422 – Who Are You?

Summary

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The Prancing Pony Podcast – Episode 422: Who Are You?

Released: July 19, 2026
Hosts: Alan Sisto & Sean Marchese | Guest: Katie McKenna

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Episode Overview

This episode kicks off a two-part deep dive into the history, lore, and legacy of the Palantíri—the "seeing-stones"—from Tolkien’s legendarium, focusing on notes and insights in Unfinished Tales. The show opens with a warm, humorous interview with Katie McKenna about her new community project, Bree Crossroads. The hosts then shift into a close reading and discussion of the Palantíri, exploring both their practical functions and their fate as Gondor faded. The episode offers witty banter, lore-heavy discussion, pop-culture jokes, and thoughtful reflection on themes of knowledge, leadership, and the dangers of pride.

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Key Segments and Timestamps

1. Bree Crossroads Interview: Tolkien Community & Events

[04:05–15:59]

Discussion Points:

• Katie’s Tolkien Journey ([04:44]): She started with The Silmarillion after being drawn into Tolkien’s universe via Lord of the Rings Online.
• Bree Crossroads Project ([07:05]): Aims to serve as a community hub, connecting fans to creators, scholars, events, and local groups—helping both newcomers and veterans discover the breadth of the Tolkien fandom.
  • Katie McKenna:

    “Bree Crossroads exists to help people find their way to what interests them … a place people can go to discover [Tolkien communities].” ([09:17])

• Upcoming Art Exhibition ([11:47]):
  • First event: Tolkien and Middle-earth Online Artist Exhibition, honoring community-builder Becky Dillon.
  • Features new and established Tolkien artists (Marian Ellis, Atlas of Arda, Kevin McFarland, Necroticism, Higgy Baby, and more).
• How to Connect ([15:03]): Details for joining, submitting art, and following Bree Crossroads.
• Notable Moment:
  • The hosts highlight the importance of Tolkien community and the role of “crossroads” in both Middle-earth and fandom.
  • Sean:

    “The PPP really does have a warm and welcoming listener community. If you've got questions or you just want to talk about how much you love Middle-earth… come join us.”

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2. The Palantíri: Lore, Decline, and Secrecy

[16:17–40:41]

Key Insights:

• Nature and Purpose:
  • The Palantíri were tools for rulers, not in common use—even in Númenor ([16:17]).
  • “No king…would have hesitated to reveal the source of his knowledge…if obtained through the stones. After the days of the kings…there is no mention of their open and official use.”
• Secrecy and Loss:
  • As Gondor declined, so did use and memory of the stones.
  • Two main reasons for their secrecy:
    1. Doubt whether the Ithil Stone was destroyed or taken by Sauron ([25:00]).
    2. Waning historical interest and a turn to mere genealogy among Gondor’s elite ([31:06]).
  • Notable Quote:
    Alan:

    “Gondor after the kings declined into a middle age of fading knowledge and simpler skills.” ([18:32])

  • Sean:

    “You think that Númenor, with all its learning, would have made the stones common knowledge. But I guess not…” ([19:35])

Memorable Moments:

• "Sinister Secrets" vs. Tools:
  • The stones were not originally dangerous.
  • Using them “was just a communication tool”—Sean ([20:10])
• Puns and Pop-Culture:
  • Palantír as “old flip stones”:
    Alan:

    “Curse these fancy stones with their cameras and apps. I just need an old flip stone.” ([02:19])

  • “It’s like a cell phone, but only FaceTime with no audio.” ([74:41])
• Discussion of the Fate of the Stones:
  • Osgiliath Stone lost in the Anduin—remarked on as “quite heavy to lose in a river!” ([23:26])
  • Debate on why the loss is accepted as permanent—“Things get lost in rivers in this world and they're not gone.” ([23:34])

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3. Decline, Lore, and Changing Memory

[31:06–40:41]

• Loss of Knowledge:
  • Knowledge of the Palantíri faded as Gondor’s culture shrank.
  • The legend of the stones turned into myth—“birdlike spirits that brought news” and “Elvish powers”.
• Reflection:
  • Sean:

    “To only care about genealogy and not care about history…Tolkien is saying there’s kind of a self-centeredness to that.” ([32:55])

  • Alan:

    “It’s hobbit-like—a parochial isolation from anything but your own little history.” ([31:50])

• Medievalism and Decline:
  • Reference to “Dark Ages” after the fall of Rome.
  • Comparing decline of Gondor’s skills to real-world loss of ancient engineering ([33:42]).

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4. The Orthanc Stone, Saruman, and the White Council

[42:12–58:08]

• Stone at Orthanc:
  • The stewards found it “useless” and left it in Orthanc ([44:16]).
  • Alan:

    “At least, unlike the Ithil stone, in theory this thing is safe because it’s stuck in Orthanc.”

• Saruman’s Interest:
  • Saruman “had become convinced that the Orthanc Stone was still intact in its tower” ([44:40]), and received the keys as warden in 2759.
  • He keeps his interest in the stones secret from the White Council.
  • Sean:

    “He’s the guy that’s excited by all the new tech…'this is a neat thing.'" ([50:50])

• Saruman’s Isolation:
  • As he succumbs to jealousy of Gandalf, Saruman acts on his own, removes himself from Council affairs, and controls Isengard.
• Role of Istari:
  • The Istari are “free agents”; Council cannot force Saruman to cooperate.
  • Alan:

    “Where we go, we don’t need no rules.” ([53:12])

• The White Council’s Blind Spot:
  • Council is unaware of Saruman’s descent into evil, his orc army, or the strategic risk of the Orthanc Stone.

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5. The Risks and Dangers of the Stones (and Denethor’s Downfall)

[60:57–107:58]

Palantíri as Liability:

• Sauron’s Domination ([27:07]):
  • Stones themselves posed no peril, unless Sauron possessed one and another was used.
  • Alan, quoting Tolkien:

    “It was only Sauron who used a stone for the transference of his superior will, dominating the weaker surveyor…” ([27:25])

  • Hence, the Anor Stone (in Minas Tirith) becomes a closely guarded secret—untouched even by many stewards until Denethor.

Pippin and the Revelation:

• Only after Pippin’s accident with the Orthanc Stone did the danger become clear to Gandalf and the Council ([65:35]).
• Sean:

  “It was only the moment that we see in the book, when Pippin foolishly looked into the palantír…that they became aware of the connection between Isengard and Mordor.”

Denethor’s Use and Motives:

• Denethor’s History ([92:28], [96:56]):
  • Likely turned to the stone “as soon as he came to power,” years before the War of the Ring—possibly before Saruman used Orthanc’s.
  • Motivated partly by jealousy—of Aragorn as Thorongil and of Gandalf:

    “Denethor desired to surpass these usurpers in knowledge and information and also…to keep an eye on them when they were elsewhere.”

• Parallels With Saruman:
  • Both corrupted, in part, by jealousy and by obsession with power and knowledge.

Compassion for Denethor:

• After wife Finduilas’ death ([98:54]), Denethor became increasingly grim and isolated.
• The hosts reflect compassionately on Denethor’s personal failings and tragedy—his unreadiness for the burdens he bore and the absence of emotional support.

Insights into Palantíri Mechanics:

• Stones transmit images, not audio—"FaceTime without sound.”
• The stones’ risk depended on who controlled them; Sauron filtered what Denethor could see, likely stoking despair by showing or hiding certain events (e.g., the Rohirrim’s approach).

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6. Leadership, Knowledge, and Moral Cautions

[87:49–90:08]

• Artifacts vs. People:
  • Alan:

    “To be more attracted by things and power than by persons…I can't help but feel like Tolkien is telling us you should have a moral opinion about this guy [Saruman].”

  • Sean:

    “This is Saruman’s tragic flaw…He’s in love with the machine.”

• The episode frames this as the distinction between wisdom and pride—insightful leaders value people and wisdom over tools or domination.

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7. Q&A: Gandalf’s Fate After Valinor (Mailbag)

[108:38–117:44]

• Listener’s Question: After Gandalf sails to Valinor, does he revert to a Maia’s spirit?
• Hosts’ Discussion:
  • The wizard’s body is “real and not feigned, subject to hunger, thirst, age…though, because of their noble spirits, they did not die” ([111:03]).
  • Debated whether Gandalf might choose to remain incarnate until all his mortal friends die, or revert immediately.
  • Parallel to Melian and Lúthien; speculation on free choice for beings of exceptional service.
  • Alan:

    “If there’s anybody who’s gonna get special treatment, it’s gonna be that guy [Gandalf].”

  • Sean:

    “He has done something huge…and there’s a suggestion at the end of the Lord of the Rings that maybe Curumo’s fate is changed.”

• A rich, loreful, and empathetic discussion honoring the mysteries of Tolkien’s world.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On the Lore of the Palantíri:

• Alan ([16:17]):

  “The Palantíri were no doubt never matters of common use or common knowledge.”

• Sean:

  “Using them was not dangerous—they were just a communication tool.”

On Decline, History, and Isolation:

• Sean:

  “To only care about genealogy and not care about history…there’s a self-centeredness to that.” ([32:55])

• Alan:

  “It’s hobbit-like—a parochial isolation from anything but your own little history.” ([31:50])

On Saruman’s and Denethor’s Flaws:

• Alan:

  “To be more attracted by things and power than by persons…I can’t help but feel Tolkien wants us to have a moral opinion about this.”

• Sean:

  “This is the machine. The use of objects of power to have control, to dominate…and that’s what Saruman is in love with.”

On The Palantíri’s Modern Analogy:

• Alan:

  “It’s like a cell phone, but only FaceTime with no audio.”

• Sean (joking about Sauron’s “ISP”):

  “The good news is you have high-speed Wi-Fi–the bad news is Sauron is your ISP and he filters everything.” ([78:48])

On Denethor’s Motivations:

• Alan:

  “He didn’t get the love he wanted from Ecthelion because of Thorongil. And yet, he does this thing with Boromir and Faramir.”

On Gandalf’s Fate:

• Alan:

  “If there’s anybody who’s going to get special treatment, it’s going to be that guy [Gandalf].”

• Sean:

  “He has done something huge…and there’s a suggestion [from Tolkien] that maybe Gandalf gets a choice.”

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Episode Structure & Flow

• Warm, playful intro with ads
• Extended, richly informative community interview with Katie McKenna
• Deep-dive reading and discussion, split clearly by topic and location (Anor vs. Orthanc vs. lost stones)
• Engaging, on-topic digressions and jokes to keep the tone light
• Discussion of the White Council’s failures, the difference between tools and wisdom, and the personal tragedies driving Denethor and Saruman
• Q&A closing with a philosophical exploration of Tolkien’s cosmology
• Consistently friendly, accessible, pub-like conversation, blending scholarly insight and camaraderie

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Summary

Episode 422 is a rich, engrossing exploration of the Palantíri’s history, function, and dangers. It reveals the deep mythic veins running through Tolkien’s work—how pride turns tools to peril, and how knowledge lost diminishes a culture. With their trademark mix of humor and heart, Alan and Sean illuminate not just the lore, but the timeless lessons within. The episode’s first half also doubles as an inspiring showcase of Tolkien community-building, proving that the spirit of fellowship persists far beyond the page.

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For Next Week

The lore continues: the hosts will discuss the mechanics of the Palantíri, how they actually worked, and what the “family plan” costs in Middle-earth. Expect more laughter, lore, and possibly some bandwidth throttling by Sauron.

Transcript

[Alan Sisto]

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[Sean Marchese]

Buyer's remorse Buy a new car.

[Alan Sisto]

I'll be moving in.

[Sean Marchese]

Let's get started.

[Katie McKenna]

Sorry, I think there's been a mistake. I bought it from Carvana.

[Alan Sisto]

You what? Yeah, great price.

[Katie McKenna]

I even have seven days to love it or return it.

[Sean Marchese]

So there's no.

[Katie McKenna]

No, no buyer's remorse. More like buyers rejoice.

[Alan Sisto]

I guess I'll let myself out. Congratulations. I mean it.

[Katie McKenna]

Buyers rejoice. Buy your car today on Carvana. Limitations and exclusions may apply. See our seven day return policy at Carvana Do.

[Alan Sisto]

Good evening little masters and welcome to episode 422 of the Prancing Pony podcast where our interest in ancient history has waned.

[Sean Marchese]

Yes, the PPP has declined into a middle age of fading knowledge, but folks, pull up a bench in the common room and join us. I'm Sean Marchese, the lord of the mark, and I'm here with the man of the west who declined into middle age himself ages ago, Alan Sisto.

[Alan Sisto]

Man, I set you up for that one. Curse these fancy stones with their cameras and apps. I just need an old flip stone. Can you tell we're going to talk

[Sean Marchese]

about the Palantiri or a corded stone is fine.

[Alan Sisto]

No, Kia made that really durable stone way back in the day. Folks, join us for School of Rock as we begin our two episode look with Jack Black. Not quite at the last chapter in Unfinished Tales on the Palantiri oh, man,

[Sean Marchese]

I wish we had Jack Black here. That would be. That would be. That would be a lot of fun to see Jack Black on here talking about the Palantiri. He could do the Legend of the Rocks, you know, kind of the Legend of the Rocks his way through. It would be wonderful.

[Alan Sisto]

I would be.

[Sean Marchese]

That would be fantastic. But, folks, he's not here with us. And that's okay, as you'll soon find out. But no matter whether you came to Middle Earth through the books, the films, the TV show, or something else, each and every one of you is welcome here in our common room. The Prancing Pony Podcast continues in our 10th season of Reading and talking our way through Middle Earth with conversations, digressions, and even speculations.

[Alan Sisto]

Not to mention a few puns and bad jokes here and there. But our purpose is to dive deep into the lore, discuss the story, our favorite characters and themes, Tolkien's inspirations, and a whole lot more.

