LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 11 - The Palantír

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by davem

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.

I think that this is true; Gandalf was thinking of the possibilities of the Palantir, and showing some of his longing for what ultimately is his home, Valinor. But it is almost a double edged statement, because while he might be yearning to look into the palantir through good motives, all too soon he too could be looking into it for selfish motives once Sauron had 'captured' him. And is the yearning to see Valinor and Feanor at work entirely unselfish? There is something dangerous in these stones, something inherently perilous. Could the answer lie in the fact that this stone does not belong to him? It is not his right to use it?

Looking at the quote Kuruharan uses:

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.

This is also true, in that those allowed by right to use the stones ought to come to no danger. But they do come to danger. Perhaps it is that no stone is safe once one is lost, revealing them to be a fragile 'system', wide open to possibilities of corruption. If Feanor did make them, then like the Silmarils they have caused trouble. I wonder if all magical items in Middle Earth have this potential for misuse, if all of them are 'unstable' in some way, even the Mirror of Galadriel?