Palantír

In Tolkien's fantasy The Lord of the Rings, the palantírs were made by the Elves of Valinor in the Uttermost West, by the Noldor, apparently by Fëanor himself from silima, "that which shines". The number that he made is not stated, but there were at least eight of them. Seven of the stones given to Amandil of Númenor during the Second Age were saved by his son Elendil; he took them with him to Middle-earth, while at least the Master-stone remained behind.[1][2]

Four were taken to Gondor, while three stayed in Arnor. Originally, the stones of Arnor were at Elostirion in the Tower Hills, Amon Sul (Weathertop), and Annuminas: the Elostirion stone, Elendil's own, looked only Westwards from Middle-earth across the ocean to the Master-stone at the Tower of Avallonë upon Eressëa, an island off Valinor. The stones of Gondor were in Orthanc, Minas Tirith, Osgiliath, and Minas Ithil.[1]

By the time of The Lord of the Rings, the stone of Orthanc was in the hands of the wizard Saruman, while the stone of Minas Ithil, (by then Minas Morgul, the city of the Nazgûl), had been taken by the dark lord Sauron. That of Minas Tirith remained in the hands of the Steward of Gondor, Denethor. The stone of Osgiliath had been lost in the Anduin when the city was sacked.[1][T 3]

A single palantír enabled its user to see places far off, or events in the past.[T 3][T 2] A person could look into a palantír to communicate with anyone looking into another palantír. They could then see "visions of the things in the mind" of the person looking into the other stone.[T 3]

The stones were made of a dark crystal, indestructible by any normal means, except perhaps the fire of Orodruin. They ranged in size from a diameter of about a foot (30 cm) to much larger stones that could not be lifted by one person. The Stone of Osgiliath had power over other stones including the ability to eavesdrop. The minor stones required one to move around them, thereby changing the viewpoint of its vision, whereas the major stones could be turned on their axis.[T 3]

Tom Shippey suggests that the palantírs' deception says one should trust in providence, not crystal balls.[3] Painting by J.W. Waterhouse, 1902

A wielder of great power such as Sauron could dominate a weaker user through the stone, which was the experience of Pippin Took and Saruman. Even one as powerful as Sauron could not make the palantírs "lie", or create false images; the most he could do was to selectively display truthful images to create a false impression in the viewer's mind. In The Lord of the Rings, four such uses of the stones are described, and in each case, a true image is shown, but the viewer draws a false conclusion from the facts. This applies to Sauron when he sees Pippin in Saruman's stone and assumes that Pippin has the One Ring, and that Saruman has therefore captured it.[3][T 4] Denethor, too, is deceived through his use of a palantír, this time by Sauron, who drives Denethor to suicide by truthfully showing him the Black Fleet approaching Gondor, without telling him that the ships are crewed by Aragorn's troops, coming to Gondor's rescue.[4] Shippey suggests that this consistent pattern is Tolkien's way of telling the reader that one should not "speculate" – the word meaning both to try to double-guess the future, and to look into a mirror (Latin: speculum 'glass or mirror') or crystal ball – but should trust in one's luck and make one's own mind up, courageously facing one's duty in each situation.[3]

Joseph Pearce compared Sauron's use of Palantírs to spread despair to wartime use of radio for propaganda.[5] Screenshot from Frank Capra's wartime Why We Fight

The English literature scholar Paul Kocher similarly noted the hand of providence: Wormtongue's throwing of the stone providentially leads to Pippin's foolish look into the stone, which deceives Sauron; and it allows Aragorn to claim the stone and use it to deceive Sauron further. This leads him to assume that Aragorn has the One Ring. That in turn provokes Sauron into a whole series of what turn out to be disastrous actions: a premature attack on Minas Tirith; a rushed exit of the army of Minas Morgul, thus letting the hobbits through the pass of Cirith Ungol with the One Ring, and so on until the quest to destroy the ring succeeds against all odds.[6]

The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance Nitzsche writes that Saruman's sin, in Christian terms, is to seek Godlike knowledge by gazing in a short-sighted way into the Orthanc palantír in the hope of rivalling Sauron. She quotes Tolkien's description in The Two Towers, which states that Saruman explored "all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom".[7] She explains that he is in this way giving up actual wisdom for "mere knowledge", imagining the arts were his own but in fact coming from Sauron. This prideful self-aggrandisement leads to his fall.[7] She notes that it is ironic in this context that palantír means "far-sighted".[7]

Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the seeing stones to "broadcast propaganda and sow the seeds of despair among his enemies" with the communications technologies used to spread propaganda in the Second World War and then the Cold War, when Tolkien was writing.[5]