[Sean Marchese]

And while we take the work seriously, the same cannot be said about ourselves. We're just a couple of old friends chatting at the pub. And we are super glad you've joined

[Alan Sisto]

us, and I'm sure you'll be glad you joined as well. But before we get to today's chapter discussion, it's time to sit down with, well, with one of the members of Team PPP who's been working on something new for the Tolkien community.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right, Jack Black. Who needs them? We've got a better guest here.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[Sean Marchese]

Our guest today has been a friend of the Prancing Pony Podcast and a personal friend to both of us for many years. She's been a member of Team PPP since 2020. Alan, I believe. And she's been serving as our Patreon Community Coordinator and our events coordinator for the PPP moot since 2021. That one was online only. And PPP moots in 2022 and 2025. Folks, please welcome our good friend, A Good Chance. She's your good friend, too, Katie McKenna.

[Katie McKenna]

Hi, guys.

[Alan Sisto]

Hi, Katie. It's good to have you with us.

[Sean Marchese]

Hi, Katie.

[Katie McKenna]

It's good to be here.

[Alan Sisto]

It is. I'm so glad you could join us. Now, before we ask our proper questions, you have to answer the question that we ask everybody who shows up on the bpp. How did you get into Tolkien's works? And what is it about them that keeps you coming back?

[Katie McKenna]

Well, when I was little, one of my closest friends had all of the Lord of the Rings action figures. And every time I went over to her house. She made us play with them for hours on end, recreating scenes from the films, recreating just her favorite moments, usually Aragorn and Arwen scenes, a lot of those. When I was in Girl Scouts, we would always go see the films every year when they came out in theaters. But I did not get into the books or to be honest, the films back then. It was not until when I was in high school and my boyfriend at the time peer pressured me into watching the films again and dragged me kicking and screaming into playing Lord of the Rings online, which I've been playing for many years. And I was hooked. I swore I was going to play the game for a few hours, I was going to try it out, I certainly was never going to pay for it. And once I was in the game, diving into Middle Earth, looking at this 30,000 foot view that they have, the way they fill in everything, the love and detail that they have for Tolkien's works, it was contagious. I couldn't help but fall in love with Tolkien's works too. And all of a sudden I was at half price books every weekend, grabbing everything I could get my hands on, which oddly enough was the Silmarillion. And that is the book I started with.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh my.

[Sean Marchese]

Wow.

[Alan Sisto]

That's diving in the deep end. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Well, we're glad that you found your way here at any rate. But recently, Katie, you've started a new project, Bree Crossroads. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what Bree Crossroads is, what you're doing with it, and what you hope it'll do for the Tolkien community?

[Katie McKenna]

If you'll permit me, I'm actually going to gush here a little bit because Bree Crossroads is Reed Crossroads is a Tolkien community hub focused on discovery and connection. It's honestly continuing. I didn't realize it until I read the intro to why We Love Middle Earth, but it is a continuation of every example the Prancing Play podcast has ever set for me. Making Tolkien's works accessible to everyone in the fandom, showing them what avenues might be open to them, what scholarship they might be interested in, just finding everyone a seat at the table who might want one. One of the things I've noticed over the years is that the Tolkien fandom is enormous, but it's also incredibly fragmented. There are artists, podcasters, scholars, YouTubers, local groups like Smiles, Discord communities, read alongs events. You could spend years in the fandom and still only see a small piece of what's out there. Breed Crossroads exists to help people Find their way to what interests them, even if you've been in the Tolkien community for a really long time, or if you're new and are looking for a place to fit in.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, that's awesome.

[Sean Marchese]

That's awesome. I love that.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, that sounds like a heck of a thing to start. So what was it that made you decide to take this next step? I mean, I appreciate how you're inspired by the authors of that mediocre book, why We Love Middle Earth, folks. I'm sorry, that was us. And I appreciate that, obviously, but what was it that made you decide? I'm going to go from understanding this and seeing this as, you know, a thing that ought to be done for the fandom to I'm actually going to do it. Like, what made you decide to turn this into a reality? And then where do you see Brie Crossroads maybe five years down the road.

[Katie McKenna]

The idea actually grew out of years now of community involvement between moderating communities, helping organize events like our own moods, working with various creators, and just being really active in fandom spaces. I kept seeing questions come up over and over again. People would ask, what's the Tolkien smile? Does the Tolkien fandom have any special days that are celebrated? Has anyone spoken about this particular topic or folks who are really unaware of the vast majority of events that are happening in the Tolkien community and more relevant right now? I myself keep coming across different scholars, especially right now, different artists within the Tolkien community. And I wanted to build a platform, not that really added an extra voice to the Tolkien community, but one that served to point as a signpost, a literal signpost to the ones that already exist or the ones that are just now coming into being or finding their own voices, you know, down the road. I would really like to be a. I would like to see Red Crossroads become a trusted resource for the Tolkien fandom. A place where people can visit to discover events, creators, communities, even have. Be a reference for event calendars, happening, opportunities to get involved. I don't want to be a replacement for the many, many communities that exist out there. I want to be the place people can go, the place people can go to discover them.

[Sean Marchese]

That's great. And I love the idea of. I mean, it's in the name, right? It's a crossroads, a hub where you can find whatever it is you're looking for. And I've really enjoyed what you've been putting out there, and I'm really excited to see that continue to grow. And speaking of that, you mentioned events a couple of times. I know the First Bree Crossroads event is actually coming up next month. Can you tell us what that is?

[Katie McKenna]

Yes, it is the Tolkien and Middle Earth online artist exhibition. It's my first major event being hosted under the Breed Crossroads platform and I am incredibly excited about. Was inspired by Becky Dillon, who many in the Tolkien community will know was amazing at drawing people together and highlighting Tolkien artists and giving them an opportunity to showcase their works. And I want to carry on that torch for her. And the idea is to create a virtual space where Tolkien artists can showcase their work, where fans can explore it and come together, talk about it, listen to presentations, maybe it's attend workshops, discover new and well known Tolkien artists and just be a focus for Tolkien artists to come together and show everyone the incredible things they can do and the things they create.

[Alan Sisto]

That sounds amazing. I know. I'm looking forward to attending.

[Sean Marchese]

That's awesome.

[Alan Sisto]

I understand you already have a few artists lined up. Are you able to tell us who some of those are?

[Katie McKenna]

Yes. Folks are probably already aware of the incredible Marian Ellis, who is one of my confirmed artists. Also honored to have a new friend of mine, a platform I've just recently come across called the Atlas of Arda. He creates maps, he's an Incredible cartographer, Kevin McFarland, you should absolutely look him up. And he creates these posters with a lot of careful, just chosen symbolism and images in his works. I also have for my Rings of Power friends, the artist Necroticism and I have my fellow Nerd of the Rings moderator and King of Memes, Higgy baby. And I have even more artists who are soon to be confirmed and who are submitting in their works.

[Alan Sisto]

That's great.

[Sean Marchese]

That's awesome. So exciting and I can't wait to attend that. It's going to be really cool and I think a one of a kind event really to focus exclusively on artists like this.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I don't think I've seen anything like that yet. That's great.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, I mean, I love this and I love this as a platform for artists. And you know, the fact that it's all online and people are going to be able to be a part of this from wherever they are and engage with artists and their work. I think that's amazing. So one last question for you here, Katie. Who is your favorite host of the PPP and why is it me? I'm kidding, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. I'm mostly kidding. No, my last question is where can people learn more about Bree Crossroads? Follow you and the awesome work you're doing and Most importantly, register to attend this upcoming artist exhibition.

[Katie McKenna]

Yes, folks can find me as Bre Crossroads on most platforms on social media except Blue sky where I go by my usual moniker of rock. And for the event you can look up Bree Crossroads, the Tolkien and Middle Earth online art exhibition and it should come up. It is a Google sites and you'll be able to register there, find our faq, submit presentations and submit please submit your art if you are a Tolkien artist.

[Alan Sisto]

Well we will be sure to have a link to that page in the show notes for this episode when it drops. Well, Katie, thank you so much for joining us. I mean not only do we appreciate all that you do for the show and for our community, we appreciate you joining us today to talk about Bree Crossroads and this incredible artist exhibition. So best of luck on both of those. Thanks for joining us.

[Sean Marchese]

Thank you, Katie.

[Katie McKenna]

Thank you.

[Sean Marchese]

All right, well, speaking of bringing people together, I mean, what a perfect intro for the topic of today's discussion. And you're going to go ahead and get us started with our first reading today, Alan on the Palantiri.

[Alan Sisto]

Looking forward to it.

[Katie McKenna]

Here we go.

[Alan Sisto]

The Palantiri were no doubt never matters of common use or common knowledge. Even in Numenor in Middle Earth, they were kept in guarded rooms, high and strong towers. Only kings and rulers and their appointed wardens had access to them, and they were never consulted nor exhibited publicly. But until the passing of the kings, they were not sinister secrets. Their use involved no peril, and no king or other person authorized to survey them would have hesitated to reveal the source of his knowledge of the deeds or opinions of distant rulers if obtained through the stones. After the days of the kings and the loss of Minas Ithil, there is no further mention of their open and official use. There was no answering stone left in the north after the shipwreck of Arvedui, last king. In the year 1975, in 2002, the Ithil Stone was lost. There then remained only the Anor stone in Minas Tirith and the Orthanc Stone. Two things contributed then to the neglect of the stones and their passing out of the general memory of the people. The first was ignorance of what had happened to the Ithil stone. It was reasonably assumed that it was destroyed by the defenders before Minas Ithil was captured and sacked. But it was clearly possible that it had been seized and had come into the possession of Sauron. And some of the wiser and more far seeing may have considered this. It would appear that they did so, and realized that the stone would be of little use to him for the damage of Gondor, unless it made contact with another stone that was in accord with was. For this reason, it may be supposed that the Anor stone, about which all the records of the Stewards are silent until the War of the Ring, was kept as a closely guarded secret, accessible only to the ruling Stewards and never by them used, it seems, until Denethor ii. The second reason was the decay of Gondor and the waning of interest in or knowledge of ancient history among all but a few, even of the high men of the realm, except insofar as it concerned their genealogies, their descent and kinship. Gondor after the kings, declined into a middle age of fading knowledge and simpler skills.

[Sean Marchese]

All right, excellent place to start there. And before we start with our discussion, I think we should first mention what Christopher Tolkien explained in the introduction to Unfinished Tales about this section. And that is between the first edition of Lord of the Rings, which came out, remember 1954, 1955, and the second edition of Lord of the Rings, which came out in 66, Tolkien had made what Christopher calls substantial emendations to passages about the Palantiri. Specifically, he made changes to the chapters the Palantir and the Pyre of Denethor.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. And Christopher explains that this section of Unfinished Tales is derived from writings associated with, with this revision. So with that as background, let's go ahead and dive in. And the first thing we're told right off the top is that the existence and use of the stones were never common knowledge.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. So the average person in Gondor or Arnor had no clue that they even existed. I mean, not even in Numenor was their use really known about. Which is interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

That is interesting.

[Sean Marchese]

You think that.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

You think that Numenor, you know, there was so much learning in culture, you would think that it would have been more of common knowledge at the time, you know, just this using this magical thing, But I guess not.

[Alan Sisto]

No. And they're not used publicly. It's not like there are festivals where like, hey, we're going to bring out all the Palantiri, come see the seeing stones. You know, they're not even displayed in public, but they are in secure locations with access limited to the very highest of the high men. But the interesting thing is that even though they were secret, it doesn't mean they were sinister secrets.

[Sean Marchese]

Right? And that's important because we think of them in a different way because of the, well, things we're going to talk about, about why they are the way they are in the Lord of the Rings. But, yeah, originally, using them was not dangerous. They were just a communication tool. And so anyone who used them would have had no problem saying, oh, hey, you know, boss, king, whoever, you know, Tarminister or whoever it is. I got this from the Palantir. They'd only say it to the king or people high up in the court who knew they exist.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, when they're having a press conference, they're not going to tell the news agencies that they got the information right.

[Sean Marchese]

Exactly right.

[Alan Sisto]

And then there's a footnote here, by the way, that points out the stones were doubtless used in third age 1944 concerning the succession to the crown. And to shed a little light on what that footnote is telling you. That's, of course, the aftermath of the disaster of the Moranon. That's when King Ondaher and both of his sons, Artemir and Faramir, were. Were killed by the Wainriders.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. And his daughter Firiel, who was the last surviving heir, she had married Arvedui, the last king of Arthedain. Four years before now, he'd sought the throne as both the heir of Isildur and as the husband to Ondoher's last child.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. And so that's the succession to the crown the footnote's talking about. The footnote also says that in third age 1973, not even 30 years later, when Gondor received messages from the last shreds of Arnor, it was via the stones, and that that use in 1973 was, quote, possibly their last use until more than a thousand years later, as the War of the Ring approached.

[Sean Marchese]

So, coming back to the text, we're told that after the days of the Kings, which would have been 2050, when Earnur was taken by the Witch King, and after Minas Ithil was taken, which was in 2002, of the third Age. After that, there's no information about their being.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, there were no more stones in the north after 1975, when Arvedwi perished in the Bay of Forochel. And, of course, he had held the stone of Aman Sul, which we'll learn next week, was actually the primary stone of the north, as well as the stone of Annumanus.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. But now keep in mind that there was a third stone in the north, but it was the one on Amon Baraid, the White Towers. And as we'll also see next week, it it only looked to the sea. So it had a special purpose. It was placed there by Elendil so that he could look back and see Talladessea.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. It wasn't connected to the others, so to speak. That's why the text doesn't say there was no stone left in the North. It was that there was no answering stone left.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

And of course, Arvedui's death was in third age 1975. And it was only 27 years later when the stone at Minas Itho was lost, when the Witch King captured that city.

