Board Thread:Lore/@comment-26272311-20150412005128/@comment-26298013-20150415200501

AH, BUT NO. Elves cannot leave the Halls of Mandos (Yes, I know, Beren and Luthien, but that it much different. Because Luthien cheated the rules of death. Awesome, right?). Just so you know, Mandos would not allow anyone to leave his halls without very good reason...or very good sing-song-y magic of Luthien to get out of jail.

Once they are slain in battle or slain by grief, or by simply wasting away from world-weariness, Elves' spirits (Which are of the Secret Fire, and can, in the case of an especially powerful Elf, like Feanor, burn their bodies to ash. Of course, this is just because Feanor is ridiculously spirited in all ways. And skilled.) leave their bodies, and go to the Halls of Mandos to wait for the world to be remade.

No, some things in Middle Earth do not die. But the Elves can indeed die.

So, to recap: Ungoliant is certainly dead, either from devouring herself like the books suggest or in a huge death by cataclysmic destruction of all of Beleriand. Shelob may be dead, but it is more likely that, at the beginning of the Fourth Age, she waits still, living in that cave, now free of food and of sharp Elven blades. The spiders of Mirkwood are a brood of Ungoliant, certainly not directly, probably found by Sauron or his servants and brought there. Oh, and they're all dead for sure. Galadriel, Celeborn, and Thranduil's forces would have seen to that after the War of the Ring.