Race: Primordial Spirit
Sex: Female
Faction: None
Rating: 6.3
Alignment: Chaotic Evil
Arena Status: Active (S3)
Ungoliant, whose name in Sindarin translates as "Gloomweaver," occupies a unique and terrifying corner of Tolkien's legendarium. Neither wholly of Arda nor comfortably placed within the moral framework of its pantheon, she is an anomaly: a primeval spirit who assumed the form of a monstrous spider and devoured light itself. Her presence looms large over the earliest ages of the world, most famously for her role in the destruction of the Two Trees of Valinor and her uneasy alliance with Melkor, the first Dark Lord who would become Morgoth. While she never appears directly in The Lord of the Rings, her shadow stretches across the ages through her progeny—chief among them the dread Shelob—and through the wound she left upon the cosmos, a wound that even the Silmarils could not fully heal.
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| Ungoliant, Great Spider Who Enmeshes |
Ungoliant appears principally in The Silmarillion, particularly in the chapters dealing with the Years of the Trees and the events that led to the Flight of the Noldor. Her absence from the Third Age does not lessen her mythic resonance. Rather, it increases it, embedding her in the bedrock of Middle-earth’s metaphysical terror, as a figure too vast, too hungry, too alien to be constrained by the later, more terrestrial struggles of Elves and Men. She is a hunger given form—an abyss with legs, fangs, and webs of Unlight.
What are Ungoliant’s Origins? Is She a Maia or Something Else?
Tolkien never gave a definitive answer to the origin of Ungoliant, and the ambiguity surrounding her existence only heightens her sense of dread. In The Silmarillion, it is hinted by the Eldar that she might have once been one of the Ainur—angelic spirits created by Eru Ilúvatar—who was corrupted by Melkor in the ancient past. Yet she is not explicitly listed among the Ainur. Other texts suggest that she may have come from "beyond Arda"—that is, from outside the created world altogether, perhaps from the primordial chaos that predates even the Music of the Ainur. The Valar perceived that she had descended into the world from the outer darkness, a place that Melkor himself once stared into with longing, desiring domination over what he could not truly understand.
This origin story—half suggestion, half omission—places Ungoliant in a liminal category. She is not a Vala, nor a Maia, nor a creature shaped by Eru's will within the bounds of the world. She is other. As Tolkien writes: “The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long before she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda, when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwë.”
Her very presence disrupts the metaphysical order of the world. If the Valar represent harmony, light, and stewardship, then Ungoliant is entropy, corruption, and consumption. She does not merely oppose the Valar—she devours the structure of reality they maintain.
What Did Ungoliant Do? What is Her Role in the Destruction of the Two Trees?
Ungoliant’s most infamous act—one of the great catastrophes of the First Age—was her partnership with Melkor in the destruction of the Two Trees of Valinor. These Trees, Telperion and Laurelin, were the sources of all light in the world before the making of the Sun and Moon. The Valar had nourished them in the land of Aman, and their radiance bathed the Blessed Realm in an eternal twilight of gold and silver. Their destruction marked the beginning of sorrow even in the Undying Lands.
Melkor, having been humiliated by the Valar and barred from wielding power in Valinor, sought revenge and dominion. Yet he needed help to strike such a devastating blow. He descended into Avathar, a shadowed region south of Aman, and there found Ungoliant—lurking, ravenous, and long forgotten by the world. She had spun webs so dense and dark in the mountains of Hyarmentir that not even starlight could penetrate them. Her hunger was boundless, her loyalty to Melkor non-existent, but Melkor made her a bargain. If she aided him in his plan, he would satiate her eternal hunger. And critically, he promised to place both his hands in her service—an oath that would later become the fulcrum of their conflict.
When they emerged from Avathar, Ungoliant cloaked them both in Unlight, a thick, tangible darkness that devoured sight and sound alike. This was not shadow, but anti-light—a metaphysical negation of being. Under this veil, they crept into Valinor during a festival, while the Valar and Elves were gathered in peace and music. As Melkor pierced the Trees with his black spear, Ungoliant pounced on their wounds and drank their sap. The Trees withered and died. Then she drank from the Wells of Varda, which contained the dew of the Trees, gorging herself so thoroughly that her form swelled into a monstrous grotesquerie, “vast beyond even the thought of Melkor.”