[Sean Marchese]

And that left only the stones at Minas Anor, which later, of course, became Minas Tirith and Orthanc.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, I can see you counting on your fingers from here. Aman Sul, Annuminus, Amon, Bareid, Minas Ithil, Minas Anor, Orthanc. That's six. But I thought there were seven. Correct. The text here doesn't say it, but the stone of Osgiliath was lost in the river more than 500 years before all those other losses. That was in 1437, during the Kin strife.

[Sean Marchese]

I'm kind of surprised that Tolkien goes with lost in a river, and then that's the end of it. Because, like, things get lost in rivers in this world and they're not gone,

[Alan Sisto]

and they still show up. Especially big, heavy stones that are probably so large that a man can't move it. You'd think that would just sink straight to the bottom and embed itself in the riverbed. It's not going to float down to the sea.

[Sean Marchese]

It's down there somewhere. Somewhere.

[Alan Sisto]

We just got to get a team together, I guess.

[Sean Marchese]

Nobody's going swimming for a big crystal

[Alan Sisto]

bowling ball that they can't lift anyway.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, that they can't lift anyway. Can you imagine synchronized swimming down, like, to get. To get it out? You got a team of like, three or four really big burly guys.

[Alan Sisto]

All you need is a big, like some sort of a net type of thing. And then you roll the stone into the net and you've got like eight guys trying to swim up. You need a crane, frankly. But they haven't invented this.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah, right. Cue the they Might Be Giants song.

[Alan Sisto]

That's exactly. We need a brain. I was like, oh, man. I know he's thinking that because I'm trying to remember the lyrics real quick.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, man. All right, so anyway, back to history here. So with the stones not in active use and only a few people who knew of their existence in the first place, well, and unsurprisingly, they passed out of memory. And we're told there were two reasons for this. The first is simply that nobody knows exactly what happened to the Ithil stone. Now, why is that a problem? Well, we'll get to that in just a bit. Most of the details of that answer are actually in a footnote.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's right. The text here actually doesn't tell us that. It just assumes we know. But instead it tells us why they don't know. And it's because they had assumed, or rather hoped, that the men of Minas Ithil had destroyed it before the city had been captured. I mean, the city had been under siege for two years. So that's not an unreasonable thing to assume or hope. But next week, Sean, we're going to learn that the Palantiri were indeed unbreakable by any violence then controlled by men. So in what universe was it possible that they were going to destroy this thing?

[Sean Marchese]

I have to believe that means that people just didn't know. Maybe they just. There's so few people who know about these things that they just. A fair point, they just assumed that they were breakable.

[Alan Sisto]

Anything can be destruct. You know, blow it up enough and it can be destroyed.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Yeah. They probably just never stopped to think about just how, you know, unbreakable these things actually were.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's a fair point.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. But they don't know. No, that it's been destroyed. So they understand that there's a possibility it was taken by Sauron, which. Ding, ding, ding.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Now, the wise of those who even knew about the stones, they certainly considered this possibility. And for this reason, they kept the existence of the stone that was still at Minas Anor, which would have been the one that was later at Minas Tirith. They kept that a secret.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Their theory is that, look, the stone of Minas Ithil on its own can't damage Gondor. These are not offensive weapons. They're communication devices. But if it made contact with another stone in accord with it, and, you know, those two stones were in accordance, they were owned by the brothers. So, I mean, clearly there was going to be communication between them. Well, that's another story. And that's why the possibility of Sauron having that stone is such a problem. And the footnote goes into a lot more detail on the very specific nature of the. Of the danger. Tolkien explains. By themselves, the stones could only see scenes or figures in distant places or in the past. These were without explanation. And at any rate, for Men of later days, it was difficult to direct what visions should be revealed by the will or desire of a surveyor.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. But the danger comes when two stones communicate, as Tolkien writes. But when another mind occupied a stone in accord, thought could be transferred, received as speech and visions of the things in the mind of the surveyor of one stone could be seen by the other surveyor.

[Alan Sisto]

And that's where the problem comes. You certainly can see where this is going. While that power was of course, most often used to just exchange necessary information or to ask and get advice, we read this. It was only Sauron who used a stone for the transference of his superior will, dominating the weaker surveyor and forcing him to reveal hidden thought and to submit to commands. The wise must have known this was a risk. I mean, that's why they must have,

[Sean Marchese]

because they knew that the stones could transmit thought in this way. Yeah. Knowing that Sauron could be on the other end reading your thoughts. Absolutely. And putting thoughts into your head, you know, dominating your will with his superior will. Yeah, you can absolutely see how it became a.

[Alan Sisto]

The existence of the stone is a liability. So it needs to become.

[Sean Marchese]

It's classified information, you know.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. Because now this thing is our biggest weakness. It's a vulnerability.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. That's a good point. That's a very good point. Yeah. You now want to make sure that people don't know about this thing. You want to keep it out of anybody's hands.

[Alan Sisto]

It's like a backdoor hack into their IT systems. You know, the fewer people that know about this, the better.

[Sean Marchese]

Right? That's right. So we're told that the stone at Minas Anor, later Minas Tirith, became a closely guarded secret and only the ruling stewards could access it. But interestingly, none of them did until Denethor. This tells me that they must have had some information about, hey, don't use this thing.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[Sean Marchese]

You know, you don't want to mess with this.

[Alan Sisto]

Because there were certainly stewards who needed information. Right. I mean, that's a very good point.

[Sean Marchese]

It would have been very useful in some situations. I'm trying to think of some Kyrion

[Alan Sisto]

for sure, dealing with, you know, the, the arrival of the Balcot. And I mean, it's not as though. It's not as if the had their own stone and he could say, hey man, come on down. But just to be able to see.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Alan Sisto]

To know where they're coming from or how many they are and to know that sooner so that he could get that message to them earlier or.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right.

[Alan Sisto]

The other one that comes to mind would have been the steward, Turin ii. He was the one who, I can't remember which king it was that sent his twin sons and they died. And then that's when Fengel became the heir. The third son who was kind of the spoiled brat and nobody ended up liking him. But those two sons.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, Folkwina of Rohan was the one. And Folkrid.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes. And they died defending the river Poros. So at that time, Turin II is at war with, you know, the Haradrim. I'm sure it would have been nice for him to be able to get, you know, scouting reports via the stone because it does allow for a surveyor to, as we read in the first part of this, see scenes or figures in distant places. And as we'll see next week, the mechanics of how this works. You could see why there would be an advantage in using it. But not if. Not if this is a party line and Sauron's also on the deal.

[Sean Marchese]

Like that's also just listening in. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Hello.

[Sean Marchese]

We're not listening in, but watching in. Yeah, hello.

[Alan Sisto]

Is it me you're waiting for? I can see it in your eye.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, man, I will never hear that song the same way again. Thank you.

[Alan Sisto]

You're welcome. It just came to mind.

[Sean Marchese]

That's great.

[Alan Sisto]

That's fun times. All right.

[Sean Marchese]

That would be a great Jack Black bit right there. Oh, it would, wouldn't it?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Go back to that doing. What was it? Lionel Richie song?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, man, oh, man, that is good stuff.

[Sean Marchese]

Anyway, so that's all one reason why the stone passed out of memory as for the second reason that it passed out of memory. This is simple. Gondor just isn't what it used to be. There's less and less interest in their own history except for, we're told, a few of the high men and what they were interested in there wasn't really so much the history, the lore. And it was just mostly about their own genealogies.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, the first thing I thought of when I read that was how hobbit like that feels. That that sort of insular, parochial. Because before the hobbits came back after the War of the Ring, you know, we read about the hobbits and all they care about. The only ones that have the ability to read. What they care about reading is their genealogies.

[Sean Marchese]

Genealogies. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

It takes this greater series of events for them to start getting into interested in world history. But it also made me think back to Faramir talking to Sam and wow, is that on the nose. And here's that passage, folks. Faramir says, and he's criticizing his own people here. He says kings made tombs more splendid than houses of the living and counted old names in the roles of their descent dearer than the names of sons. And he's talking about the days of the kings when things were actually better. So it could only have become more of a descent.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. And that is the first thing that I thought of when I read this because Faramir tells us that this is exactly what happened to the people of Gondor.

[Alan Sisto]

Here's our problem.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. And I think it's worth reflecting on why that is a problem. Right. Because it's selfish. It's self serving. I'm not knocking genealogy. Genealogy is very interesting and I know lots of people are really into it.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a fascinating thing.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, it is. But I think to only care about genealogy and not care about history, that I think Tolkien is saying there's kind of a self centeredness to that.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

You're thinking about sort of where you came from as opposed to where the world that exists around you came from.

[Alan Sisto]

So it's an isolation.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And it's. And that's something that we've always seen in Tolkien's works as a negative for the most part, you know.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, that's a good point. And it's an isolation. Yeah. It's sort of isolating yourself and not thinking about the world around you. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

The greater world, as it were.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. And the text makes it clear that after the time of the Kings, Gondor did fall into Dark Ages of sorts. Tolkien says they had fading knowledge and simpler skills. I mean, this is like, you know, after the fall of the Roman Empire.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[Sean Marchese]

They've lost the lore, they've lost. There's not as much literacy, there's. There's not as much learning and.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. And even the skills, I mean, the simpler skills. But that puts me in mind of Legolas and Gimli getting to Minas Tirith and talking about how the old. There's some great stonework here. And Gimli's like, yes, but the old stonework is better than the new.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a recognition that over time their skill, their actual ability to do things has lessened because as your knowledge lessons, so does your ability.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. And this is a concept we're not really that used to. Because we're not used to living in a world that is in decline, where, where lore is being lost.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[Sean Marchese]

We have a, you know, the world we live in. Knowledge is always There. And you know, technology has tended to progress, has tended to get better and better, but for the early Middle Ages, it was not like that.

[Alan Sisto]

No, it was not.

[Sean Marchese]

That's the whole El Ente Yehwerk, Right. The idea that you could walk through what is now England and you could see this ancient Roman stonework and like, man, we can't build that like that. Right, right. Who could build that? It must have been giants, it must have been gods, these amazing creatures that built this.

[Alan Sisto]

It's even sort of the fiction in one of my other hobbies. 40k. The whole idea is that, you know, we're building these things off these standard template construction things that we could not design today. And many of these technologies, if they stop working, we can't make it work again. So they know how to view it with like religious things like the omniscience and all of this stuff. And you know, it's. It' that sort of Dark Ages of the future feel.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And yeah, it's just a reminder that you've got. The knowledge has to be maintained and the knowledge has to be, has to be shared or it dies.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Well, we skipped the last bit of this paragraph where we get some specific examples of how things changed. Right?

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. One of those is, of course, since the stones can't be used anymore, we have to resort to, you know, old fashioned ways of getting messages, errand riders, beacons when it's a hurry. And so even though these two stones remained, only a very few people knew they existed and they couldn't be used. So as a whole, the concept of the seven stones, the idea of these long range communication devices was simply forgotten.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. And so nobody really understood the lore or, you know, the rhymes. Like the one that Gandalf says to Pippin, this is fascinating to me. In legend they morphed into other things. They became Elvish powers or bird like spirits that brought news.

[Alan Sisto]

That's so intriguing.

[Sean Marchese]

That's Tolkien the medievalist here kind of telling us how these things change over time and how superstitions and folklore come about. Because the truth of what it actually was, some old technology that's lost. Nobody understands that anymore. So you look for another way to explain it. Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Mystical. It's got to be some sort of the idea of bird like spirits. It's not even birds that bring the news, like let's say roach with Bard and you know, smile and all that. This just bird like spirits. Okay, well that's interesting. Elvish powers, okay.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, they must have had some Elvish ability to.

[Alan Sisto]

It must have been Elvish magic.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. Elvish telepathy or something like that. Maybe they remembered a little bit about Osanwe or something. Who knows?

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting that, you know, and you kind of wonder, like, we know that men did have the ability to process Osanwe. Totally off topic. But it does seem like they weren't particularly skilled at it because otherwise they could have used that instead of the stones.

[Sean Marchese]

Right, right. But we know that. Right? I mean, we just know many. Tolkien was very clear, but, you know, wasn't something about our fajar just don't fit in our Hror. We're just not in tune as much

[Alan Sisto]

as elves are always sort of in conflict with it.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, right, right. And so it's harder for us.

[Alan Sisto]

We can certainly receive that, but it's, you know, so if, like, an elf is trying to convey something to us, we might get a vague sense of the message you're trying to convey, but we're not gonna be able to communicate back or communicate with one another and initiate.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Would be awesome if we could, wouldn't it? Wow, that'd be great. I don't know. Or it might actually be a little scary sometimes.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I. I just. I started to think there's some brains

[Sean Marchese]

I don't really want to be inside, you know.

[Alan Sisto]

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[Katie McKenna]

I'm Madison Skinner.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm Eva Jovic.

[Sean Marchese]

I'm Decoria Moore.

[Alan Sisto]

Want to train like a Red Bull athlete?

[Katie McKenna]

Tell us your fitness goals this summer to enter the Red Bull Athlete Challenge. You'll get to try each of our workouts for a chance to win an ultimate Red Bull experience.

[Alan Sisto]

Think you have what. Now? Soon we'll get back to Simon being a naughty boy. But before we do, I want to take a minute to thank the amazing community that has grown up around this show over the past 10 years. After all, thank goodness for it. There is a lot more talk going on at the Prancing Pony podcast than just us.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right, the PPP really does have a warm and welcoming listener community. If you've got questions or you just want to talk about how much you love Middle Earth and be sure to check out our common room on Facebook and across all social media. On Facebook, you're going to want to look for the Prancing Pony podcast. Now you're going to find a page, but you're going to want to join the Facebook group for that great fan

[Alan Sisto]

community now on every social media platform other than Facebook. We are PrancingPonyPod and you can find our subreddit at R Prancingponypod. And please check out my Daily Show. That's today's Tolkien Times. You can find it on all your favorite podcast apps on and on YouTube. Get your daily Middle Earth fix with everything from Middle Earth Map Mondays to First Stage Fridays. Be sure to listen wherever you get your podcasts. Sean oh man, let's Talk. We've just spent the whole first segment talking about the Anor Stone. Let's talk about the Orthanc Stone. Take us away.

