Returning to an old conversation about magic in LotR, something occurred to me the other day: Sting was a far more effective weapon against Shelob than Sam’s sword, slicing through multiple of her webs with a single sweep and cutting into her belly without much apparent effort from Sam. The text is a bit unclear for the brief portion of the fight when Sam is using two swords, but it seems to me that the only wound Sam’s own sword scores against her is against one of her eyes: “The shining sword bit upon her foot and shore away the claw. Sam sprang in, inside the arches of her legs, and with a quick upthrust of his other hand stabbed at the clustered eyes upon her lowered head.” While both swords could potentially be shining, Sting is established to be glowing at this point due to the proximity of the orcs in the tower, so I’m inclined to believe that the shining sword here is Sting, the one that chops off the end of one of her legs no problem, while the other one strikes against her eye, established two paragraphs later to be her softest spot.
Now Frodo attributes this potency against Shelob to the sword’s origins. “There were webs of horror in the dark ravines of Beleriand where it was forged.” And basically this pans out, Gondolin, where Sting was made, was not too far from Ered Gorgoroth, where Ungoliant and her spawn (including, most likely, Shelob herself) lived until Beleriand fell. The logic here, is, perhaps, similar to the reasoning for why Frodo and Merry’s barrow-blades were so potent against the Witch-king, having adopted a portion of their makers’ loathing for a particular enemy. And there is indeed evidence enough for this: the first spider Bilbo encounters in Mirkwood “evidently was not used to things that carried such stings at their sides, or it would have hurried away quicker.” This spider lived not too far from the Elvenking’s halls, surely it had been attacked with weapons before, which does call up an idea of there being something especially terrible to it about this particular sword. (Though this spider is also inarguably quite inept and possibly stupid; no shade to Bilbo but losing a fight to a mostly-tied-up enemy that can’t see in the dark and has never before fought anything more dangerous than a particularly stubborn door-to-door salesman doesn’t exactly reflect well on its capabilities.)
But I think Sting had another enchantment on it, and one a great deal more recent, and possibly even more direct: the enchantment of its name.
Bilbo takes a sword from a troll-hoard, puts it on his belt and under his jacket, and then proceeds to carry it around for months without thinking about it at all – until, that is, he finds himself face to face with a giant spider, a giant spider who, as is made clear in the text, was one of Shelob’s own descendants: “Far and wide her lesser broods, bastards of the miserable mates, her own offspring, that she slew, spread from glen to glen, from the Ephel Duath to the eastern hills, to Dol Guldur and the fastnesses of Mirkwood (emphasis mine).”
So Bilbo takes his sword and makes his first kill, and what we witness next is a Moment by any definition: “Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves of of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath.”
Then Bilbo names the sword, and he names it Sting, calling to mind the thought of a fly that can fight off a spider, a tiny creature coming out on top in a fight with a fierce predator. And then he sets off and uses his newly minted sword to rescue his friends from giant spiders. And though he uses the sword again in his adventure, it is never such a great moment, and indeed he ends up missing a great deal of the battle where it would have been most useful, leaving this incident with the spiders as not only his first use of the weapon, but his most significant – as The Hobbit is meant to be adapted from his memoirs, certainly the only one he felt important enough to write about.
And for sixty years Sting laid quiet in the Shire, hanging over Bilbo’s mantle, where he told stories about it to his nieces and nephews and cousins and anyone else who would listen, and doubtless the story he kept circling back to was the one about the great spiders and the christening of his sword, and even if nobody believed it, a bit of a legend grew about it, and whatever deeds, if any, it was involved in before it found its way to the troll’s hoard were forgotten, and it became the Sting, the sword that was used to defend friends from Shelob’s brood.
I hardly need to point out the power inherent in names and the naming of things and people in Tolkien’s work.