As the Trees fell, the world was plunged into a darkness never before known. Even the stars seemed dimmed by her Unlight. In that moment, the axis of the cosmos tilted. Melkor had committed the ultimate desecration, and Ungoliant had devoured the light of creation.
Why Did Ungoliant Attack Melkor? What Happened After the Darkening of Valinor?
After the deed was done, Ungoliant demanded payment. Melkor, true to his promise in part, gave her many of the jewels looted from the stronghold of Formenos, including gems of surpassing beauty—green, gold, and blue. She consumed them all, and her power grew ever more terrible. But when she demanded what he held in his right hand—namely, the Silmarils—he refused. He had already claimed them as his own, even binding them to his very being through dark will and pride.
Ungoliant, enraged by his betrayal and driven by her insatiable hunger, attacked him. This moment is one of the most astonishing reversals in Tolkien's mythos. The most powerful being in Arda, save only for the Valar themselves, was overwhelmed and nearly slain by a creature of his own summoning. Melkor—who would soon be called Morgoth, the Black Foe of the World—screamed in desperation. His cry echoed through the land of Lammoth, and its reverberations named the place forevermore. It was a scream so terrible that it summoned the Balrogs from the depths of Angband, who came with flaming whips to rescue their master. They smote the webs that bound him, and Ungoliant fled, vomiting black vapors as she went.
That Melkor had come so close to destruction at the hands of his temporary ally demonstrates the peril of bargaining with hunger incarnate. It also shows Ungoliant's raw, chthonic power: she did not serve evil; she was evil—at least in the mythological, pre-conscious sense of the word. Her evil is not calculated. It is metabolic.
What Became of Ungoliant After Her Conflict with Melkor?
Following her assault on Morgoth and subsequent flight from the Balrogs, Ungoliant made her way south into Beleriand, where she established her lair in the Ered Gorgoroth, the Mountains of Terror. There she bred with other monstrous spiders, whom she either mated with or devoured—perhaps both. From this vile brood came many terrible offspring, including Shelob, who would herself haunt the later ages from her nest in Cirith Ungol near Mordor. The valley that lay below the Ered Gorgoroth became known as Nan Dungortheb, the Valley of Dreadful Death, a place filled with webs, poisons, and horror. Not even the bravest of Elves dared pass through it, and it remained a no-man’s land throughout the First Age.
Eventually, Ungoliant disappeared from the records of Elves and Men. The texts say she fled to the forgotten South of the world—someplace even the Valar did not watch—and there she wasted away, consumed at last by her own hunger. The Silmarillion concludes her tale with grim poetic finality: “The Eldar knew not whence she came; but some have said that in ages long ago she descended from the darkness that lies about Arda… and in her uttermost famine she devoured herself at last.”
Her end, if it can be called that, is an ironic inversion of her nature. A being who existed only to consume ultimately consumed herself. There is perhaps no greater metaphor for nihilism in all of Tolkien’s works.
What Does Ungoliant Look Like?
Though Tolkien never gives us a detailed anatomical description, Ungoliant is consistently referred to as a giant spider—but not merely an oversized arachnid. Like Shelob, her monstrous daughter, she is more than natural. Her form is a reflection of her spiritual essence. She is described as "a spider of monstrous form," but her size, even after gorging on light, becomes so immense that Melkor himself is cowed. She is darkness incarnate, a walking void.
In terms of her “substance,” Tolkien uses phrases like "her dark webs" and "belched black vapors," indicating she was capable of producing darkness not as a metaphor but as a tangible, magical force—Unlight. This was not absence of light; it was the active annihilation of light, the unraveling of vision and presence. Even the Valar, when attempting to pursue her after the Trees’ destruction, were thwarted by this veil of Unlight.
What Is Ungoliant’s Legacy?
Ungoliant’s legacy is twofold. First, she is the ancestral terror that haunts the edges of the mythos—the Mother of Spiders, the dark wellspring from which all great spider-things in Tolkien's world descend. Her presence echoes through the monstrous forms of Shelob and the giant spiders of Mirkwood that trouble Bilbo in The Hobbit. Second, she serves as a thematic anchor in Tolkien’s moral universe. If Morgoth is the satanic figure of the legendarium, then Ungoliant is something deeper and older—a force beyond the dialectic of order and rebellion.
