LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 11 - The Palantír

[davem]

This does seem to contradict Tolkien's statement that...

Quote:
Their use involved no peril, and no king or other person authorized to survey them would have hesitated to reveal the source of his knowledge of the deeds or opinions of distant rulers, if obtained through the Stones.

And that statement of Tolkien's seems to be contradicted by Gandalf's statement:

And how it draws one to itself! Have I not felt it? Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it, to see if I could not wrench it from him and turn it where I would--to look across the wide seas of water and of time to Tirion the Fair, and perceive the unimaginable hand and mind of Feanor at their work, while both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower!" He sighed and fell silent.

Gandalf is drawn to the Palantir not because of Sauron but in spite of him. He is drawn by the possibilities it offers. Again like the Ring it attracts & ultimately adicts by what it can offer.

In short, Tolkien did have a tendency to make contradictory statements - if we take them at face value. Of course, it could be that the statement about their use involving no peril was the theory, while Gandalf's own experience was the fact.

The more I think about them the more similar the Stones & the Ring seem.

Also, I begin to wonder how very different Sauron (mis)using the Secret Fire at the Heart of the Earth would be from Feanor (mis)using the Holy Light (if there's a difference between the two) of the Trees in his creation of the (highly 'addictive') Silmarils....