Palantír

They are used in some climactic scenes by major characters: Sauron, Saruman, Denethor the Steward of Gondor, and two members of the Company of the Ring: Aragorn and Pippin.

Commentators such as the Tolkien scholar Paul Kocher note the hand of providence in their usage, while Joseph Pearce compares Sauron's use of the stones to broadcast wartime propaganda.

Tom Shippey suggests that the message is that "speculation", looking into any sort of magic mirror (Latin: speculum) or stone to see the future, rather than trusting in providence, leads to error.

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".

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.

[7] The Tolkien scholar Jane Chance 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".

The sequence ends fittingly, in her opinion, with Mordor and the Eye of Sauron, bringing the viewer, like Saruman, to meet the Enemy's gaze.

[3] Further, Sauron uses the Palantír to show Aragorn a dying Arwen, (a scene from the future) in the hope of weakening his resolve.

[11] The software data-collection company Palantir Technologies was named by its founder, Peter Thiel, after Tolkien's seeing stones.

[13] This stands for Precision Array of Large-Aperture New Telescopes for Image Reconstruction, and is meant to reference the "far-seeing stones in [The] Lord of the Rings".

Tom Shippey suggests that the palantírs' deception says one should trust in providence , not crystal balls . [ 3 ] Painting by J.W. Waterhouse , 1902
Joseph Pearce compared Sauron 's use of Palantírs to spread despair to wartime use of radio for propaganda . [ 6 ] Screenshot from Frank Capra 's wartime Why We Fight
In Peter Jackson 's The Two Towers , Saruman uses the Orthanc Palantír, the camera giving an overview as shown, and then zooming in, like a Palantír itself, providing the viewer with an omniscient picture of the whole of Middle-earth. [ 9 ]