She is what happens when desire loses its object and becomes hunger itself. Not the hunger of the body, but the hunger of the soul—insatiable, empty, obliterating.
Ungoliant's Raw Power
Ungoliant's raw power is staggering, nearly unparalleled even among primeval beings. Though not a deity in the formal cosmology of her universe, she operates on a plane of existence that skirts its very edges. Her capacity to consume light itself—and not metaphorically, but in an ontological, reality-erasing sense—establishes her as a uniquely destructive force. As discussed earlier in this post, she is a hunger without limit, a void made incarnate, and her physical and metaphysical attributes converge in terrifying synergy. The destruction of the Two Trees of Valinor, her near-fatal assault on Melkor, and her exponential growth through the consumption of light and jewels all speak to a being whose raw power defies the conventional frameworks of strength or magic. Within the context of all fantasy universes, and when measuring exclusively physical might, magical prowess, and combat effectiveness, Ungoliant earns a Raw Power rating of 9.5 out of 10.
Strength
Ungoliant’s physical strength is rarely described in traditional terms—she does not lift mountains or shatter stone with her limbs—but the narrative events imply overwhelming corporeal power. Her attack on Melkor, the mightiest of the Ainur and a being who could himself alter the physical and metaphysical shape of the world, is perhaps the strongest indicator. Ungoliant did not merely sting him or ensnare him—she wrapped him in webs and began to strangle him, binding his godlike form in her cords with such force that he was forced to cry out for help. That Melkor, in his prime, could be overpowered in this way by physical force indicates that her musculature, mass, and grip strength were functionally cosmic. While her body is that of a spider, its scale and might exist on a mythopoeic register. Still, her strength serves more as a supplement to her magic than as her primary weapon, and as such, this subscore would rank slightly below her overall score—exceptional, but not her defining trait.
Magical Ability
Ungoliant’s magical capacity is among the most unique and terrifying ever depicted in legendarium-scale fantasy. She does not cast spells in the conventional sense, nor does she use runes, words of power, or channeling. Her magic is intrinsic to her being. She exudes Unlight—a concept distinct from darkness—an active and corrupting force that erases not only vision but substance, memory, and even divine perception. This Unlight thwarted the pursuit of the Valar, concealed her movements through Aman, and consumed the radiance of the Two Trees and the Wells of Varda. These were not symbolic acts: she metabolized metaphysical light, the pure essence of creation, and grew stronger for it.
No other character in her world, save the most exalted of the Valar, has shown a comparable ability to transmute divine artifacts into power. That she could even attempt to consume the Silmarils—crystals that held the unmarred light of the Trees and were hallowed by Eru’s appointed—speaks to a magical potency that is not only immense but profoundly unnatural. Her magic is not shaped by the Music of the Ainur; it is something alien, parasitic to that order. In terms of raw magical power alone, Ungoliant arguably deserves a perfect subscore.
Combat Prowess
Ungoliant is not a trained warrior, nor does she exhibit combat technique in the traditional sense. She does not wield weapons, nor does she engage in battle with precision or martial elegance. Instead, her combat prowess is derived from her ability to overwhelm through sheer scale and power. In her confrontation with Melkor, there is no indication of finesse—only suffocating dominance. She uses webs as weapons and containment fields, her massive size as an instrument of pressure, and her Unlight as a disabling field of anti-vision. She can paralyze, blind, and physically overpower enemies who operate on divine levels.
That being said, Ungoliant's lack of versatility in combat scenarios—her reliance on physical grappling and envelopment—could be seen as a limitation in a context where mobility, ranged offense, or tactical weapon use might be essential. She is an apex predator in terms of raw output, but not a duelist. Her combat prowess is terrifying in scale but narrow in form, and thus slightly constrains an otherwise immense raw power profile.
