Originally posted by AslanC
So in the Silmarillion there is a mother of the spiders who eats the simarils? This is what I have been told, but I know nothing more than that.
Can anyone help? Tell me more?
Ungoliant was the "creature in spider-form" you are asking about. She helped Melkor sneak back into Valinor, and she poisoned the two Trees and devoured their light while Melkor stole the Silmarils. When they made their getaway, Ungoliant was still hungry and demanded the Silmarils as well. Melkor said no, and was only saved from Ungoliant (grown immesurably from comsuming the trees) by the timely intervention of his Balrogs. No more of Ungoliant is known, but there certainly have been lots of giant spiders weaving webs of darkness in later years...
And the orcs were made by torturing elves? Can some one elaborate?
Not so much torturing as courupting. Two of Tolkien's big themes are: "Evil cannot make, it can only mock," and "Nothing is evil in its origin."
What Melkor (a.k.a. Morgoth) wanted was power and dominion, and the ultimate power and dominion (the provence of Eru Iluvitar himself and no other) was the creation of life, which he could never achieve. So to actually create servants who weren't mere constructs, he had to have actual life to start with. The first sentient life available to him was Elves, some of whom he captured and courupted and debased and twisted, and eventually he had Orcs. Tolkien also eventually decided that Men (who were much easier than Elves to debase and courupt) were mixed in there as well, probably because he wasn't too keen on the thought of immortal Orcs and he was sure that Morgoth wasn't powerful enough to alter Elven nature that fundamentally.
The trolls were made in mockery of the Ents, but it its doubtful that they were made from Ents. We're not sure what their origin is, but the fact that trolls turn to stone in the sun might suggest that they are some sort of construct of Morgoth's given animation, but not true life, through application of his power (this is pure idle speculation however).
As for Dragons (yet another of Morgoth's gifts to the world) I have no idea how he pulled them off.
There's a general gist of things. Don't worry too much about confusion and contradiction, because Tolkien himself never established these things entirely to his satisfaction, and was constantly coming back to it and trying to work out the kinks.
-Chris Landmark
"Was entstanden ist, das muss vergehen. Was vergangen, auferstehn." -Klopstock & Mahler
"Only liberals really think. Only liberals are intellectual. Only liberals understand the needs of their fellows." How much viciousness lay concealed in that word! Odrade thought. How much secret ego demanding to feel superior. - Heretics of Dune