[Sean Marchese]

All right, the Orthanc Stone appears to have been at this time long disregarded by the Stewards. It was no longer of any use to them, and was secure in its impregnable tower, Even if it too had not been overshadowed by the doubt concerning the Ithil stone, it stood in a region with which Gondor became less and less directly concerned. Calenardhon, never densely populated, had been devastated by the dark plague of 1636, and thereafter steadily denuded of inhabitants of Numenorean descent by migration to Ithilien and lands near Anduin. Isengard remained a personal possession of the Stewards, but Orthanc itself became deserted, and eventually it was closed and its keys removed to Minas Tirith. If Beren the Steward considered the stone at all when he gave these to Saruman, he probably thought that it could be in no safer hands than those of the head of the Council. Opposed to Sauron. Saruman had no doubt from his investigations gained a special knowledge of the stones, things that would attract his attention, and had become convinced that the Orthanc Stone was still intact in its tower. He acquired the keys of Orthanc in 2759, nominally as warden of the Tower and lieutenant of the Steward of Gondor. At that time, the matter of the Orthanc Stone would hardly concern the White Council only Saruman, having gained the favor of the Stewards, had yet made sufficient study of the records of Gondor to perceive the interest of the Palantiri and the possible uses of those that survived, but of this he said nothing to his colleagues. Owing to Saruman's jealousy and hatred of Gandalf, he ceased to cooperate with the Council, which last met in 2953 without any formal declaration. Saruman then seized Isengard as his own domain, and paid no further attention to Gondor. The Council no doubt disapproved of this. But Saruman was a free agent and had the right, if he wished, to act independently according to his own policy in the resistance to Sauron.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, and we'll get to some of those, like, cross references with the Istari chapter, I'm sure, in a little bit.

[Sean Marchese]

Wow.

[Alan Sisto]

So in this section, we move from the Anor stone to the Orthanc Stone, which, as far as the stewards are concerned, is totally useless. And while it might be useless, at least unlike the Ithil stone, in theory, this thing is safe because it's stuck in Orthanc.

[Sean Marchese]

In theory. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Yeah. You know what could happen? It'll be fine. Totally fine. Well, and unlike the Ithil stone, which may or may not have been captured in Minas Ithil, this stone, the Orthanc stone, is in a region that's not really a problem. Unlike, you know, the passive Cirith Ungol.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's true. That region is, of course, Calenardhon, not Rohan yet. And. And speaking of they might be giants, I want to figure out how to make that fit to It's Rohan, not Kalanarthan, or it's Kalanarthan, not Rohan, but I can't. The number of syllables with Istanbul in Constantinople don't work.

[Sean Marchese]

It just doesn't work. Yeah, I know. We're missing a couple of syllables there. We really are. We'll keep working on it.

[Alan Sisto]

Which is a shame, because that would be perfect.

[Sean Marchese]

It would be really perfect. I know.

[Alan Sisto]

Because if you. If you're gonna meet your date in Calenardhon, she'll be waiting in Rohan.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. Why did Calenardhon get the works? Well, that's nobody's business. But the Rohirrim, I guess. Oh, man, I love it. Oh, man. So, yeah, Calenardhon, long before it was Rohan. But it was always a more remote and less populated region of Gondor. It was always that. But that was even more the case after this plague in 1636. Now, that was about 340 years before the Stones of the north were lost and about 360 years before the Ithil stone was lost. And we're told that more and more of the Gondorians had been moving to Ithilien and other parts of Anorian, closer to the Great River. So this was becoming just more of a. A rural place. This was far from the center of population.

[Alan Sisto]

I'll also add the way that Tolkien writes this, that the inhabitants of Numenorean Descent had been moving like it's white flight. I mean, you know, to put it in a way they're leaving.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And. And who's remaining? That's not everybody. The land isn't empty. The people that are living there still live there but it's mostly Dunlendings and the Druidyne. And I feel like that sort of really reminds us a little bit about some of that tension that's going on between Gondor and these other cultures and later Rohan and these cultures. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

That's actually a really fascinating catch that, you know. Yeah. It was specifically the Numenorean people that were moving back to the area that we think of as Gondor towards the end of the Third Age. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. Which is like Minas Tirith and then south. Right. Or the areas over near Katara, Andros and, you know, the. So, like, you know, the farther east reaches there, north of the White Mountains, you know, Anorian. And in that area.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. And, you know, I guess, you know, partly people just, you know, maybe people are moving to the city. But it's not all city, is it? I mean, there's.

[Alan Sisto]

That's where the jobs are, you know.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. But I mean, there's also good farmland there. And. And there's probably lots of explanations for it. But I can't escape what you pointed out, the idea that it's just kind of white flight. They just want to be closer to people like them, to their people.

[Alan Sisto]

There's certainly tension with the Dunlendings that continues. I mean, it goes back to their tick. Goes back to Numenorean times. Right. Yeah. With the deforestation of Enedwaith and.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

And then it continues all the way into them, giving the land to the Rohirrim or to the Eotheod at the time.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

So Dunlenning's going, excuse me, we're still here.

[Sean Marchese]

Right, Right. That is really fascinating. But while Isengard might still be officially owned by the stewards at this point, we're told that the fortress of Orthanc itself was abandoned and the keys were actually taken back to Minas Tirith.

[Alan Sisto]

Absolutely. I mean, what's the point?

[Sean Marchese]

Nobody's going there right now.

[Alan Sisto]

So we're told that when the Steward Beren gave the keys of Orthanc to Saruman, now, this happened in 2759. So we're talking a thousand years after the plague. And the reason that I had Sean give you the years before the stones were lost in correlation to the year of the plague is because you now know that Those are, like 750, 800 years in the past now. So the stones have long been gone by the time Beren gives the keys. So it's very likely he didn't even consider the stones at all. I mean, he knew it existed, one of the only ones who did, but he wouldn't have thought about it. And if he did, well, you know, who's safer than the head of the White Council?

[Sean Marchese]

It's in the basement somewhere. Or like a storage room somewhere. Like, you know, I'm not even joking. I mean, it was just. It was probably just in storage somewhere. Probably. No, nobody had used it in centuries.

[Alan Sisto]

Thousand years.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, but, yeah, it's like this is just this old thing. And you know, what if he finds it? Well, he's Saruman. He'll be fine.

[Alan Sisto]

There's nobody we can trust more than the leader of the Council opposing Sauron.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. I mean, we're actually giving him the keys to this fortress. So we're fine with him having it and everything in it.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, absolutely. And dear reader, he was wrong.

[Sean Marchese]

Morgan Freeman's voice coming on. He was not, in fact, a safe hand to give it to, So. But speaking of Saruman, he had clearly learned something about the stones. And the footnote reminds us of Gandalf at the Council talking about Saruman's study there in former days. The members of my order, he said, had been well received there. But Saruman most of all. Often he had been for long the guest of the Lords of the City.

[Alan Sisto]

He even quotes Denethor, who said to Gandalf, but unless you have more skill even than Saruman, who has studied here long, you will find naught that is not well known to me. Well, that's because he already had been using the Stone. But, you know. Yes, you know, things he didn't know at the time. Yeah, but I mean, the key there is, of course he's telling Gandalf, look, Saruman studied here a long time. He knows his stuff. And as these are objects of power, and we know what Saruman is like, he is a mind of metal and wheels, as John Gorn would say. These are things that would have caught his eye. Your tools. Powerful, powerful tools. So of course they're gonna, you know, he's gonna spot those and be like, oh, how can I use this?

[Sean Marchese]

He's the guy that's excited by all the new tech, or the old tech in this case, but it's cool tech. And he's like, oh, this is a neat thing. This is a fascinating thing. I'm going to play around with this. That's right. And the text told us that he had Become convinced that there was still a Palantir in Orthanc.

[Alan Sisto]

Where would it have gone, really?

[Sean Marchese]

Right, exactly. It hasn't turned up anywhere. No, he probably knows that they can't be destroyed even if the average person doesn't. So yeah, he's sure that it's there somewhere. So he gets the keys, gets this nice long term lease with no rent increases. All he has to do is be warden of the place. Which I guess is kind of like Superintendent.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't know, I guess, except there's nobody even. He doesn't even have to go down and you know, adjust the boiler.

[Sean Marchese]

He doesn't even have to collect rent from anybody. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Alan Sisto]

He's got himself a stone now. And at the same time, well, its existence wouldn't have troubled the White Council even if they'd known about it. I mean, it's a stone. Only Saruman really knows about what these things can do even with the. The Masterstone long gone. And of course he's not going to tell the Council anything.

[Sean Marchese]

No, I mean, in fact, thanks to his continued jealousy of Gandalf which we touched on at length, last chapter.

[Alan Sisto]

Jealousy and hatred of Gandalf.

[Sean Marchese]

Here we go again. Here we go. Because of that, he stopped working with the Council altogether.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Now there might just be another reason like, I don't know, betraying them and partnering with Sauron maybe.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, Sauron, you know.

[Sean Marchese]

You know, we're not going to assume the worst just yet. So. Yeah. So Saruman just claims Isengard as its owner. He's not the tenant anymore. He's like, nope, I own this place. And he just ignores Gondor and the Council. He's like, I'm doing my own thing. Sorry.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, the legal loopholes are there. And the amount of trouble that Gondor is going to have to go through with the lawsuit to get him evicted. It's just not worth it for them.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, I get that.

[Alan Sisto]

While Gandalf, Galadriel, Elrond and the rest of the White Council certainly didn't like this, we're reminded of something that we touched on either last week or the week before. Right. That the Istari, including Saruman, are free agents. Meaning they don't have to follow any particular rules. Right? Where we go, we don't need no rules. They can pursue their own methods and policies of opposing Sauron. Not that Saruman was actually opposing Sauron anymore. But we don't know that yet.

[Sean Marchese]

No, and they certainly didn't know that. And they were just like, oh, I Guess he's got a plan.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, whatever. We can't stop him.

[Sean Marchese]

Yes. He knows what he's doing. He's a free agent. He can do his own thing. He doesn't have to. He doesn't have to collaborate with the White Council. He can do his own thing.

[Alan Sisto]

He doesn't have to get approval. He doesn't have to get a majority vote on his side. He can do what he wants. So can we. But we have chosen to work together as a team.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Right. Yeah. So Tolkien then gives us a detailed footnote about Saruman's control of Isengard and the White Council's lack of knowled at first. He points out the strategic advantage of the location of Isengard and I'm sure most people can remember roughly where it is on the map. But, I mean, it is. It's key to the Gap of Rohan.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

As Theodred would later discover, of course, to his loss at the first Battle of the Fords of Isen.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, it's the only place other than the fords where you can cross the river. And what that means for him is he can send forces down either side. And that's really. It is the key to the gap. Tolkien then adds that the Council seems to have been unaware since for many years Isengard had been closely guarded of what went on within its ring. The use and possibly special breeding of Orcs was kept secret and cannot have begun much before 2990 at earliest. The Orc troops seem never to have been used beyond the territory of Isengard before the attack on Rohan. Had the Council known of this they would, of course, at once have realized that Sodomon had become evil. My question for you, Sean, is if they had realized this before 3018, what would they have done?

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, I have to think that they would have mobilized and they would have gone against him, I mean. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Even if Gandalf and Radagast don't, you know, take up arms against him directly they're going to

[Katie McKenna]

picture.

[Sean Marchese]

I'm just thinking, you know, I'll help. I mean, he sends his army of rabbits, you know, with big, sharp, nasty pointasty teeth. Yep. Yeah. I think they had. They would have had to get the men of Gondor and Rohan mobilized earlier and they would have gone to Isengard and, you know, probably laid siege to it. Forced him to, you know, to give up control like they ended up doing. Yeah, but they would have done it earlier and, you know, without having to fight the Battle of Helm Steep and all that stuff.

[Alan Sisto]

Opposing a smaller force.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, part of me wonders, you know, would they have. Would they have called home somehow? Would they have, you know, communicated with Manwe?

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, like the e. Study, actually, like.

[Alan Sisto]

Hey. Hey, boss. One of our guys went rogue. We could use. Can you send Tulkas over?

[Sean Marchese]

I don't know.

[Alan Sisto]

And then there's the whole prohibition against the powers. But that's very specific. They're not allowed to use their powers to persuade elves and men. There is no prohibition against using their powers against each other. Because that's never imagined or foreseen. But one has to believe that they would have the ability to loosen their powers and like, use them on Saruman.

[Sean Marchese]

I mean, maybe, but you know, Gandalf doesn't do that later, does he?

[Alan Sisto]

No, that's true.

[Sean Marchese]

I guess.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, directly.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. I guess he breaks his staff. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

But it's not like he. It's not like he rains down the fire of. You know.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, it's just not. Yeah, it's not.

[Sean Marchese]

Doesn't bring down the wrath of Manwe or anything. Yeah, it is interesting though. I mean. Yeah. I have to think that they would have done what they ended up doing just. Just maybe sooner. And.

[Alan Sisto]

Which would have made it easier because sooner you're facing a smaller force. You're not having to fight the Helm's Deep battle.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

You could send up, you know, Theodor

[Sean Marchese]

doesn't have to die.

[Alan Sisto]

No. Theodore gets to be king. And Amir's just out of luck.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Sorry, Amir. Yeah. It is an interesting question though, that they. They probably weren't prohibited from using their power against another one of their order, but. But they don't. And that's the only. That's the only reason. I wonder if maybe they would have just done what they did anyway.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I think that makes sense.

