We Finally Know What's Up With All the Spiders in AHS Season 12
There are a lot of spiders in the AHS teaser, but will they really be a thing on the show?
What could be creepier than a slow, strange-sounding lullaby and a spider's nest infesting a body? Well, that's apparently what this year's Halloween season could be filled with for all American Horror Story fans. At least that is what the new teaser released by FX suggests. But should it be taken too literally?
The 12th season of the horror anthology titled Delicate will be based on the novel by Danielle Valentine, which focuses on the dark side of the birthing industrial complex of modern medicine. The protagonist, played by Emma Roberts, is a woman who desperately wants to have a baby but finds that some external forces are interfering with her pregnancy.
That sounds exciting, you might say, but what's up with all the spiders? The new teaser gives some clues for speculation.
First of all, spiders aren't a thing that appears in the novel, so that's an AHS-specific artistic decision. Second, after 11 seasons and all the teasers that foreshadowed them, fans know all too well that the things that are shown in the promo clips don't always end up in the actual season. So the spider theme seems to be metaphorical.
The over-the-top (and, let's face it, stomach-churning) spider imagery may allude to mythology, where there are several examples of spider-inspired creatures, such as Arachne from a Greek myth, who was turned into a spider by Athena because she was too good at weaving; the West African half-spider trickster god Anansi; or the Japanese Jorōgumo, a beautiful woman who is actually a spider.
Another theory suggests that the spiders in the teaser may be used as a symbol of some kind of female fertility cult. The spider web connecting Kim Kardashian's character to other women suggests a network of women with possible themes of radical feminism woven into it.
In light of recent political efforts to control women's bodies and fertility, it would be natural for the creators of AHS to comment on this. After all, they've never shied away from social and political criticism.