Middle-earth: Shadow Of War Devs Have Some Weird Ideas About Who LOTR’s Real Heroes Are

Let’s get this out of the way right off the bat – Middle-earth: Shadow of War looks like an impressive and entertaining action-RPG. That said, some people are beginning to question developer Monolith Productions’ interpretation and understanding of The Lord of the Rings lore.

It was recently revealed Middle-earth: Shadow of War will thrust Shelob, the giant spider Frodo and Sam encounter in The Two Towers, into a much larger role, even giving her an attractive human form. Monolith would later explain that, in their version of Middle-earth, most of the major players are “spirits,” with the ability to take various forms, so Shelob turning into a human is perfectly reasonable.

Well, in a recent interview with Eurogamer, Shadow of War creative director Michael de Plater took it a step further, essentially saying he believes Shelob and her servant Gollum are the unsung heroes of The Lord of the Rings. No, really. De Plater’s logic is, essentially, that Frodo falters at the end of his quest, and it’s Gollum who inadvertently sends the ring to its fiery destruction in Mount Doom. Shelob saw that weakness in Frodo, and made sure Gollum got to Mount Doom so he could (again, accidentally) destroy the ring. Oh, also, Galadriel is actually a total con artist. Oooookay then…

“So, you’ve got Shelob representing darkness and then you’ve got Galadriel representing light. We thought those two in opposition are really interesting, and the way Galadriel basically manipulated and sent people off on these different quests, but, ultimately, left to themselves that quest to destroy the Ring would have failed. Then you think of Shelob as almost the dark mirror to her, who actually had this minion Gollum that…if you think about it in a way, ultimately succeeded.

In a lot of ways that felt like Gandalf and Galadriel kind of lied to the Fellowship a little bit about their chances, and what differentiates Shelob is that she’s completely honest. So, she’s evil, or perceived as evil, but she has this honesty to her, and so as we started thinking through that and thinking of her as this dark mirror to Galadriel and filling that role in our story of that narrator and what that would look like.”

There’s looking at a classic tale through new eyes, and then there’s falling down the ol’ fan fiction manhole. This is edging towards the latter. I really, really, don’t think J.R.R. Tolkien intended the giant spider Frodo and Sam fought for a chapter in the middle of the story to be The Lord of the Rings‘ unsung hero, but that’s just me.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War skitters onto PC, Xbox One, and PS4 on October 10.

[via Eurogamer]