[Sean Marchese]

I mean, Radagast was long gone by that time anyway.

[Alan Sisto]

And also useless.

[Sean Marchese]

Totally useless.

[Alan Sisto]

I know, man.

[Sean Marchese]

Alatar and Pallando would have come up and played a game of Three Card Monty with him. That's right.

[Alan Sisto]

Hey, Saruman. That's a nice watch you got there. Saruman.

[Sean Marchese]

That is totally my head cannon now. Is these guys on a street corner somewhere. Hey, over here.

[Katie McKenna]

Over here.

[Sean Marchese]

Who got it?

[Alan Sisto]

Who's got.

[Sean Marchese]

You know, like. I don't know. I don't even know how you play three card monsters.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't know. I know it's a sleight of hand thing. That's all I know.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man. Good stuff.

[Sean Marchese]

Anyway.

[Alan Sisto]

Good stuff.

[Sean Marchese]

Well, back to the Text. We skipped the last paragraph, which continues to tell us about the Council's knowledge of the stones. But yes, they must have known about them and they must have known about where they were originally in Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. But they wouldn't have seen them as being important at this time. Right. As the. As the War of the Ring approaches, these are items that, to them are. Some belong to the past. The text saying that they were lost or rendered of little use.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Is that a mistake completely? Or is it just a mistake in hindsight? Because clearly it's a mistake in hindsight.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Clearly a mistake in hindsight. I mean, I think, you know, they're going. I mean, they must have known about them. And that again, brings me back to. Did they know they were indestructible? And they must have. The White Council have to know that they're indestructible.

[Alan Sisto]

And if they'd known that, then they would have to know that Sauron has the Ithill Stone, which means they would have to know how dangerous they are.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

I don't know.

[Sean Marchese]

So that was a mistake, I think. I think that was.

[Alan Sisto]

Just didn't think it through.

[Sean Marchese]

I think so. I think they didn't think it through. They probably are just thinking of them as. They're so scattered. If somebody finds one, what are the chances that somebody else has another one.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[Sean Marchese]

And is able to, you know, like the. I guess I can see that just the probability of two people being able to use these things at the same time. When they're scattered, nobody's expecting a message on the other end.

[Alan Sisto]

The odds are just astronomical.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, maybe that's what they were thinking, but.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, out of the original seven, you know that three are gone, one has never been in network. And so, you know, you know that there's one at. Or thank one at Minasith Hill or one at Minasanor and one that maybe Sauron has.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah, but man, that one that maybe Sauron has is the problem.

[Alan Sisto]

Big fly in the ointment as they.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. So I do think this is a mistake. I really do. They should have thought that through a little bit more. But. But again, part of their laissez faire attitude about this is because the Palantiri were originally innocent.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, they were just a tool.

[Sean Marchese]

The last time that they were in play, so to speak. The last time that they were around in history, they were just tools to be used. They could have been used.

[Alan Sisto]

They used cell phones.

[Sean Marchese]

They were just. Right, exactly. It's only that Sauron made them evil and used them to mislead and control. And there's probably a lot of things that have to go wrong, I guess for him to figure out how to use these, start using them to mislead and control. So they probably again were thinking like, yeah, it's so.

[Alan Sisto]

That's never gonna happen. That's so exactly.

[Sean Marchese]

Yes. So astronomically, one in a gazillion.

[Alan Sisto]

Why would I plan a gazillion against that? Or.

[Sean Marchese]

But I do. I still think it was a mistake.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, you were sorry, White Council, you should have known better.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, let's get back to the text and that Ithilstone and the link that it creates. Let's go ahead and talk about that.

[Alan Sisto]

All right. It is evident that at the time of the War of the Ring the Council had not long become aware of the doubt concerning the fate of the Ithilstone stone and failed, understandably, even in such persons as Elrond, Galadriel and Gandalf under the weight of their cares to appreciate its significance to consider what might be the result if Sauron became possessed of one of the stones and anyone else should then make use of another. It needed the demonstration on Dol Baran of the effects of the Orthanc stone on Peregrine to reveal suddenly that the link between Isengard and Barad duration seen to exist after it was discovered that forces of Isengard had been joined with others directed by Sauron in the attack on the Fellowship at Parth. Galen was in fact the Orthanc stone and one other palantir in his talk to Peregrine as they wrote on Shadow facts from Dol Baran. Gandalf's immediate object was to give the Hobbit some idea of the history of the Palantiri so that he might begin to realize the ancient trees dignity and power of things that he had presumed to meddle with. He was not concerned to exhibit his own processes of discovery and deduction except in its last point to explain how Sauron came to have control of them so that they were perilous for anyone, however exalted, to use. But Gandalf's mind was at the same time earnestly busy with the stones considering the bearings of the revelation at Dol Baran upon many things that he had observed and pondered such as the wide knowledge of events far away possessed by Denethor and his appearance of premature old age first observable when he was not much above 60 years old although he belonged to a race and family that still normally had longer lives than other men. Undoubtedly, Gandalf's haste to reach Minas Tirith in addition to the urgency of the time and the imminence of war was quickened by his sudden fear that Denethor also had made use of a palantir, the Anor stone and his desire to judge what effect this had had on him whether, in the crucial test of desperate war it would not prove that he, like Saruman, was no longer to be trusted and might surrender to Mordor. Gandalf's dealings with Denethor on arrival in Minas Tirith and in the following days and all things that they are reported to have said to one another must be viewed in the light of this doubt in Gandalf's mind.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, man, there's a lot to unpack here.

[Alan Sisto]

There sure is. This is great. I love it.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. All right. Well, we skipped a few lines there, which basically talk a little bit more about the Council. Basically tells us that Gandalf had warned the Council about Saruman. So they were skeptical about his interest in the Rings, but. But none of them had a clue that he'd actually teamed up with Sauron. Gandalf didn't find that out until, well, he found out the hard way in July of 3018.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. And still, even though Gandalf gathered a lot of intel for the Council, it was all about the Ring, given the risk, of course. That makes sense. I mean, that's where their focus was.

[Sean Marchese]

That's what they're there for. Right?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, they're here for that. But it means that he didn't study anything about the stones, unlike Saruman. So the Council just wasn't aware of the possibilities.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah, it's a shame. I mean, just a bit of a blind spot for them because they hadn't really studied it.

[Alan Sisto]

If only they'd had a stone that could help them see

[Sean Marchese]

the irony.

[Alan Sisto]

I know, isn't it? Could there have been an eighth one? It might have been helpful.

[Sean Marchese]

So, anyway, we picked up the text after that with Tolkien explaining that by the time of the events of Lord of the Rings the Council had only recently learned about the doubt surrounding the stone of Minas Ithiel. And. And remember, at this point, it's still not known either way whether Sauron captured it. But the doubt alone is enough to create massive risk.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly.

[Sean Marchese]

I mean, if there's a possibility, it's

[Alan Sisto]

a 1 million chance, but it's like death if he has it.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, right. Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

This is where you remember about the two axes of risk. One is the likelihood of the bad thing happening and the other is the severity of how bad the thing is.

[Sean Marchese]

Of the bad thing happening.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. They were, of course, much more concerned about, you know, the Ring. And so as a result, they weren't even thinking, I don't know what might happen if Sauron had captured a stone let alone what might happen if someone used a stone. And Sauron said, hello, is it me you're looking for?

[Sean Marchese]

Right, right. And so it was only the moment that we see in the book when Pippin foolishly looked into the palantir on Dal Baron. It's only then that they became aware of the connection between Isengard and Mordor and that it was a palantir at

[Alan Sisto]

the root of that.

[Sean Marchese]

Only then.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I love that. That doesn't happen in the story very often where, like, we get it at the same time that the characters get it.

[Sean Marchese]

Right, exactly. They don't know until. Even Gandalf doesn't know until we know he knows what it is, obviously, and we see what he does. And in fact, that's where the text then goes to what's on Gandalf's mind during that unexpected road trip to Minas Tirith that he's suddenly taking with Pippin.

[Alan Sisto]

I believe there's a bucket.

[Sean Marchese]

Return of the King. I hope so.

[Alan Sisto]

There's gotta be.

[Sean Marchese]

Not that they have time to stop.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, no, that's true.

[Sean Marchese]

I mean, so those bathrooms would be nice to. I mean, you know, Shadowfax needs to refuel and, you know.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, you know, you mentioned that the text moves on to that. And in fact, actually the rest of today's episode is a look at Gandalf's thought process in these moments as well as the years sort of leading up to it. Initially, he's just wanting to give the Hobbit a sense of what he was messing with. And I love the text of that, you idiot.

[Sean Marchese]

Pippin.

[Alan Sisto]

So that he might begin to realize the ancientry, dignity and power of things he had presumed to medal with.

[Sean Marchese]

He's way above your pay grade, right, Pippen?

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, goodness. And while Gandalf, we're told. We're told, wasn't trying to show off his deductive reasoning skills I'm sure he didn't mind. He at least wanted to convey the importance of the final bit of knowledge that he gained which is that, hey, now that we know Sauron has a stone and is in control and that's pretty much how he's taken over Saruman. These are Now a danger to everyone, not just you, you idiotic hobbit. They're a danger to me. They're a danger to Aragorn. They're a danger to anybody.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, right. And this is really exciting because we really get a look inside Gandalf's head at one of my favorite moments in.

[Alan Sisto]

I love this. So insightful.

[Sean Marchese]

Because at the same time as he's now explaining all this stuff to Pippin while they are riding a horse to Minas Tirith.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

He is now also processing all this stuff in his head, thinking about a number of things connected to Denethor. He's thinking about the fact that, first of all, Denethor knows about things that he shouldn't know about. There's no obvious means for him to have found out about certain things that he knows.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

So that's point A, that Gandalf is thinking about. Point B. It says rapidly aging.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

And we're told that Gandalf had actually noticed this about 25 to 30 years prior. We're told that it was when Denethor was not much above 60, which would have been sometime shortly after 2990. Because he's born in 2930.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[Sean Marchese]

So this is now, you know, just under 30 years before this.

[Alan Sisto]

Things are starting to come together. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Yes, exactly.

[Alan Sisto]

It's starting to click. And he's like, oh, man. What if Denethor used the Anor Stone?

[Sean Marchese]

Okay.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, no. So Gandalf's running through these hypotheticals in his head. What if he used the stone? What impact would this have? Would we still be able to trust him? Or is he literally going to hand over the keys to Minas Tirith to Sauron?

[Sean Marchese]

Because, of course, that's what Saruman did. Right? I mean, like, he's already seen somebody as wise, quote unquote, as Saruman is now just completely in league with Sauron.

[Alan Sisto]

And I love how Tolkien here tells us you now have to reinterpret all of the conversations between Denethor and Gandalf in light of what we now know to be Gandalf's doubts. That explains some of the harshness and the conflict and that absolute tension that is there. We know from Denethor's perspective, it's that jealousy of Gandalf. He's not liked Gandalf any more than he liked Thorongil being Aragorn back when his father was steward. He calls him a usurper, as we'll see later. But from Gandalf's perspective, it's. Can I even trust that this guy's good. I mean, he may be a jerk, but at least he's on my side. Can I trust that he's still on my side? That's a huge question.

[Sean Marchese]

It's a huge insight. And just like, it's a look into Gandalf's head.

[Alan Sisto]

I love it.

[Sean Marchese]

Where, like you said, it's such a tense scene in the book. His face off with Denethor there. Poor Pippin just watching. And yeah, this really tells us exactly what's going through Gandalf's mind here. Now, this footnote is also really insightful. This tells us that Denethor actually knew what Gandalf suspected. Now, this made him mad, of course, because he's Denethor. But it also made him sardonically amused.

[Alan Sisto]

What a phrase that is.

[Sean Marchese]

Isn't that a great phrase? And this is interesting. If Denethor knew that Gandalf suspected him of using the Stone why did he handle it the way he did? I mean, I know you talk about his jealousy, but why doesn't he, like. Look, I know what you're thinking, Gandalf.

[Alan Sisto]

You think I used the Stone and guess what? I did.

[Sean Marchese]

Or I know what you're thinking and you have reasons to believe that I might be, you know, inclined to work with Sauron. Good news. I'm not right. Even if he doesn't bring the. Even if he doesn't want to admit that he's used the Stone he could say, look, you probably are suspecting we're really close to Mordor and who knows, maybe there's a way to clear his name here.

[Alan Sisto]

Absolutely. Even to just say, look, I don't like you but I like you more than I like Sauron. And you can trust that I am on your side in this particular conflict.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, I don't like you. But we are allies and we are still allies. Yeah, you'd think that's just.

[Alan Sisto]

But how would he have. I mean, it's not like he used the palantir to see Gandalf's thoughts or anything. It can't really do that. He would have known because he's just really deeply perceptive. That's something we learn about him. He was very insightful, very sharp. It's got to be written on Gandalf's face, so to speak.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And he knows. Look, I now know what's going on.

[Katie McKenna]

Right?

[Alan Sisto]

I know that Saruman and Sauron have been in touch with each other somehow. I don't know. This is interesting. The fact it's games within games. Like Denethor just does not want to reveal anything to Gandalf even the thing that would clear his name.

[Sean Marchese]

And that goes back to that jealousy. He wants to run this war the way he wants to run it.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes, he does.

[Sean Marchese]

He doesn't want Gandalf involved. He doesn't want Gandalf's counsel. He doesn't want Gandalf to take power. He doesn't want some Ranger of the north coming in, never mind if he's the Sildura's heir. Yeah, right. He wants to do this himself. Now, the footnote in the text here actually brings us back to Denethor's words. Now, this is interesting. This makes me think of what you talked about about Denethor being perceptive because, you know, Denethor's explanation for this is like he says, yea, for though the stones be lost, they say still the Lords of Gondor have keener sight than lesser men and many messages come to them. Sure, okay. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

For though the stones be lost, they say, wink, wink, nudge, nudge.