Ungoliant's Tactical Ability
Ungoliant's tactical ability is extremely limited, especially when viewed through the lens of calculated intelligence, planning, and strategic execution in conflict situations. Though her destructive impact was immense and her presence terrifying, Ungoliant does not exhibit a capacity for forethought, contingency design, or any meaningful exploitation of strategic environments. Her most notable appearance—in the coordinated assault on the Two Trees—is often mistaken for evidence of strategy. But in that instance, Ungoliant functioned more as a weapon wielded by Melkor than as an autonomous tactician. Her motivations are largely primal and instinctual, driven by hunger rather than design, and while she is capable of exploiting temporary advantages (such as Melkor’s need for concealment), she demonstrates no interest in building a broader framework of influence or adapting to larger-scale conflict dynamics. When measured against all fantasy characters across all universes, and focusing strictly on the categories of strategic mind, resourcefulness, and resource arsenal, Ungoliant earns a Tactical Ability rating of 3.0 out of 10.
Strategic Mind
Ungoliant shows almost no evidence of possessing a strategic mind. Her goals, such as they are, revolve around consumption and escape. Even her alliance with Melkor appears reactive rather than premeditated. She does not initiate contact, propose a plan, or negotiate from a position of advantage. Instead, she hides in Avathar and only emerges when taunted, threatened, and promised reward. When she does engage in destructive action, it is Melkor who lays out the goal (the destruction of the Two Trees), and Ungoliant follows in his wake, applying her powers in service of that singular task. There is no suggestion that she anticipates consequences, prepares contingencies, or assesses risk. Her momentary triumph over Melkor—when she turns on him and attempts to claim the Silmarils—may resemble a strategic betrayal, but it is better understood as instinctual overreach. She sees a resource, hungers for it, and demands it. When denied, she lashes out with overwhelming force. No evidence suggests that she had a broader goal or plan following that moment. Her retreat from the Balrogs is not strategic withdrawal; it is survival. In the taxonomy of strategy, Ungoliant is an instrument of destruction, not a designer of events.
Resourcefulness
Ungoliant does demonstrate a degree of resourcefulness, though it is tightly constrained by her own metaphysical limits. Her greatest act of improvisation is the creation of Unlight to cloak her and Melkor as they approach Valinor. This magical veil is not only a metaphysical barrier but a tactical asset—it prevents detection by even the Valar, allowing them to strike without resistance. Whether this application was conceived in response to Melkor's plans or whether it is simply a default use of her nature is not clarified in the text. That ambiguity matters, because tactical resourcefulness requires conscious adaptation to problems. Ungoliant never modifies her approach, leverages environmental advantages, or exploits enemy weaknesses in combat. After the destruction of the Trees, when she flees south, she does not create a power base or attempt to carve out a protected realm using her abilities. Even when driven away by the Balrogs, she does not attempt to return in disguise or with new allies. Her fallback strategy is always escape, and her default solution to resistance is brute application of force. While her instincts allow her to survive for a time, this does not rise to the level of genuine resourcefulness. She adapts only by retreating.
Resource Arsenal
Ungoliant’s resource arsenal is effectively nonexistent. She maintains no allies of her own, constructs no network of influence, and does not employ tools or artifacts in her schemes. Her only interaction with external assets—the jewels stolen from Formenos—ends with her devouring them to fuel her own body. The act of consumption, while reinforcing her raw power, obliterates any potential long-term strategic use of these resources. Her children, the spider-creatures of the Ered Gorgoroth, may represent a kind of legacy army, but there is no indication that she organized or directed them. They are a byproduct of her presence, not a coordinated force. In contrast to beings who cultivate knowledge, manipulate social structures, or forge tactical partnerships, Ungoliant's use of resources is purely metabolic. She consumes, she grows, and she departs. When Melkor turns against her, she has no agents, strongholds, or intelligence to rely upon—only hunger and force. She is her own arsenal, and that, while terrifying in its simplicity, offers no tactical flexibility. She cannot wage war across fronts, pivot to new objectives, or generate advantage through means other than presence and hunger. In tactical terms, her entire resource base is both singular and self-limiting. Once her power is expended, she has nothing left.
