Ungoliant - Why Darkness is Always Hungry for the Light
She was the epitome of Melkor’s own inner void, which he sought to fill up with the Flame Imperishable.
Ungoliant was a gigantic spider in Tolkien’s Silmarillion who was responsible for spinning the first “spiritual Darkness.”
She was always hungry, but for what?
She was hungry for the Light of the Two Trees, but no matter how much of it she consumed, she remained famished.
In a ravine she lived, and took shape as a spider of monstrous form, weaving her black webs in a cleft of the mountains. There she sucked up all light that she could find, and spun it forth again in dark nets of strangling gloom, until no light more could come to her abode; and she was famished.
What kind of creature was she? Apparently, she wasn’t even a creature in the proper sense of the word. Tolkien doesn’t even mention if she was a spirit. Among the Eldar, it was said that she came out of the darkness surrounding Arda when Melkor first looked down in envy upon the Kingdom of Manwe.
Ungoliant was a spawn of darkness itself but not of darkness which is the absence of physical light. She was a spawn of spiritual Darkness, which is the absence of spiritual Light. She was the spawn of Melkor’s envy.
She came as a physical manifestation of Melkor’s own emptiness when he first looked at Manwe’s realm with bitter envy. She was the epitome of Melkor’s own inner void, which he sought to fill up with the Flame Imperishable.
But why is he seeking the Light if he is so bent on perpetuating Darkness?
It is said:
He had gone often alone into the void places seeking the Imperishable Flame; for desire grew hot within him to bring into Being things of his own, and it seemed to him that Ilúvatar took no thought for the Void, and he was impatient of its emptiness. Yet he found not the Fire, for it is with Ilúvatar.
Melkor wanted to bring into Being things of his own imagining but could not. When you stray from the Music – the thought of Iluvatar – you cannot sub-create. You can only mutilate what’s already created.
Ungoliant was an echo of Melkor’s insatiable inner void.
Even after destroying the Two Trees and sucking up all their sap, she was still thirsty.
And still she thirsted, and going to the Wells of Varda she drank them dry; but Ungoliant belched forth black vapours as she drank, and swelled to a shape so vast and hideous that Melkor was afraid.
Melkor himself is afraid of her – afraid of his own consuming emptiness, especially when he sees it incarnated in a hideous monster. She was his mirror.
His desire for the Flame Imperishable burns hot within him; he seeks to fill it up but cannot because he is out of tune with the Great Music.
The more Light he consumes, the more Darkness he finds himself entangled in.
The darkness spun by Ungoliant was more than the absence of light. It was Unlight. Darkness made in mockery of Light. Darkness spun by Ungoliant in mockery of the Two Trees of Valinor.
So the great darkness fell upon Valinor… The Light failed; but the Darkness that followed was more than loss of light. In that hour was made a Darkness that seemed not lack but a thing with being of its own: for it was indeed made by malice out of Light, and it had power to pierce the eye, and to enter heart and mind, and strangle the very will.
Ungoliant came out of the outer darkness and belched forth a spiritual Darkness of which Melkor himself was afraid. He was afraid it would eventually consume him. He saw his own void reflected in her thousand little eyes, for he knew he was looking at himself.
Was there anything in Arda that could prevail over the Darkness of Unlight? What could overcome the Darkness that pierced the eye and strangled the very will?
Tulkas came to Arda last of all the Valar from the chambers of heaven as a champion to drive out the darkness of Unlight that enters heart and mind and strangles the very will.
Representing the laughter of Eru, Tulkas laughs the Darkness away and chains it.
Of all the parts of Iluvatar’s mind, Melkor hates laughter the most. Malice is helpless before laughter. Laughter puts Melkor in chains.
…and he was bound with the chain Angainor that Aulë had wrought…
It is said that the mark of true spiritual wisdom is the ability to laugh at yourself. Laugh at your diminished Ego.
Galadriel came to her senses by laughing – and she laughed Melkor in the face.
In place of the Dark Lord you will set up a Queen… She lifted up her hand and from the ring that she wore there issued a great light that illuminated her alone and left all else dark. She stood before Frodo seeming now tall beyond measurement, and beautiful beyond enduring, terrible and worshipful. Then she let her hand fall, and the light faded, and suddenly she laughed again, and lo! she was shrunken: a slender elf-woman, clad in simple white, whose gentle voice was soft and sad.
How do you triumph over your darkest desire? A desire that, if fulfilled, would make you a king or a queen over your realm?
It’s all you ever wanted, right?
Wrong.
Whether you deal with Satan or Sauron, when you are offered a Ring of Power to achieve your goals, you will always forfeit what you REALLY want by taking it.
The Ring always takes away what it promises to give.
Such are the gifts of Sauron called Annatar, “the gift giver.”
What does Galadriel’s laughter mean? Something Melkor hated with bitter hatred. Something he was so afraid of. Something he couldn’t face.
It means, “I can diminish and be okay with it.”