[Sean Marchese]

Well, by that, oh, you know, many messages. I have spirits in the shape of birds that bring me messages.

[Alan Sisto]

Magical elven powers, Elvish magic. Yeah, that's right. Tolkien adds in that footnote almost precisely what I ended up saying. I must have been thinking about this in my head and forgotten that I had it in our outline. But he writes, quite apart from the Palantiri, Denethor was a man of great mental powers.

[Sean Marchese]

There you go.

[Alan Sisto]

And now I'm thinking of Johnny Carson as.

[Sean Marchese]

What was his name? Karnak.

[Alan Sisto]

Was it? Karnak.

[Sean Marchese]

Karnak. That was it. Yeah. Karnak.

[Alan Sisto]

There's an old one that Denethor was a man of great mental powers and a quick reader of thoughts behind faces and words. But he may well also have actually seen in the Honor Stone visions of events in Rohan and Isengard. So while he might not have been able to use the stone to see what Gandalf was thinking he would have been able to use the stone and seen some of the events. But question that I have for you, maybe sort of a brief discussion here. What level of detail would he have seen? What might he know and not know about Rohan and Isengard? I mean, I know we'll get some clues next week about the mechanics of these stones and how visions are seen. We know they don't transfer audio, so it's. It's video only, so it's sort of. I. I know I said earlier, it's like a cell phone. It's literally the Opposite of that. It's. It's like FaceTime without audio. It's just like.

[Sean Marchese]

It's like faxing pictures.

[Alan Sisto]

You could communicate with, like, either sign language or semaphore. Semaphore? Yeah, you can draw things on a piece of paper. You know, sounds like two syllables.

[Sean Marchese]

It's like in the Martian. Did you see the movie the Martian?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Katie McKenna]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

When he's. He's got Pathfinder and he's got, like, you know, like, letters all in a circle. And, you know, they're. He's sending pictures through Pathfinder and they're sending out. Yeah, it's like that kind of thing. Like communicating entirely through video.

[Alan Sisto]

Really slowly, but through one image at a time. But, yeah. So, like, what do you think in terms of what he might have been able to see in Rohan and Isengard during those events? Because this, of course, as a reminder on the timeline, this. You know, Pippin looks into the stone. It's after the defeat of Saruman at Helm's Deep. It's after the defeat of Saruman by Treebeard and the Ents at Isengard. So we're talking about fairly late in the game here, but it's before the muster of the Rohirrim. So it's in that window. What would he have seen?

[Sean Marchese]

I'm sure he's seen the battle of Helm's Deep, the aftermath. I'm sure he's seen the overthrow of Saruman. He's definitely seen that Aragorn is there.

[Alan Sisto]

Yes. He has no doubt in my mind

[Sean Marchese]

that he has seen that Aragorn is there and that Gandalf was there and now Gandalf is here. So by the time Gandalf gets, you know, he's. He really is suspicious that Gandalf is sending Aragorn later on.

[Alan Sisto]

And he knows that his. His throne is under threat.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Even if he doesn't sit on the throne. Even if he sits on that little stool.

[Sean Marchese]

It's not even his throne. Yeah, that little stool at the bottom. I have to believe that Sauron probably shows him that one a lot because seeing Aragorn is really gonna.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Get Denethor angry, get him defensive. That's the discord that Sauron wants between Gondor and Rohan and Gandalf and Aragorn. So I think he probably shows him Aragorn probably every morning when he's having his breakfast tomatoes and his chicken.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, that's a very good point. He's looking at the stone. You know, most of us will like, you know, have a Meal while we're watching TV or something. He has a meal while he's looking at the scenes in the palantir, pulling

[Sean Marchese]

apart his chicken while he's looking at the palantir and just like, what's going on?

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah, I think you might be right about that. It makes the most sense that that would be what he would see. It would also be what interests him the most. He's not going to care about Fangorn and the Ents. He's not going to care about any of these other things. He cares only about the threat to his stewardship.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

I have to wonder. He does not think that the Rohirrim are going to come and save the day. Does that mean that Sauron is actively preventing him from being able to see the Rohirrim coming at that point, or has he given up at that point?

[Sean Marchese]

That's an interesting point.

[Alan Sisto]

I just don't know.

[Sean Marchese]

He might see that the Rohirrim have just fought this big battle. He might see them trying to clean up the wreckage after the Battle of Helm's Deep. Like you said, this is before the muster of Rohan, but even if it wasn't, is Sauron going to block out images of Rohan mustering? It seems like he probably would because Sauron has a vested interest in Denethor, thinking that Theoden's distracted and that he's too busy with problems on his. Yeah, I'm too busy dealing with, you know, what's going on in the West. I can't come to Gondor.

[Alan Sisto]

It's the same reason why he can't use the Stone to see that it's Aragorn on the Black Ships coming up from the south.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

It's really interesting. We'll talk more about that, I think, next week when we get into sort of the mechanics of how these stones work. Because it's so fascinating and once again, an example of how Tolkien goes into incredible detail about everything.

[Sean Marchese]

He spent a lot of time thinking about this. But yeah, I'm really looking forward to having reread the stuff that we're going to be talking about next week, having just reread it in preparation for these episodes. There's some really cool stuff there. And again, the effect that Sauron has on this whole network is just. It's interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. The good news is you have super speed, high speed, WI fi, big time Internet. The bad news is Sauron is your isp and so he filters everything.

[Sean Marchese]

As you can see, he's throttling all the images from Rohan and like all the. All the images of the triumphant.

[Alan Sisto]

You know you get all these URL redirects, right?

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, that's great.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Hey babes, it's Paris Hilton. So I was checking my points balance in the Hilton Honors app the other day and yeah, I've got about a a billion, which feels excessive even for me.

[Katie McKenna]

Just kidding.

[Alan Sisto]

You can never have too many Hilton

[Katie McKenna]

Honors points and I want to do

[Alan Sisto]

something iconic this summer, so I'm giving away all my Paris points. Just find somewhere you've always wanted to stay, then go to my socials or

[Katie McKenna]

Hilton's and tell me about it.

[Alan Sisto]

Just make sure you're a Hilton Honors member and I might be sending you Paris points because when you want points

[Katie McKenna]

that make your summer even hotter, it

[Alan Sisto]

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[Sean Marchese]

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[Katie McKenna]

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[Sean Marchese]

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[Katie McKenna]

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[Sean Marchese]

Now. We told you about the amazing PPP community after our earlier break. Now if you're a part of that community and you want to enjoy something even more special, come join the Fellowship of the Podcast on Patreon. You get to be in the best discord community around. It's one that includes host hangouts and even live episode recordings.

[Alan Sisto]

And your support there is what enables me to keep doing these things full time to create the ppp. Today's Tolkien Times, Rings of Power Wrap up and my streaming show the PPP Plays. When you join, you can get episode postscripts, add free episodes, free merch and more.

[Sean Marchese]

And you can join our Questions after Nightfall episodes or even appear as a guest in the north wing. Go to patreon.com prancingponypod to show your support and join the Fellowship of the Podcast.

[Alan Sisto]

And don't forget to rate and review on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And please recommend us to your friends. You can do that directly on Spotify now you can actually just share the show with them from your app. All right, Sean. Oh boy, this is such a revealing chapter. And this next section just continues with that. Take us away with more on what's in Gandalf's head.

[Sean Marchese]

All right, the importance of the Palantir of Minas Tirith in his thoughts thus dated only from Peregrine's experience on Dol Baran, but his knowledge or guesses concerning its existence were of course, much earlier. Little is known of Gandalf's history until the end of the Watchful Peace and the formation of the White Council, and his special interest in Gondor seems only to have been shown after Bilbo's finding of the Ring and Sauron's open return to Mordor. His attention was then, as was Saruman's, concentrated on the Ring of Isildur. But in his reading in the archives of Minas Tirith, he may be assumed to have learned much about the Palantiri of Gondor, though with less immediate appreciation of their possible significance than that shown by Saruman, whose mind was, in contrast to Gandalf's, always more attracted by artifacts and instruments of power than by persons. Gandalf, all the same, probably at that time already knew more than did Saruman about the nature and ultimate origin of the Palantiri, since all that concerned the ancient realm of Arnor and the later history of those regions was his special province, and he was in close alliance with Elrond. But the Anor Stone had become a secret. No mention of its fate after the fall of Minas Ithil appeared in any of the annals or records of the Stewards. History would indeed make it clear that neither Orthanc nor the White Tower in Minas Tirith had ever been captured or sacked by enemies, and it might therefore be supposed that the stones were most probably intact and remained in their ancient sites, but it could not be certain that they had not been removed by the Stewards, and perhaps they buried deep in some secret treasure chamber, even one in some last hidden refuge in the mountains comparable to Dunharrow.

[Alan Sisto]

What a great passage. Again, the section continues, the look at what was on Gandalf's mind after the revelation about the Palantir of Orthanc. So while he had ideas about the existence of the stone of Minas Tirith, it was as we talked about in the last section, Pippin's Looking into the Stone of Orthanc and Encountering Sauron, which Of course, conclusively proved that he indeed had the Stone of Minas Ithill. That raise the level of concern to 10. Or if it goes to 11, does it go to 11?

[Sean Marchese]

I think this one goes to 11.

[Katie McKenna]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. And we're reminded of something that we talked about last week, which was that Gandalf was not visibly active on the world stage until around 2460, which is about 1500 years after he arrives in Middle Earth.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, I start to understand why companies don't like the work from home stuff.

[Sean Marchese]

Stuff.

[Alan Sisto]

1500 years. I'm going to need a progress report.

[Sean Marchese]

You haven't been to the office in 1500 years. What have you been working on?

[Alan Sisto]

He's got one of those little things that, like, moves his mouse every few seconds.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. What would he be doing? What is Gandalf doing when he's 1500 years?

[Alan Sisto]

Well, he's taking vacations in, like, you know, rune or whatever. Right, yeah. As. As seems to be showing us.

[Sean Marchese]

Right, Right.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm sorry, I got you smoking his pipe.

[Sean Marchese]

He's just hanging out, smoking pipe weed.

[Alan Sisto]

You know, probably growing some pipe weed. Chat with Radagast about pipe weed.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, probably. But, yeah, we find out that his interest in Gondor only came up after Bilbo found the Ring. And then a few years later, Sauron came back to Mordor.

[Alan Sisto]

And of course, we touched on that last week as well. Right. This is back in the chapter on the Istari. Gondor attracted Gandalf's attention less for the same reason that made it more interesting to Saruman. It was a center of knowledge and power. So from his perspective, look, their very nature means they're opposed to Sauron, right? I mean, their existence as a state exists only because they can oppose Sauron. The minute they stop, they're done. So Gandhf was focusing energies elsewhere.

[Sean Marchese]

It's wise, right? Yeah. It's like ideologically, they're just opposed. He doesn't have to worry about them. Now, the footnote here gives us some more clues about Gandalf and Minas Tirith, where Tolkien points us back to Faramir in the Window on the west when he says that it was the histories that brought the Grey Pilgrim to us. I first saw him when I was a child, and he has been twice or thrice since then. Now, let's put this on the timeline. Faramir was born in 2983. And we know that the last time Gandalf was in Minas Tirith was 3017. And that's when he found Isildur's scroll about the one ring. So three to four visits to Minas Tirith between, say, 2988 maybe when Faramir was, you know, about five years old and 3017 the last time he was there.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, sounds about right. I mean, it's interesting that that's finally when Gandalf starts to see the importance of the histories that are kept at Minas Tirith. And during those visits to the libraries, of course, his focus was on the Ring. I mean, that's the whole. Whole point. That's why they're here. That's their job description, of course. But Tolkien says that Gandalf may be assumed to have learned things about the stones during this time. And we get another really clear distinction between the minds of Gandalf and Saruman. Gandalf is described as having not been immediately appreciative of their powers. Very unlike Saruman. Saruman always more attracted by artifacts and instruments of power than by person. And that, I don't know about you, but that jumped out at me as like a big Tolkien telling you this guy's a bad guy. Red flag. Red flag.

[Sean Marchese]

Absolutely.

[Alan Sisto]

To be more attracted by things and power than by persons. He actually draws that. He doesn't just say more attracted or he's always been attracted to artifacts and instruments of power, period and end of sentence. That's bad enough. But to contrast that with the fact that he's more attracted to those things than to persons.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I can't help but feel like Tolkien is telling us, you should have a moral opinion about this guy.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, 100%. And if you think back to letter number 131, where Tolkien talks about the themes being fall, mortality, and the machine. This is the machine. This is the machine is all about the use of objects of power, technology, whatever word you want to use, but the use of these objects to have control, to dominate and things like that.

[Alan Sisto]

To dominate the free will of others. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

This is what Saruman is in love with. He's in love with the machine. And I think Tolkien is absolutely making a judgment call there. This is really important that this is what Saruman cares about as opposed to Gandalf, who we know loves people. He loves the Hobbits because we talked about this last time or maybe two episodes ago. He loves the Hobbits because they're humble. He sees the goodness in them long

[Alan Sisto]

before he realized that they were going to be playing an important role in all this. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. And I think that is. You're absolutely right. It's a huge red flag. And I Think Tolkien does want us to see that as Saruman's tragic flaw. Probably, in a way, because we can probably point to this love of the machine as being sort of how he goes from being kind of interested in the One Ring to actually wanting to possess it.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And you know what? Now that I think about goes back to all of Aule's disciples that way we talked last time about Feanor and Sauron, Aule was able to manage to avoid that. That fate.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, he was able to, but, boy, his disciples sure didn't, did they?

[Sean Marchese]

Well, these three, at least.

