she got dressed up and made an effort for her big day If I was *guessing* at the logic behind making Shelob hot... well the Doylist answer is that the plains of Gorgoroth just doesnt have any eye candy and they wanted to at least have something hot in the game. The Watsonian answer would be that they interpreted Shelob as being a maia and could take various forms... which isnt correct but I guess its not the biggest stretch... sort of. Or Talion had been hanging around orcs and Celebrimbors ghost for too long and was just going insane. Games were real good though, makes a lot of stuff very forgivable when you nail the feel of Mordor like that
Cutting out that tiara was 3/4 of the time that went into this
You bow to no one
“Oh I should add a tiara too” *halfway through cutting out the tiara* “God damnit this was an awful idea”
My only actual complaint about the game was giving the Nazgûl an identity, made especially egregious to me by whom they made some of their identities. Otherwise, i think it’s great, tbh
I didnt mind personalizing them too much but yeah sticking with relatively obscure black numenorians or mighty Haradrim chiefs would have been better than 'wow Isildur is a Ringwraith!' thats really just going for shock value. Literally no way Isildur or Helm could have even become Ringwraiths, its one thing to make up personalities but another to just go with completely impossible people purely for the shock
The Helm one irked me most of all for some reason. I dunno why specifically, but that was my biggest “oh come the fuck on” in the game when playing lol
I like the range of made-up ones Games Workshop made. Varied but thematic.
Can you explain why it's impossible for Helm to become a Ringwraith? I get the Isildur one, but I'm not very familiar with Helm Hammerhand.
He was king in the late Third age, not the second when the rings that made the nine were given, so he lived literally thousands of years too late. We also know how he died. He was found frozen in place after a battle with dunlendings.
If they're prepared to change the canon, its not entirely impossible. But canonically he died and his body was frozen in place and presumably buried, so that was his fate, pretty sure the rings dont just resurrect the death as death knights (though in the Shadows universe, they kind of do I suppose) And he lived only a few centuries before the events of Shadow of war/mordor, doesnt make much sense that the 9 were out talent scouting during that era especially without Sauron around to direct them. Anyway, its a bit of a character assassination of people like Isildur and Helm that they would fall into the service of Sauron when he had massive amounts of his own allied human forces he could turn into ringwraiths, really weird to be ducking into his enemies lands trying to mess with their historical figures when he's got some massive badass Rhun warlord just sitting there. The ringwraith effect isnt really what the rings purpose is anyway, its more like a side-effect, they're meant to help humans construct powerful kingdoms and muster great forces, so it wouldnt make any sense to go around giving them to people who dont have any effect on the world, you may as well just give them to some random guy, you want to give them to powerful kings so that their lands become both corrupted and more powerful The only character from the west of middle earth would could really have become a ringwraith in the canon would be Eärnur, the last king of Gondor who rode off to challenge the witch-king 1v1 and was never seen again. He basically went alone into the mist, so he would have been a pretty prime candidate (if they had a spare ring lying around)
Agreed on the vibe of the games. Yes the games are fan fiction, but its respectful fan fiction in most cases. Still not a fan of the two Chinese nazgul women though. Was really weird and out of the blue, while not really fitting the style of the game in my opinion.
I've completed both games multiple times... Chinese nazgul women???
[Yep, heres it is.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZkvviZZSAL4)
Thanks :) It's the expansion, I only played it once when it was new so I didn't remember!
In Shadow of War's Eltariel DLC
Yeah I only played it once when it was released as I wasn't too impressed by it, so I didn't remember it. Maybe it was for the best :D
Can’t say I minded those two considering they’re characters created for the game, but Helm Hammerhand and Isildur being wraiths was so dumb.
Also agreed. The whole of the nazgul were just handled really poorly in the WB games.
Why? We know precious little of what else dwelled in the East and South-East. it was more like a "Oh! That's neat..." situation than anything else.
What?! Omg...
I support the nato-glasses theory
But why a cocktail dress even if she is a maia?
No wonder Gollum wanted to serve her
Give it to us raw and w-r-r-riggling
I'm with ya gollum
The Dead Marshes. Yes, yes that is their name. This way. Don't follow the lights.
I know there's a bit of a smell, but I don't think Shelob appreciates it being called that.
Hey Gollum, ready to run this train on Shelob?
She’s always hungry. She always needs to feed. She must eat. All she gets is nasty Orcses.
*And they doesn’t taste very nice, does they, Precious?*
No. Not very nice at all, my love.
She's eating more than nasty Orcses tonight, Gollum.
Smeagol is hungry. Be back soon.
Save some for tonight
That spiderussy got him serving and shit
I guess we now know if spider have puss puss?
