A bunch of people went frothing at the mouth insane before the game was released. Then once the game was released, most people stopped talking about it because a mix of anger about loot boxes and (f they actually played the game) a realization that Shelob was not actually some hyper sexualized love interest.
In the game lore, shelob is not to my knowledge showing her true form when she is shown as a human. It is a constructed form. Why then would she make her constructed form non conventionally attractive?
I understand if you hate it because it kind of butchers the lore, but the whole “sexy Shelob” thing is kind of silly given that she is pretty clearly more than “just a pretty face.”
Also, i don’t think it has happened in Tolkien to my knowledge/memory, but it is extremely common in western fantasy for extremely intelligent monsters that can cast magic to take human forms.
She’s not really sexy. And maybe the devs felt like they needed to add a woman because it’s LoTR and there are hardly any women except like that one elf. They even had to add a woman to the Hobbit movies. (And yeah they sucked but not because of the woman.)
That’s actually a great point, Balasarius. Tolkien’s world is soooo dude-centric, shouldn’t we actually applaud Warner and Monolith for introducing strong female characters, even if it does feel like clumsy lore management?
I don’t recall, but did anyone balk about Miranda Otto’s role in the first hobbit movies, where she usurped Pippin’s (or was it Merry’s) Witch King kill? And isn’t it kind of cool that Liv Tyler got to do the whole river spell that washes away all the Ring Wraiths? And that Galadriel is sort of the overarching narrator? Frankly, I could use more strong female characters in my hobbit mythology!
Yeah in the books it was a tag team of Merry disabling him, and Eowyn giving the kill shot. And rolling Glorfindel into Arwen was a good call for many reasons. Giving more importance to female characters, and reducing the number of named characters (one of whom has no real role outside of that) definitely chief among them.
But the underlying charge is totally fair, for the most part the women in Tolkiens universe exist in the background, are passive to the story. There are examples where this is not true, more so in the extended works, but if I had to put a number? Probably no more than 10% of the narrative is driven by women, and that is probably a tad generous. More women in active roles in the story? Totally a good objective. Making Shelob be that woman in this manner is what irks me.
But for me it is the accumulation of many factors that ultimately turn me off of the game, without regard for the play experience. That I basically won’t be able to play any games until Christmas anyhow seals it. By the time I get back into the country there will be so many other games I want to play that skipping this because of loot boxes, Shelob, the tone deaf teaser with orc bling, more lore buchery, etc etc etc, is the right call for me.
Anyone know how the potion timers work? I got an experience boost potion in a chest after completing a Vendetta mission, and the timer on it lasts for two hours. But I don’t if the timer keeps counting down after I close the game, or if it’s just based on my time in the in-game world. I don’t typically play two hours in one sitting, so I’d like to know if I’ll just end up wasting what I don’t immediately use.
The game has improved some once I managed to get the hell out of that terrible city where they start players (every minute I spent there just frustrated me more). Unfortunately the next map is just a series of corridors, so I’m desperate to get out a bigger wide-open map like the first game offered. Right now the maps are just horrible, but the combat is pretty good. I don’t find the loot and gem system interesting at all, but maybe I haven’t discovered anything interesting yet. I do have a couple weapons that ignite enemies, but I already unlocked a skill that does that for free, so these items aren’t crucial to anything I’m doing right now.
I no longer regret buying the game, but I do wish I had waited for a sale.
P.S. I don’t care about the LOTR theme or lore (I just like it because it’s an Arkham Asylumish murder simulator), so I don’t mind when they crap all over it. I have no stake in the Shelob race, so it doesn’t bother me that she’s not an actual spider the whole time.
Oh yea, I also have this screenshot. Unfortunately it was difficult to get this at a good angle, but I noticed every time my character hangs off a ledge, his ass turns around backwards, his legs get tangled up, and his feet shoot through his body. Pretty horrific in motion, not that crazy looking in a static imagine though.
OK, now that I’m at a real keyboard here’s the thing: Tolkien was often very vague about the origins, nature or capabilities of certain entities. Like Tom Bombadil or Entwives. Hell, he never really settled on where orcs came from. Ungoliant is another one. Her nature is never fully explained. She’s not a Maiar, she’s not a creation of Melkor. She just is, and is terrifyingly powerful.
He did write at one point she chose the form of a Spider. So I don’t think it’s lore breaking to speculate her offspring Shelob would possess certain powers not before revealed, including the ability to appear human, whether through an illusion or actual shape shifting. In the game she’s an interested third party with her own goals and motivations and she’s manipulating Talion to get what she wants. To that end adopting a human form that I would describe as beautiful rather than “sexy” helps facilitate that.
