History Main / GiantSpider

-->'''Carey:''' Aw, guys, I'm sorry, but the phone's been ringing all night. Apparently a lot of people need your help. ''(whips out the list)'' Let's see, there's a bus on a broken suspension bridge, and... Ooh, I think I'd start with the giant spider that's climbing city hall.\\

* In ''Phill Jupitus: Quadrophobia'', he claims to have encountered two "Category 3" spiders:

* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'': Shriezyx resemble monstrous spiders three feet in height. Shriezyx queens can reach a solid eight.

** The first was actually called "[[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370781 Giant Spider]]", and holds the distinction of having been the only card to have been in every base set printed until it was left out of Magic 2013, although it came back in Magic 2014 and still holds the record for longest continuous run in the core sets.
** Giant Spider is not the biggest Spider in the game, either. [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=88959 Goliath Spider]] is. It's a 7/6 and its illustration is it [[TheWorfEffect eating a drake]]. There's also [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=26661 Plated Spider]], which has the amusing flavor text "Most spiders wait patiently for their prey to arrive. Most spiders aren't forty feet tall."
** Planechase gave us [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=423512 Dragonlair Spider]], which spawns insects. Spiders are technically not insects, but then you read the flavour text. Those insects are not spawns of the spider; they're scavengers eating the bits of ''dragons'' that the spider discards. [[FoodChainOfEvil That thing eats]] ''[[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragons]]''.

* Oddly toyed with in ''WebOriginal/{{Mortasheen}}''. You'd think the [[HalfHumanHybrid human-insect hybrid]] Arthropoid class of creatures would have one, but in actuality, the spider-based creatures they have there aren't all that big and tend to look more like humans with weirdly spidery proportions (the biggest one looks more ape-like than anything else). But, there is a monster that fits this trope, though oddly enough it's actually [[http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/gorgoblepas.htm a weird cow thing designed to produce meat]].

They usually have little personality, beyond vague malevolence. Some of them can talk, but they're rarely very chatty, and only very rarely will they overlap with FriendlyNeighborhoodSpider. They can turn up in a variety of situations, but their most common habitats are the HungryJungle and vast caverns BeneathTheEarth. Sometimes, they're just ordinary spiders who meet up with [[IncredibleShrinkingMan a protagonist who is small]], although it amounts to the same thing.

* ''All Eight Eyes'' is set in a world where giant spiders exist, prey on humans, but only a single vagrant is shown doing anything about them because people at large [[WeirdnessCensor rationalize away any evidence]]. A teenager witnesses him killing one and is incapable of forgetting, so he ends up joining him. It's pointed out in the first issue that, though physical limitations prevent them from nesting anywhere but underground, physically they shouldn't be capable of being that big.

Arachnophobia is probably the second-most popular phobia (after [[MonsterClown coulrophobia]]), and even non-arachnophobes have to admit that [[SpidersAreScary spiders can be pretty freaky]]. Therefore, the most popular form of BigCreepyCrawlies and one of the most popular [[AttackOfThe50FootWhatever 50-Foot Whatevers]] to attack has to be (don't click the link if you like to browse TV Tropes before bed) a [[http://www.livescience.com/animals/news-spider-species-100111.html big spider]]. The bigger they are, the less likely there are to be more of them, but they're almost all so big that [[SquareCubeLaw they realistically shouldn't be able to move or breathe]] (according to natural laws of our universe's Earth, given our atmosphere's oxygen concentration). They will usually have hypertoxic venom, both spin webs and hunt for prey, and SuperSpit silk out of their mouths (most spiders in real life only focus on one trait). For extra terror, [[SpiderSwarm they may even attack in groups]] (again, most spiders in real life are solitary).

They usually have little personality, beyond vague malevolence. Some of them can talk, but they're rarely very chatty, and only very rarely will they overlap with FriendlyNeighborhoodSpider. Sometimes, they're just ordinary spiders who meet up with [[IncredibleShrinkingMan a protagonist who is small]], although it amounts to the same thing. Crossed over with HumongousMecha, you get the SpiderTank.