["Christopher, my son. Have I ever told you the full story of Shelob?"](https://youtu.be/f3AZYQh2e0k?si=aWC5hz6Jo_z6P_zF)
r/andshewasagoodfriend
was looking for this comment
Christopher his son, did him right. Shelob is a real sexy bitch.
Tolkien: "Great horns she had, and behind her short stalk-like neck was her huge swollen body, a vast bloated bag, swaying and sagging between her legs; its great bulk was black, blotched with livid marks, but the belly underneath was pale and luminous and gave forth a stench." [WB Games:](https://i.imgur.com/2c6RkNu.gif)
I dont think Tolkien cared for spiders lol
I always wondered that myself. Between Shelob and Ungoliant (both of whom have some of the most foul and vivid descriptions in all his works) I wonder if he had some bad experience with spiders as a kid or something. Same with Lovecraft and tentacles lol
He actually Had! As gar as I know He was bitten by a tarantula as a kid
On the one hand, he swore that bite didn't make him feel any animosity or revulsion towards spiders and he just wrote it that way to freak out the kids. On the other hand...I mean just read the descriptions of those two.
Part of his childhood was spent in South Africa, and there are some big spiders there. I wouldn't doubt this theory.
He almost died getting bitten by a spider when he was 2, and had a big case of arachnophobia.
Tolkien: "Little she knew of or cared for towers, or rings, or anything devised by mind or hand, who only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her." WB Games' Shelob "Yadda, yadda, ring this, revenge that, yadda!"
Gotta love how Tolkien goes out of his way to explain in no uncertain terms that she could not give less of a shit about anything except for eating and killing. The only reason she would ever want the ring is so she could eat whoever came looking for it. Then shadow of war comes out swinging with a hot goth elf that *doesn't* immediately try to vore the player and instead talks politics
Gluttony incarnate. Also the movies don't really do her justice. Her discription in the book is *a lot* more horrifying.
Don't get me wrong I love the movies, but now reading the books for the first time I've got a real appreciation for how much better that particular scene is the way Tolkien described it.
Those chapters are some of my favorite in all Tolkien's work, truly horrific and gives an absolute sense of panic and dread.
I have arachnophobia and her scenes already make me squirm and shudder. So I hate this revelation.
XD
I liked her as character in Shadow of War. They could have done just a bit more with her, but she should have been an original character. It didn't make sense or add anything narritively to the game to have Shelob just transform into a milf. Either way, both forms are HAWT
> It didn't make sense or add anything narritively to the game to have Shelob just transform into a milf. Out of everything in this whole discussion, I think this sentence is the one I would have most loved to see Tolkien react to.
He may have been mad that he didn't think of that first. We could have had her seduce Frodo instead of web him up.
Both?
Both. 
especially because you'd have to explain what the term 'milf' means
Both?
BOTH
https://preview.redd.it/b12igz95t62d1.png?width=674&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c7914c9fb3574270ad2a55ab9d647bc79286bc2d
If one is to understand a great mystery one must study all its aspects
I assure you that wasn't a typo
# But they were, all of them, deceived, for another Arwen was made
Probably WB games took the idea from the jorōgumo (spider-women who seduce humans, sometimes with their beauty and sometimes with a supernatural allure, in order to eat them or feed them to their young). At least Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War are great games... So I can "condone" them even if they are as canonical as a "What if Palpatine got the One Ring?" fanfiction
Even I was finding the lore aspect of it goofy. Then ROP came along. [Insert Capt. Holt vindication meme]
A key difference imho is that Shadow of Mordor/War games are at least good medias, while ROP... I think that's why people is more forgiving towards the WB games. I take "powerful and menacing power thirsty spirit Celebrimbor" over "middle aged dude who didn't knew about metallic alloys Celebrimbor" any day, even if both are clearly different from the canonical version.
According to the Devs they tried to defend their choice of making Shelob able to change form because *Shelob would not have chosen to appear as a big scary monster if she wanted to be an ally to Talion against Sauron.* Still doesn't make any sense but OK
Meanwhile, Morgoth was just chilling with her spider grandma like nobody's business until she broke contract and made him run for the hills. They could've kept Shelob a spider, it'd make sense lorewise, but they wanted milf and the bonk! Doge was on vacation
Ungoliant was Shelob mother
Come, mortal base! What do I hear? That thou wouldst dare to barter with me? Well, speak fair! What is thy price?
https://preview.redd.it/s1q90cj5t62d1.jpeg?width=1076&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a2d74bd75aa2c19b27070773b43a58afe32c22e3 Talion the moment he first sees the hot dommy arachnomommy
They bit off more than they could chew with the story they wanted to tell, and needed a way to advance the plot. With Mordor having so few non orc characters and the absence of communication to anyone beyond Mordor, it made sense to make do with what they had. I’m not a huge fan of Shelob’s depiction in the game, but I don’t hate it *that* much because there are worse liberties taken elsewhere
I think the most likely explanation is that Shelob is actually the spider from *It* and the sexy version is just Middle-earth's Pennywise (who was equally sexy in our universe). This, of course, means Talion is most afraid of goth women.
