Reading "The Lord of the Rings:" "The Palantír"
Having confronted Saruman, Gandalf finds himself dealing with a certain young hobbit and his covetous gaze.
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Welcome to Tolkien Tuesdays, where I talk about various things that I love about the lore and writings of Tolkien, whether in a chapter reading or a character study or an essay. I hope you enjoy reading these ruminations as much as I enjoy writing them and, if you have a moment, I’d love it if you’d subscribe to this newsletter. It’s free, but there are paid options, as well, if you’re of a mind to support a struggling writer. Either way, thank you for joining me!
We have come at last to the end of the first part of The Two Towers. Now that Gandalf has had his fateful confrontation with Saruman and demonstrated that his former superior has truly fallen from grace, it’s time for the next stage of the fight against Mordor to begin. However, things take an unexpected turn when young Peregrin Took decides to abscond with the palantír that Wormtongue threw at Gandalf. Upon gazing into the orb, however, he gets more than he bargained for, drawing the attention of Sauron and, though he escapes with relatively little harm, Gandalf nevertheless proceeds to take him to Gondor in order to keep him out of further trouble.
Of course, it makes sense that it would be Pippin who would be the one to take the palantír and gaze into its depths. Of all of the hobbits he has always been the one with the most risk-taking personality, someone who’s willing to do something first and deal with the consequences after–let’s not forget that he was the one who dropped the pebble into the well in Moria. It’s worth noting that it would be a truly horrendous ordeal for a hobbit to have to deal with the likes of Sauron, even if slightly indirectly.
But, as Gandalf goes on to argue, it’s unlikely that he’ll endure any enduring harm. We’ve already seen the extent to which hobbits are remarkably resilient creatures, capable of enduring much more than others would expect, and so it seems more likely than not that Gandalf’s words will prove true. Moreover Pippin, like so many of the other hobbits in this story, seems to have a rather extraordinary amount of good luck and good fortune in his corner. While he might not be able to count on it again, that he was able to do so in the first place is a testament to the extent to which Pippin, like the other hobbits, has more than his fair share of good luck. Someone, it seems, is looking out for him.
As has been the case throughout The Lord of the Rings thus far, a hobbit has proven to be one of the key agents of change. In this case, Pippin’s actions have exacerbated Saruman’s own plight for, as Gandalf reminds them, Sauron will believe that his minion is avoiding him and perhaps setting himself up as a rival power, when in fact the treacherous wizard can’t come to their appointed meetings because he no longer has the stone in his possession. As Théoden pithily puts it, evil is often its own worst enemy, because ill intent will almost always end up destroying itself. This is yet another iteration of Tolkien’s fundamental belief that those who would do bad things in the world are often undone by their own actions.
This chapter is also important for what it reveals about Gandalf. As Merry tells Pippin, this is a Gandalf who is of a very different order than the wizard they got to know back in the Shire and during the earlier stages of their journey. His death and resurrection have definitely changed him, and while he is clearly a being of greater power than before–as indicated by his challenge and reprimand of Saruman–this paradoxically gives him a greater and richer understanding of the lesser beings with whom he shares the world. It’s also what makes him wise enough not to try grappling with Sauron through the palantír itself, and he freely acknowledges that this is a challenge that he is not yet ready to face.
If neither Pippin nor Gandalf are quite equipped to handle this formidable artifact from an earlier age, Aragorn shows no such reservations. Indeed, he seems positively eager to take possession of it, no doubt because it is yet another talisman that will demonstrate his readiness and ability to take the throne of Gondor. It’s sometimes easy to forget–thanks in large part to Peter Jackson’s films, which show Aragorn as being much more reluctant to take up his lost crown–but Aragorn has no doubts about the rightness of his mission to retake the throne. As he makes clear in his exchange with Gandalf, he has been preparing for moments like this his entire life, which means that, unlike Pippin at least, he will not use it precipitately.
This is, I think, a fitting way to end the first part of The Two Towers. Many things have been decided during the course of this book–the threat of Saruman has broken, the Ents have been awakened, the Rohirrim have been freed from the malign influence of Saruman and Wormtongue and are now free to ride to Gondor’s aid–and yet many things are yet to be decided. Among all of these great things, Pippin will have to grapple with the consequences of his actions, particularly since Gandalf is not willing to let him get away with just saying that he wouldn’t have done it had he known how important and powerful it was. The burned hand teaches best, indeed.
What’s more, this chapter also gives us some more glimpses into Middle-earth’s deep past. After all, the palantíri are objects of great antiquity, and Gandalf even goes so far as to say that Saruman himself, for all of his craftiness and skill at making things, could never have made them. As Gandalf rides toward Gondor with Pippin, he muses about all of the things that he might have seen if he could but master it (clearly the seeing stone has the power to draw others to it, much like a certain other object). “Even now my heart desires to test my will upon it,” he says to Pippin, “to see if I could not wrench it from him [Sauron] 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 Fëanor at their work, while both the White Tree and the Golden were in flower!” Here we get yet another glimpse of the wider world–both in space and time–of which the affairs of The Lord of the Rings are but an epilogue. Though their full significance won’t come to light until the publication of The Silmarillion, there’s still a lot here to think about, and the whole exchange reminds us again of how old this world truly is and how much even an ancient being like Gandalf has not seen with his own eyes.
Next up, we’ll switch gears entirely and rejoin Frodo and Sam as they embark on their own perilous journey.