Ungoliant's Influence
Ungoliant’s influence is limited by design. As a character motivated almost entirely by hunger, rather than ideology, emotion, or ambition, she lacks many of the mechanisms that typically enable figures to sway others. She does not engage in dialogue, leadership, manipulation, or even recognizable communication. Her interactions with other beings are few and transactional, driven by instinct rather than persuasion. That said, her sheer presence generates a kind of metaphysical dread that borders on religious terror, and her moment in alliance with Melkor remains one of the most consequential power convergences in her universe’s history. Though she never commands armies or gathers followers by charisma, she evokes a primordial fear and commands instinctive reverence. Thus, while her score in traditional influence metrics is low, her terror-based presence sustains a narrow band of excellence. Her Influence score is assessed at 7.5 out of 10.
Persuasion
Ungoliant has no documented capacity for persuasion in any conventional sense. She does not speak to others with rhetorical finesse, convince opponents to switch sides, or coax allies into action. She does not possess charm, subtlety, or an understanding of social dynamics. Her only interaction that approaches negotiation—her exchange with Melkor—occurs under the threat of violence and starvation. Melkor taunts her, threatens her with destruction, and finally bribes her with gems. She agrees, not because she is persuaded by argument, but because she is a predator who senses the opportunity for consumption. There is no element of interpersonal influence at play here—only a mutual exploitation of needs. Once the pact is complete, she demands payment, and when she is denied, she attacks. This behavior reflects compulsion rather than persuasion. She cannot draw loyalty, instill belief, or even mislead others. In this subcategory, her influence is essentially zero.
Reverence
Ungoliant does, however, command a kind of reverence—though it is not born of admiration or respect, but of mythic fear. She is treated in the ancient texts as a figure older and darker than even the evil she temporarily aids. Elves and Valar alike speak of her not with hostility, but with dread. Her name alone evokes cosmic horror, and her darkness, the Unlight, is a force that nullifies not just physical sight but spiritual clarity. The cloaking she provides for Melkor is not just concealment—it is obliteration of divine perception, a feat that places her beyond normal comprehension.
Even the Valar do not pursue her with certainty. After her assault on the Trees, it is not with rage but with caution that she is approached. Tulkas and Oromë give chase, but her Unlight repels even their power. Her fearsome form becomes a boundary in the world—regions like Nan Dungortheb and Ered Gorgoroth retain her influence generations after her disappearance, and the creatures that issue from her bloodline continue to haunt the world in her absence. This is reverence through mythic dread: a presence so profoundly aberrant that even gods hesitate. Though she cannot inspire followers, she can endow places with unholy sanctity through proximity alone. Her score here is meaningful—her reputation precedes her, and the fear she evokes lingers across ages.
Willpower
Ungoliant’s willpower is paradoxical. On one hand, she is unshakably committed to her hunger—no threat, no moral consideration, no promise of peace can sway her from her objective. This obsessive drive could be interpreted as unassailable will. On the other hand, she demonstrates no internal struggle, no capacity to resist outside manipulation, and no real agency in determining her long-term path. When Melkor approaches, she flees at first, showing fear. She re-emerges only after threat and bribery. This is not resistance to influence—it is a calculated animal response to opportunity.
Later, when denied the Silmarils, she erupts in wrath rather than negotiating or adapting. She lacks self-control and is easily provoked by perceived betrayal. Furthermore, she shows no capacity to resist magical or spiritual compulsion, nor is she ever tested against mind control or illusion. Her will operates in a single direction: hunger. That hunger dominates her every decision, preventing complex thought or emotional discipline. While her focus is total, it is not flexible or resilient. Her will is primal, not conscious. Therefore, her score in this domain is minimal. She is an unstoppable force only insofar as she has no interest in being stopped, or in stopping herself.
Ungoliant's Resilience
Ungoliant's resilience is high, but not absolute. She is not invulnerable in any traditional sense, nor does she possess the regenerative or comeback mechanisms of truly deathless entities, but she endures in ways that are profound, even existentially disturbing. Her capacity to survive encounters with cosmic forces, persist in isolation, and sustain herself indefinitely through the consumption of light, places her firmly above average when compared to the full spectrum of resilience in fantasy universes. However, her lack of magical resistance to divine intervention, and the fact that her final fate is one of self-destruction, tempers the score. She is not indestructible, only difficult to destroy, and her durability is ultimately undermined by her own compulsions. Taken across the three subcategories—physical resistance, magical resistance, and longevity—Ungoliant earns a Resilience rating of 7.0 out of 10.
