[mark12_30]

Actually, the book does specify that Aragorn "Showed" Anduril to Sauron via the Palantir. I had no problem with that. And although it would have been nicer if Aragorn's voice had been echoing in space as an osanwe-voice-over... that dhidn't bother me either. Book-Aragorn can use osanwe, to a point, but in movie-terms osanwe is more an elvish thing, and I suppose they didn't want to confuse the viewer.

Here's the exerpt:

(said Aragorn.) '...Come, Legolas and Gimli! I must speak with you as I eat.’

Together they went back into the Burg; yet for some time Aragorn sat silent at the table in the hall, and the others waited for him to speak. ‘Come!’ said Legolas at last. ‘Speak and be comforted, and shake off the shadow! What has happened since we came back to this grim place in the grey morning?’

‘A struggle somewhat grimmer for my part than the battle of the Hornburg,’ answered Aragorn. ‘I have looked in the Stone of Orthanc, my friends.’

‘You have looked in that accursed stone of wizardry!’ exclaimed Gimli with fear and astonishment in his face. ‘Did you say aught to – him? Even Gandalf feared that encounter.’

‘You forget to whom you speak,’ said Aragorn sternly, and his eyes glinted. ‘Did I not openly proclaim my title before the doors of Edoras? What do you fear that I should say to him? Nay, Gimli,’ he said in a softer voice, and the grimness left his face, and he looked like one who has laboured in sleepless pain for many nights. ‘Nay, my friends, I and the lawful master of the Stone, and I had both the right and the strength to use it, or so I judged. The right cannot be doubted. The strength was enough – barely.’

He drew a deep breath. ‘It was a bitter struggle, and the weariness is slow to pass. I spoke no word to him, and in the end I wrenched the Stone to my own will. That alone he will find hard to endure. And he beheld me. Yes, Master Gimli, he saw me, but in other guise than you see me here. If that will aid him, then I have done ill. But I do not think so. To know that I lived and walked the earth was a blow to his heart, I deem; for he knew it not till now. The eyes in Orthanc did not see through the armour of Théoden; but Sauron has not forgotten Isildur and the sword of Elendil. Now in the very hour of his great designs the heir of Isildur and the Sword are revealed; for l showed the blade re-forged to him. He is not so mighty yet that he is above fear; nay, doubt ever gnaws him.’