[Alan Sisto]

These three, that's true. He had others that we don't hear

[Sean Marchese]

about, but sure, yeah. And you think about the Dwarves. I mean, the Dwarves have a tendency towards this, to loving the works of their hands too much and to being so obsessed with the things that they create and the, you know, the cool tricks that they can do.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

To really care about things that are more important. But, you know, again, the good Dwarves, at least they always come back to what's really important.

[Alan Sisto]

Exactly. That's true.

[Sean Marchese]

Anyway, so although Saruman saw the potential power in the stones, this is really interesting. Tolkien tells us that even though he saw what they were capable of, he says Gandalf is still said to have been more knowledgeable about the lore. Yeah, I can't help but think this is probably like another moral judgment thing here. You studied these things so closely, but Gandalf still knows more about them than you do. Because he's been looking at the big picture, Right?

[Alan Sisto]

Yes, the big picture is important.

[Sean Marchese]

But we're told that this is partly because he was closely connected with the Northern Kingdom and also because he was close to Elrond. So it is his relationships with people that have taught him more than all the book knowledge in the world.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, even with knowledge of the lore, though, the knowledge about that particular stone, the stone of Minas Anor, that knowledge had disappeared. What happened to it?

[Sean Marchese]

Where?

[Alan Sisto]

It was just simply not part of any of the records of the stewards. Now, he makes some assumptions. The first one is a very reasonable one. The city had never been captured and neither had Orthanc. So the stones were probably still there.

[Sean Marchese]

Yep. But probably isn't definitely, is it? No.

[Alan Sisto]

No, it's not. Sauron probably didn't capture the municipal stone.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Now, the text explains that, you know, the stones could have been disappeared into some hidden vault. Maybe they were in some remote place like Dunharrow.

[Alan Sisto]

That's interesting.

[Sean Marchese]

That could have been in storage somewhere. Maybe in a Storage facility.

[Alan Sisto]

I mean, maybe it's been buried in a box next to the tomb of Elendil on top of the Holoferium. Sure. You just never know.

[Sean Marchese]

Why not? Yeah, why not? Yeah. I mean, they just don't know. And the footnote sends us back to the two towers again where Gandalf actually asks who knows where the lost stones of Arnor and Gondor now lie buried or Drowned Deep.

[Alan Sisto]

That is an interesting line, of course, because we do know that Drowned Deep is where many of them are. Three of them. Right. Two of them at the bottom of the Bay of Forachel and one at the bottom of the Anduin. Or if it's rolled out to sea somehow. Which again, I come back to that being the master stone.

[Sean Marchese]

Too heavy. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And we're finding week that the larger ones are too much for one man to lift on their own, so.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

That's going to be a pretty big. Pretty big rock.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. All right, well, we've got one more reading here today and I'm going to let you take it away, Alan.

[Alan Sisto]

Thank you, sir. Gandalf should have been reported as saying that he did not think that Denethor had presumed to use it until his wisdom failed, he could not state it as a known fact for when and why Denethor had dared to use the stone was and remains a matter of conjecture. Gandalf might well think as he did on the matter but it is probable, considering Denethor and what is said about him that he began to use the Anor stone many years before 3019 and earlier than Saruman ventured or thought it useful to use the Stone of Orthanc. Denethor succeeded to the stewardship in 2984 being then 54 years old old a masterful man, both wise and learned beyond the measure of those days and strong willed, confident in his own powers and dauntless. His grimness was first observable to others after his wife Finduilas died in 2988. But it seems fairly plain that he had at once turned to the stone as soon as he came to power having long studied the matter of the Palantiri and the traditions regarding them and their use preserved in the special archives of the Stewards available beside the ruling Steward only to his heir during the end of the rule of his father Ecthelion ii, he must have greatly desired to consult the stone as anxiety in Gondor increased while his own position was weakened by the fame of Thorongil and the favor shown to him by his father, at least one of his motives must have been jealousy of Thorongil and hostility to Gandalf, to whom, during the ascendancy of Thorangeil, his father paid much attention. Denethor desired to surpass these usurpers in knowledge and information and also, if possible, to keep an eye on them when they were elsewhere. Okay. Okay.

[Sean Marchese]

Well, there you go.

[Alan Sisto]

There you go. Yeah. Oh, man.

[Sean Marchese]

Another bunch of stuff to unpack here. Let's go back to the beginning of that. Given that we don't know much of anything regarding the Anor Stone at the time, Tolkien actually tells us at the beginning of that passage, you just read that Gandalf should have said that he didn't think that Denethor would have been stupid enough to use the stone.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

What does he actually say, though? Let's go back to the chapter, the Pyre of Denethor. After the Steward's death, Gandalf says, long ago, I guessed that here in the White Tower, one at least of the seven seeing stones was preserved in the days of his wisdom. Denethor would not presume to use it to challenge Sauron, knowing the limits of his own strength.

[Alan Sisto]

Now, that sounds like, you know. Oh, I'm just speculating. But the thing is, that's not what Tolkien had originally written. In the first edition of the Lord of the Rings, it read that Denethor did not presume to use it. Not would not. So Gandalf was making a definite statement. And that comes back to the fact that. That this piece is taken from the notes that Tolkien wrote between the first edition and second edition on that. So while Tolkien.

[Sean Marchese]

So this is him thinking through all of that. What did Gandalf know? What?

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, Gandalf should not have been said to have said this. We should have reported him as saying this. So while Tolkien noted that change in the notes, by the way, this is interesting. Christopher points out in the footnote that apparently by mere oversight, that change from did not presume to, would not presume was not included in that revised edition of the text released in 66. Oopsies.

[Sean Marchese]

Whoops. Yeah, yeah. Actually, going back to the introduction, that is one of the changes that Christopher says wasn't actually fixed until the second impression of that revised edition, which was released the following year, 1967.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Now, coming back to Denethor and actually using the stone, it's not like Denethor opened up his journal one day in 2988. Dear diary, yesterday my wife died. Today I looked at the stone. Right. I mean, it's, there's no, there's no actual record. It's always going to be a matter of an educated guess.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. And Tolkien makes the argument that it is probable that he started to use it long before the War of the Ring. In fact, and this is really interesting, Tolkien says that it's probable that Denethor used the Anor stone and before Saruman used the Orthanc stone.

[Alan Sisto]

That is interesting.

[Sean Marchese]

That's surprising.

[Alan Sisto]

Like he's got some guts to use that stone more than Saruman. Saruman who's like all about tools and power and the machine is like, should I.

[Sean Marchese]

Still thinking about it? Not sure.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm not so certain. Denethor is like, give me that.

[Sean Marchese]

Meanwhile, Denethor's like, yes, let's do it.

[Alan Sisto]

Let's get right day.

[Sean Marchese]

One beer. Yeah, that's right.

[Alan Sisto]

And we get a reminder of sort of Denethor's timeline here.

[Katie McKenna]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

He's 54 years old when he comes to the position. Like me, he was already wise and learned at that age.

[Sean Marchese]

Indeed.

[Alan Sisto]

But unlike me, he was also strong willed, confident and Dauntless. That was four years ago. He was such a youngster.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, I know, man.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, yeah, he's Dauntless. That's a very interesting word to use. I mean, you just, you're not going to get him to back down, right? Yeah, that's, that's who he is. You kind of want some of those traits in your leader, especially at a time, you know, strong willed, constant for sure is some weak willed, doubt, doubting, sort of. I don't know what we should do. What do you think we should do?

[Sean Marchese]

You want that? This is good leadership. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

The problem is that there's some other stuff that gets added to it, doesn't there?

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, well, I mean, you know, after the tragic death of his wife in Duelas, this other part of his personality show, this grim part of his attitude we're told shows up then. I mean, I suppose it would, wouldn't it? You know, after your wife dies.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. I do feel very sad for him in this regard. I mean, we should do a quick sidebar on Hinduilas. It's a very quick one. And you feel for the guy because he did love her as. We'll see. So she was the sister of Prince Imrahil of Dol Amroth. She was. How old was she, I think when she married Denethor? She was young, wasn't she?

[Sean Marchese]

26, I think.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay.

[Sean Marchese]

She was 26 when they got married. It was 2976. And she was one of the Dunedain.

[Alan Sisto]

Right.

[Sean Marchese]

So she should have had lots of years ahead of her. But she died at 38.

[Alan Sisto]

12 years. That's all he had with her.

[Sean Marchese]

They were only together for a dozen years.

[Alan Sisto]

That's sad. So we read more about her in Appendix A. It's the only place we really learn about her. We learned that she was a lady of great beauty and gentle heart. But before 12 years had passed, she died. Denethor loved her. We get this exception in his fashion, which is doing a lot of work there.

[Sean Marchese]

That's not great.

[Alan Sisto]

No more dearly than any other. Unless it were the elder of the sons that she bore him. Wow.

[Sean Marchese]

Well, that tracks.

[Alan Sisto]

That does track. Definitely. Certainly not the younger of the sons.

[Sean Marchese]

Certainly not. Certainly not both of the sons that she bore him.

[Alan Sisto]

And then we read this really sorrowful note about her. It seemed to men that she withered in the guarded city as a flower of the seaward veils set upon a barren rock. The shadow in the east filled her with horror. She turned her eyes ever south to the sea that she missed. Man.

[Sean Marchese]

Wow. So this is somebody who doesn't want to move to the city. You know, she wants the coast. She wants the.

[Alan Sisto]

She was a beach girl, you know. She. Yeah, she'd grown up in Dol Amroth. It's a beautiful place. Why would you want to go to the city, let alone to the city that's much, much closer to Mordor, you know?

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Terrifying to look across the river to the mountains of shadow right there.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

And. Yeah. So she starts to wither. And that put me in mind a little bit of the conversation we had recently about Baruthiel, sort of the mirror opposite.

[Sean Marchese]

She hated the sea. She hated the sea. It stinks.

[Alan Sisto]

It smells like stupid fish and gulls,

[Sean Marchese]

seagull poop all the time. It's like. Yeah, that's funny.

[Alan Sisto]

It's really interesting because, you know, there you have a loveless marriage, you know, with the first of the ship kings. And here you have a marriage where Denethor did love her in his fashion, which, again, just happens. I mean, it just.

[Sean Marchese]

I think it just tells us that, you know, he wasn't an emotional guy, you know, he just wasn't that guy. You know, he was a confident leader of men. There's some good things about that and there's some bad things about that.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Interpersonal relationship's clearly not Denethor's strong suit.

[Sean Marchese]

Right. One of the bad things about that is, it's gonna be hard for you to get close to people. It's probably also hard for him to sort of understand a woman's world and really connect with a woman. But he did love her.

[Alan Sisto]

He did.

[Sean Marchese]

He loved her the only way that he knew how. Being the person that he was. And that's something that's significant.

[Alan Sisto]

Just a reminder also, there was a 20 year age gap between them. She was 26, he was 46 when they got married. Now that's a little like to us, maybe a little bit of a ding ding thing, not to Dunedyne. If we go back to talking about the people of the Numenoreans, that was actually very common, especially among the royal line, which was as close as we get is Denethor, where they would often put off marriage as men until they're a little older. And obviously the age gap isn't normally a thing if you're going to live to be 120, you know.

[Sean Marchese]

Right, yeah, this is, this would be just like a few years for us, which is pretty common.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah, exactly.

[Sean Marchese]

But, yeah, but he did love her. And so it's no wonder that after she died again after not even 12 full years of marriage, that was rough. Of course it had an impact on Denethor and he became grim and so much so that others noticed it after that point.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

And yet, interestingly, the text tells us that it seems fairly plain that it wasn't after her death that he looked in the stone.

[Katie McKenna]

He.

[Sean Marchese]

He actually had immediately turned to the stone right after he came to the stewardship.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Years before. This would have been 2984.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

That he first.

[Alan Sisto]

That's really something. I mean, I would have thought that the death of his wife, especially so young, would have been the turning point and that would have maybe made him. But no, he looked immediately. As soon as he had the authority to use the stone, he used it. He had had access to the archives, of course, because he was going to be the heir. So only he and his father could even look at this information. So he'd studied the lore and traditions. Tolkien says here he even wanted to use the stone before he was the steward. I mean, like, I can't wait to get my hands on that stone.

[Sean Marchese]

That confidence right there. I mean, that's what we're seeing there.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. And of course, you know, you thought, well, why. Why would you want to use this thing that nobody's used in millennium? And the answer is Aragorn as Thorongil, his influence with the people and his own father had made Denethor's position weaker. He knew what's up. He knew his. He could very well be the very last steward of Minas Tirith.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. That certainly tracks for Denethor. And it's also really interesting to see that, you know, that one of these reasons is this jealousy of Thorangeil. Because that's another parallel between Saruman and Denethor, isn't it? Both of them were motivated by jealousy

[Alan Sisto]

to use these things of Aragorn and Gandalf. Especially Gandalf.

[Sean Marchese]

My goodness. And Denethor shared that ill will towards Gandalf too. Not only was he jealous of Aragorn, he was opposed to Gandalf again because his father had paid attention to the wizard.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man. Does that just tell you all about parenting and Denethor.

[Sean Marchese]

Right? Yeah. Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

He didn't get the love he wanted from Icthelion because of Thorongil. And yet he does this thing with Boromir and Faramir.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Wow.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

But, yeah, jealousy. Jealousy, it is such a thing. I mean.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, I want to ask about that. Do you think that maybe he saw some of Thorangeil in Faramir?

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, I can see why. You know, a certain nobility, a certain sense of appreciation of the lore and not just martial leadership. You know, I mean, Boromir was the guy. He was the captain who could lead an army, develop a strategy, execute tactics, you know, take objectives and finish missions. But Faramir is the guy who would understand why you would do this. He got the big picture. He was a history nerd. You know, he. Yeah, I'm sure he saw a little bit of Thorongil in Faramir as Faramir was growing up. Because, you know, you go back to. When was Thorongil in Gondor? It was a long time ago. Faramir was little at that point. I mean, really young. So this is because, of course, it was before Denethor had become steward. It was when he was still the heir. Nickelion was the steward. So we know it was a long time before.

