[Kalimac]

Wow, Child, you dig deep [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]. Good stuff, you've pretty much said it all. The only thing I wanted to add was that since Gandalf says that Denethor showed him "less welcome" than of old, that would imply that even if the relationship was never exactly warm ("Hi Denethor! Meet Thorongil, my protege!") something had happened since their last meeting to make it even cooler. My two guesses as to what may have made the temperature go even further down are simple: Faramir, and the Palantir. Faramir by now has grown up and is getting on better with Gandalf's style of thinking than with his father's, and Denethor would resent that very much. Also, though he has had the Palantir in his possession for a long time, Gandalf states later that he did not start to really get out of control until a few years before the end, as he grew more afraid. Not that Denethor could ever have really been in control of the Palantir with Sauron at the other end, but he would have been starting to use it less moderately and growing more worried and unbalanced.