Hall Of Fire Chats For November 16 & 17
- Strider @ 18:54 PST

Centre-pieces to much of the action within The Lord of the Rings, the Palant'ri are one of the most mysterious and, to the annoyance of its writer, 'magical' items in Middle-earth. Powerful spheres used to communicate, the Palant'ri play an instrumental part in linking the events of The Lord of the Rings together and even setting them in motion. This weekend, the Hall of Fire crew invite you to join us as we discuss:

The Palantiri

Which came first; the betrayal or the Palantir? By looking into the seventh of nine Palantir, did Saruman become ensnared by the lidless Eye of Sauron? Or was the will to deceive his allies always there? Similarly, why did Saruman the White fall to the 'dark side' while Denethor in contrast simply lost his sanity? Do the Palantiri by nature perceive the weaknesses and fears of its users and focuses on them; were they designed to seek trouble rather than watch for it?

Which begs the question, do we truly understand how the Palantiri work? To call them simply tools for communication would be understating a power and potential within them that goes much deeper. Could the Palantiri have been used in a more productive way in the War of the Ring? Why did Gandalf not use a Palantir a long time ago to keep the growing evils in Middle-earth in check?

All these questions and more will be discussed this weekend as we deal with a topic on which a whole chapter in Tolkien's Unfinished Tales is based.

Upcoming Discussions:
Nov 23 & 24 - TTT Book 4, Chap 9 - Shelob's Lair
Nov 30 & Dec 1 - TTT Book 4, Chap 6 - Forbidden Pool

Place:
#thehalloffire on theonering.net server; come to theonering.net’s chat room Barliman's and then type /join #thehalloffire .

Saturday Chat: 5:30 pm ET (17:30) [also 11:30 pm (23:30) CET and 7:30 am Sunday (07:30) AET]

Sunday Chat: 7:00 pm (19:00) CET [also 1:00 pm (13:00) ET and 4:00 am (04:00) Monday morning AET]

ET = Eastern Time, USA’s East Coast
CET = Central European Time, Central Europe

Questions? Topics? Send ‘em here.