[Sean Marchese]

Right? Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Boy, this is rough. And it does sort of speak to Denor's parenting, for sure. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, yeah. There's a. There's definitely some. I don't know, some insights into the kind of guy he was. It's fascinating.

[Alan Sisto]

And I think I. I also wonder, would he have been as terrible a father had Funduilas survived? Like, I'm sure that her presence would have tempered some of that, probably. And, you know, when. When she died, those children would have been very young now. I'm sure he still had help. It's not like he was, you know, single dad also having to hold down a job. You know, I'm sure he had somebody helping out, governesses and servants. But there's your problem, right? He doesn't have another parent to take care of those kids. He's not. And he's probably not quite present enough, you know, to make up for a lack of a mom.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a rough spot. And it's only that same mirror that he sees in Boromir. Strong willed, confident, Dauntless, that he admires. Even though interesting because he's already also described as wise and learned, which is very much Faramir. But he doesn't seem to appreciate that side of himself, let alone that side of his son.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. It is interesting. Sad and interesting.

[Alan Sisto]

It is sad. So, you know, we're told that it was his desire to surpass these usurpers that drove him to want to use the Stone even before he became steward. So the minute that he had the authority, legal and moral authority, as we'll talk about next week, to use the Stone because he did have the right to use it compared to, say, Solomon. He wanted to use it to get information about his rivals, these usurpers, but also to keep an eye on them. Yeah, exactly. So we'll talk more about this, I think, next week, in terms of, like, how he keeps an eye on them. But you wonder, like, how much of Aragorn's life did he. Did he see through the Palantir long before the War of the Ring?

[Sean Marchese]

I wonder, you know, I wonder. Did. Did he. Did he know exactly who he was?

[Alan Sisto]

Did he maybe follow Thorongil all the way back to Rivendell and be like, what's he doing in Rivendell?

[Sean Marchese]

Right?

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, my goodness. He's the heir of Isildur.

[Sean Marchese]

Oh, boy.

[Alan Sisto]

I cannot let this guy get back here.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. Makes you wonder.

[Alan Sisto]

We're gonna have some interesting what ifs next week.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, definitely.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, history would indeed make it clear that neither Bree nor the Prancing Pony had ever been captured or sacked by enemies. And it might therefore be suppose that the mailbag was most probably intact and remained in its ancient site. Sean, what does Barlamon have in his bag for us tonight?

[Sean Marchese]

Well, we've been talking a lot about Gandalf going back to last episode. A lot this episode. So we've got a question about Gandalf here. Alan, David F. In Georgia asked us this question about the Old Gray Pilgrim. He said, Gandalf is incarnated as an Istar. When he is sent to Middle Earth by the Valar, should we assume that he will be disincarnated and return to his original Maia state of being when he returns to Valinor? And what I think David is talking about here is not when he dies in Moria, but after the Grey Havens, after he's completed his task.

[Alan Sisto]

That makes sense, because I don't think he even goes to Valinor after that. He goes to the Timeless Halls and the Circles. You're not done?

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yeah. Sending you back. So David says, if so, if he will be disincarnated, when is it going to happen? Immediately. I'm imagining Gandalf stepping off the phone.

[Alan Sisto]

Anything? Exactly. Customs asks him, do you have anything to declare? No, I do not.

[Katie McKenna]

Poof.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, exactly. He just. Body just completely disappears. Yeah, which is hilarious, but I'm sure not what David meant. But immediately or after some period of time, David says something really interesting. He says, I wonder if he would wait until Bilbo, Frodo, Sam and Gimli live out the remainder of their mortal lives before passing away in the Blessed Realm.

[Alan Sisto]

Okay, this one got me thinking, I have to admit.

[Sean Marchese]

That's a good question.

[Alan Sisto]

It's a really good question. My first thought was, okay, yeah, he's in a mortal body now, so of course he's going to die, just like Frodo, Bilbo, Sam and Gimli.

[Sean Marchese]

Right?

[Alan Sisto]

But then I remembered there's a passage that we talked about in the very first week of those three episodes on the Istari, talking about who they were in the form. Right? And this is the part that threw me for a loop because I remembered, oh yeah. Clad in bodies like men. No, no, no. Clad in bodies as of men. Real and not feigned, subject to all these things. Hunger, thirst, they can be killed. This was the line that triggered the change in my answer, though. Though, because of their noble spirits, they did not die, and aged only by the cares and labors of many long years. So even though they appeared like men, they were in what appears to be almost Elvish bodies. They're still subject serially.

[Sean Marchese]

Bodies.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. But because of their noble spirits, they don't die. So they can be killed, but they don't naturally die. So he's not in a body that would have to be disincarnated. He wouldn't fade away quickly like a mortal would.

[Sean Marchese]

That's true. That I think is key. He wouldn't burn out like we talked about.

[Alan Sisto]

Right. But now I wonder, is he Basically treated for this kind of question like an elf. Because elves are incarnate and they are wandering around the shores of Valinor, right? I mean, the ones that aren't stuck in Mandos. Feanor, I'm looking at you. If you're you get your new heroa and you stay there in the Blessed Realm, you've got a body, it's subject to these things. But these things don't exist in Valinor. Right? The fears and pains and hunger and thirst. You could be slain, as we know, right? I mean, that good old Feanor's dad gets killed there in Valinor. You can be killed in Valinor, but you don't die of old age because you don't really age. So I don't know. Part of me thinks that he doesn't have to be disincarnated. And now I almost wonder, does the question become, can he choose to be or is he in this form?

[Sean Marchese]

That's where I'm going with this.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

I wonder. Because my original answer was going to be, I was with you on the idea that he's not in a true mortal body and so he's not gonna have the burnout effect that we discussed many seasons ago. But mortals going to the Undying Lands and burning out faster, sort of. I figured he wouldn't be subject to that. But I just thought, you know. Well, so he is a Maya. His natural state is Maya. That's what he is. The offspring of Iluvatar's thought. He's a spiritual being. His natural state in Arda should be as a spiritual being who doesn't live in a hroa like the children of Iluvatar do, but has a fauna like the raiment, going back to that word raiment from the Silmarillion. This is the specific kind of body that the Valar and the Maiar can wear. And so to me, I feel like his natural state is that I would assume that he would revert back to that once his task is done. Just knowing the way Iluvatar and the Valar seem to like to have things in their natural order. We know it is quite a big deal when an elf or a man steps outside of where they're supposed to be. Right? Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

We're told this only happens a few times throughout history. So I kind of feel like the natural order would be to let's get him back in his native Maya form, not in his wizard body. I do like David's idea that maybe he waits until all of his friends

[Alan Sisto]

are gone, which for him would be a relatively short time. I mean, that's the thing.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah. Especially knowing how they're all mortal and their bodies are going to kind of burn out more quickly. So that was kind of where I went. But you raise an interesting question about does he have a choice? Because we see this with Luthien. Luthien has a choice. We see Arwen has a choice.

[Alan Sisto]

There's one other that I think you're getting there that I'm not sure because we don't know what happens to her. What about Melian? So Melian's a Maia, but we know that she got sort of chained to this form because she lived here for so long. Now, part of it was because she was involved in begetting. Gandalf, as far as we know, has no baby mamas, has not been involved in any begetting.

[Sean Marchese]

Hey, we don't assume he's silver fox baby.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right.

[Alan Sisto]

So we don't know that he's been involved in any begetting.

[Sean Marchese]

He probably has.

[Alan Sisto]

But he's been here for 2,000 plus years. That's a long time to be in a mortal body, or in this case, actually two mortal bodies. The gray and then very briefly the white. Yeah, I guess that also brings up the question of which one.

[Sean Marchese]

Is it a long time for him? I mean, it's a few thousand years.

[Alan Sisto]

Well, and that's the thing. We don't know what happened with Melian. Like what happened when she goes back to Valinor. Did she maintain, was she sort of stuck in the raiment that she chose as the Middle Earth bound Melian, or did she get to revert to being a pure spiritual being wearing raiment? We don't know. But we're certainly given clues that there's a binding effect of some kind, that when you participate in life in Middle Earth as a Maya, that things happen. But all of this is such an exception because the Istari are different. They're just their own class of thing.

[Sean Marchese]

They are different. And I think if anybody is going to be allowed a choice, just like Earendil and his children are allowed a choice, just like. Just like Luthien is allowed a choice. You know, if anybody's allowed a choice, Oloren should be allowed a choice. He has done something huge.

[Katie McKenna]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

He has earned it.

[Sean Marchese]

And there is a suggestion at the end of the Lord of the Rings that maybe Curumo's fate is changed. Right. Remember, after he's killed, he rises up out of his body he looks to the west and he's blown away. Yeah. We're to believe that he doesn't get to go back.

[Alan Sisto]

No. Which raises the question of what happens to his spirit. Because you can never destroy a feist. A FEA cannot be destroyed, mortal, or cereal, or even immortal. You cannot destroy a fea. So he's somewhere.

[Sean Marchese]

He's out there somewhere. But his fate after death has been changed by his choices. So maybe Gandalf's fate is different, too. And maybe he does get a choice. I have to feel like he's rewarded with a choice. At the very least.

[Alan Sisto]

I think so. I mean, you realize how highly esteemed he is when you think about the fact that he got the form as Gandalf the White, not because Manwe sent him back, but because Manwe's boss sent him back.

[Sean Marchese]

Right? Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

I'm pretty sure that if there's anybody who's gonna get special treatment, it's gonna be that guy.

[Sean Marchese]

It's gonna be him. Yeah, for sure.

[Alan Sisto]

And I do like the idea that David suggests here that he at least waits until those mortal friends of his have died, and then he reverts to Aloran and he returns to being Aloran for the rest of the rest of Arda's existence.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, man, love that.

[Alan Sisto]

That's a good question.

[Sean Marchese]

Great question. Great question, David. Thank you so much.

[Alan Sisto]

Really had me thinking and digging deep. Like, what is the nature of this? That's great stuff. Well, folks, thank you for joining us for another episode of the Prancing Pony podcast. Please come back again next week when we learn just how these stones work and get some pricing on the family plan.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. You can add another stone for just 9.99.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. Unlimited data for.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah, yep.

[Alan Sisto]

No voice and no text.

[Sean Marchese]

Only images. Only images. That's right.

[Alan Sisto]

Bandwidth may be throttled at busy times. That's right.

[Sean Marchese]

Keep that away from your teenagers.

[Alan Sisto]

But, you know, that's how Sauron dominated Saruman. It was that, you know, he put social media apps on the stones.

[Sean Marchese]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

And Saruman's just there scrolling.

[Sean Marchese]

Yeah.

[Alan Sisto]

Getting completely lost and, you know, turning into whatever. Yeah.

[Sean Marchese]

I'm imagining, like, the scam DM that comes in the first time. Like, you know, hey, my name is Jowron and I'm.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. I'm looking to hire remote workers.

[Katie McKenna]

Right.

[Alan Sisto]

Yeah. Or extend a lifetime.

[Sean Marchese]

I saw your resume on LinkedIn. I think you might be a good fit for this position.

[Alan Sisto]

Oh, man. Oh, that's good stuff.

[Sean Marchese]

Anyway, folks, Alan and I want to thank the members of Team ppp, that's our editor Jordan Reynolds, our barlowman Becca Davis, social media manager Casey Hilsey, event and Patreon community coordinator and guest of the show today, Katie McKenna, Greg, graphic artist Megan Collins, video editor Yonatan Lazens, and website guru Phil Dean.

[Alan Sisto]

Please take a minute to check out theprancingponypodcast.com that's where you'll find show notes, outtakes, Prancing Pony ponderings, and our fully revamped PPP Merch store. And that storefront is where you can get all sorts of really cool PPP merch featuring the incredible chapter art that Megan's been doing for us for four seasons now.

[Sean Marchese]

That's right. And we're all about the books here at the PrancingPunny podcast, so be sure to also visit our library page. We try to make sure that any book we've mentioned on the show is linked so that you can purchase a copy if you'd like. And we do get a small amount of compensation when you make your purchase, so thank you for that.

[Alan Sisto]

Indeed, we also want to thank our patrons at the Kirdan's contribution tier. I'll start with Demay in Alaska, Chad in Texas, Joseph in Michigan, Kathy from North Carolina, Brian in the uk, Jerry from Washington, Irwin from the Netherlands, Ben in Minnesota, Anthony in Texas, Joshua in Massachusetts, Lucy in Texas, Erica in Texas, James in Massachusetts, Ann in Kentucky, Sean in New Jersey, and Mason in California.

[Sean Marchese]

And there's also Maureen from Massachusetts, Olivia in London, Robert in Arizona, Nick in Wisconsin, Lewis in South Carolina, Thomas in Germany, Craig in California, Kevin in Massachusetts, Joe in Maryland, D. Scott in California, Jeffrey in Michigan, Paul in Colorado, David from Connecticut, Teresa from Texas, and Lynn in New Jersey. Folks, thank you all so very much

[Alan Sisto]

for your support indeed. Thank you. Thank you.

[Sean Marchese]

And make sure you don't miss any episodes of the Prancing Pony Podcast. Subscribe now through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or your favorite podcast app.

[Alan Sisto]

And one last thing. As always, don't forget to send your thoughts, comments and and most of all, how you surpass your usurpers to [e-mail] that'll be some.

[Sean Marchese]

We'll get some interesting mail on that one, but Barlaman does have a lot of mail to sort through, so we will try to get to you just as soon as we can.

[Alan Sisto]

That's right. As always, though, this has been far too short a time to spend among such excellent and admirable listeners. But until next time, Farewell, friends. Sa.