Well, there's no reason to delete this topic that I can see . But you have to remember is what separates Fantasy or Fairy Tales from Science Fiction. Science Fiction usually has to follow rules, even if they are made up, Fantasy doesn't (though many Fantasy writers still create rules for their magical systems anyway).

This is one of the reasons why literary charges of Deus Ex Machina and Shaggy Dog (literary devices to make a story work when there are plot gaps) don't work against Fantasy writers. Anything can happen. Giant Sand Slugs, Giant Spiders, little kids living on planets barely bigger than a beach ball (The Little Prince), Old Witches who melt when water is thrown on them, whole cities of people living on a speck of dust resting on a clover being held by an elephant sitting on top of a little tree, flame breathing dragons etc. etc. Granted some of those Fantasies are geared towards children, but Fantasy, aka Fairy Story, has always been considered a children's genre by the unimaginative anyway, much to the disgruntlement of Tolkien (and myself ).

But the main point is, in Fantasy anything can happen. And adults like us, who enjoy Fantasy, have the imagination to make these sorts of things work. Marvel comics always had a nifty way of fixing plot holes--asking the readers to invent a solution and make up a reason why it could work. This is all we have to do to make Giant Spiders work.

For example: most insects, arachnids and crustaceans have an exoskeleton. When they are tiny, they are, as you suggest, cartilagetinous. However, as larger crustaceans such as Crabs and Lobsters have Hard Exoskeletons, we can imagine that a Giant Spider might have an exoskeleton as hard as any of our bones. So it could work .

[b:1hc2d9q5]GB[/b:1hc2d9q5]

It is fantasy, why not indeed?

[b:3ai6qn73]GB[/b:3ai6qn73]

Well, Lord of the Rings is really "High Fantasy" which is "a subgenre of fantasy that is set in invented or parallel worlds.". Well, there is all the reason where you can make spiders do anything you want them to, you're in an invented world in which you are the god, which is why so many authors have fun writing these things .

I'm a bit surprised by the opinion in this thread that when a story is fantasy anything can happen. This might be the case in some fantasy stories, but it most certainly is not in [i:29npccic]The Lord of the Rings[/i:29npccic]. Tolkien ostensibly set [i:29npccic]TLotR[/i:29npccic] in the distant, mythic past of our own world, as he said in [b:29npccic]Letter 183[/b:29npccic]:
[quote:29npccic]I am historically minded. Middle-earth is not an imaginary world. The name is the modern form (appearing in the 13th century and still in use) of [i:29npccic]midden-erd > middel-erd[/i:29npccic], an ancient name for the [i:29npccic]oikoumene[/i:29npccic], the abiding place of Men, [b:29npccic]the objectively real world[/b:29npccic], in use specifically opposed to imaginary worlds (as Fairlyland) or unseen worlds (as Heaven or Hell). The theatre of my tale is this earth, the one in which we now live, but the historical period is imaginary.[/quote:29npccic]

(my bold emphasis)

Given this statement from Tolkien I see the statement that "it doesn't matter because it's fantasy" to be incompatible with [i:29npccic]The Lord of the Rings[/i:29npccic]. Not just anything can happen in Middle-earth. There are obviously some differences from our own world (Elves, Dwarves, Orcs, Dragons, Maia, and others come to mind), but these occur within an internally consistent framework. Orcs do not magically sprout wings from one scene to the next, they are subject to the same laws of nature as other organisms. Even the "magical" elements have rules to follow.

Thinking specifically of giant spiders, I do not know enough about biology to comment on the plausibility of them. There were many large creatures with exoskeletons in the distant past though, so I don't see it as particularly implausible.

To complete Gandalf's Beard's comment. The reshaping of middle-earth coincided with the sinking of Numenor.

Apologies for the misunderstanding, [b:n4fp45rb]GB[/b:n4fp45rb].

The largest pre-historic spider was called Mesothelae, and was about the size of a human head(without the legs!). Invertebrates in the past were able to grow much larger than they can today because of a higher level of oxygen in the atmosphere - for example, there was a type of dragonfly called Meganeura which had a two-foot wingspan, and Arthropleura, a creature resembling a giant centipede, could reach 8.5 feet in length.

Speaking of reality, spiders grow continuously through their lives. The more food a spider gets, the bigger it grows. So it is possible to find spiders living that have exceeded normal parameters for their species, and have gotten to a sinister level of development. My own favorite for a mini-Shelob is an online pic of a black widow that had trapped a scarlet finch in its web, and was draining it. I believe the page was titled "spiders eating things they shouldn't", or the like. Members are willing to hunt it down if they like.

The giant spiders of Middle-Earth were meant to be perversions of nature, descended from Ungoliant. However, even in their exaggerated size and capabilities, they acted like spiders. to see what "normal" spiders would be like at a larger size, watch [i:3dk1mzvv]Eight Legged Freaks[/i:3dk1mzvv], then imagine those larger "normal" spiders with some malign cognitive intelligence and a capability for communication, and you have the giant spiders of Mirkwood. Anybody still disappointed that reality can't match fantasy?

That's less fantasy than a drug trip. Fantasy actually needs to go to greater lengths to maintain internal consistency and believability (taking for granted certain fantastic elements, of course) because the it takes place in new and alien worlds.

[quote="Gandalfs Beard":2c2mktty]The point is anything can happen in a Fantasy if the author wants it to.[/quote:2c2mktty]

I agree on that GB, but I think the author should follow certain certain consistencies within his own work so it's not just a string of random happenings.

[quote="Odo Banks":32mnw73l]I read somewhere that in a fantasy novel anything can happen and should.
Odo[/quote:32mnw73l]

Based on their works, I'd say Piers Anthony, David Butcher, James Green, and William S Burroughs all agree with that statement.

I like that RULE OF APPROPRIATENESS. May I have permission to quote it to others in the future?

Durn it, I got Butcher's first name wrong.... *sigh* Go read [i:2atai5dg]Storm Front[/i:2atai5dg], and [i:2atai5dg]Something from the Night Side[/i:2atai5dg] Odo, and see if that sort of oddity-spawning story background doesn't catch hold of your sense of wonder some. I have read [i:2atai5dg]The Dying Earth[/i:2atai5dg] some years ago, as well as a couple of Vance's short stories. He had a great sense of heroic fantasy as a world where wonders could be readily encountered...if you wanted to seek them, or sometimes even make them.