In FotR Frodo survived a spear that would have “Skewered a wild Boar” because of his mythril (sp?) coat. Yet in RotK Shelob (sp?) easily stabs frodo in the abdomen. I assume he was wearing the coat as he’s on a pretty risky and dangerous journey and would be silly not to wear it. Is Shelob’s ‘thing’ stronger than the huge spear that frodo survived?
Yes.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen it, but I’m pretty sure Shelob stabbed Frodo in a place not covered by the mail.
ISTR later in the movie we got a shot of the wound, and it was above the neckline of the shirt.
I watched it yesterday. It looked quite clear that Shelob stabbed him in the belly. I could be mistaken though.
Yes, Frodo is wearing the mithril shirt, it’s taken off of him in the tower of Cirith Ungol. When he’s shirtless, I believe you can see a large, circular wound just above where the neckline area of his shirt would be. It looks healed, probably due to some crazy spider thing, and is distinct from the wound in the left shoulder that he took at Weathertop.
Sadly, turtlenecks were out of style when Frodo’s shirt was made.
(But yes, when she’s doing the actual stabbing it does look like it’s in the belly)
If so, it was pure fabrication on the part of the filmmaker. In the book, Shelob did not gore Frodo with a gigantic, harpoon-like stinger. She sneaked up behind him and deftly “tapped” him at the base of the neck with her (presumably much smaller) “paralysis stinger.”
This scene irritated me. Regardless of whether Frodo were just injected with a paralyzing agent, with that enormous stinger, he would have sustained enormous internal injury.
Otherwise, I suppose you could rationalize that the stinger slipped under the mithril shirt, or that the stinger was skinny enough to just slip far enough between the rings that she was able to sting him through it, but it seems like a stretch.
I don’t remember seeing the wound in Cirith Ungol, but if it was above the neckline (the correct place, according to the book,) there’s a continuity problem. In the movie, it’s unmistakable. Shelob stabbed Frodo in the belly. I just don’t see any other possible explanation.
The not-quite healed wound in his shoulder you saw at Cirith Ungol was from the Morgul blade of the Witch King, not Shelob.
No, that was below his (left?) shoulder. I’m quite sure of that.
er, yes. I didn’t notice you say shoulder. :smack: The injury at Cirith Ungol which people mention is clearly in the neck. I remember seeing it.
I think the wound around Frodo’s neck is caused by the “weight” of the ring on its chain, wearing into his skin. I never supposed that it was from Shelob’s attack.
Frodo has three visible wounds - there’s one in his shoulder from Weathertop, a circular one on his upper chest/neck area that we’re theorizing is from Shelob, and abrasions around his neck from the ring.
searches for screencaps
… you know, you’d think that with all of the pervy hobbit fanciers around, SOMEBODY would’ve gotten an image of this. But I can’t find one.
To elfbabe - if only they had been true to the book we would have had a naked Frodo scene here. … we pervy hobbit fanciers were quite disappointed.
As for the seeming Shelob inconsistency, it looks in the movie to me as if Frodo gets stung in the neck, where he is not protected by the mithril shirt. Or maybe that’s just what makes the most sense to me.
If I remember correctly there was a lot of mouth kissing between the hobits in the book.
Left shoulder = Morgul blade
Right chest = Cave Troll (Moria–so I always thought) The book has him receiving a nasty crushing/abrasion wound which would have left a scar. But perhaps the nude scene in Cirith Ungol presents the wound too high on the chest to be related. Guess I’ll have to pick up a 6-pack & a pizza on the way home from work tonight and do some research.
But the stinger/mithril always bugged me…unless Shelob was aiming lower than the hem of the shirt :eek:
Unless my half-conscious memory of trousers is real, we did have a nude scene. Remember Sam saying “We can’t have you trapesing round mordor in nowt but your skin”
What really irritated me is that spiders don’t have stingers!!! They inject venom through their fangs.
I know, I know–Shelob is not really a spider, but that doesn’t make it any better. For all intents and purposes, she is a giant spider and the fact that she has a stinger (in both book and movie, IIRC) is just plain wrong!
The good Professor was an enthusiastic amateur botanist, but an entomologist he was not. Not only did he give stingers to spiders, but in Farmer Giles of Ham, he has dragonflies stinging folks, as well.
I’ve got one.
It’s not online, but I occasionally use it as wallpaper and would be happy to e-mail to any interested parties. 
Sam does say this–it’s a line from the book–but Frodo does have trousers on in the scene, and the inconsistency always bugs me. Either change the line, or take off the trousers, I say! (And I know which one I’d prefer…)