In which Dr. Cameron Thompson & I discuss spiders (not flies), mirk, white deer and being caught in a net (and how, with a little luck, to perhaps be disengannoed therefrom).  There are some funny outtakes at the end and perhaps some wisdom as well.

"Flies & Spiders" chapter 8 in the Hobbit

The escape from the webs of the spiders is reminiscent of the escape from sin and slavery that we all long for.

Surely he will save you     from the fowler’s snare     and from the deadly pestilence. - Psalm 91:3

Perhaps that white deer is sent partly as a sign of the glory in the midst of the darkness (like the candle returning to the church at the Easter Vigil); perhaps it is sent to increase the desire for freedom, light, and cleanness - a hunger transcending the hunger of the belly that drives them off the path.  Shooting at the gift, then, is like the Mariner in Coleridge's poem shooting at the albatross, isn't it?  The result is a tremendous weight around the neck of the Mariner, like the penitential weight Robert DeNiro's character bears in "The Mission", or like Bombur sleeping through the rest of the journey.  Surviving that weight, enduring the dark mirk of the soul, seems to create in Bilbo a resilient defiance that transforms him and grants him the strength not only to fight the arachnoid demons of darkness but to lead the dwarves through Mirkwood and beyond.