LotR -- Book 3 - Chapter 11 - The Palantír

[Estelyn Telcontar]

This chapter closes Book 3 and ends the telling of this strand of the story. We leave Isengard with the Riders and Fellowship, and as the title suggests, the most important part is centered on Pippin, Gandalf and the Palantír.

What sparks Pippin’s restlessness? Is the stone itself working on him, is it just his inquisitive nature, or which other factors could be at the root of his wish to look into the stone? Did Saruman’s voice have an effect on him? Why Pippin and not Merry? This is one of the chapters that shows the difference between the two hobbits who have been together up till now and are perhaps difficult to discern from one another unless one reads carefully. Would Merry have reacted differently? Aragorn warns him against thinking so later in the chapter, but he does appear more cautious.

Though Pippin did wrong in taking the Palantír and looking into it, we find that good came of it; it saved Gandalf from temptation. There was no real harm done, and it seems to have had no further repercussions later on – or did it? Was this an experience that was important to Pippin’s maturing process?

We find out that Aragorn has a right to the Palantír, and Gandalf acknowledges his kingship in giving it to him.

The rather leisurely pace of events is quickened by the appearance of the flying Nazgûl, giving the story a sense of urgency just before it is paused.

It’s been awhile since there was poetry in a chapter; it doesn’t seem compatible with battles and action. We do have a few lines quoted by Gandalf in connection with the Palantír. Though they are brief, I find them very compelling.

It is chilling to hear Gandalf say, “There is nothing that Sauron cannot turn to evil uses.” The Palantíri were great and wonderful artefacts or devices, made by the Elves – is there a definite statement about their originating from Fëanor in one of the other works, Sil or UT? Innate power/authority/right (of ownership?) is vital to the ability to use them at any rate, as Gandalf says: “Perilous to us all are the devices of an art deeper than we possess ourselves.”

One of my very favorite quotes comes from this chapter; it was my first signature way back in my early days on this forum:

‘Mercy!’ cried Gandalf. ‘If the giving of information is to be the cure of your inquisitiveness, I shall spend all the rest of my days in answering you. What more do you want to know?’
‘The names of all the stars, and of all living things, and the whole history of Middle-earth and Over-heaven and of the Sundering Seas,’ laughed Pippin. ‘Of course! What less? But I am not in a hurry tonight…’

Doesn’t that sound like a Tolkien geek nowadays?!

The close of the chapter is wonderfully evocative:

…Pippin had a strange feeling: he and Gandalf were still as stone, seated upon the statue of a running horse, while the world rolled away beneath his feet with a great noise of wind.