XPost: rec.arts.books.tolkien   
   From: the_stan_brown@fastmail.fm   
      
   On Thu, 18 Sep 2014 20:40:36 +0000 (UTC), Steve Morrison wrote:   
   > So I noticed something odd the last time I read through LotR. When   
   > Gandalf is explaining the palantíri to Pippin, he says this:   
   >   
   >   ?Who knows where the lost Stones of Arnor and Gondor now lie,   
   >   buried, or drowned deep? But one at least Sauron must have   
   >   obtained and mastered to his purposes. I guess that it was the   
   >   Ithil-stone, for he took Minas Ithil long ago and turned it   
   >   into an evil place: Minas Morgul, it has become.   
   >   
      
   Tolkien explains in a letter somewhere that when Gandalf says "I   
   guess" that Gollum had the One Ring, what he really means is "I   
   deduce".  I don't think there's any doubt that Sauron's Palantír was   
   the one from Minas Ithil.   
      
   We do know that the one from Fornost was lost at sea. I'm not sure   
   what happened to the one at Weathertop.   
      
   > We are clearly meant to understand that Minas Morgul and Barad-dûr   
   > communicate by palantír.   
      
   No, I don't think so. In my opinion we are meant to understand that   
   Sauron and his chief slaves, the Nazgûl, communicated by some means   
   unavailable to lesser servants. I think Tolkien's essay Osanwe-kenta   
   explains it: it was what we would call telepathy.   
      
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