Compare GiantEnemyCrab. Subtrope of DireBeast.

** Other races of the Underdark, such as the duergar dwarves or the ettercaps - themselves spider-headed, web-weaving humanoids -- similarly use giant spiders as mounts.

->''"Most like a spider she was, but huger than the great hunting beasts, and more terrible than they because of the evil purpose in her remorseless eyes. Great horns she had, and behind her short stalk-like neck was her huge swollen body, a vast bloated bag, swaying and sagging beneath her legs; its great bulk was black, blotched with livid marks, but the belly underneath was pale and luminous and gave forth a stench. Her legs were bent, with great knobbed joints high above her back, and hairs that stuck out like steel spines, and at each leg's end there was a claw."''
-->-- '''Creator/JRRTolkien''', ''[[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings The Two Towers]]''

* The ''Series/{{Buffy|TheVampireSlayer}}'' episode "[[{{Recap/BuffyTheVampireSlayerS7E5Selfless}} Selfless]]" started out with one of these.
* The MonsterOfTheWeek in the ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' episode "Spin City".

** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS11E5PlanetOfTheSpiders "Planet of the Spiders"]] has the titular Giant Spiders of Metebelis 3 (which evolved from normal spiders).
** [[Recap/DoctorWho2006CSTheRunawayBride "The Runaway Bride"]]: The Racnoss, as a species, cross this trope with HordeOfAlienLocusts. Although the Empress is partially humanoid in appearance.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS34E7KillTheMoon "Kill the Moon"]]: The Doctor and co. stumble upon giant ''germs'' shaped like spiders living on the Moon.
** [[Recap/DoctorWhoS37E4ArachnidsInTheUK "Arachnids in the UK"]]: There's a mother spider the size of, in Graham's words, a ''van''. [[spoiler:It's actually a test subject from a university laboratory that grew that size after it was improperly disposed of by a waste company owned by a CorruptCorporateExecutive, which grew so large due to eating garbage in the landfill it was dumped in. And, unlike some other giant spiders on this show, it ''is'' affected by the SquareCubeLaw, as when the Doctor finally confronts it, she realizes it's dying of suffocation as it's grown too big to breathe.]]

* ''LightNovel/SoImASpiderSoWhat'': The main character is this, as well as her "family" after she's reincarnated. Her "mother" {{exaggerate|dTrope}}s in sheer size, and is unsurprisingly one of the strongest non-deity entities in the series given the power she has compared to even the settings dragons, as well as the sheer destruction she can cause.

** In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' and its sequel ''TabletopGame/WarhammerAgeOfSigmar'', Forest Goblins and Spiderfang Grots respectively ride giant spiders into battle with the rank and file riding spiders about twice their size while their bosses ride spiders twice as big as those of their followers. The largest spiders fielded by these tribes are the arachnarok spiders, spiders so massive that they can be fitted with howdahs and fitted with catapults or primitive shrines.

* ''ComicBook/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast'': The monster fought in the Tower of Hera is a giant tarantula as opposed to the Moldorm fought in ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaALinkToThePast the game]]''. However, when the monster's ghost appears in Ganon's Tower, Link identifies it as Moldorm.

* In Fit the Eleventh of ''Radio/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'', Zaphod and Ford enter a hanger full of TechnoWreckage and huge cobwebs. A huge spider briefly lands next to them and says "'scuse me" in a [[Music/TheWho "Boris the Spider"]] voice before scuttling off.

* ''ComicBook/TheSandman'': Discussed. Barbara wonders if her dreamworld has these creatures, and learns that while it does, they are [[DarkIsNotEvil on her side]], and [[CowardlyLion very timid]].

* ''Wiki/SCPFoundation'':

* ''Fanfic/VowOfNudity'': Haara and Walburt fight several (complete with flaming jaws) while infiltrating the Genasi volcano mines.