On the other hand Tolkien was pretty explicit about when Minas Ithil fell and how long it had been Minas Morgul so I’d consider rewriting the history of the region a larger liberty than expanding on the capabilities of a character with only vaguely defined powers.
I am not being the least bit facetious when I say I love indepth Tolkien nerd discussions. You guys are way more interesting than Star Trek nerds, or Dr. Who nerds, or George RR Martin nerds (Star Trek nerds are the worst).
Ungoliant could be Ainur, she just wasn’t listed, but Tolkien stated he never listed all of them. And it’s the most likely answer for where a creature with the ability to devour the Light of the Two Trees and thus become so powerful even Melkor grew afraid of her would’ve came from. And Morgoth likely would’ve died had his valaraukar not heard his cry and intervened; nothing listed anywhere else had that amount of power.
Everything goes back to the music. I would argue Ungoliant actually IS among the Ainur who took the form of a giant spider in Arda, so effectively a Maia even if never made explicit. During the music of the Ainur, Melkor’s discord brought many Ainur to his side. This is simply one of many. Sauron is just the most noteworthy.
But there is no basis whatsoever that offspring of Maia inherent their parental powers, be it Shelob, literally all the spiders of Mirkwood, or Luthien. We are also dealing with a time difference of several thousand years. The only maia in Middle-earth during the 3rd Age are the Istari, some Balrog who escaped the War of Wrath, and Sauron. (arguably Tom Bombadil) and none of them can change form. NONE! (arguably Tom Bomadil can)
So essentially you are promoting spiders to full maiar status complete with shape-shifting powers, something even Sauron cannot do. (any more)
As an aside, there are numerous versions of Professor Tolkien’s earlier works and while he never settled to finish The Silmarillion to his satisfaction in his life time, it would be useless to argue against the version we got. Many books in the Tolkien Legendarium are decidedly not canonical. I only say this because some things you mentioned are actually spelled out in the text. Orcs are clearly Melkor’s mockery of the first Children of Iluvatar. Elves. Melkor found them first and corrupted some of them. This is significant because it is specifically said to be the most harmful act of Melkor towards Eru. There are gaps and not everything is fully explained but this is what makes talking about it so interesting.
P.S. Tom Bombadil is an enigma. An intentional one.
P.P.S. The Entwives probably died during Sauron’s scorched earth policies during the War of the Last Alliance but your guess is as good as mine.
So basically you need to make 3 or 4 assumptions about stuff never actually address by Tolkien to “prove” Shelob can’t shapeshift (or spin illusions either, apparently)? Yeah, that’s my point. You’re free to disagree with their reasoning and justification, but that’s not the same as them being wrong as they have both a story reason to have Shelob to appear as a human and a foundation in the lore for the additional ability.
For the record the cutscenes depict Shelob’s human form materializing out of thin air and warping around the room which implies that it is in fact an illusion rather than straight up shape-shifting.
In the game (some lore piece you can find on the first map) she describes both her human “temptress” and spider forms as masks to cover her true form. That works well enough for me.
Well the game is free to make up any amount of lore to justify totally changing Shelob into something she never was replete with whatever fanfic story they’ve come up with for her…but actually saying it can be supported by the written material is too ridiculous of a stretch to even consider.
For those wondering, Shelob is a spawn of Ungoliant who lives in Cirith Ungol whose most shared trait with her mother besides being a giant spider is her chronic hunger. She is independent of Sauron but Sauron sort of likens her to a pet guard dog keeping watch over one of the entrances into Mordor. She also bred the Spiders of Mirkwood.
For the record I never really needed to ‘prove’ anything. I just like talking about this stuff even if I loath the games that make a complete mess of it.
I don’t think people believed Shelob was going to be a super sexified objectifed woman and were complaining for that, but still, you have to admit it’s pretty eyerolling to take a giant spider, and transform it in a… let’s say beautiful lady in the game. I think it was done by the lack of named enemies in the lore. You have Sauron, and uh… that’s it? The only powerful enemy that is found in the books and also could speak was in fact, Shelob.
In any case, nor Shelob transformation nor lootboxes have affected the game. It’s a total success with 400K copies sold only on PC.
I am fascinated by Tolkien lore discussions. They are a lot like Lovecraft ones in that they sound so interesting, but every time I go to the actual source material, I feel a bit let down in comparison to the distilled lore from fans.
