Did Aragorn or Gandalf try and see Frodo and Sam in Mordor w/ the Palantir?
 

I was just reading the RotK to my daughter [ 6yrs old, i wonder how long till she wants on the downs?] and we got to the point where Aragorn is leading the Armies of the West to mordor thru Ithilien, and the question Did Aragorn or Gandalf try and see Frodo and Sam in Mordor w/ the Palantir? came to me.

Of course I do not think there is proof that they did [ maybe some they did not], but curious as to your opinions.

I do not think that he could do that, Lindil. Maybe he tried to do it, but even that seems unlikely. he said himself that he barely had the strength to draw the Palantir away from Barad-dur. I don't think that in such a struggle he would try something even harder: putting the Palantir somewhere else at his will, instead of drawing it away alone.

greetings,
lathspell

P.S.: greetings to your little daughter, she's welcome [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

Is your daughter understanding it???? [img]smilies/eek.gif[/img]

Yes, I don't think that he would of tried to use it, more than likely the risk of Sauron seeing what he is seeing is to great.

[ October 04, 2002: Message edited by: Beren87 ]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that the Palantir was more or less a communication device, so that one person could see and hear another person, but only if they had a Palatir also.

I did not think it worked like Galadriel's mirror, showing images of current, future, or past events.

When Pippin looks in the Palatir at Orthanc, doesn't Sauron think that Saruman made him look in the Palatir to reveal himself, kinda like making Pippin "pick up the phone and say something"?

The Palantir's function seems to be a little fuzzily defined; like Birdland already said, when Pippin first encounters it, it's like he's picking up the phone so that (Sauron thinks) Saruman can prove that he's there. (On the "Say sump'n to da Boss" principle). OTOH when Denethor uses it its function seems a little more general; he's described as seeing what's happening in many different places - Sauron, via his own Palantir, is of course selecting and editing these scenes so that Denethor will only see the things that will discourage him, but he does see the black fleet sailing down the river and similar things, so presumably the Palantiri can also pick up a fairly wide range of signals, but on a party-line basis - Sauron can show Denethor what he's seeing in his Palantir, and vice versa.

From all this it seems like a lot depends on the strength of the person using the Palantir; the more powerful they are, the wider range they have - and the more ability to prevent other Palantir-seers from seeing inconvenient things. In the case of Pippin (and, eventually, Denethor) they are both much weaker than Sauron, so they see only what Sauron shows - this would explain why Pippin saw a few Nazgul flying around in the Palantir before the Eye "came on" so to speak. He was seeing what Sauron was seeing.

So after that huge buildup (sorry [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]) - no, I really doubt Aragorn would have looked for Frodo and Sam. For one thing it probably would have taken more time than he could spare, for another thing there would be a huge risk of Sauron somehow picking up on it - not necessarily on the fact that Aragorn was looking the Ringbearer specifically, but on the fact that he was looking over a deserted and useless stretch of Mordor with a fair amount of attention. Hmm, what could he be looking for? The last thing Aragorn would want would be to divert the Eye back to its own country at that point.

I agree, Kalimac. Aragorn would not have wanted to draw attention to Frodo if he could have helped it. In addition, if you could only see what is happening in the other stones or what the bearers of the other stones allow you to see, than he could not have possibly seen Frodo in the stones because there were none fixed in his direction, if that makes any sense.

Busybee, actually she is doing well, part osmosis, part understanding. Sometimes I will simplfy words or explain things.

It is her favorite part of the day [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

A couple of points. Aragorn was the lawful master of the Orthanc stone and through a combination of 'right', his strength or I would rather say 'being' and i would imagine a bit of overshadowing by Eru, Aragorn wrenched the stone away from sauron's will, something Saruman could not [ or did not truly wish to ] do.

Aragorn then reports that he turned the stone to his own purpose and saw the black fleet and rightly surmised that it's known coming would hamstring the efforts to properly man Minas Tirith.

So Aragorn had a 'free' stone so to speak.

But everyone who surmised that there was a danger of Saruman somehow intercepting a gaze also shares my concern. I need to read the UT chapter again though to be sure.

I was curious to see other folks take on the idea.

Hey Lindil it is great you are reading this to your daughter. My daughtrer is 3 and a half and she watches parts of the movie with me and I'm telling her stories from the book.
I'm thinking of finding the Hobbit cartoon for her. Hoping to get her hooked early.
Any ideas?

Just want to put in my 2 cents. Even if he could have torn himself away from Barad-dur long enouph and wanted to find Frodo, Frodo and co were pretty carful about keeping themselves hiddin. If Sauron didn't notice them, how would Aragorn have found them? I think that this palantir could look at other places other then a person they were talking to but Frodo is small and Aragorn had no idea of where to look first.