And then, seventy-eight years after its christening, Sting finds itself in another spider’s lair, the grandmother or great-grandmother of that first spider that earned it its name – and this is what it is, now. This is its entire identity, insomuch as a sword can have one of those. I think that over seventy-eight years Bilbo quite inadvertently but also quite effectively wove an enchantment against Shelob and her ilk on that sword, never knowing how much it would matter in the end. Indeed, I would put forth that there was no other weapon in contemporary Middle-earth that would have been such a bitter sting to Shelob; similar enchantments, perhaps, could be found in Thranduil’s halls from his people’s long struggle against the spiders there, but on a blade from Gondolin, which shared a mountain range with the land where Ungoliant herself lived for a time? And Glamdring and Orcrist would have inherited those properties alongside Sting, but they had a legacy of goblin slaying, not spider slaying.
So, quite by accident, Frodo and Sam walked into Shelob’s lair with the best possible chance of escaping her.
There’s a whole bunch of TikTok drama at the moment after someone posted a video asking “would you rather be alone in the woods with a bear or a strange man?”
And the men are *very upset* that nearly every woman replied with “….obviously a bear.”
It’s honestly wild (I think some of these guys think that bears are movie monsters, craving human flesh).
But it boils down to this- they want you to expect the worst from the bear and the best from the stranger, and they are deeply offended that this isn’t the case. 🤷
I have several people interpret this question as “attacked by a bear or attacked by a man” but that isn’t the question.
Yes, a bear can hurt or kill a human. Yes a human can hurt or kill (or commit other forms of harm on) another human.
The reasons a bear might get aggressive are pretty few and they are very clear about their intentions. The reasons a human might attack another human are much much more numerous and humans are both capable and likely to hide that motivation.
I don’t think I could defeat an aggressive bear, but I DO think I’m more likely to have control over whether a run in with a bear becomes violent. If a man in the woods WANTS to become violent, there’s nearly nothing I can do or say that would dissuade him.
I look at it this way:
a man MIGHT actually help me, find my way out provide supplies, etc. A bear…wont. Best case scenario the bear ignores me, and I continue to be lost in the woods.
And in the worst case scenario: I’m reasonably more certain I can fight back against a human than a bear.
You can fight back a man cause you are a man, mate. Most women cannot. Unless they have a gun, which is always the most recommended at any case.
I find it a stupid question made to stirr exactly the reaction it is stirring.
I’m pretty even most women would stand a better chance against a man than a bear.
But yea the correct answer is gun
On one hand a terrible known fate (death by bear) can be preferable to a potentially worse unknown fate (man).
On the other hand the entire bear or man question (and especially the common answer) can easily be read as someone saying they’d rather shower with hydrochloric acid than be in the same room as you.
This kind of analogy makes me think yall just…don’t understand bears.
A better comparison is “they’d rather be in a room with a live grenade sitting on a table, than be locked alone in a room with a stranger with unknown intentions and no way to call for help.”
Yes, a grenade is dangerous, but I’m reasonably sure that I can *not* set off the grenade, you know? I know what will set off a grenade, and I can just…avoid doing those things. But the stranger with unknown intentions, no easy way to escape or get help? I do not have control over how that situation progresses. I can only react if they choose to be violent.
And again, this isn’t some “men are biologically evil and violent” argument. It’s more of an observation of how people are uniquely dangerous to other people, and how we rely on the presence of others to also keep us safe. How women especially are socially trained to PREVENT violence (especially sexual violence) by first and foremost avoiding situations where we are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence whenever possible.
Whats most frustrating about this whole thing is that it feels so incredibly obvious. Which means the people who just can’t fathom why so many women have picked the bear are either being bad faith ignorant or are profoundly sheltered.