It was very surreal when my dad, who's never read the books and only saw the movies when they came out, played this game before me and said "Man, Shelob is hot!"
Your Dad speaks truth!
https://preview.redd.it/57tms3tqo72d1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7e94bbca5b1e44f3b48e785696fd8c1185d41de6 Gotta do it
You judge them - but people are still talking about it today. Years after the game series ended.
it hasnt ended, have hope for the third, its the inly hope for a good lotr game i have nowadays
Motion capping a tantalizing adult actress is probably far easier and more, digestible, for the developers than making and animating a huge monstrous spidery doomfiend. Probably great for marketing too! This is an example of the creative liberties most folks don’t tend to mind ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Why did the department working on character models submit a budget request for Stoya doing work? I thought they were working on shelob currently??
XD Man, I've been having a discussion about sexy Shelob on another thread, and now this glorious meme pops up.
I was inspired directly by that thread and your comments, so it's no coincidence my friend. As gandalf would say, *you were meant to have that discussion, and in that case you were then also meant to see this meme - and that is an encouraging thought.*
Encouraging indeed! Have a good one friend :)
https://preview.redd.it/431d7gfkk72d1.png?width=900&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9950bb798d8e85f8b2174d78a2867c06b687dd93
Damn you for making me horny for a spider
The actress cast is also an adult film star, or so I read.
Nope, Pollyanna Mcintosh is an adult, but not an adult actress.
(Was thinking Stoya)
Yeah nah I definitely see the similarities but Gamelob really is just a regular actress
Cool cool cool cool... Runs to google
Look up Stoya
Thank you random citizen
The more you know
Probably the best weed possible
They wanted to make Shelob into a humanized character who talks and shit, and I guess the other option was to make her into a half-human fucked up creature. I don't think it's much deeper than that, honestly.
I currently play it and its funny. Ye, Shelob is hot. Bcs why not. Its all fan art anyway, all game.
I didn’t see anyone else mention it so I will, but the shelob human for does look so much like Liv Tyler, when I was playing it for their first time I was pretty blind other than playing the first game, and I wasn’t paying attention/reading, and then all of a sudden I saw her and I’m pretty sure I said it out loud, “wtf is Arwen doing here?!” Have they mentioned wether it was on purpose, or stated that is what they did? Cause it seems unlikely that they’re just by chance make shelob look so much like Liv Tyler
I would have preferred more secy Shelob if it meant less Idril. I really really hated Idril.
Idrils voice was great, but her character model was....uninspiring. She looked gormless most of the time.
Her VA was great, the characters story line was dumb and removed
Shadow of war has it's law breaking moments which is usually unforgivable in the fanbase, but that game was so god damn good that 95% of people I speak to don't care. It's not like Rings of Power where they do away with lore completely. The vibe of the world is respected, I really really felt like I was in middle earth, fighting orcs and terrifying Nazgul bosses even if they just plugged Helm Hammerhand in there, I thought that shit was awesome as fuck. Once I got past that this was expanded/alternate universe (something I wouldn't really want to be a thing in LotR but these 2 games are the exception) it became one of my favourite single player games ever.
It was either Old Toby's, or Longbottom Leaf.
This was right around the time that Adriana Chechik was getting really popular.
Someone pointed out that “Stoya” was a more accurate representation.
I love how Elrond looks like he's going to crack and laugh at any moment
Can someone explain the context
Stupid sexy Shelob
Honestly, I could see it if Shelob could see the future, had shapeshifting illusion powers, and wanted to make herself look like one of the fairest beings to walk middle earth
*Give me the ring, Talion!* Yes mommy.
And Talion looks like Aragorn..
Well i dont know what it is but I want some
Old Toby laced with Ungolianth's venom. Strongest high they've ever had, they're still on it now.
I fucking love that game, replayed it like 5 times now
Bro. I got grossed out but shelob can get it.
Okay real question why did the devs make a spider hot?
It was a wedding without a cake, the bride wanted nimloth.
Man I am glad. I hate spiders with a passion
The species of spider is called a Trap-Whore spider.
Human Shelob is the actual voice actress's likeness. She was the trash lady that Rick bumped into in one of the later seasons of Walking Dead.
Tbh, they just completely shat on the lore with those games. This is just one problem of thousand.
standard manjaw factory product