Physical Resistance
Ungoliant's physical resistance is formidable, if unconventional. She is capable of containing and overpowering Melkor—one of the mightiest beings in the cosmology—physically binding him with her webs and dragging him to the brink of death. This feat alone suggests immense durability, for Melkor’s defensive capacity was far beyond the physical realm. When the Balrogs came to his aid and struck her with whips of flame, they succeeded in driving her off, but they did not destroy her. That she survived their assault and fled into the deep south of the world indicates both the integrity of her physical form and a stamina that allowed her to absorb intense punishment without collapse. She is never shown wounded, never described as bleeding or maimed, and never appears vulnerable to conventional weaponry. Still, she is forced to flee when overwhelmed. This distinction matters: her resilience is high enough to avoid incapacitation from immediate threats, but not high enough to ensure domination when matched against numerous or coordinated opponents. She survives, but she does not endure all attacks without consequence.
Magical Resistance
Ungoliant’s magical resistance is harder to assess directly, as she is rarely, if ever, subjected to targeted magical attacks. However, indirect evidence suggests her defenses are substantial but not impenetrable. Most notably, her Unlight is capable of confounding even the perception of the Valar. That level of concealment implies resistance to magical detection, if not magical assault. When the Valar send Oromë and Tulkas to pursue her after the destruction of the Trees, they are unable to engage her directly due to the veil she casts. Whether this is a defensive mechanism or a passive environmental effect is unclear, but it clearly shields her from metaphysical engagement.
However, this shielding appears to be tied to her own output rather than a resistance to magical intrusion. She does not deflect spells or cursebreak divine enchantments; instead, she occludes, devours, and evades. Her magic resistance is thus a side effect of her magical nature, not a directed defense. There is no textual evidence that she could withstand direct magical attack from figures of comparable tier—she is not shown resisting banishment, mental control, or divine suppression. Her magical resistance is strong circumstantially, but untested in many critical domains, warranting a moderate but not dominant score in this subcategory.
Longevity
Ungoliant’s longevity is one of her most fascinating traits. She is a creature that seems to exist outside the ordered life cycles of Arda. No birth is recorded. No parentage is given. She emerges from "beyond Arda" and disappears into "the forgotten South of the world"—a trajectory that implies both alien origin and an ambiguous endpoint. During the Years of the Trees, she lies hidden for an undefined span of time, gradually absorbing light until she becomes an existential threat. After the catastrophe at Lammoth, she vanishes from history, not through death, but retreat.
The texts suggest that Ungoliant eventually consumes herself in the extremity of her hunger. Whether this should be read as metaphorical annihilation or literal auto-digestion is unclear, but it indicates that her destruction, if it occurs, is self-inflicted and possibly metaphysically inevitable. She is not slain by any opponent. She does not fade due to the passage of time. Her only threat is the internal entropy of her own appetite. This situates her outside normal definitions of death and survival. She cannot be killed by force—only by the implosion of her own essence. That unique limitation lowers her score in this subcategory slightly. She is not functionally immortal in the way that some entities persist through eons unchanging; she is immortal in potential, but not in practice. Her end is not brought by defeat, but by famine.
Ungoliant's Versatility
Ungoliant's versatility is markedly limited by the singularity of her nature. She is a being defined by appetite, not by adaptability. Her power is immense, but specialized; her actions are devastating, but constrained by a narrow behavioral range. She does not demonstrate the capacity to adjust to varying types of conflict, environments, or social situations, nor does she possess a wide array of skills or techniques to draw upon. Her abilities—consumption, darkness, entrapment—are terrifying in scope but not diverse in application. Although her metaphysical origins allow for some unpredictability, her function within the world remains constant and narrow. Within the full spectrum of characters across fantasy universes, where true versatility includes multiplicity of powers, creative adaptation, improbable survival, and hidden counters, Ungoliant earns a Versatility rating of 4.5 out of 10.
