📖👀 Chapter 11 (📔Book III): The Palantir

[Rivendell_librarian]

"Curiosity killed the cat". This is such a common theme which appears in many genres. I must get a closer look at this egg like thing thought John Hurt in Alien. "Don't do it" the audience/viewer/reader thinks but they always do - well there wouldn't be a story otherwise would there. Pippin has handled the Palantir ("finders, keepers") and has become obsessed with handling it again. Frodo put the Ring on at Weathertop against Gandalf's advice. This is the human nature we all know.

Gandalf is being his annoying self, not telling Merry how far they would be riding and being "close" according to the two hobbits when they do halt for the night. Gandalf does tell Merry of the change of plan: not Edoras but Helm's Deep and thence to Dunharrow avoiding open ground. Time is pressing now. Gandalf has worked out that there was a means of communication between Isengard and Mordor but does not know what it is. Merry has perceived the change in Gandalf - he is more powerful now. I like the way Merry and Pippin and not star struck by celebrity - in fact they will both play a major part in the events to come.

Pippin is one of the few characters who goes face to face with Sauron, and not only survives, but it could be argued he becomes firmer in purpose as a result. From what Pippin says Gandalf realises that Sauron has not discovered the purpose and mission of Frodo and Sam. Gandalf presents the Orthanc stone to Aragorn and even bows to him but warns him not to use it - another echo of Frodo and the Ring. The link between Isengard and Mordor is now clear.

Pippin now rides with Gandalf to Minas Tirith and receives a huge brain dump from Gandalf about Numenor and the Palantiri, as well as speculation about the relations now between Sauron and Saruman. Not surprisingly Pippin nods off but 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". I take this as testimony to the wonderful sense of riding Shadowfax.

 

[Eljorahir]

"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"

This is the second time in the story (I think) Tolkien gives us a brief dream-like change in perspective of this sort. Instead of the characters moving across the landscape, it's the earth that's "rolling away" or "slipping backward". As the fellowship floated away from Lorien...

"For so it seemed to them: Lorien was slipping backward, like a bright ship masted with enchanted trees, sailing on to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and leafless world."

 

[Eljorahir]

Comment #1
Unless I'm forgetting something, the chapter provides the only Sauron dialog we get in the whole story.

Comment #2
I'm sure the first time I finished reading The Lord of the Rings I thought it strange that the antagonist and protagonist never meet and also the reader never meets Sauron directly. I think this chapter provides the closest we ever come to meeting him. Although, our meeting is quite indirect: Sauron to palantir, palantir to Pippin, and finally Pippin to us.

Pippin:
...then he came. He did not speak so that I could hear words. He just looked, and I understood.

"So you have come back? Why have you neglected to report for so long?"

I did not answer. He said: "Who are you?" I still did not answer, but it hurt me horribly; and he pressed me, so I said: "A Hobbit."
Then suddenly he seemed to see me and laughed at me. It was cruel. It was like being stabbed with knives. I struggled. But he said: "Wait a moment! We shall meet again soon. Tell Saruman that this dainty is not for him. I will send for it at once. Do you understand? Say just that!"

Comment #3
Sauron, The Dark Lord, The Enemy, The Black One, The Black Master, Base Master of Treachery, the darkest power remaining in all the world is perfectly comfortable using the word... ... ... "dainty". And, if that isn't enough: he wants Pippin to relay a message for him!