Do you ever miss a character from a show but not like in the way that you want to rewatch the whole show because theres so much stuff going on and thats not what youre looking for but you miss your boy
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Actually the portrait of Charles is red to represent enthusiasm, energy, determination, passion, strength, leadership, and love. It doesn’t matter that it looks like he’s walking through fountains of blood spilled by the British empire! Some of you people need to learn color theory
it was kind of fucked up for wall-e to be that way about fat people now that im thinking about it
I’m never NOT thinking about how the first 40ish minutes of Wall•E are the most evocative, beautiful thing that the Walt Disney company has ever produced bar none, and then the SECOND they reach the space station it becomes the most boring, blunt and extremely ableist “save the earth” animated kids movie in existance for the movie’s remaining sixty minutes. Why did they do that to him.
@punkitt-is-here The most infuriating part is that they weren’t even originally human! They were alien blob people, which would have been delightful. At some point there was a deliberate choice to switch the entire design from whimsy to fatphobia and I will never not be mad about it
just saw a poll asking whether you’ve ever pulled an all-nighter in college and people were like “yeah at least once a semester” and telling stories in the tags I’m genuinely bewildered by all the people in the tags talking about staying up until sunrise like it’s uncommon enough as to be notable & even memorable.
i have delayed sleep phase syndrome so I’m up all night at least once a week & I know that’s literally a diagnosed disorder that borderlines on a genuine disability but I guess I assumed most “normal” people still stay up all night at least once or twice a month??????
and I’m realizing no y’all are Not doing that.
the way I almost failed out of elementary school because I was up until 5 am most nights and then I slept until 7 am AND THEN I went to school so I was averaging 10-15 hours of sleep a WEEK and the teachers were like “why won’t she do her math homework? detention will help probably.”
anyway I’m not bitter ([narrator voice] he was. he was bitter.)
Oh in my case it’s definitely harmful, no worries hahaha.
My body, since I was a toddler, has operated on a nocturnal schedule. It’s been a problem for as long as I (and the adults who raised me) can remember.
That said, I CAN sleep. But I sleep best at around 6 AM. It’s often impossible for me to go to sleep at night. I suppose there is a genuine argument to be made that it would be an evolutionary advantage for some people to be nocturnal, prior to our current society.
Perhaps in a world very different from our current one, this would not have been a syndrome/disorder. 
But as it is now, not many careers make that sort of schedule possible, let alone every day tasks like grocery shopping, appointments, etc. So it is what it is.
I’m just so so so so tired. All the time. And will be forever. And well, we ball.
I know you’re joking, but people have genuinely recommended this to me before. DSPS can be genuinely disabling, and there aren’t many truly effective longterm treatment options. So, like with any disability, people just assume I’m lazy or undisciplined, and they start making wild suggestions.
If I moved, my circadian rhythm might align with my new timezone for a few days or a week at most, but once my body and brain readjusted to the day & light cycle in the new location, the sleep delay would begin again.
Again, I know you’re joking, just using your comment because this is a real thing people suggest, and it’s always wild to me that I can say,
“I wish life could be a little more accommodating to the natural diversity of circadian rhythms” and people suggest I move to a new timezone because, even if it WOULD work,
I don’t know that it would be a reasonable expectation for me to upend my entire life, somehow acquire a longterm VISA and the funds to move to a new country, leave behind everything I know and all the people I love, and begin a new life forever,
instead of like, my job letting me work 11-8 instead of 8-5 LMAO.
i love when people talk about accounting as a job that will be automated in the future as if i, an human being, do not struggle to interpret whatever the fuck this thing is that i’m supposed to believe is an invoice
there are people who think accounting is hard because they assume it’s math, and people who think accounting is easy because they assume the computer does all the math, and they’re both wrong because most of accounting is trying to figured out what the fuck they expect you to do with this
what does this mean. who is jeff. does he have a tax id number? is he an exterminator or did you buy rats. it looks like he wrote 300.00 but instead of putting a decimal he just put the zeroes in the second box but then forgot to do either on whatever that second number is. is that the amount of the discount or is that the total after the discount. are you trying to tell me these discount rats were tax deductible. if you think discount rats jeff is gonna use the kind of centralized invoicing system that would be necessary to let a computer deal with this, you are mistaken and he still wants his money.
ALT
