[Kalimac]

Wow! I love all the ideas here [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] - thanks so much, guys! Belin, you're right - I hadn't realized, but Pippin is "in between" quite a lot more than any of the other characters (in terms of meeting both Theoden and Denethor, naming his son after Faramir/serving for the memory of Boromir and things like that). Of course without the Palantir, he would never have met Denethor, and by extension saved Faramir's life, so maybe that call he felt to look into the Palantir was actually an impulse of good, or at least had some good mixed in with it. After all, Gandalf himself said that if Pippin hadn't looked, he himself might have done so and perhaps done far worse harm to the Quest than Pippin possibly could have. So now that I think about it, both times in which Pippin is "curiously attracted" involve Gandalf heavily. Without the stone, Gandalf may well have never fought the Balrog and been reborn as Gandalf the White, and without the Palantir Gandalf might have accidentally given away the store to Sauron. Thomas Aquinas would probably have pointed to that as an example of his idea that one of the great blessings of God is that "out of evil cometh good", but that still leaves the source of Pippin's initial prompting somewhat mysterious. (I'm not trying to get into a theological wrangle - just thought the phrase was apt).

Groundskeeper-Willie - I agree that Pippin definitely started growing up before he met Denethor; it was just more gradual in the first book and happened by leaps and bounds in the second and third. Though about dropping the brooch - in defense of Merry, he was wounded and semi-conscious for most of the first day or two of the march and was probably still fairly groggy when Pippin dropped his brooch, so his wits probably weren't quite in full working order. Not to take any credit away from Pippin, of course; whoever dropped the pin, it would be a very clever thing to do.