Quote:
Originally Posted by The Mouth of Sauron
Still think it doesn't add up.
But the clinching argument for me is this - if Denethor wanted to advise Boromir on the location of Rivendell, why didn't he just use the Palantir ?
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I had thoughts along a similar line and the best answers I could come up with were.
1. Maybe Denethor didn't start using the Palaintir until after Boromir left. In fact his long abscence, and possibly knowedge of his death (via Faramirs vision and the split horn) may have been what drove Denethor to start using the Palantir in the first place.
2. Rivendell may have been out of the Palantir's range. I seem to recall something in the Esaay of the Palantiri in the UT that said that the distance a palantir could see was related to its size, maybe the anor stone was too small to have that range. A clue for this may be in the fact that the two largest stones (Osgiliath's and Amon Sul's) were placed in positions where they could have been used as relay stones (one in Gondor one in Arnor) for messages coming in from the other stones.
3. Whatever magic Elrond had that made Rivendell so hard to find may also have prevented it's being scryed by a Palantir. If it didn't then sauron himself could and would have immediately known EXACTLY where Rivendell and Lothlorien were.
4. Comments made by Gandalf in his discussion of the Palantiri make me believe that a great will is needed to use the stone for DIRECTED viewing, without it the stone simply shows random images. Maybe Denethor didn't have that kind of will. In this presumption his later seeing of the Black ships becomes a fluke (or mor likey Sauron using his will in his Palantir to twist Denethor by showing him such images as will maximize his despair and convince him to give up.
Those are the best reasons I can come up with.