Adaptability
Ungoliant exhibits minimal adaptability in the sense defined by this category. Once she has taken the form of a monstrous spider and settled in Avathar, she remains fixed in both form and behavior for the duration of her known existence. There is no indication that she can shapeshift, switch tactics to suit new challenges, or navigate different environments through anything other than brute force or concealment. When she emerges from her lair to join Melkor, she does so only under heavy coercion and in response to a promised reward—not out of a sudden shift in her strategic preferences or situational awareness. When threatened by the Balrogs, her only response is flight cloaked in darkness, not a reorientation of form, power usage, or objective. She functions in a binary mode: consume or retreat. This lack of behavioral and tactical flexibility demonstrates a deep limitation in adaptability, especially when measured against figures capable of changing roles, employing different power types, or evolving over time.
Luck
Ungoliant does not benefit from luck in the conventional narrative sense. She does not experience improbably favorable outcomes or survive situations through fortune. In fact, her trajectory seems to operate in the opposite direction: her few interactions with others end in betrayal or collapse, and she is eventually driven to self-destruction by the very compulsions that define her. Her escape from the Valar’s pursuit following the destruction of the Two Trees may at first appear fortunate, but it is clearly enabled by her intrinsic magical Unlight, not circumstance. There are no recorded instances in which unexpected fortune tips events in her favor. She does not stumble upon artifacts, uncover weaknesses, or find herself spared through narrative chance. Her victories are earned solely through inherent power, and her failures are entirely consistent with her limitations. Consequently, she scores very low in luck as a factor of versatility.
Shaved Knuckle in the Hole
Ungoliant’s closest approximation to a "shaved knuckle in the hole" is the unpredictability and magnitude of her hunger—her ability to turn on allies, grow in power through consumption, and weaponize darkness in ways that even Melkor fails to anticipate. However, these are not secret advantages or last-resort maneuvers in the strategic sense; they are simply baseline aspects of her being. The moment when she nearly kills Melkor by binding and suffocating him after he withholds the Silmarils is perhaps the clearest instance where her adversary misjudged her. But this is not an instance of her deploying a concealed technique or exploiting a hidden resource—it is a raw escalation of existing traits. There is no evidence she holds back abilities, conceals skills for key moments, or develops special tools as countermeasures. Her entire existence is overt, and her powers are expressed in full from the moment she acts. She does not feint or bluff. She only consumes. While the scale of her hunger makes her dangerous, its transparency means she lacks the kind of calculated reserve that defines this subcategory. Her score here is marginal, rooted only in the shock value of her scale, not in any tactical or secretive advantage.
Ungoliant's Alignment
Ungoliant is best understood as a being utterly outside the moral and cosmological structures that define most characters in Tolkien’s legendarium. She is not a Vala, Maia, Elf, or beast—but a sui generis spirit whose origins may lie outside Arda altogether. Her alignment is determined not by allegiance or morality but by an intrinsic, insatiable hunger that compels her toward devouring all light and substance. She does not seek power, justice, balance, or even domination; she seeks only to feed, and she will consume ally and enemy alike without hesitation. This monomaniacal impulse places her far beyond conventional ethical reasoning and renders her functionally alien to the value systems of good and evil societies alike.
Ungoliant is chaotic not because she revels in disorder, but because she is utterly indifferent to law, order, structure, or continuity. She acknowledges no hierarchy or principle beyond appetite. Even Melkor, the first Dark Lord and architect of most evil in Arda, cannot control her for long. When he fails to fulfill his bargain, she attacks him without hesitation. Her evil is absolute: it is the annihilation of life, light, and meaning without cause or remorse. It is not the evil of malice or cruelty, but of negation—a void that seeks to unmake.
Ungoliant is most accurately classified as a Primordial Spirit. She is not listed among the Ainur—the godlike order of spirits created by Eru Ilúvatar—but is speculated by the Eldar to be either one of the Ainur corrupted long ago or an intrusion from beyond Arda. This makes her fundamentally distinct from Elves, Valar, Maiar, or any race that originates within the created world. Her physical manifestation takes the form of a Monstrous Spider, but this form is adopted, not inherent. Like many spirits in Tolkien’s legendarium, her visible shape reflects her inner nature—though in her case, that nature is closer to entropy than to will.
There is no known subrace of primordial spirits to which Ungoliant belongs. She is unique in her function and form. Her children, such as Shelob and the spawn of Ered Gorgoroth, appear to be lesser spirits or corrupted beasts who mimic her nature, but Ungoliant stands alone in both origin and scale.
Ungoliant belongs to no faction, either cosmologically or politically. She briefly allies with Melkor during the destruction of the Two Trees, but this is a pact of convenience, not allegiance. There is no indication she shares Melkor’s goals of domination or rebellion against the Valar. She neither joins his legions nor accepts his authority. When denied her due, she turns on him and nearly destroys him, underscoring her independence.
After fleeing the confrontation with the Balrogs, she never reappears in any organized context. She does not command armies, associate with cults, or appear in any hierarchical structure. Her descendants infest Nan Dungortheb and Cirith Ungol, but these are not the result of factional expansion—they are ecological consequences of her presence, not coordinated movements. Her absence from all known wars, councils, or societal systems confirms her complete detachment from any factional identity.
In short, Ungoliant is a Chaotic Evil primordial spirit with no factional ties, whose existence embodies the principle of insatiable consumption. She is an externalized hunger that corrupts and unravels creation without allegiance, hierarchy, or ideology. Pride and Prophecy keeps an updated character alignment matrix across all planes of existence.
Ungoliant's Trophy Case
Arena Results
Titles & Postseason Results
Halls of Legend Records
Overall Conclusion on Ungoliant and Position Across Planes of Existence
Ungoliant’s final rating of 6.3 across key attributes—Raw Power, Tactical Ability, Influence, Resilience, and Versatility—places her firmly within the uppermost tier of beings across fantasy universes, but not at the pinnacle of total power. This position reflects her overwhelming yet narrowly expressed capabilities: she is a being of cataclysmic strength and metaphysical terror whose influence is restricted by an absence of strategy, adaptability, and higher purpose. Her ceiling is high, but so too is the rigidity of her design.
As established in our assessment, Ungoliant’s Raw Power (9.5) is astonishing. She consumed the light of creation, overpowered the first Dark Lord, and emanated a metaphysical darkness that obscured even the vision of the Valar. Her ability to drain the Trees of Valinor and drink from the Wells of Varda represents a power that violates the metaphysical framework of her universe—she does not merely destroy; she unmakes. That alone merits her position among the elite. However, she lacks range. Her methods are few, and her strengths, though devastating, are singular. She does not command elements, alter time, or reshape reality in varied ways as the most transcendent entities across all planes might. Her destructiveness is total, but her toolkit is narrow.
This narrowness is further evidenced by her Tactical Ability (3.0) and Versatility (4.5). Ungoliant does not form plans, coordinate forces, or adapt to evolving situations. She does not shape outcomes through foresight or guile. She consumes. Her lack of complex cognition reduces her ability to engage in the kinds of multiverse-spanning or time-altering strategies employed by entities at the top echelon of fantasy cosmology. She has no known shapeshifting abilities, spell diversity, or systemic knowledge. Her Unlight is not a mode of expression—it is her only expression.
Her Influence (7.5) and Resilience (7.0) tell a similar story. While she inspires dread and leaves a lasting imprint on geography, culture, and legend, she exerts no conscious sway over minds or societies. She does not speak in prophecy, tempt kings, or corrupt ideals. The fear she instills is passive, not cultivated. Her resilience is formidable—she survives the Balrogs, the wrath of the Valar, and escapes into the forgotten south—but she is also undone by her own hunger. She does not regenerate, reincarnate, or transcend her limits. Her end is entropy: she consumes herself. This, ultimately, defines her cosmological boundary.
In multiverse terms, Ungoliant is a cosmic predator, not a cosmic architect. She is not a god, not a master of fate, but a rupture in the divine pattern—born either of corruption or outer void. Her power is primal, not divine; her threat existential, but not systemic. She can destroy creation, but she cannot replace it. She can end the light, but she cannot wield it. That distinction is what keeps her from the absolute topmost tier. Pride and Prophecy keeps an updated power ranking across all planes of existence. This will only be sortable on desktop viewing. The below table shows a summary within the same plane of existence of this article.
